The Leadership and Management Development Program (LMDP)
The LMDP provides a comprehensive approach for creating organizational alignment from senior leaders to first-line supervisors by clarifying leadership expectations and promoting trust and communication across all levels of management. The Program includes an offsite and a series of seminars that build on the offsite’s themes. We’ve delivered the Program to hundreds of public- and private-sector managers over the past four years.
* Background Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Additional Offsite Sessions to Reinforce Expectations Discussions
For each expectation we provide a short introduction, drawing on relevant literature and our own leadership experiences, and then facilitate a discussion about what that expectation means in that team’s context. We provide the seniors with the questions in advance that we’ll be asking them and the team.
We offer a variety of additional offsite sessions and activities that reinforce the expectations discussions, including:
Icebreaker Session
We usually begin the first day exploring how and why attendees became managers and how each of them defines success. We then offer an aspirational definition of success that tees up the rest of the offsite content.
The View From the Front Office
This gives the senior manager or managers a chance to lay out the environment in which they operate. The goal is to share the challenges, demands, frustrations, and opportunities the unit faces, which provides key context for the expectations discussion.
People vs. Programs Exercise
This session asks team members to think about the tradeoffs of focusing on developing their people vs. delivering on programs and generates a discussion on the appropriate balance between leadership and management.
Blockers Exercise
This exercise explores possible roadblocks team members face in trying to meet the given expectations. It seeks to uncover possible systemic problems that might require the seniors’ attention, exposes everyone to the challenges that their peers face, and shares best practices for overcoming them.
Fireside Chat
Usually held after dinner on the first day of residential events, this session is a chance for the seniors to tell their personal stories in a way that demonstrates transparency while sharing key formative events and lessons from their careers. This session always receives high marks, as attendees appreciate how candid and personal the discussion is.
Finding Solutions
We can design and facilitate a session to tackle any tasks or problems our clients want, from addressing negative upward feedback to launching a strategic planning effort.
The Expectations Offsite ideally runs for a day and a half and includes social and bonding time the evening of the first day. We can also do a compressed, one-day version that covers the four dimensions above but leaves out several of the additional sessions.
Leadership for All Seminars
We also have versions of our LMDP seminars for non-managers. Our clients often pair LMDP training for their managers with accompanying training for the rest of their workforce. This combination extends organizational alignment from the leadership team through the rest of the workforce. You can find out more about our Leadership for All Seminars below.
