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Take the poll! pollev.com/leaderly. Women, Men, and Readiness to Stretch Jo Miller. What is a stretch assignment?. Stretch Assignment.
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Stretch Assignment A temporary assignment that helps an employee gain new experience and prepare for future roles from within their current position —while solving a real business issue.
Forming a new alliance/partnership Representing a division in a “reorg” or realignment Relaunching an Managing a VIP initiative that client account previously failed Getting closer to the customer Transitioning a process from manual to automated • Managing and communicating a change Leadership of a turnaround or crisis For example… Re-engineering a broken process Convening a taskforce to solve a tough problem Analyzing your product mix
An employee can benefit from a “stretch” when they want to: • Move up • Rebrand • Get “unstuck” • Make a comeback/be resilient • Be associated with a new department, leader or product
Employers can benefit from offering a “stretch” when they want to: • Offer a trial run. • Develop skills, at lower cost and higher return than other forms of development. • Provide cross-functional networking and knowledge-sharing. • Make an employee’s skills, value, and work ethic more visible. • Rapidly deploy talent to address business issues.
But can a stretch assignment create a true career breakthrough?
Pop quiz! ? % of senior leaders named stretch assignments as the #1 factor in unleashing their career potential? 71 “21st-Century Talent Spotting,” Harvard Business Review, June 2014
The most valuable career development experience • Action learning • Mentoring • Relationships • 360° assessments • Exposure to more senior leaders • Formal classroom training • Stretch or rotational assignments Planning a leadership development journey, Korn Ferry, 2014
People who land stretch assignments are more likely than other employees to get raises. Women In The Workplace Study 2017, McKinsey & Co. and Lean In
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Women are less likely than men to obtain stretch assignments. Women In The Workplace Study 2017, McKinsey & Co. and Lean In
Out of the Comfort ZoneHow Women and Men Size Up Stretch Assignments — and Why Leaders Should Care
Equal ambition • Women have equal (if not greater) ambition than to move into VP-level or C-level roles.(51% vs 48%)
What Be Leaderly’s Research Reveals… "My company makes it easy for me to gauge my readiness to advance." "I feel engaged and passionate in my current job."
Women feel they need to arrive great not become great • We found women less likely than men to be comfortable applying for a new role that’s a stretch while meeting only the ”bare minimum” requirements. (55% vs 65%) • Women are more likely than men to underestimate or “round down” their skills when assessing how ready they are for a new job (and less likely to “round up.”)
Men and women agree… Office politics, not lack of time, is the greatest practical challenge to taking on a stretch assignment.
How companies can createa culture of “stretch” • Initiate more stretch conversations • Encourage a growth mindset • Create an open marketplace for stretch opportunities
“When an organization has a well-thought-out plan for offering and overseeing stretch assignments, they are less likely to be seen as political, biased, or promoting favoritism.” — Jo Miler & Selena Rezvani
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