Accelerating career growth requires a positive employee experience. Amex believes that means helping each high potential employee enjoy a unique development opportunity.
- By Robin Byrd

Ever wonder how many middle management employees have the potential to become cross-functional leaders?

American Express Canada did, leading to the implementation of the Accelerate Your Growth (AYG) program as an innovative approach to providing leadership development opportunities to high potential employees. It is a nurturing program that is unique to each participant and includes a diverse set of training elements. Naomi Titleman, vice president and chief human resources officer for Amex Canada and vice president human resources for the Amex Bank of Canada, explains, “We asked ourselves what we could do for high potential employees at lower levels to give them opportunities for leadership development. AYG was the result and was first implemented in Canada, but will be rolled out into other markets.”

Wrapping Arms Around Talent
The Accelerate Your Growth Program is unique in that it develops select middle managers, as opposed to senior managers, so they can take advantage of opportunities to move into the next level of leadership. AYG has four goals.

“The first is to really wrap our arms around our highest potential talent and make them feel like they are enjoying a unique development experience,” Titleman said.

The remaining goals include fostering cross-business network opportunities, establishing a network of rising stars and developing high potential employees. The eight participants in the six-month program are selected from different lines of business to strengthen the program’s network building feature. Its four training components comprise a diverse set of activities that provide an immersive experience. The first component is a 360 review and feedback tool used to assist individuals, with each participant also working with a peer who provides personalized feedback.

The second component is coaching, with each participant receiving personalized coaching from an external coach. “This is a unique experience at the middle manager level – to get one-on-one coaching from an external coach,” Titleman says.

The third component consists of a core curriculum offering a traditional type of training concerning concepts of importance to career growth at American Express. These concepts encourage participants to think more broadly about things like sponsorship and developing a growth mind-set. The core curriculum is not necessarily technical training but more career development-type training opportunities.

The fourth component is the most unique and consists of a stretch assignment which takes place at the end of the program. For the 2014 program, American Express partnered with the nonprofit World Vision, followed by assigning the AYG team the task of developing innovative solutions to increase the nonprofit’s corporate donors.

“In the Canada market, the stretch assignment became a way to provide consultative experience,” Titleman elaborated. “All of the individuals who participate in the program have great backgrounds – some marketers, some operations people, some finance people, and so on. It is a great opportunity to take their skills and apply them to a nonprofit organization.” The AYG team worked on the project with World Vision and made recommendations to address one of World Vision’s key challenges – finding donors. World Vision has implemented many of the recommendations, a sign of program success.

Flat Hierarchy for the Greater Good
There are numerous benefits to using the stretch assignment for leadership development. Since the participants are working in a cross-functional capacity, the leaders take themselves outside the day-to-day operations and apply their unique skills to problems outside the corporation. Each participant is working with the cross-functional team to develop solutions for the greater good.

The stretch assignment also develops leadership skills in a different way. The team structure is a flat hierarchy in that members are on the same level. Each has to really flex their leadership muscle, work together and find solutions for this very real assignment.

“In terms of leadership development, it really helps to be in a situation where you have to lead among your peers in an unfamiliar environment and while dealing with an unfamiliar problem,” Titleman explained.

The Accelerate Your Growth program was developed as a template in headquarters but has built-in flexibility for rollout to other markets. For example, the stretch assignment can be a business case or a philanthropic case, depending on the setting. “If a topic like growth mind-set does not work for some reason in a culture, or the classes or instructor-led training does not fit into the culture, there is the flexibility to provide the feedback to our central team and adapt the rollout to what is most pertinent in that market,” explains Titleman.

Rolling Out Success
One of the biggest challenges is sustainability. As the AYG program gains traction, staying true to its intent and structure while also getting the most bang for the buck is important. Each group of people is intentionally kept small because the program is intended to be unique to the participants and not applicable to the masses.

“We must be deliberative about whether we want it to be that small every year or whether we want to roll it out every year to new markets. Are there enough eligible participants that we can roll it out every year without the program becoming mass or commercial?” Titleman asked.

Her team relies on strong partners in the American Express global talent development group to leverage best practices in terms of content and tools in order to develop a market-customized program. If rolled out correctly, it is likely to be a key talent retention tool because it makes the participants feel empowered and recognized. They get to interact with the most senior-level executives, develop leadership skills, get exposure within the company and gain experience working for a cause that is outside the day-to-day work.

“It is important to think outside the box in terms of retention, engagement and development. Those things are often entwined,” Titleman says. She encourages other companies to think about an impactful high potential strategy for their companies and ways to engage and retain high potential employees outside of using traditional compensation.

For American Express Canada, the AYG program is a nice way to send a signal to employees that the company cares about its employees, their development, and investing in them for the future