Could you benefit from Belonging to a Peer-to-Peer Network

Rita McGrath

Could you benefit from Belonging to a Peer-to-Peer Network?

Thought Sparks

Introduction

The old recipes for making a firm a talent factory have eroded. Executive development programs provided formal training specific to organizational levels, and employees were expected to remain with their organizations for long careers. Today, tenures are getting shorter, there are fewer layers and leaders are being thrust into situations for which many feel unprepared. Might a peer network help address the gaps?

Rita McGrath

The way it used to be…

Executive development, or more specifically executive education, truly got going in the United States and Europe after the second world war. Universities such as Harvard introduced the “Advanced Management Program” and other high-level courses designed to teach practical business leadership skills to executives who might have experience in family firms or in the military but not in the increasingly large global firms that represented an everlarger portion of the economies of much of the developed world

Rita McGrath

Leaders are struggling – and leaving

Part of the result is that the networks built within companies have become frayed, even as tenure in roles has shortened and more leaders are being hired from outside the organization rather than promoted from within it. A recent report by Deloitte finds that although work has changed and jobs of leaders have become more challenging, leaders are not being suitably prepared. Indeed, only 23 percent of respondents to a recent survey they did felt their leadership was ready for the demands of the post-pandemic workforce.

Rita McGrath

An emerging solution –the peer-to-peer network or forum

What we are now beginning to see is the emergence of new kinds of learning networks. Called many different things, they offer a combination of peer-to-peer support, social support, safe places to share challenges and dilemmas and curated content. Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic and now a professor at Harvard has called them “True North Groups.” They take a number of forms, from the wellestablished Young Presidents’ Organization model to formally organized groups such as those associated with universities to more informal groups dedicated to helping peers find peers and create community.

Rita McGrath

Would something like this be useful for you?

In our work with leaders in organizations, we’re finding a few characteristics that we think might indicate a peer group could be helpful. Once they get to a certain level, we’ve noticed that executive anxiety goes through the roof. It’s nerve-wracking to be working in high uncertainty all the time and to be responsible for your organization’s sense-making role. It’s lonely – often, you feel as though nobody knows what you are going through. And it’s easy to feel socially isolated.

Rita

nt to spark some thinking in your own anization? Rita