Special assignments should be about developing employees. But not all assignments are equal in their development potential. Here are some guidelines to ensure that learning is optimized during such an experience:

Take a moment to think of an experience in your past that you believe made a substantial contribution to your ability to manage and lead others.

The majority of managers when asked this question describe an on-the-job experience, either a new job or a special assignment that still resonates as a meaningful learning experience.

If you accept that the majority of management learning comes from experience, then it follows that you should always ensure that planned development experiences are designed to optimize learning.  And that’s what this article is about.  What are the criteria of excellent experiential learning assignments? What are the factors that, if present, will most effectively teach one about management and leadership?

Several years ago, The Centre for Creative Leadership published a monologue on special assignments that summarized their research on the subject. Based on its application in different organizations, I’ve added to and amended their list with a resulting list of ten key points. Here they are:

10 Criteria of Effective Special Assignments

1. Success and failure must be clearly defined and observable. Specifics around budgeted cost, time deadlines, quantity expected, and how quality will be measured are crucial not only to the employee assigned, but also to those managing the employee.
2. Whether or not the assigned employee has formal authority, performance should benefit from a take charge style. There must be an opportunity to take control and run with it.
3. The task should involve working with new people. The assigned employee must have an opportunity to build new, constructive relationships in a high urgency setting.
4. The task should be described as “stressful”. The assigned employee must learn to handle situations that many would find stressful, and excel in such situations.
5. The assigned employee should be expected to influence others over whom he/she has no direct authority. Learning to influence without positional power is a key to success.
6. The project should require multi-tasking.  One of the greatest challenges faced by those moving up the organization is more complex multi-tasking. There must be an opportunity to review a number of tasks, prioritize them by urgency/impotence, and manage time accordingly.
7. The assigned employee should have the option of delegating tasks.  He/She should learn not only if and when to delegate, but also how to delegate with appropriate levels of direction and support.
8. The project must be meaningful and relevant to decision makers (not simply a make-work project). Many such projects will have an executive sponsor who will periodically review progress.
9. In addition to an executive sponsor, the project will be more effective if the assigned employee has an opportunity to work with a particularly effective manager. A key to experiential learning is learning from an effective role model and coach.
10. A particularly useful type of developmental assignment is one in which “something important is missing.”  This means that a system or process isn’t functioning optimally and the assigned employee is responsible for detailed data gathering, analysis, and problem solving to improve the system.

It’s rare to find an assignment containing all 10 of these points, but the more you can include, the greater the value added to the participants, development.

For more information contact Bob Power