Ceresa Leadership Philosophy: The Need for Personalization
The importance of highly personalized learning environments is well documented in research on andragogy (adult learning approaches). There are three critical aspects of personalization that we incorporate into Ceresa’s leadership philosophy.
Relevancy and Matching
Since the 1970s, one of the core tenets of any andragogical approach is being self-directed (contrasted with most teacher-led pedagogy), with the importance of being able to identify one’s own learning needs with help from teachers or peers. Knowing why you want to learn is important for these approaches – supporting the self-work approach Ceresa takes in combination with this self-directed learning.
Who you learn from is especially critical for employees in the mid-career period. The issues emerging during this time are very holistic, as we have already seen. Furthermore, the types of professional skills required at this stage are related to influence, strategic thinking, and taking initiative. These are not well suited to classroom settings, but require guidance from someone experienced in those areas, along with practice in real-time.
At Ceresa, we use over 70 data points on each participant to match them with a mentor. We consider professional setting (function, industry, company type), future aspirations, specific professional challenges, personal context, background, and challenges. We base this on self-identified needs of the participant, along with feedback from their executive coach about the ideal mentor match.
This personalization is a key reason why mentoring and coaching, in addition to traditional training, have a 3X higher impact on productivity than training alone.
Just In Time
Over-arching learning goals constitute an important starting point for development, and the learning is more effective if the content is relevant to immediate perceived needs, real-time issues. And it’s expected, 57% of adults now expect training to be just-in-time. At Ceresa, we think about the “Big A” agenda, the most important goals that participants determine during their reflection phase, but also allow for “Small a” agenda items that come up month to month. One of the roles of our mentors is to make space to address immediate issues, but also ensure progress over time on the bigger goals.
Convenience
Being ready to learn is also a critical element of adult learning. Providing flexibility in the time of day, length of time and geographic location improves the ability of all individuals to learn at the best time for them, and also convenient to their life demands. This convenience is especially critical for employees who have higher demands for their time outside of work.
In Ceresa research of our community, learners prefer asynchronous, virtual formats (video, podcasts, articles) and convenient 1-on-1 sessions, 3-4 times more than live webinars or classrooms.
A Different Approach to Leadership Development
There are numerous approaches to leadership development offered to companies and their employees, yet few yield results because they do not incorporate personalization, convenience, and multi-modal learning, among many other elements that have been proven to work.
Tips
Many companies are seeking more virtual, flexible learning options for employees in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Such learning approaches are more easily tailored to individual’s life schedules, and we encourage the continuation of that approach even after the crisis. This is especially critical to ensure effectiveness for more diverse employees.
Consider combinations of training (expert instruction), along with coaching and mentoring – allowing support to be more relevant to the individual.
Don’t neglect the importance of a personalized match to trainer, coach or mentor
Ceresa Leadership Philosophy
At Ceresa, mentorship is an integral part of our leadership development process. Providing access to mentorship and leadership support to all is one of our founding principles, critical in helping to develop diverse leadership.