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Amy Pearl

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Employee Surveys Find Missing Links Between Training and Application

Amy Shilliday is a training and development professional for Macmillan Learning. She has been practicing in the field for nearly 18 years, is a member of her local chapter and ATD National, and recently attained the CPLP designation. In her spare time, Amy enjoys activities that allow her to stop talking, such as reading, cooking, and touring local wineries.

Amy Shilliday

Psychological safety, like anything, can be misconstrued or, even worse, weaponized. Unfortunately, psychological safety frequently gets mentioned with no grace or understanding of how hard it is to build it within a team.

The Number 1 Predictor of Team Effectiveness: Psychological Safety

January 2019 - TD Magazine

Book Capsules, January 2019

“People don’t just show up in the C-suite overnight.” — Amy HoodWhat’s the point of all this growth and development—the crux of our profession—if we don’t do something with it ourselves? It would be difficult to become a strategic leader and stay at the tactical level anyway, so I based the foundational theory of my book Purposeful Leadership Development, in part, on that idea. What is the upper management team (UMT) and how do we get there?Upper Management Team Theory helps explain how the senior management operates strategically within the organization. The senior managers of an organization exist as an “upper echelon,” strategically directing the organization. The departmental model is common. Members of the UMT are heads of their respective technical departments. They are responsible as a group for strategic leadership of the organization, as well as individually for managing their respective departments. Another is the CEO model: One member has the right to dictate to the other members and can undertake strategic decisions unilaterally. The CEO has the final say, even for departmental decisions. Regardless of the models in place, the typical UMT is sustained by adding functional managers rather than general managers, and then turning them into strategic leaders.In his book The Next Level, Scott Eblin does a terrific job explaining the managerial perspectives that leaders need to let go of and the strategic leadership perspectives they need to pick up to be successful. At the personal level, successful strategic leaders develop confidence in their presence, seek regular renewal of their energy (instead of running until crashing), and custom-fit their communications to a wide variety of audiences. On the team level, they become more reliant on their teams (and less on themselves), define outcomes instead of telling employees how to do things, and become accountable for many more results. Finally, at the organizational level, these strategic leaders look left and right (in addition to up and down) as they lead, adopt an outside-in perspective, and develop a “big footprint” view of their roles, rather than the narrower perspective of a manager. In short, they move away from being bureaucrats and toward being business owners. (Even if what they’re running isn’t technically a business!)No matter what your specialty is—marketing, finance, IT, human capital—there is a science to being on the upper management team. There is also a science behind getting there, too. Let’s examine four ways this happens, including one you probably haven’t considered.R.F. Vancil suggested that executives are selected in one of three ways: by horse race (where an opening is identified, candidates are gathered, and one is selected over the others); by relay race (succession planning, where internal candidates for potential openings are identified, prepared, and once the opening is available, selected); and by crisis (an organizational emergency requires a particular candidate or kind of candidate to be found). But there is a fourth.My own research with chief learning officers (CLOs)—the C-suite members responsible for talent development—showed a fourth way: create it yourself. Some study participants created the CLO position for their organizations and then filled it. This had the dual effect of creating a career opportunity for the new CLO and to introduce the practice of the CLO—and its effect on the organization. Nearly half the study’s participants reported creating and filling the CLO position for the first time for their respective organizations. Someone wanting to advance to the upper management team of their business or organization finding few opportunities in senior leadership might decide to create their own.Joining the upper management team of any business or organization means a transformation from being a tactical manager to becoming a strategic leader. It doesn’t happen by accident. But it certainly can happen on purpose.

Upper Management Team Theory—What’s Going on Up There? (And How Do You Get There?)

Do you have a yearly development plan for yourself? If so, fantastic! If not, why not?

You Are in Charge of Your Development

Bridgett McGowen is an award-winning speaker, author, and publisher. She has been a professional speaker since 2001 and has spoken on programs alongside prominent figures such as former President Barack Obama, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, Shonda Rhimes, Kim Coles, Amy Cuddy, Stacey Abrams, Dr. Mae Jemison, Common, and Katie Couric.The University of Texas at Austin presented her with a Master Presenter Award; Canada-based One Woman presented her with two Fearless Woman Awards; and McGowen has facilitated hundreds of presentations to thousands of go-getters positioned all around the globe.She is a former Forbes Coaches Council contributor and an Entrepreneur online magazine contributor. She has earned bachelor's and master's degrees and has taught for Prairie View A&M University; Lone Star College System in Houston, Texas; and University of Phoenix.McGowen is author of multiple books, including Real Talk: What Other Experts Won’t Tell You About How to Make Presentations That Sizzle, which is the 2020 winner of the Best Indie Book Award in the business/communication category. She is also author of Show Up and Show Out: 52 Communication Habits to Make Even More You Unforgettable. Her publishing company, BMcTALKS Press, won a 2021 Bronze Stevie Award in the Startup of the Year–Business Services Industries category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

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