Analysis of Dow Chemicals' Leadership in Action Program and Outcomes

This report offers a comprehensive analysis of the Dow Chemicals Leadership in Action program. It begins by discussing the necessity and methodology of conducting a needs analysis before implementing the program, emphasizing its role in identifying skill gaps and selecting suitable candidates for...Read More

WORKPLACE, LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT

Table of Contents
Part 2..........................................................................................................................................3
Question 3..................................................................................................................................3
Discuss why and how Dow Chemicals would conduct a needs analysis before the Leadership
in Action program was run.........................................................................................................3
Question 4..................................................................................................................................4
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Leadership in Action program overall. Compare
the advantages and disadvantages of the program compared with more traditional ways of
training leaders. In your answer, refer to the concepts of ‘formal’ and ‘informal learning’......4
Question 5..................................................................................................................................6
Describe how you would determine if the Leadership in Action program delivered effective
outcomes for Dow Chemicals. Identify four measures (metrics) that you would include in
determining effectiveness...........................................................................................................6
Reference list..............................................................................................................................8
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Part 2
Question 3
Discuss why and how Dow Chemicals would conduct a needs analysis
before the Leadership in Action program was run.
Leadership in Action is a new type of leadership development programs devised by Dow
where concepts of talent development and corporate citizenship have been blended in an
effective and innovative way. This program is a collaborative venture between Dow Human
Resources and Dow Corps and skilled employees are employed in multidisciplinary teams
under this program. As this program is oriented towards helping community towards progress
by providing effective and tangible solutions, it is imperative that Dow should conduct a
needs analysis before rolling out this program in any designated location.
As opined by Alexander and Al Saleh (2015, p.150), need analysis is the procedure of
evaluating and recognising the requirements (needs) of a community or of a specific set of
people. Therefore, need analysis incorporates activities such as identifying the problems,
describing their implications and proposing possible solutions for addressing those problems.
Now, the Leadership in Action program is a special development of employee training &
development program at Dow, therefore the reasons and steps used for training needs analysis
is also applicable in this case. As per Richey and Klein (2014, p.242), need analysis helps to
correctly identify the needs of training and development. As Dow is envisioned to expand
their global presence through performances of skilled and able employees, they should be
properly trained and oriented for that purpose. Thus, the need of their training can only be
ascertained through needs analysis.
Secondly, need analysis is required to chalk out suitable candidates who can imbibe the
endowed knowledge and return them manifold. As for this case, employees having skilled in
relationship building were only allowed to take part in Leadership in Action program -
highlighting the benefit of running a need analysis prior to the program.
Thirdly, a need analysis helps an organisation to target the correct competencies, along with
eligible employees. For example, Dow comprehend that through their Leadership in Action
program they can apply sustainable business practices in underdeveloped regions such as
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Accra in Ghana and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and deployed their business leaders to have a
firsthand experience on the situations.
The first step involved in conducting a need analysis is determining the desired outcomes.
For examples, conducting a need analysis will help Dow to understand the skill gap of
employees and fill those gaps for achieving their business objective of global expansion. In
the next step, desired outcomes (global expansion) could be linked with employee behaviour
(relationship building skills). Thirdly, trainable competencies such as willing to work in a
challenging environment could be identified. The fourth step would involve evaluation of
competencies and determining the performance gaps. In this stage, Dow could initiate tests or
surveys for measuring gaps in employee performance. In the fifth step, training needs would
be prioritised. Pless and Borecká (2014, p.535) has postulated that the need and significance
of training could help in this step to identify training priorities. The sixth step would help to
determine the right methods for imparting training. Dow could employee on-the-job training
and coaching methods in this context. The penultimate step would be a cost benefit analysis
where resources invested in entire training program could be analysed to ascertain
effectiveness of training program. In the final step of need analysis, evaluation of training
will be conducted. These steps could be applied by Dow for conducting a needs analysis
before running their Leadership in Action program.
Question 4
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Leadership in Action program
overall. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of the program
compared with more traditional ways of training leaders. In your answer,
refer to the concepts of ‘formal’ and ‘informal learning’.
Now that the reasons and ways of conducting a need analysis before implementing
Leadership in Action program has been critically discussed, along with a brief outline of the
leadership development program run by Dow, the positive as well as weak aspects of this
program should be critically discussed.
In the view of Parkay et al. (2014, p.122), this program helped the company to create
balanced approach for aligning their organisational objective of meeting basic needs of global
population with employees’ individual needs of personal development.
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Under this program, employees were sent to foreign locations and tasked with collaborating
and planning with their respective home offices. This situation can be considered as informal
training as employees of Dow received significant insights about business process outside
their conventional training sessions. According to Phillips and Phillips (2016, p.222), such
actions helped the employees to enhance their consulting and negotiation skills. In addition,
informal learning such as this prompted to them adapt with unexpected situation such as
sudden absence of electricity or telephone networks, scarcity of drinking water and so on.
Thus, it can be surmised that Leadership in Action program enhanced the survival skills of
Dow’s employees.
Despite these beneficial outcomes, there are also several weaknesses latent in this informal
learning program. Parkay et al. (2014, p.124) has pointed out the absence of any training
program for employees that could have helped them to take better account of different
cultural contexts. Had there been such programs, Dow’s employees should be prepared to
face the underdeveloped nations such as Ethiopia and Ghana. Thus, they initially faced severe
obstacles in terms of bonding with the local people, understanding their problems. These
problems further hindered the process of decision-making, thus postponing the formation of
solutions significantly. Thus, absence of any hands on coaching program could be cited as a
serious weakness of Leadership in Action program at Dow.
In a similar note, Gurdjian et al. (2014, p.127) has also contradicted this leadership
development program, which is actually a formal learning mechanism, on the basis of its
added emphasis on top layers of workforce. In this formal learning program, Dow marked
and filtered only the top level leaders for this program, leaving the lower and mid-level
leaders in dark. In this way, the company failed to take account of leadership traits hidden
between the leaders residing at this level and this act could be cited as a major fallacy.
Based on ten adobe discussions, it can be surmised that despite two major weaknesses, the
Leadership in Action is an effective organizational approach taken up by Dow as this
program helped the company to pressure their organisational objective of global expansion
while practicing sustainable business simultaneously.
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Question 5
Describe how you would determine if the Leadership in Action program
delivered effective outcomes for Dow Chemicals. Identify four measures
(metrics) that you would include in determining effectiveness.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership development program at Dow, following
steps could be implemented-
Firstly, a clear set of competencies and requirements should be created. In the opinion of Day
et al. (2014, p.65), setting up clear and explicit competencies can help to provide a basis for
the leadership development program. Understanding the required competencies would
prompt the management at Dow to pay heed to resourceful recommendations and thus
formulate a way to measure the effectiveness of the program. It should be noted here that
there is not any universal framework for deciding required competencies in a given context,
therefore an organisation such as Dows should identify their competencies and develop
measurement mechanisms accordingly.
Secondly, as opined by Gentry et al. (2014, p.84), the availability of leadership talent in an
organisation should be considered before rolling out a leadership development program.
Studies have revealed that organisations where employees with high-potential are identified
and properly nurtured, chances are that leadership development is faster and better in those
situations. Therefore, one viable solution to measure the effectiveness of leadership
development program would be careful eye the selected candidates. In addition, the company
should also evaluate how much resource (financial, technological and human) is being
invested to those candidates. Carefully weighing the investment-to-productivity ratio can help
an organization such as Dow to calculate the effective of their Leadership in Action program.
Thirdly, as suggested by Gurdjian et al. (2014, p.125), overall organisational performance
and growth should be measured for understanding the effectiveness of leadership
development program. Organisational performance could be measured through different
secondary activities. For example, the success ratio associated with decision making process
can reflect the performance of any organisation in a challenging situation. For example, in
this case, if the leaders sent to underdeveloped nations for promoting sustainable business
achieves can successfully implement sustainable practices there, then it could be postulated
that Leadership in Action has achieved success.
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Finally, the measurement of success of any training and development program can only be
perceived through the organisational performance in the long-run. As for this case, if the
leaders nurtured through Leadership in Action program could help the company to retain
their leadership positions even in the long run, then it could be said that the programs has
certainly become effective. If that is not ensured, then the entire effort would be nothing but
futility.
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Reference list
Day, D.V., Fleenor, J.W., Atwater, L.E., Sturm, R.E. and McKee, R.A., (2014). Advances in
leader and leadership development: A review of 25years of research and theory. The
Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), pp.63-82.
Gentry, W.A., Eckert, R.H., Munusamy, V.P., Stawiski, S.A. and Martin, J.L., (2014). The
needs of participants in leadership development programs: A qualitative and quantitative
cross-country investigation. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 21(1), pp.83-
101.
Gurdjian, P., Halbeisen, T. and Lane, K., (2014). Why leadership-development programs
fail. McKinsey Quarterly, 1(1), pp.121-126.
Parkay, F.W., Anctil, E.J. and Hass, G., (2014). Curriculum leadership: Readings for
developing quality educational programs. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Phillips, J.J. and Phillips, P.P., (2016). Handbook of training evaluation and measurement
methods. Abingdon: Routledge.
Pless, N.M. and Borecká, M., (2014). Comparative analysis of International Service Learning
Programs. Journal of Management Development, 33(6), pp.526-550.
Richey, R.C. and Klein, J.D., (2014). Design and development research: Methods, strategies,
and issues. Abingdon: Routledge.
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