Maximizing executive performance is essential in a competitive marketplace -- whether the objective is to help executives or teams fulfill their leadership potential, grow with an organization's strategic challenges, or address performance problems.

Companies cannot afford to leave executive development to chance. Many leaders are made, not born. Up to 50% of executives fail, due to inadequate people skills, not technical expertise, intelligence, or track record. Executive development has become a necessity, not a luxury.

Executive development services address issues with interpersonal style, providing executives with the practical tools, detailed feedback, action planning, and follow up consultation to produce and sustain needed changes.

A development plan is as good as the data on which it is based. We can assess an executive's most productive style and what motivates his or her best performance, as well as the impact of style on others. We can interview co-workers and family members and review the formal performance record to identify behavioral patterns. We can observe behavior in the office and elsewhere, individually and with a group. We can deliver behavioral performance feedback from an executive's self-ratings and from ratings by bosses, peers, and subordinates for a comprehensive and objective evaluation of performance.

Performance feedback and coaching, as well as formal assessment of management style to promote fit and performance, are often part of this process. Shelley has used a wide array of tools, including Benchmarks, Profilor, The Birkman Method, Campbell Organizational Survey, Campbell-Hallam Team Development Survey, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Campbell Interest & Skill Survey, 16 Personality Factors (16PF), Career Anchors, Executive Dimensions, and Voyager.

The real test of development plans and programs is in their implementation. Ongoing action planning and follow up are essential to implement and maintain desired changes in behavior. Regular and ongoing feedback from a coach, specific measures of success and periodic assessment of progress, joint agreement on accountability, and follow-up are critical.

Implementation may include:

• identifying necessary steps to develop skills or change behavior
• teaching new management strategies or polishing existing skills
• clarifying opportunities to practice new skills, primarily on-the-job assignments
• designing strategies to follow-up with and involve coworkers in the change process and increase individual commitment and accountability for change
• removing obstacles to implementation - problem-solving issues that impede effective implementation, such as time pressures, competing priorities, and employee resistance.