ACCELERATE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITH OPTIMAL DESIGN SIX KEY PRINCIPLES

ACCELERATE
LEADERSHIP
DEVELOPMENT
WITH OPTIMAL
DESIGN: SIX KEY
PRINCIPLES
{ perspectives } LEARNING DESIGN

© 2016 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School.

ACCELERATE LEADERSHIP
DEVELOPMENT WITH OPTIMAL
DESIGN: SIX KEY PRINCIPLES
Much has been written about the challenge of leading in today’s
complex, uncertain environment. Leaders today need to be highly
agile and adaptable—and that demands an orientation toward
continuous learning. Harvard Business Publishing has identified six
design principles that create best-in-class learning experiences. These
principles will help leaders learn skills and instill in them a learning
mind-set they will carry forward in their roles.
BY JEFF DESMET, LOUISE AXON, AND JOHN ALSBURY
Today’s changing, ambiguous, and interconnected business
environment puts immense pressure on leaders. They face
risks at every turn. From global currency volatility and
environmental concerns to surprising election results and
new regulations, these challenges demand that leaders be
highly agile and adaptable.
Learning is central to developing this agility. Yet we heard
in our most recent State of Leadership Development survey
that while leadership development programs are found at
most companies, their quality, relevance, and outcomes
fall short. Top organizations regard leadership development
as a strategic priority and strive to accelerate the
development of their leaders, but what are the best ways
to help leaders learn and grow?
So much has been published in the area of learning theory
and design, it’s hard to sort out which approaches work
best, and how they should be applied to be most effective
in today’s workplace. Yet from our research and experience,
we know that the most effective leadership development
emphasizes mind-set in addition to building knowledge
and skills. Organizations must deliver learning that helps
leaders transform their attitudes, their motivations, and
their view of themselves and their roles. And this mindset
must grow and adapt based on the business context
around them and the evolving new demands of their roles.
Optimizing learning design will accelerate the development
process and help make what’s learned take hold, creating
lasting changes in behavior and mind-set.
A core capability underlying leaders’ agility is their ability to
learn, but only 7 percent of the organizations we surveyed
rate their leadership development programs as best in class.
HARVARD BUSINESS PUBLISHING CORPORATE LEARNING { 1 }

6 Design Principles for
Leadership Development
To help organizations consistently
achieve these outcomes, Harvard
Business Publishing has identified
six critical learning design principles
we employ when designing for
leadership development.
We’ve studied preeminent faculty and researchers in adult
learning and leadership development, and have drawn
from both time-tested and emerging experts. Grounded in
proven research and our extensive experience working with
leading client organizations globally, these principles are
the foundation for every offering and solution we deliver.
The principles offer a set of flexible characteristics for
designing learning experiences that give leaders the best
chance to construct their own understandings about their
role as a leader. They also ensure that leaders will have
the opportunity to learn, reflect on, and apply their new
knowledge and skills. Considering the right combination
of these principles will lead designers to create richer,
more meaningful, and more effective development for
their leaders.
Read on to see how —in partnership with us —our
clients are applying these principles in the leadership
development solutions they are designing and delivering
at their organizations.
“Innovative thinking and creativity, much like swimming and
biking, is a skill best learned through practice, reflection, and
repeated application.”
DAVID GARVIN
{ 2 } ACCELERATE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITH OPTIMAL DESIGN

1. Learning in Context
In a recent survey, we found only 19 percent of business
line managers believe leadership development programs
are relevant to the issues they face. Corporate leadership
development is most effective when learned in the
context of the organization’s strategy, culture, and values,
and when it’s highly relevant to the learner’s real work.
Learning in context also means that skills are explored in
relation to how the skill will be used, and in conjunction
with other related leadership skills. This kind of
understanding requires that development brings the
goals, systems, and values of the organization into the
development experience.
David Perkins calls this teaching “the whole game”—
a metaphor he uses that highlights how skills, such as
leadership skills, are interdependent. “You don’t learn to
play baseball by a year of batting practice,” he observes.
SAMPLE PRACTICES
Learning in Context
Align with, and make explicit links to, the
organization’s strategy, priorities, and values.
Embed real work in learning experiences, and
embed learning in real work experiences.
Bring real-world relevance by featuring your
organization’s experts, stories, and cases.
DESIGN IN ACTION
CUSTOMIZATION BRINGS CONTEXT AT CAPITAL GROUP
Capital Group is one of the world’s leading investment
management firms, with 7,800 associates worldwide. The
company needed a stronger leadership pipeline to drive
innovation and growth, and set out to deliver a solution
customized to fit its culture, particularly the relationshipbuilding
aspects that are so vital to the company.
“Capital Leadership Foundations” is a customized and
globally scalable leadership development experience for
its 700 frontline managers. Based on Harvard Business
Publishing’s New Leader Program, Capital Group handpicked
lessons, modules, and tools, and aligned the content
to Capital’s business, culture, and leadership expectations.
Facilitators lead discussions that emphasize what
the lessons mean in the context of Capital’s business, while
on-the-job assignments reinforce application and learning
transfer. Senior leaders contribute in virtual sessions
and serve as cohort sponsors, helping draw connections
to the business for participants.
This approach increases relevance and business impact,
with 81 percent of frontline participants and supervisors
reporting a positive impact on business goals.
HARVARD BUSINESS PUBLISHING CORPORATE LEARNING { 3 }

2. Learning by Doing and Reflecting
Research has long shown that leadership is learned
through experience. This has led to a strong focus on
learning by doing, which we agree is critical. Yet research
also shows that experience alone can be a painful and
costly way to learn. And many of us don’t process the
lessons of experience. For effective learning, “reflecting”
is just as important. You can’t both “take in” something
and process it at the same time—you need to take time
for both in order to make meaning from experiences.
A recent study by faculty, including Francisco Gino and
Gary Pisano of Harvard Business School, showed that the
groups whose experience was deliberately coupled with
reflection consistently outperformed the other groups.
“When we stop, reflect, and think about learning, we feel
a greater sense of self-efficacy. We’re more motivated, and
we perform better afterward,” says Gino.
When we design learning solutions, we intentionally
move learners through a cycle—learn-practice-reflect—
over and over again. The goal is to instill a simple learning
methodology that makes reflecting and capturing the
lessons of experience a habit.
SAMPLE PRACTICES
Learning by Doing
and Reflecting
Make experiential activities core to the learning
experience.
Build significant space for reflection (individually
and collectively).
Put the learner in a problem-solving mode by
offering choices and decision points through
experiences such as simulations.
Teach participants how to learn consistently from
experience through multiple cycles of practice
and reflection—enabling them to continue this
practice back at work.
DESIGN IN ACTION
REFLECTION HEIGHTENS LEARNING FOR MANAGERS AT AUTODESK
Autodesk leads the market for state-of-the-art 3-D design,
engineering, and entertainment software. Continued
growth is vital to Autodesk, and much of the company’s
expansion has come through acquisitions in the past decade.
To meet the challenges of developing a unified learning
environment that could scale to meet demand, Autodesk’s
HR learning team and Harvard Business Publishing developed
a successful blended learning approach. The goal
was to augment existing face-to-face initiatives and offer
opportunities for reflection as employees applied what
they learned. The team was working with a group whose
goal for the year was improving managerial effectiveness.
Both managers and their direct reports practiced skills
in this area, such as delivering feedback and managing
performance. As part of the learning, direct reports conducted
debriefs with their managers, providing feedback
on management styles and suggestions for improving
communications. This is one of many reflection opportunities.
From discussing concepts further in live sessions to
taking in a video or completing part of an online program,
learners are given many chances to reflect on what they
are taking in and then apply that to their everyday jobs.
{ 4 } ACCELERATE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITH OPTIMAL DESIGN

3. Learning over Time
Leadership development is not an event. It requires a
continuous process that unfolds over time through a wide
variety of experiences, relationships, observations, and
reflections. These processes cannot be experienced via a
series of formal learning events alone. They require a series
of moments that “force a person to take stock, reevaluate,
revise, resee, and rejudge.”
Distributing learning over time has another important
advantage—it enables long-term retention. Harry Bahrick
and Lynda Hall note that “the spacing effect is one of the
best-documented phenomena in the history of learning
and memory research. Adding subsequent spaced repetitions,
we can extend learning and lessen forgetting that so
often happens after a single learning event.”
In typical Harvard Business Publishing programs, learners
not only engage with the key concepts at multiple
intervals over time, but also the method of instruction
varies to increase engagement and retention. For example,
learners might read an article about a concept and discuss
its importance one week; hear from an expert about the
concept the next week; work with their peers on a case
study the following week; and finally work to apply the
concept in a subsequent week.
SAMPLE PRACTICES
Learning over Time
Provide repeated opportunities to explore
concepts via a wide variety of experiences over
spaced intervals of time.
Frame the learning experience as a development
journey that requires a sustained process to
achieve a deeper level of learning, personal
change, and growth.
Include application planning and goal setting,
together with periodic follow-ups after a formal
learning event, to reinforce concepts and prompt
learning transfer.
DESIGN IN ACTION
LEARNING OVER TIME DRIVES IMPACT AT EMIRATES NBD
When two large banks merged to form Emirates NBD,
it defined a vision: to be globally recognized as the most
valued financial services provider based in the Middle
East. To accomplish this, Emirates NBD partnered with
Harvard Business Publishing to design a blended, virtual
leadership development program focused on building
leadership capacity. The bank’s four-month, cohort-based
blended program followed a four-week process of learnpractice-apply-reflect
for each of the three modules,
including action learning projects.
These projects applied tools and techniques introduced
in the program to work on solving a real corporate issue.
Projects included new strategies for penetrating markets
and segments, growing regional market share, and formulating
new value propositions. Participants and supervisors
reported improvement across all 11 behaviors measured,
and within a year, 39 percent of the first Managerial
Leadership Program cohort was promoted or given more
complex roles. The bottom-line impact of the actionlearning
projects equaled over $1,000,000 in cost savings
in staff hours and potential outsourcing.
HARVARD BUSINESS PUBLISHING CORPORATE LEARNING { 5 }

4. Learning with Others
Learning is a social activity, and it requires space and time
with others to exchange ideas and make meaning from
individual and collective experiences. “Who contributes
to the learning?” is one of the most important questions
we can ask as designers of learning solutions. Learners
construct knowledge through interactions with those
who know more than they do or those who have different
experience and perspectives—whether a peer, coach,
boss, expert, or facilitator.
In today’s workplace, context changes fast—so fast that
it’s difficult for organizations to codify lessons, practices,
and techniques that are most relevant at the moment. We
need others to help us learn and perform. Learning solutions
that facilitate the timely and informal exchanges of
content and context can greatly accelerate the adoption
and creation of the right practices at the right time.
Small-group learning can also significantly influence our
learning. In small groups, interactions help managers draw
meaningful lessons from their experiences, challenging
them to broaden or refine their views, and providing
opportunities to collaborate on real problems and workplace
application.
SAMPLE PRACTICES
Learning with Others
Leverage peer-to-peer learning experiences.
Enable the involvement of the learner’s manager
to provide support and reinforce the learning.
Embed social learning within online learning
experiences that leverage the wisdom of the
crowd.
DESIGN IN ACTION
SOCIAL LEARNING BREAKS DOWN BARRIERS AT BIOGEN
In the past decade, Biogen has experienced unprecedented
business and organizational growth. Biogen has worked
to address the challenges that accompany such growth
through a new central learning organization, a focus
on manager development, and an emphasis on helping
employees build their networks through collaborative
peer-led learning experiences.
This emphasis is apparent in the peer learning aspects
of its people manager curriculum. For example, in a
unique nine-week program for those in critical middle
management roles, participants experience both selfpaced
elearning and group learning. Each manager is
paired with five other managers from around the globe.
These peer learning groups are designed to include
individuals from distinct business functions, and to
provide an opportunity to apply their learning to realworld
management challenges in a confidential and
constructive forum. They also provide a means to learn
from different perspectives and experiences. These peerled
groups help managers establish strong and valuable
networks across the organization—something they can
tap into now and in the future. Peer-led learning truly
has an impact on learners: 94 percent of participants say
they are more confident when doing their jobs and many
participants continue to keep in touch with their peer
groups long after the program ends.
{ 6 } ACCELERATE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITH OPTIMAL DESIGN

5. Learning by Teaching
Whose job is it to develop leaders anyway? Many executives
believe that ownership for leadership development
resides solely with HR. Our experience shows that leaders
should also take on responsibility for leadership development
and building a learning culture.
According to Noel Tichy, “winning companies—those
that consistently outperform competitors and reward
stakeholders—have moved beyond learning organizations
to become teaching organizations. These organizations are
more agile, come up with better strategies, and implement
them more effectively.”
Leaders understand the organizational context and priorities—while
simultaneously understanding the specific
strengths and performance needs of their teams and direct
reports. They also know how ideas and practices apply—or
don’t apply. Leaders can serve as the most important catalyst
for an emerging leader’s development. And this leaderled
development goes beyond coaching direct reports.
Leaders can guide and mentor individuals throughout
the organization and serve as a role models.
In addition, the act of teaching or coaching requires leaders
to demonstrate expertise. And the process of developing
others reinforces their previous learning, while
providing ongoing opportunities to develop new insights.
Organizations can also scale their development faster by
enlisting their leaders in this way.
SAMPLE PRACTICES
Learning by Teaching
Provide opportunities to learn by teaching others.
Involve senior leaders in the program to speak to
importance and business relevance.
Promote teaching and role-modeling
opportunities via cascading learning throughout
an organization.
DESIGN IN ACTION
LEARNING FOR BUSY RETAIL MANAGERS AT WALMART CANADA
Walmart Canada runs a 10-week-long development
program to help store managers be more effective in
their roles. The program covers emotional intelligence,
strategic thinking, decision-making, feedback, difficult
interactions, and developing employees. It provides
an opportunity for both new-to-role and experienced
managers to come together to explore ideas, level-set
practices, and share experience and outcomes. The
program blends foundational sessions delivered live
virtually, targeted inter-session assignments comprising
Harvard ManageMentor® content, worksheets, customized
case studies, and reflection questions. Before transitioning
between topics, store managers attend facilitated smallgroup
virtual debrief sessions where learners share both
successes and barriers they encounter through practice.
Notably, the program includes a leader-as-teacher
component. Store managers are expected to leverage
program materials and worksheets to develop their
direct reports and expand the capabilities of their teams
through their weekly operations meetings. Throughout
the program, store managers apply their learning by
opening a dialogue with their peers and by providing
on-the-spot coaching, feedback, or best practices. This
reinforces learning and helps participants build a trusted
network of support. Market partners, accountable for store
manager development and performance, are provided with
coaches’ communication—a view to the weekly learning
topics and discussion questions to encourage exploration
and promote reinforcement of ideas and application. This
aids the continued adoption and provides the coach with
continued performance management insights.
HARVARD BUSINESS PUBLISHING CORPORATE LEARNING { 7 }

6. Learning through Engagement
No one can force someone else to learn and develop as a
leader—the leader must opt in. To develop and improve,
leaders must be fully engaged. We must foster their intrinsic
motivation—stimulating a need to know, change, and
improve within them.
Mind and brain research shows us that learning critically
involves both cognitive and emotional aspects. Dr. Mary
Helen Immordino-Yang, a cognitive neuroscientist at
USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, explains, “One thing
that biology has been showing us now for many years is
that emotions, learning, and memory are intimately tied
together.” So, we need to engage hearts as well as minds
in our learning design.
Motivation, creating a need to improve within the leader,
is paramount for successful leadership development, and
a constant challenge given the number of competing
demands and distractions in the daily life of a busy leader.
Motivation can be defined as what pushes or pulls individuals
to start, sustain, and complete activities. There are
many theories about motivation dating back to the early
1900s that can help inform the design of effective learning
solutions. For example, Self-Determination Theory
highlights how experiences of autonomy, competency,
and relatedness can significantly enhance intrinsic motivation.
Games and gamification are growing in popularity
because these learning design approaches can be very
effective at tapping intrinsic motivation by enhancing
feelings of autonomy, belonging, and competence while
simultaneously enhancing extrinsic motivation toward
some reward.
SAMPLE PRACTICES
Learning through
Engagement
Promote emotional connections to content via
storytelling.
Enhance intrinsic motivation by giving people
choices in their learning.
Personalize learning experiences by tailoring to
needs, pace, interests, time, location, and learning
preferences.
DESIGN IN ACTION
THOUGHTFUL DESIGN DRIVES ENGAGEMENT AT VI
Vi, a luxury senior-living community established in 1987
as Classic Residence by Hyatt, is dedicated to helping
older adults live more active and fulfilling lives. Central
to this is an engaged and talented workforce. Vi’s yearlong
Management Development Program (MDP) for frontline
employees and emerging managers draws upon a variety of
learning opportunities, including classes, online learning
plans, webinars, projects, reading assignments, mentoring,
and job rotations. Action learning assignments and
“teach backs” reinforce learning.
Varied delivery methods offer options and choices for
employees to keep learning engaging. For example, live
learning sessions focused on specific competencies give
learners the chance to share and hear stories and realworld
examples that bring the concepts to life and make
them memorable.
Employees see the direct connection between their learning
and progression in the organization. In fact, 20-35
percent of Vi’s MDP participants move into a higher-level
position within one year of completion. Vi’s attrition rate is
substantially lower than its competitors, and its employee
satisfaction rates are much higher than average.
{ 8 } ACCELERATE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITH OPTIMAL DESIGN

Strike the Right Balance to Advance Desired Business Outcomes
Considering all of the principles within a design helps ensure the best
outcomes, but some may be more important than others, depending on
your objectives. We’ve found that the desired business outcomes can call
for special emphasis on particular principles in the design.
ORGANIZATIONAL
CHALLENGE
DESIGN
EMPHASIS
IN CONTEXT
BY DOING &
REFLECTING
OVER TIME
FROM OTHERS
BY TEACHING
THROUGH
ENGAGEMENT
Trying to shift a culture,
such as a hierarchical
organization working to
drive decision making
down through the
organization
Stress learning from
others and encourage
broad commentary and
participation through
technology and small-group
discussions.
Pipeline is suffering
because leaders are
too overscheduled
with limited time for
development
Deliver learning over time,
in shorter sessions, to spread
out the learning and build
more gradually.
Kicking off a major
transformation and
need to be sure the
entire organization is
clear on the direction
and engaged in the
process
Create a cascade through
all levels of the organization
by making learning by
teaching a key element of
the design.
Have made significant
investments in
leadership development
with limited lasting
impact
Emphasize learning by doing
and reflecting along with
learning in context to tie
learning more closely to the
business and accomplish
real work.
HARVARD BUSINESS PUBLISHING CORPORATE LEARNING { 9 }

“Solutions to adaptive challenges reside not in the executive
suite but in the collective intelligence of employees at all
levels, who need to use one another as resources, often across
boundaries, and learn their way to those solutions.”
RONALD HEIFETZ
While it may make sense to emphasize a specific principle
in your design, the biggest value is gained when the principles
are applied collectively. As the client vignettes shown
here illustrate, most solutions incorporate several design
techniques to achieve high engagement and, ultimately,
strong results for the business.
As you ready your leaders for this intense, ever-changing
business climate, consider each of these principles to
make leadership development the best it can be at your
organization.
Want to dig deeper into these principles? Explore these related papers.
ENGAGE YOUR DISENGAGED
LEARNERS THROUGH
EFFECTIVE DESIGN
SHORT BURSTS, NOT SHORTCUTS:
THE VALUE OF LEARNING
OVER TIME
HOW TO TURN YOUR BUSY
LEADERS INTO THE TEACHERS
THEY NEED TO BE
{ 10 } ACCELERATE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITH OPTIMAL DESIGN

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JEFF DeSMET is senior manager, online learning, for Harvard Business Publishing
Corporate Learning. He serves as the group’s lead strategist for adult learning theory
and pedagogy for Harvard Business Publishing’s portfolio of leadership development
solutions, tracking the latest research and innovations emerging in the field. He has a
special interest in individual, self-directed learning.
jdesmet@harvardbusiness.org
LOUISE AXON is director of content strategy and development for Harvard
Business Publishing Corporate Learning. She leads the design, development, and
curation of Harvard Business Publishing’s leadership solutions. Louise has 25 years
of experience in executing strategic change and delivering business results through
learning, with particular expertise in developing leaders at all levels.
louise.axon@harvardbusiness.org
JOHN ALSBURY is a senior learning solutions manager for Harvard Business
Publishing Corporate Learning. He works closely with clients to customize learning
products to fit individual requirements. John has created a wide variety of successful
development curriculums and stand-alone instructional pieces in a wide assortment
of media and learning environments. He has worked with leading client organizations
on three continents and in multiple languages.
john.alsbury@harvardbusiness.org
HARVARD BUSINESS PUBLISHING CORPORATE LEARNING { 11 }

ABOUT CORPORATE LEARNING
Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning partners
with clients to create world-class leadership development
solutions for managers at all levels. Our team leverages
the management insight, thought leadership, and
expertise of Harvard Business School faculty and
authors from Harvard Business Review to create tailored
leadership development solutions. With more than 25
years of practical experience, our innovative, technologyenabled
solutions drive meaningful and lasting business
results. Corporate Learning is a market group within
Harvard Business Publishing.
ABOUT HARVARD BUSINESS PUBLISHING
Harvard Business Publishing was founded in 1994 as
a not-for-profit, wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard
University. Its mission is to improve the practice of
management and its impact in a changing world. The
company achieves its mission through its relationships
with customers in three market groups: Higher Education,
Corporate Learning, and Harvard Business Review Group.
Through these platforms, Harvard Business Publishing is
able to influence real-world change by maximizing the
reach and impact of its essential offering—ideas.
{ 12 } ACCELERATE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITH OPTIMAL DESIGN

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