Many organizations organize leadership development around a competency model. That's understandable, but competencies alone aren't enough to drive great program design. We need to get much more specific. Here's one way of doing it.

1. Beyond Competencies:
Crafting Program Objectives with the Four C’s
Sean Kennedy
Senior Strategic Relationship Manager
Harvard Business Publishing
Corporate Learning

2. THE PROBLEM WITH COMPETENCIES
Most organizations use competencies to broadly frame
development
– They provide consistency across roles and levels
– They link to performance appraisal and career paths
– They are a good internal tool for HR and learning
professionals
But competencies aren’t enough to drive good design at
the program level
– They’re intentionally broad
– They’re just like everyone else’s
– And your learners probably don’t care about them
We need to get much more specific
– Clear connection to organizational strategy
– Specific learning and behavioral objectives
– Accounting for the organizational environment
© 2013 Harvard Business School Publishing. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. All rights reserved. 2

3. CRAFTING OBJECTIVES WITH THE FOUR C’S
To execute our strategy, how do we need this group of leaders to change?
Context Capability Connection Culture
• What do we need • What do we need • With whom do we • What
them to think them to do need them to organizational
about differently? differently? work differently? norms do we need
to foster?
• Industry • Specific actions • Employees
• Company • Start/stop • Senior leaders • Common practices
• Customers • Perform more • Peers • Common language
• Market effectively • Other functions • Values
• Themselves • Prioritization/time • Customers • Traditions
allocation
• External partners
© 2013 Harvard Business School Publishing. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. All rights reserved. 3

4. DRILLING DOWN
Crafting Program Objectives with the Four C’s
Worksheet for Clarifying an Objective
 Describe Current and Future States Only a detailed understanding of program objectives will enable effective evaluation of design alternatives. Use this
– Specific and observable
worksheet to focus each program objective by drilling down on key elements.
Program Name
– What must be unlearned? Objective Name
Circle One Context Capability Connection Culture
Objective Summary:
 Clarify Interests
– Organizational goals
Objective Drill-down
Describe the current state as well as the desired state for the objective. Be sure to reflect the reasons for both the status quo and the
rationale for change. This will help you identify potential environmental barriers, behaviors to be un-learned, and
learner/organizational motivations.
– Learner motivation From what? To what?
 Identify Barriers
– Competing commitments Why is it this way? Why change?
– Incentive and resources
 Plan for Metrics Measurement Considerations
Capturing measurement ideas early in the process will inform metrics scorecards and ensure that you develop a clear idea of what
success looks like.
– Clarify impact expectations How will we know learners are changing? What organizational impacts will we see?
– Design for behavior change
What time horizons are involved?
© 2013 Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.
© 2013 Harvard Business School Publishing. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. All rights reserved. 4

5. THANK YOU
For more information please feel free to contact:
skennedy@harvardbusiness.org
© 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. All rights reserved. 5