Building your development plan – The SKEB model

Many years ago, in one of my expatriate CIO assignments, there was a strong focus on developing the middle management of a large organization. The CEO, who was my manager, had a dilemma: there were many senior executives who performed well but did not develop their direct reports effectively. For many years, they had been recruiting strong MBAs or other reputable graduate degrees to enhance the skill level of the team; however, there was a fundamental issue – the professional development plans of the teams were weak. This resulted in slow development, and often, staff with high-potential left for greener pastures.

The CEO decided to have a senior manager, who would develop a good development plan framework and act as a role model for the rest of the team. Then they would teach the middle management in all-day training sessions, rather than using external specialist trainers or consultants. This would send a message to...