The Development Strategy Gen Z Actually Wants

According to recent research, Gen Z has a concern about AI that might surprise you: cognitive decline. They fear that relying on AI could erode their intelligence, creativity and social connection. When I shared this finding with the HR and L&D leaders at our webinar last month, it was clear that attendees found this just as surprising as I did. 

Image by Aathif Aarifeen from Pixabay

Now, this doesn’t mean that Gen Z is anti-AI: Six in ten Gen Z’ers and millennials believe that career advancement requires AI skills. But they also understand that it’s not the be-all, end-all. Over eight in ten believe “soft” skills are required for their success. In other words, they want to develop their AI capabilities and protect their human ones. We also see this tension play out in our work with companies: Leaders want to equip their teams with AI skills, but they're also grappling with how to preserve the human capabilities that make great leadership possible.

As a company with a 17-year track record of helping leaders at top organizations build the confidence, capabilities and credibility to succeed, we believe this is one of today’s most significant trends in developing the employees who will become your bench of future leaders. Here’s how we’re guiding our clients in balancing AI and human capabilities in their L&D programs.

Humans Make Decisions; AI Helps

Strategic thinking is one of the most important leadership capabilities. But it’s also a common shortfall in development programs. A DDI survey found that just under two-thirds of leaders had received no training in setting strategy and managing change. It’s understandable these leaders would turn to AI for help, but how they do so can make all the difference. 

As we coach our clients on strategic decision-making, we talk about how this is an area that can’t be outsourced to AI. But AI can help with the process by asking clarifying questions, speeding up research and revealing blind spots. We recommend development programs that teach your Gen Z employees the fundamentals of strategic thinking, such as seeing the big picture and focusing on the right work, paired with technical training on how to engineer prompts that maximize AI’s potential as a thinking partner.

Get Deliberate About Building Human Skills

More than eight out of 10 managers say Gen Z employees need more help with skills like critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, interpersonal connection and resilience than they’re currently getting. These are the kind of richly human capabilities that can’t be mastered just by watching a YouTube video or asking AI for advice. Instead, we learn these human skills by, well, being around other humans, and Gen Z’ers are at a disadvantage compared with earlier generations. Coming of age during the pandemic robbed them of social interactions, and the rise of remote work means they don’t have as many opportunities to learn “by osmosis” from colleagues as you and I did. 

Gen Z employees seem well aware they need to make up some ground in their human capabilities. They feel isolated by technology and want more in-person time, including in-person development opportunities. If AI training dominates your L&D budget right now, you can still give Gen Z’ers the face-to-face learning they crave through cohort learning, mentoring and manager coaching.

A Generation Ready to Lead — With the Right Support

While there’s an urgent need for training that gives Gen Z the technical and human skills they need to become tomorrow’s leaders, we’re so optimistic about this generation’s potential to reshape the workforce and the world. They have a healthy approach to AI—one that involves neither running from it nor blindly embracing it. And they are eager for chances to learn the human elements of leadership. When we provide development opportunities that align with their needs, we unleash the full potential of Gen Z’s strengths: collaboration, flexibility, pragmatism and authenticity.

Empowering this new generation of leaders must be one of your top priorities. The recent Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Conference drove home just how quickly things are changing—and how some organizations are far more ready for these changes than others.

How is your organization keeping pace? At Newberry Solutions, we have a suite of products and services to help cultivate future-ready leaders. We know that technology and person-to-person learning should work hand in hand to provide the development employees want while also driving business results. Contact us to learn more.

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Don’t wait for performance to drop before taking action. Discover how the New Lens® platform helps organizations support managers with bite-sized, actionable learning—built for today’s fast-paced, high-stress environments.

Beyond Content: The Three Critical Elements of Effective Leadership Development

With professionals juggling competing priorities and attention spans shrinking, leadership development has never been more important—or more challenging.

But traditional approaches to developing leaders often fall short.

In a recent conversation with Rachel Cooke on the “Excellence at Work Podcast” by Brandon Hall, I discussed how our approach to leadership development has evolved to meet today's unique challenges.

What's becoming increasingly clear is that content alone—even excellent content—isn't enough.

The Leadership Development Paradox

One of the most interesting concepts we discussed is the leadership development paradox. This occurs when organizations invest heavily in developing individuals already designated as high performers or high potentials, while others receive less attention. The result? A widening gap that impacts both individuals and organizations.

This approach not only misses potential “diamonds in the rough,” but it can also hamper diversity efforts and weaken leadership pipelines.

With only 12% of companies reporting confidence in their leadership bench strength, according to DDI's Global Leadership Forecast, we simply can’t afford to be so selective about who receives development.

Want to learn more about how we help organizations build sustainable high performance? Contact us here or schedule a briefing.

The Three C’s of Effective Leadership Development

Through our work with Fortune 500 companies and the development of our New Lens® platform, we've identified three critical elements that must be present for leadership development to truly stick:

1. Content that's digestible and relevant. With professionals having only about 24 minutes per week for development (typically interrupted three times), traditional training models don't fit modern work patterns. Micro-learning—content delivered in two- to seven-minute segments—better matches today's realities.

2. Coaching from multiple sources. Effective coaching doesn't just come from external coaches or even managers. Peer coaching has emerged as a powerful tool that creates lasting impact. In fact, research shows that initiating peer-to-peer connections earlier in someone's career can eliminate disparities in promotion rates across different groups.

3. Connection that builds networks and support systems. Particularly in hybrid and remote environments, feeling connected to others is crucial. Creating cohort-based learning experiences helps participants build relationships that provide support well beyond any formal program.

Moving Beyond Events to Create a Learning Culture

Perhaps most importantly, we need to stop thinking about learning as an event and start embedding it into our organizational cultures. This means finding ways to make learning accessible, relevant and as easy as possible for both employees and HR implementers.

As we look to the future of work, the organizations that will thrive are those that create environments where learning happens naturally and continuously—not just during scheduled training sessions.

Want to hear more about creating effective leadership development in today's complex environment? Check the full podcast, where I dive deeper into these concepts and share specific strategies for implementing them in your organization.

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Don’t wait for performance to drop before taking action. Discover how the New Lens® platform helps organizations support managers with bite-sized, actionable learning—built for today’s fast-paced, high-stress environments.

Bite-size learning can fill employees' craving for development

As someone in the leadership development space for over 15 years, I’ve seen a big gap emerge between how much employees want (and need) to learn on the job and how much they’re able. I believe the solution to this problem will come from thinking small—at least in leadership development content—to bite-size learning.

Image by reallywellmadedesks from Pixabay

The desire to learn isn’t the problem 

One reason I love my work is that I get to fulfill employees’ desires to learn and evolve professionally. In one survey, more than nine of 10 respondents said learning opportunities would motivate them to stay with their employers longer. About the same number believe that learning and development increase engagement. Meanwhile, HR executives say they are feeling the pressure to provide more training 

That pressure isn’t just coming from employees, though.  Executives are losing sleep over whether their employees have the skills and potential to become their organization’s future leaders. 

So if executives believe employees need more development, and employees want to learn more themselves, what’s the problem? 

Too little time, too many distractions 

First, we’re all squeezed for time these days. More than half of workers say their jobs have gotten more intense and demanding. We already recognize that overstuffed schedules lead to burnout. But they also take a toll on learning and development. Over 40% of employees lack time for training and education. Another study found that employees have an average of 24 minutes to spend learning during an average workweek. 

And those minutes probably don’t all come at the same time. We’re only able to spend an average of three minutes on any task before being interrupted or switching to do something else. 

While we joke about our goldfish-like attention spans these days, the reality isn’t funny. Typically, we can only pay attention to one screen for 47 seconds at a time. 

It’s hard to think about taking even a half-day away from work for leadership development in this kind of work environment.

Teach in the way people learn 

When my company was developing New Lens, our own learning platform, we knew we had to design it for busy, distracted users. Our embrace of micro-learning content is part of a larger trend.    

“We have to teach in the way people learn,” leading analyst Josh Bersin says. “People want engaging, bite-size learning that is integrated into everyday work. Twenty minutes feels too long in this day and age. Focus on content that is two to seven minutes long.” 

Priyanka Mitra of the research firm Everest Group is another advocate for “bite-size” learning: “This less-is-more approach often aligns well with the modern learner, who grapples with shorter attention spans and limited time availability.” 

Today’s technology makes it possible for training and development to be available wherever and whenever we can engage with it. Imagine a busy professional who wants to build her leadership skills, but who can’t find room on her calendar for a full-day, offsite development class. However, the same professional has a few minutes between meetings each week she can use to complete lessons on her phone. 

When bite-size learning is better 

It’s important to note that bite-size development content isn’t just a response to our harried schedules. In some situations, shorter, more accessible material is actually a more effective way to learn. 

As you’ve probably experienced yourself, knowledge is easier to retain when you can put it into practice. Let’s imagine two employees, Carmen and Vanessa, who want to get better at leading productive meetings. 

Carmen attends a daylong offsite event that’s packed with information. Vanessa uses a learning platform that delivers five- to seven-minute lessons and that she can access from any of her devices. While the offsite event provides useful advice on meetings, the pace of the training makes it hard for Carmen to remember every point. Back on the job, it’s a pain to dig through the materials to find the relevant information when she needs it. 

But with the learning platform on her phone, Vanessa can easily access relevant information when she needs it—for example, when she’s creating a meeting agenda—and view the material as many times as she needs to for retention. 

“Where bite-size learning excels is that it recreates the ‘spacing’ that learners need because it’s designed to be returned to again and again,” says Ryan Chynces, senior manager of online education at Hootsuite. “(T)he learner’s effort of going back and retrieving that material makes it easier for them to recall it later down the line.” 

Longer-format forms of leadership development are not going away. And, as an experienced executive, consultant, and leadership development expert, I don’t want them to. But I’m also excited about the different forms that learning can take today. By embracing bite-size learning alongside traditional methods, we can create a more flexible, accessible, and effective approach that better serves both organizations and employees. 

This article was originally published by Neena Newberry in Fast Company.

Webinar Recap: The 5 Barriers to Leadership Development (& How to Overcome Them)

What a great webinar we had this week! Big thanks to our guest, Yana Melnikova of PepsiCo, and to all of you who attended and asked such thoughtful questions. If you watched the webinar, you know that we shared a lot of valuable, actionable insights about leadership development. This article captures the highlights, so you can keep it handy as a reference. And make sure you don’t miss our next webinar for senior HR leaders – secure your spot here. 

Leadership ‘Bench Strength’ Is Suffering

The topic of this webinar was “The 5 Barriers to Leadership Development (And What Companies Can Do About Them).” Before discussing those barriers, though, we set the stage by talking about how confident companies are in their leaders and future leaders. According to DDI’s Global Leadership Trends Report 2023:

● Only 12% of companies report confidence in the strength of their bench.

● Compared to companies with weak benches, companies that report strong benches are:

o   10 times more likely to have employees rate their leader quality as “very good” or “excellent.”

o   6 times more likely to be capable of engaging and retaining top talent.

o   5 times more likely to be able to prevent employee burnout.

o   3 times more likely to be among financially top-performing organizations.

Clearly, many companies need to build their leadership bench strength. We believe this is because of those “5 Barriers” in our webinar title. So what are those barriers? And how can we address them?

Barrier 1: Unclear or Inconsistent Strategy

I don’t have to tell you that there’s been a lot going on in the world and in the business environment over the past few years. Amid all of this, HR departments have had to pivot again and again. As a result, many organizations have been left with unclear or inconsistent leadership development strategies, and they haven’t had the bandwidth to take a step back and re-evaluate them.

As someone who is transforming talent management and organizational development globally at PepsiCo, Yana was the perfect discussion partner for this topic. She shared insights into the key components of a successful leadership development strategy. One of the most important is taking a holistic approach that gives employees “meaningful, critical experiences to practice and master their leadership capabilities.

Yana put it like this: “Everybody knows that 70% of development happens on the job. At the same time, this is where the majority of companies fail the most.”

She also stressed that any leadership development strategy should include clear expectations: “The simpler, the better.” Employees should be able to quickly understand what’s expected from them, but they should also be inspired by your leadership development framework. Yana and I both believe that leadership development should be thoroughly integrated into employees’ work, not something extra added on top. 

Barrier 2: The Audience Is Too Narrow

Everyone who is involved in leadership development at their organization should read the HBR article “Leadership Training Shouldn’t Just Be for Top Performers.” This article defines the “leadership development paradox”: Organizations keep investing in development for the employees who need it the least. High performers and high-potentials get opportunities, but others miss out.

Over time, the gap between the “haves” and “have nots” in leadership development keeps getting wider. This is a big problem because, according to DDI, the greatest source of untapped leadership potential is at the lowest levels of an organization. However, leaders may not recognize potential if it doesn’t align with what leadership has traditionally looked like where they work.

The leadership development paradox is one of the biggest reasons Newberry Solutions developed our New Lens® learning platform. Access to leadership development depends on budgets, so we wanted to create a solution that is affordable and scalable. Yana shared that PepsiCo addresses this issue by having a “wide variety of leadership development programs that will address different cohorts or different target audiences.”

Barrier 3: Training vs. Development

These two things are not the same. True leadership development enables employees to use new insights and tools to keep growing their skills and contribute in a different way within the organization.

I recommend that organizations look closely at any leadership development program they are considering to make sure the content is relevant to employees. I would also caution companies about getting lured by whatever is “shiny and new” in leadership development instead of reinforcing through application what employees have already learned. In New Lens, we leverage “micro-learning” so that employees can make development an effortless part of their day.

Another factor that drives long-term development is collective learning. Is your organization driving connections between employees that help them share knowledge? PepsiCo even works to build relationships on the global level, Yana shared.

Barrier 4: Focusing on the Wrong Narrative

In your organization, does the discussion of leadership development revolve mostly around the cost or the benefits? The framing really makes a difference in how effective any leadership development program is.

“The more you involve current leaders and executives in the leadership development, the more they will see the value and the impact,” Yana said. And I agree! Leaders need to see the connection between the investment in leadership development and the results that investment delivers. Yes, having these conversations takes time when everyone is busy. But they’re so important to your organization’s long-term health.

Barrier 5: Underutilizing Technology

Technology continues to evolve at a dizzying pace, giving us access to more and more data. Leadership development programs should take advantage of these advances. For example, how are you measuring the impact of development programs?

As I touched on earlier, technology also enables us to make leadership development available to more people — anytime, anywhere. And it empowers us to deliver customized development experiences at scale. For the first time, having a leadership development program tailored to your unique needs does not necessarily involve working one one-on-one with a coach. With New Lens, each user gets their own unique development plan.

Based on her experiences, Yana sees great potential for technology, including AI, to take us to the next level of leadership development.

Next Steps for HR Leaders

Thanks again to everyone who made our event this week a success. I’m already looking forward to our next webinar. It’s scheduled for 9 a.m. CDT on Friday, June 7, so save a spot on your calendar and stay tuned here for more details. In the meantime, I invite you to check out our New Lens platform and how it has helped other companies. You can explore sample content here.

Stay in the conversation by joining our next webinar for senior HR leaders – register here to make sure you don’t miss out.

Questions about how to strengthen your company’s leadership development pipeline? Let’s talk.