Learning Impact, Nigeria's first 360-degree feedback tool, redefines business leadership - Businessday NG

In an increasingly competitive business environment, Learning Impact's first Nigerian indigenous 360-degree feedback model is redefining how organisations assess performance, develop talent and drive sustainable growth. Omagbitse Barrow, the chief executive officer at Learning Impact, told Business\day in a chat that the management consulting firm which was founded in 2010, has, through their models, supported organisations to translate their intent into strategy and their strategy into results with a variety of solutions, products and tools. "The biggest challenge that leaders face is emotional awareness, particularly a lack of self-awareness. As you grow in leadership, you need brutal assessment and feedback to keep you on track, and this is often missing. "Investments in leadership training and fancy coaching programmes need to be supported by data driven insights. Hence the need for 360-degree feedback for leaders," he said. Barrow emphasised that when it comes to strengthening the capability of leaders and improving the culture of leadership in organisations, the firm has developed the first of its kind indigenous 360-degree feedback tools that organisations can use to collect feedback from direct reports, peers and supervisors of its managers and leaders. "Prior to this solution, many Nigerian organisations depended on foreign tools at significantly higher costs and must spend scarce foreign exchange to access these solutions from abroad," he noted. Besides, he noted that the outputs from the tools help businesses and organisations develop and implement leadership development programmes. "The feedback also helps the leaders to improve their self-awareness and offer valuable insights that the organisations can use to make important talent, succession and career management decisions. "Without this type of anonymous feedback, leaders tend to grope in the dark, miss their bind spots and inflict significant cuts and bruises on themselves, colleagues and their organisations. Everything rises and falls on leadership, so organisations must do everything to improve the effectiveness of their leaders to achieve the results they desire," Barrow stated. The strategy to results (STR) gap Barrow further explained that many organisations in Nigeria, Africa and around the world struggle with the gap between their intention and the results they achieve. Research shows this is often because of gaps in six areas: inattention to execution at the highest levels; lack of systems approach; weak leadership and managerial capabilities; misaligned culture; ineffective communication; and lack of adequate measurement and accountability. To mitigate this challenge, he said, the firm has developed interventions, solutions, products and tools that will help business owners achieve the needed results. "Rather than relying on emails, spreadsheets and other manual means of tracking strategy initiatives, the S-Tracker uses modern and sophisticated technology to create the discipline of execution that organisations need," he explained. Driving Strategy Execution and Accountability Another area where Learning Impact has made a significant contribution to the Nigerian business community over the years is in supporting organisations translate their strategy to results through its solutions and products that relate to strategy development and execution. Barrow explained that the company, through the solutions, helped organisations such as the Corporate Affairs Commission's Information Technology Department to develop and implement a robust transformation strategy and programme that helped CAC and other stakeholders improve Nigeria's ranking on the Global Ease of Doing Business Index during the Buhari administration. "At PTAD, we also deployed another innovative indigenous tool - the S-Tracker: a strategy management, implementation and tracking software that ensures that strategy initiatives can be tracked, managers can be held accountable, and performance on strategy initiatives can be reported and analysed effectively for improved decision making. "Prior to this, organizations use physical notebooks, files, spreadsheets and emails to track their strategy initiatives. With the S-Tracker, organizations like PTAD and countless others can improve strategic outcomes with ease," he said. Creating a Culture of Learning Most globally successful organisations, he said, are those that have a culture of learning where managers and leaders are committed to learning and development and can translate this to innovation and improved performance. He decried the fact that often investments in learning are curtailed because of dwindling financial resources or economic setbacks that organisations may face. However, he reiterated that forward-thinking organisations embrace eLearning, using technology to improve the sale, impact and reduce the cost of learning, while creating a culture of continuous learning and innovation. "eLearning ensures that organisations can deploy product training for their staff across branches, induction and onboarding for new employees, specialist programs to support customer education for clients across the country, and to build the capabilities of managers and provide additional learning support for traditional training programmes, all at a lower cost. "It is transforming the way organisations learn and we're a pioneer in this effort in Nigeria," Barrow revealed.