How to make your executives better leaders

Do you suffer from The White Binder Syndrome?

My first encounter with The White Binder Syndrome came through Marvin, an executive coaching client. Marvin (true story, but not the true name) was one of the smartest people I've ever met. He was a scientist and was energetic, focused, and hard working. When I first walked into his office, he was the VP of a technology company at the time. I asked him how I could help him.

"I really need to become a better leader," Marvin said.

"What have you done previously?" I asked.

So he opened up his cabinet. Inside were 11 white binders from the finest business schools and leadership development programs in the country. At first I was intimidated.

"Well what do you need me for?" I said, "You've been to some very good and reputable leadership programs."

"I know," he replied, "But nobody has taken all of that data and all these reports and sat down with me and said 'Here are the steps you need to take to make the improvement.' And no one has ever kept me accountable."

So the WBS is something I see all the time and that is when a company says "Oh, just make a beautiful evaluation and the person will self develop."

And I say, "No, you won't be happy with my coaching because I'll make a beautiful white binder for you, and it's just going to be put on the shelf."

What's going to happen is the person who gets the feedback says: "Tomorrow I'm going to start self developing."

They wake up in the morning, they put their white binder on the table and they get their first phone call. The first phone call is the first crisis. So they say to themselves:

"You know, right after lunch I'm going to work on my development."

By the time after lunch comes they already have a list of return phone calls and return e-mails, a separate crisis each. So they say:

"Well at the end of the day I'm going to work on my development."

At the end of the day, they're tired and they need to go home. This process occurs for about three days until finally they get so frustrated that they put the white binder up on a shelf, never to be seen again.

So that's The White Binder Syndrome has taken another victim.

the solution is to use a coach and hold the executive accountable. According to a study of 55 large companies (95% with annual revenues of more than $1 billion), organization that address derailment risks through the greater use of internal coaches report positive outcomes.

While almost all the companies use external coaches, especially for the C-level suite like CEO and CFO, about 60% were now using internal coaches. “External coaches often are used to ‘save’ an executive from failure when it's too late: like closing the barn door after the horse has already gone.” (McDermott, Levinson and Newton: “What Coaching Can and Cannot Do for Your Organization,” Human Resource Planning, June 2007).

The study went on to conclude that “using internal coaches in derailment cases, in contrast, may signal that the company takes performance issues seriously and is willing to invest the time of its own people, not just dollars, in supporting an employee's efforts to improve.” Never sell yourself short as an internal coach, because you may be better positioned to leverage other company resources and people to help solve the issues that led to derailment.