netrashetty
Netra Shetty
Cox Enterprises is the successor to the publishing company founded in Dayton, Ohio, by James Middleton Cox, who began with the Dayton Daily News. He was the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States in the election of 1920. The company is private, 98 percent controlled by the nonagenarian daughter of Cox, Anne Cox Chambers, and the two children of her late sister Barbara Cox Anthony. The chairman is Anthony's grandson, James C. Kennedy.
The company, now headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, owns newspapers, fifteen television stations, 86 radio stations, Cox Communications, Manheim Auctions, AutoTrader.com and Valpak.
How do individual leadership styles and organizational culture work together to affect bottom-line performance? This is the question Gordon French, director of organizational development at Cox Enterprises Inc., had in mind when he began looking for a way
At Cox Enterprises, one of the nation�s leading media companies and operators of automobile auctions, general managers are the top officers at their sites. They are accountable for the bottom-line performance of their units, but they don�t get any coaching regarding their leadership style.
French chose to use Discovery Learning�s four-day Personal Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (PLOE) program. Internally, it was called the General Manager Leader Lab. �The research literature says that managers learn a lot just in taking on the responsibilities of a new position, but that all that learning is usually squeezed out in the first two to three years,� said French. �We were looking for a program for experienced managers who had done all the on-the-job development and were in need of going to the next level of their leadership potential.�
The pilot program involved only 14 GMs but the company won big. �For the five GMs who could tie planned behavior changes to bottom-line effects, the difference was $3.57 million dollars plus a couple hundred thousand British pounds,� said French. �That�s in four months.� These increased revenues or savings are the sum of impact these GMs were willing to identify as being directly tied to the behavior changes they made as a result of the PLOE.
Many leadership-development programs assume that if you improve the individual, the organization will follow. The PLOE does not make this assumption. Participants leave the program with an organizational-improvement action plan developed through intensive feedback.
The culture survey that begins the PLOE connects organizational traits to bottom-line financial indicators. For example, survey research shows that organizations scoring in the upper 50 percent in the area of decision-making inclusiveness gained a 2-to-1 ROI advantage over organizations scoring in the lower 50 percent. This trend emerged from tracking 30 publicly held companies over five years.
�By using the PLOE�s organizational culture survey and leadership development survey together, we created a unique advantage in providing feedback to our GMs,� said French. �We were able to give a snapshot of their organization�s culture and then overlay on that the 360-degree feedback they received about their individual management style.�
Each year Cox Enterprises runs an intensive Executive Leadership Development Program, which targets high-potential managers who are being groomed to run one of Cox’s varied businesses, such as a television station or automobile auction company.
The objective of the program is to enable Cox leaders to operate successfully in unique, decentralized, entrepreneurial organizations during periods of rapid change.
The program includes individual assessments, a four-day Outward Bound Professional expedition, a yearlong relationship with an executive coach, development planning, on-the-job action learning , and simulation-based classroom challenges.
Outward Bound is one of the first experiences these executives encounter as part of the Executive Leadership Program. Outward Bound encourages participants to push past their comfort zones, take risks, and utilize teamwork to reach achievement and success.
Gordon French, director of executive development at Cox Enterprises, has worked with Outward Bound to develop an intense four-day immersion into the wilderness of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The group navigates through the forest using maps and compasses, and tackles activities like the high-challenge ropes course, rock climbing and rappelling, and backcountry camping - including a "solo" night. Participants also explore leadership styles, learning methods and team building techniques with professional Outward Bound facilitators.
"Outward Bound sets a standard for the intensity, risk taking and commitment we expect from these managers during the Executive Leadership Program," French said. "The Outward Bound experience challenges these leaders and opens them to the potential for further growth. This is vital since most of them have a natural resistance to changing the working styles that have been the basis for their success thus far."
Outward Bound enables Cox employees to recognize their true capabilities while at the same time realizing the support available to them from their peers. "This self-reliance gives them the confidence to push themselves – to stretch and choose serious individual development plans that they will pursue with the guidance of a coach throughout the rest of the program," French said.
In addition to individual development, Outward Bound is also successful in developing a strong sense of team. "Outward Bound pushes our people hard and provides them with the kind of shared challenge that research shows is central to leadership development," French said. "The combination of physical activity, critical decision-making with immediate consequences, and daily triumphs of will and spirit enables the team to form a powerful group bond that is unmatched by any developmental activity we know -- short of real business crises."
At the end of the Outward Bound course, the group convenes to discuss their experiences. They review moments of success and achievement before switching focus to discuss the leadership behaviors and the environment that that enabled them to produce such remarkable results. They explore ideas such as the Pygmalion Principle of motivation, the need to provide safety systems as a prerequisite for business risk-taking, and how a coach-manager who delegates and empowers employees to make decisions also enables them to grow through the ownership of their own work.
The company, now headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, owns newspapers, fifteen television stations, 86 radio stations, Cox Communications, Manheim Auctions, AutoTrader.com and Valpak.
How do individual leadership styles and organizational culture work together to affect bottom-line performance? This is the question Gordon French, director of organizational development at Cox Enterprises Inc., had in mind when he began looking for a way
At Cox Enterprises, one of the nation�s leading media companies and operators of automobile auctions, general managers are the top officers at their sites. They are accountable for the bottom-line performance of their units, but they don�t get any coaching regarding their leadership style.
French chose to use Discovery Learning�s four-day Personal Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (PLOE) program. Internally, it was called the General Manager Leader Lab. �The research literature says that managers learn a lot just in taking on the responsibilities of a new position, but that all that learning is usually squeezed out in the first two to three years,� said French. �We were looking for a program for experienced managers who had done all the on-the-job development and were in need of going to the next level of their leadership potential.�
The pilot program involved only 14 GMs but the company won big. �For the five GMs who could tie planned behavior changes to bottom-line effects, the difference was $3.57 million dollars plus a couple hundred thousand British pounds,� said French. �That�s in four months.� These increased revenues or savings are the sum of impact these GMs were willing to identify as being directly tied to the behavior changes they made as a result of the PLOE.
Many leadership-development programs assume that if you improve the individual, the organization will follow. The PLOE does not make this assumption. Participants leave the program with an organizational-improvement action plan developed through intensive feedback.
The culture survey that begins the PLOE connects organizational traits to bottom-line financial indicators. For example, survey research shows that organizations scoring in the upper 50 percent in the area of decision-making inclusiveness gained a 2-to-1 ROI advantage over organizations scoring in the lower 50 percent. This trend emerged from tracking 30 publicly held companies over five years.
�By using the PLOE�s organizational culture survey and leadership development survey together, we created a unique advantage in providing feedback to our GMs,� said French. �We were able to give a snapshot of their organization�s culture and then overlay on that the 360-degree feedback they received about their individual management style.�
Each year Cox Enterprises runs an intensive Executive Leadership Development Program, which targets high-potential managers who are being groomed to run one of Cox’s varied businesses, such as a television station or automobile auction company.
The objective of the program is to enable Cox leaders to operate successfully in unique, decentralized, entrepreneurial organizations during periods of rapid change.
The program includes individual assessments, a four-day Outward Bound Professional expedition, a yearlong relationship with an executive coach, development planning, on-the-job action learning , and simulation-based classroom challenges.
Outward Bound is one of the first experiences these executives encounter as part of the Executive Leadership Program. Outward Bound encourages participants to push past their comfort zones, take risks, and utilize teamwork to reach achievement and success.
Gordon French, director of executive development at Cox Enterprises, has worked with Outward Bound to develop an intense four-day immersion into the wilderness of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The group navigates through the forest using maps and compasses, and tackles activities like the high-challenge ropes course, rock climbing and rappelling, and backcountry camping - including a "solo" night. Participants also explore leadership styles, learning methods and team building techniques with professional Outward Bound facilitators.
"Outward Bound sets a standard for the intensity, risk taking and commitment we expect from these managers during the Executive Leadership Program," French said. "The Outward Bound experience challenges these leaders and opens them to the potential for further growth. This is vital since most of them have a natural resistance to changing the working styles that have been the basis for their success thus far."
Outward Bound enables Cox employees to recognize their true capabilities while at the same time realizing the support available to them from their peers. "This self-reliance gives them the confidence to push themselves – to stretch and choose serious individual development plans that they will pursue with the guidance of a coach throughout the rest of the program," French said.
In addition to individual development, Outward Bound is also successful in developing a strong sense of team. "Outward Bound pushes our people hard and provides them with the kind of shared challenge that research shows is central to leadership development," French said. "The combination of physical activity, critical decision-making with immediate consequences, and daily triumphs of will and spirit enables the team to form a powerful group bond that is unmatched by any developmental activity we know -- short of real business crises."
At the end of the Outward Bound course, the group convenes to discuss their experiences. They review moments of success and achievement before switching focus to discuss the leadership behaviors and the environment that that enabled them to produce such remarkable results. They explore ideas such as the Pygmalion Principle of motivation, the need to provide safety systems as a prerequisite for business risk-taking, and how a coach-manager who delegates and empowers employees to make decisions also enables them to grow through the ownership of their own work.