When to Copy Another Company's Leadership Development Practice

One major problem that companies seem to be facing these days is the constant pressure to "copy" the format and structure of larger corporations when it comes to business practices. Time and money are spent in large quantities, all for the sake of being just like someone else.

While it's true there are some formulas that work for every company, if you spend too much time searching for them you can easily end up costing your business a great deal of revenue. The trick is to understand early on that finding the "best" business practice is a relative and subjective term. It's not always something that can be applied unilaterally, and as a result better formulas that preceded the current setup could be ignored entirely.

So how do you avoid this benchmarking trap? It's best to first get a good grasp of what it is you're looking for when it comes to successful business practices and development, before you decide on a method or formula to apply to your own organization's needs. By looking at the most tried-and-true methods first, you'll save yourself a lot of time starting right out of the gate.

To figure out which companies are currently practicing the best methods, there are a few key things to look for. Successful companies will provide a productively challenging work environment with a reward system to match it; their management structure pays attention to the employees beneath them and uses all feedback in a constructive manner; and each employee, from the hourly-wage workers to the corporate executives, is held responsible for their own actions and their development within the company.

If the company you're observing has this in place, also observe how they treat their future leaders or other prospective employees that are being groomed for higher positions. They'll understand how leadership is cultivated-not by grinding them through a generic training program, with nothing to root them firmly within the corporation's structure, but by emphasizing the leader's role and responsibility in the larger context of society as a whole. To train a leader, the company in question needs a leader at the helm, and a company that you want to base your own business practices on will have already realized this.

If you're going to copy the practices of another company, it's best to make sure that those practices are solid business advice to begin with. You can take what you find and adapt it for your own purposes, but if those ideas weren't good from the start it's going to take a lot of extra effort on your part to make it work. Be careful who you copy your practices from, and you may find yourself with a successful and well-oiled leadership development system.