Multi-tiered Competency-Based Management Development Program

Before and after

Before:Only 21% to 48% of leaders at each level rated their own performance positively. The company had grown from a start-up to an industry leader in about a decade, but it had never offered a formal leadership development program.

After: Self-rated performance rose to 89% to 100% across all four leadership levels, with gains of up to 68 points. Up to 91% of participants said they could apply what they learned when they returned to their teams.

Percentages are participants who agreed or strongly agreed, on a five-point scale, in evaluations completed at the end of each workshop.

The challenge

One of the largest compounding pharmacies in the United States needed to strengthen leadership, management and supervisory capability. The company had grown from a start-up to an industry leader in a relatively short time.

It had never offered an organized leadership development program, and the business was starting to outpace its leaders’ capabilities. The gap was widening as the company scaled.

Two years earlier, the company had worked with Careerminds to develop a competency model. It came back to Careerminds to build a development program for all its people leaders.

The goal

The company needed to build leadership capability at every level of management. The program had to close the gap between where leaders were and where the business needed them to be, using the existing competency model as its foundation.

The solution

A learning needs assessment: Using the existing competency model as a guide, Careerminds ran a full learning needs assessment. We interviewed each member of the leadership team and several high-performing employees in person, and surveyed every leadership level online.

A four-level curriculum: Based on the findings, our consultants designed a training curriculum for four levels of people leaders: directors, managers, supervisors and assistant supervisors. Each level completed six workshops targeting the priority gaps from the assessment.

Reinforcement built in: Workshops ran from the top down, so senior leaders went through the training first and could support their direct reports as they followed. The leadership team was also briefed on every topic and given a manager’s toolkit.

A Burning Imperative for every participant: At the start of the program, each participant set a Burning Imperative, a personal goal they were accountable for achieving within the next year. After each session, they applied what they had learned to that goal, connecting the training to real business results.