Turning a Vague Challenge Into a Program That Works: How We Approach Scoping a Leadership Development Program
Most leadership development programs don’t fail in the delivery. They fail in the scoping, before anyone has stepped into a room. A partner arrives with a broad ask, a format gets booked, and six months later nobody can say what changed.
Scoping a leadership development program well is the difference between an impressive activity and a lasting outcome. We asked Pablo, Executive Director at Emzingo, how he thinks about that early stage: the mindset, the shift from request to real challenge, and what leaders notice when it’s done right.
Start with the change, not the deliverables
What’s the mindset you bring into scoping a project, before any of the specifics? What are you really trying to protect or get right?
Before thinking about activities for a program or project deliverables, I try to understand what success actually looks like. There’s this saying, “connection before content,” that we, at Emzingo, take to heart. I believe every project exists to create some form of change, whether that’s new skills and capabilities, stronger relationships, better collaborations or decisions, or a shift in mindset. If we don’t understand the change we’re trying to enable, it’s very easy to build something that is busy, impressive, or technically correct but ultimately doesn’t matter. I want to make sure we’re solving the right problem, for the right people, in a way that fits their context. That means respecting the complexity of organizations and communities rather than assuming there’s a one-size-fits-all solution.
The request is rarely the need
Most partners come in with a broad ask. Without giving away the method, what shifts in how you think about it before it becomes a real project?
Most initial requests from partners or clients describe a solution rather than the underlying challenge. Someone might ask for a workshop, a learning journey, a design sprint, but those are formats; they’re not necessarily the need. The same happens with innovation projects: clients and teams, given a design challenge, immediately jump into solution thinking instead of starting by understanding the problem from a systems perspective.
The shift happens when we look beyond the request and ask what outcome the organization is really trying to achieve, or what problem we are trying to solve. Often the conversation moves from “What should we deliver?” to “What needs to be different when this is over?” That change in perspective opens up far better possibilities because it allows the project to be designed around impact rather than activities.
People support what they help create
What’s a principle you hold to when shaping a project that people outside this work tend to underestimate?
One principle I come back to repeatedly is that people support what they help create. Lasting change rarely comes from presenting the perfect answer or telling people what they need to be doing top-down. That type of approach is effective in very few, usually urgent, short-term instances. Lasting change, the kind that transforms an organization, a system, a community, comes from creating the conditions where people can make sense of the challenge, contribute to the solution, and feel ownership over what happens next.
Many people underestimate how important that ownership and co-creation are. You can have a brilliant recommendation, but if the people responsible for carrying it forward don’t see themselves in it, the project usually ends when the presentation does.
What a well-scoped program looks like from the inside
Can you share the difference a well-scoped project makes, without walking through how you got there? What does a leader notice when it’s done right?
A well-scoped project creates clarity. When a project is well-scoped, you will notice that the team’s conversations become more focused, team members understand why they’re doing the work, there’s better coordination, decisions become easier to make, and people stop pulling in different directions.
Also, you would notice that the outputs are actually used. Instead of producing reports that no one reads or workshops that are quickly forgotten, the work becomes something people continue to reference, build on, and apply. That’s usually the strongest signal that a project has been well scoped: the output is useful, relevant, and implementable.
What this means for your organization
If you’re considering a leadership development program, the questions that matter most come before any format is chosen. What needs to be different when this is over? Who has to own the change for it to last? A partner worth working with will push on those questions rather than quoting you a workshop.
That early conversation is where we do some of our most important work. You can see where it leads in the impact we’ve created with our partners, learn more about how we work with organizations, or start a conversation with us about the change you’re trying to enable.
