Case study: BAE & bridging leadership skills gaps
It’s an undeniable reality that a collection of significant factors are changing modern life. These factors are changing society, individuals and of course, organizations and businesses. In Deloitte's recent Human Capital Trend Report, these factors are sometimes called the ‘The New Rules’*. As well as defining the way in which modern organizations will need to operate with an agile approach, it also defines the way modern organizations will need to lead, train and re-train their workforce to close critical skills and capability gaps and to adapt the New Rules to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented.
Ready for the Future?
It is now widely recognized that there are some significant themes for organizations to address, including:
- Finding new ways to lead an organization built around constant change
- Dealing with disruption and change
- Proactively leading the market - rather than just responding to the competition
- To meet and exceed rising expectations with new and improved customer experiences
- Recognizing employee desires for continuous learning
- Leveraging and deploying new technology in a continuous fashion
- Optimizing the opportunity available from a limitless and global footprint
- Implementing mobility and new ways to work
As a direct result, organizations are now having to ‘re-imagine’ themselves, moving from the old ways and defining new ways to adapt and prosper. The bottom line? The organization of the future must re-train traditional ‘command and control’ leaders and adapt to the New Rules by evolving into a new shape - becoming more fleet and agile in the process.
Rapid adaptation is needed to close the critical skills and capability gaps. Of course, the majority of this is change achieved through people. People are the enabler, or indeed, the blocker to future success. But what is perhaps not evident, just yet, is that the newly trained, empowered and agile workforce, will itself influence the future of work in ways which is unpredictable for employers - and the world’s skills based economy. The highly skilled ‘employee of tomorrow’ is aware of the opportunities and risks that limitless boundaries and new technology can bring. They are searching for opportunities with organizations that will in turn support them, as they continually re-train - in return for investing their time, energies and intellect. This means that in order to attract top talent, organizations must create an environment where employees actually want to give their best – and leaders, actually do lead.
BAE - An organization of the future
The following video walks you through how BAE are developing their leadership communities to be capable of leading in the digital age. The program was designed to equip leaders to perform more effectively in the context of a complex safety critical environment.
More About the BAE Leadership Program
There was recognition from the BAE SYSTEMS Submarines (Management-Committee) that development of BAE leaders had been too focussed on ‘management’ - and less on ‘leadership’. Surveys informed the management to close the, “say–do gap”, and ensure that, ‘leadership actions, matched leadership words’.
QA have worked with BAE SYSTEMS Submarines for 3 years in the design, development and delivery of a program to help their leaders:
- Develop an understanding of what’s expected by them/their teams
- Become self-aware (how are they are seen by others?)
- Gain an ability to build/develop relationships, including dealing with “community effect”
- Gain an ability to address problematic employees and skills to have ‘difficult conversations’
- Gain an ability to establish trust/empathy/respect/credibility with team/others
BAE have recognized the ‘organization of the future’ is needed now and have taken steps to equip their leadership to deal with the New Rules of the Digital Age. As someone once said, this is perhaps, only the end of the beginning…
Useful links:
Edition 2: Customer excellence
Edition 3: Leadership Pipeline
Edition 4: Customer Excellence
Edition 5: 'Bite-size' personal development
Edition 6: 'IMPACT' program for frontline leaders
About QA Group
QA helps individuals and organizations achieve their potential through world-class Learning Strategy and Solutions. This includes: training and certification, innovative Talent Solutionsthat solve both business critical skills and capability gaps, Business Transformation solutions, enabling change and transformation through engagement and education of workforces, and Managed Learning Services. In addition, QA provide consultancy, apprenticeships and post graduate degrees on a range of technical, business and leadership subjects. With over 22 UK training centers – including Apprenticeships, Consulting and Cyber Academies – and a range of online learning options, QA offer an unparalleled set of learning solutions to both private and public sector organizations.
*Deloitte regularly undertake UK specific research, and to quote their key finding in 2017: ‘The organization of the future’ emerged as the prime focus ……with talent acquisition and learning highest on the business agenda.’ - Human Capital Trends. UK Supplement 2017 – Top 5 challenges for HR.