You know you must train your potential leaders but you have no money to make it happen. What do you do? My advice: practice the 70-20-10 strategy to train your potential leaders.
Photo Credit: Robert Sullivan
The 70-20-10 strategy was created by the Center for Creative Leadership based on thirty years of Lessons of Experience research.[ref]Ron Rabin, Blended Learning for Leadership: The CCL Approach (Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 2014). The 70-20-10 principle is also described by Kramer and Nayak, Nonprofit Leadership Development, 82-101; Kramer, “Solving the Time and Money Puzzle”; and Hoyle, Informal Learning in Organizations, 168-177.[/ref]
The 70-20-10 rule for leader development follows this breakdown:
- 70 percent challenging assignments,
- 20 percent developmental relationships, and
- 10 percent coursework and training.[ref]Rabin, Blended Learning for Leadership, 2.[/ref]
In nonprofit organizations, these three components reinforce each other and add up to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.[ref]Kramer and Nayak, Nonprofit Leadership Development, 83.[/ref] Before examining the 70-20-10 strategy closer, it is important to describe what it is not.
Robin Hoyle mentions he has seen the 70-20-10 approach misrepresented in these statements: 90 percent of learning is done on the job, it is how people naturally learn, the numbers do not matter, the 20 percent is done most effectively through Twitter and LinkedIn, and since most learning is done on the job there is no need for training courses.[ref]Hoyle, Informal Learning in Organizations, 169.[/ref] However, let’s look at the correct understanding of the 70-20-10 principle.