How CDOs and CLTOs Can Partner to Develop Leaders by Leveraging their Company's ERGs

This was a rich cross-function discussion meeting where we focused on how CDOs and CLTOs can partner to develop leaders by leveraging their company's ERGs.  

Why was this "meeting-of-the-minds" timely?

Studies, like one conducted by Deloitte University Press in 2014, tell us the companies rate having more people with leadership skills at all levels of an organization as a top business priority. Furthermore, our own recent research into the role employee resource groups play in leadership development reveals how valuable these groups are as a tool for developing many of the key leadership skills these organizations value. Clearly, there is a huge opportunity for the Office of Diversity leaders and the Learning and Leadership Development leaders to partner in order to address this top corporate priority. With that in mind, we invited the Chairman and members of the i4cp CLTO Board to join us for the meeting.

What we did during this meeting?

After a brief presentation by our i4cp research team on how High-Performing Organizations are leveraging their ERGs to bolster their efforts to develop key leadership skills at all levels of the organizations and a deep dive Q&A session focused on the material presented, we engaged in a robust practice-building discussion between CDO and CLTO Board members. The areas we explored during this discussion included the following:

1. What are your organizations specifically doing to leverage ERGs to build leadership skills?
2. What positive results are those efforts producing?
3. If you have done some work in this area, what obstacles to implementation did you face as you developed this practice and how did you overcome them?
4. What other obstacles to this partnership approach do you face to which you do not yet have a solution? Are there any obstacles that have prevented you from getting started?
5. What are some things that you can start or add to your current efforts base on our discussion today?

Attached are the notes to the i4cp CDO Board May 16 2018 Meeting (see "download now" link below). 

I want to again thank John Cone' and the CLTO Board for joining us for this timely discussion on the opportunities for partnerships between CDOs and CLTOs in their strategically aligned pursuits to produce more leaders at all levels of the organization, while increasing the diversity of the leadership pool. My hope is that this discussion will inspire a rich set of discussions in each of your organizations. 

May 2018 CDO and CLTO Meeting Recording

May 2018 CDO and CLTO Meeting Presentation