We're Not Your Parents' CCL

Warning: shameless, self-serving propaganda alert!

Let me be absolutely clear: what follows is completely self-serving and if this kind of thing bothers you, you should stop reading now.

Glad we cleared that up.

I’ve been at CCL long enough to see some interesting patterns in the ebb and flow of what clients want from CCL. Only a couple of years ago, many clients were focused on building their internal capacity to train leaders. Several large clients had the idea that they would learn what we do and then they could do it themselves. Personally, I’m a great fan of building the capability of clients to do leadership development and talent management with internal resources. However, I’ve seen a shift away in several substantial clients from the focus on doing themselves. Why would this be?

It is not because they don’t have top internal professional staff. The quality of education and preparation I encounter in the learning and development, talent management and organizational development groups in large companies continues to improve all the time.

It’s not because their own trainers can’t learn to do CCL’s industrial strength facilitation of learning experiences. Much of what we’ve developed has become well known in the training community and we've trained thousands to do it.

Rather, there are two big speed bumps that affect this.

The first is that the creation of great learning experiences is amazingly demanding. The staff support and creative energy required merely to duplicate what it takes to create an LDP (Leadership Development Program™) is very costly. But that’s what it takes to create transformative experiences that have lasting impact.

The second speed bump is more important. Although CCL has created great programs, powerful research that’s had significant effects on leadership, a wide range of publications and resources (just look at the burgeoning Explorer series (Visual Explorer, Leadership Metaphor Explorer, Values Explorer), and an impressive array of services (coaching, evaluation services, Leadership Beyond Boundaries, etc.), that’s not why clients want to stay close to us.

Clients want to stay close to us because what’s being created next is always more interesting and valuable than what we’ve already shared. It’s entirely possible to take CCL programs and make them your own. We’ll even train your professional staff to deliver your internal leadership programs. But what’s the point? As leadership changes and the demands on leaders change, what worked yesterday is only a partial solution to what is needed today. It doesn’t begin to meet the needs for tomorrow. We invest in research and collaboration with other practitioners all over the globe because leadership is still a very young field. The most important lessons are yet to be learned.

Stay close to us. The most valuable thing we have to offer is the relationship of collaborative inquiry that leads to life and world-changing discovery. Stay tuned because you don’t want to miss what’s next.

Doug