Now you have your direction, committed people and a plan for what needs to be done.  The question is now can they do what is needed?  In a busy, growing organization, this quickly leads to the thought: “If I only had more people and resources!”  But even as you have added staff, equipment and …, it never seems like enough.  Step Four in Leadership Kinetics is developing people and resources.

The logical steps are clear.

what is the best set of roles to achieve the goals

• what are the responsibilities for each role

• what skills and abilities will the staff need to perform their roles

• what are the tools and processes the staff need to best apply their skills to achieve the goals

• who do I have on staff who can fill these roles, who is redundant, and what hiring do I need

•  what are the key areas for each individual in their new roles that they need development to ensure their success

• what tools and systems are needed to make this organization work

• how do I get this development work into the integrated plan

This is the science behind management, but it also takes leadership experience and breath to help work through the many alternatives and possibilities.  Don’t do this alone or you will likely select an alternative close to your current versus what you need for the future.  This is when a mentor or experienced consultant can help leader(s) work through their thoughts.  Outsiders do not know the people, history or culture as well, but are in a better position to challenge assumptions, less biased by relationships.

 The other important success factor at this point, as for each step in Leadership Kinetics, is to iterate back to the prior steps to ensure you still have the same direction, built commitment to the plan, structure and development activities.

Another insight into developing people, is creating an organization “culture” in which individuals know they are responsible for their own development, while being supportive of others’ success.  Under Bill and Dave (Hewlett and Packard), there was a culture that the best way to solve a problem was to find someone else in the company who had already faced it and was willing to help you learn from their experiences.  Formal course development is good, but outside tangential experiences (e.g. coaching sports, working with a non-profit) provide great skill development. too.

The fourth step in Leadership Kinetics is developing the staff and providing the necessary resources so they are ready for action.