The place to begin, many experts agree, is to acknowledge that today’s leaders have created a world no one is happy with. So, doesn’t that require that we think differently about what our next generation of leaders will look like?
In an interview with Manage HR magazine, Lois Sonstegard, Founder of Build2Morrow, a leading business coaching and consulting company, shares her insights into the journey of building competent leaders and the challenges that come along the way. Build2Morrow is dedicated to equipping visionary leaders with the knowledge and qualities that are integral to inspiring people and making a real difference. With a remarkable track record of success, her company has empowered executives and HR professionals to be more effective, optimize their performance, streamline hiring and management practices, and significantly reduce stress.
With over thirty years of experience in international business, global business development, and healthcare organizations and delivery systems, Lois holds immense knowledge on every facet of leadership development. She is certified as a coach by Marshall Goldsmith, College of Executive Coaches, Gallup, and Leadership Circle. The following detailed account of her conversation with Manage HR’s editorial team delineates how she and her company adopt a holistic approach to building next-generation leaders through powerful training programs, assessments, and coaching.
Could you provide a brief history of Build2Morrow?
The factors that led to the creation of Build2Morroware closely connected with my own professional journey. I started out managing women’s and children’s services for hospitals, where I developed a community and university program to reduce mortality rates among women and children. After that, I developed a manufacturing company and brought to market approximately 55 trademarks and patents, and grew small start-ups/brands to work competitively around the world.
During my career, one of my observations was that organizations often fail to consider the significant impact effective communications and cultural inclusivity have on employee performance. After I sold my manufacturing company, I founded Build2Morrow to provide businesses with simple and pragmatic processes that drive value and are easy to implement in training and education programs.
I was trained by Marshall Goldsmith, who is considered one of the foremost leadership thinkers globally. His systems and processes are simple, pragmatic, and highly implementable. I incorporate his methods in my coaching and training programs.
What programs have you adopted from Marshall Goldsmith?
We’ve seen amazing success with the Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching® process. In fact, our Stakeholder Centered Coaching Team has completed 200 individual coaching engagements and several team engagements. Stakeholder Centered Coaching works because it produces measurable behavior change while decreasing the perception gaps among stakeholders. Its mini-survey process allows leaders to determine the degree to which they have improved as recognized and acknowledged by others. Documented evidence shows that leaders who used Stakeholder Centered Coaching and consistently involved stakeholders realized measurable improvement 95 percent of the time.
What are the current trends that can influence the future of leadership development, and how does Build2Morrow align to such trends?
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic redefined the workplace, employees were not happy with their manager – with 85 percent saying they left their job because of their “boss.” Now that companies face the continuing challenges of the pandemic – a need for growth to replace revenue lost during the shutdown, employees working remotely or in a hybrid environment, and employees facing various levels of anxiety and stress – there’s an ever greater need for our programs. We can help develop a new kind of leader who cares about employee personal career development, is socially concerned and connected to the employee’s personal mission and values.
We also see a growing trend of forming loose collective networks of experts who help all the businesses within the network grow. Build2Morrow coaching and training programs incorporate the new leadership skills that will be needed to develop new strategies for growth and to build teams around cultural differences.
In addition, time and capital resources are already stretched so training and development must become more efficient and results-oriented. At Build2Morrow we recognize the three stages of career progression and that training must be sequential, building upon the previous training. We also help leaders meet employee demand for coaching, and we coach for results.
Could you elaborate on the different programs you offer at the different stages of the leadership development cycle?
Studies reveal that there are three basic stages in the career development cycle, and we have designed our training and development programs – offered both in-person and online – to meet the needs of employees at each stage of their career development. By the time individuals enter the final stage of their career, we ensure that they have acquired all the necessary skills and are psychologically prepared to undertake the responsibility.
In Stage One, for people in the initial phase of their career who are honing their technical skills, our programs help them understand how their personality impacts others, how to become an effective team member and begin to develop these critical management abilities: foundational principles of leading a team, managing projects and meeting agendas, communicating to influence, managing conflict productively, and other skills they’ll need to move to the next level.
Stage Two is centered on mid-career professionals who are responsible for creating a high-performance team. Build2Morrow programs at this stage focus on taking accountability for business outcomes and team performance, leading culturally diverse teams, creating a system of routines to build new relationships, and making an impact. Participants also learn how to demonstrate reliability, become integral to company goals, adapt to changes flexibly as the company responds to challenges, and get tools for peer coaching.
Stage Three is for C-suite executives who have already made their way through different positions within an organization. Here our programs sharpen decision-making ability and help executives communicate to influence the Board of Directors, community leaders, and constituencies. We also offer individual as well as group coaching for executives and higher-level managers to foster a learn-from-peer culture and empower them to prepare their company for the future while also addressing existing challenges.
We measure the success of all of our programs through mini surveys and research. If programs don’t yield the expected results, we alter them or delve into the changing needs of people to modify them accordingly. We have also developed a follow-up to our Diversity and Inclusion Programs focused on “How We Heal.”These are uncertain and difficult times, and we are dedicated to helping people be resilient and advance toward a brighter future.
What does the roadmap for Build2morrow look like?
We will continue to work globally with companies and help to bring their culturally diverse people together cohesively. Specifically, our current focus is:
• Sequential learning that recognizes the stages of career progression
• Coaching successful leaders who want to achieve more
• Providing support to transcend cultural differences
• Providing transformational HEALING for employees and organizations who want to look beyond Diversity and Inclusion to a time of full integration and healing.
• Building networks of collaborative “expert” partnerships committed to mutual growth and market penetration.
With an aim to build a better tomorrow and provide strong, pragmatic, result-driven training, our immediate concentration is on building networks of collaborative “expert” partnerships, and providing organizations a future vision for transformational healing that follows Diversity and Inclusion Programs. We also intend to fine-tune our coaching and training programs according to the evolving needs of people and shape the leaders of tomorrow to help them bring about extraordinary results.
