Training up leaders the Facebook way

With a broad mandate intent on bringing the world closer together, Facebook’s success still begins at home, according to Keami Lewis, head of manager effectiveness.

And at the company’s corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., business success is dependent upon ensuring leadership readiness amongst employees, said Lewis, speaking at the Canadian Talent Management Summit in Toronto in July.

Focus on transparency, authenticity

With Facebook’s workforce closing in on 19,000, the company prides itself on a flat organization driven by an open and transparent culture that caters to workers’ individual strengths — traits they are both skilled in and passionate about, she said.

“Leader and employee development is not a nice-to-have at Facebook,” said Lewis. “It is a must-have.”

The Mark Zuckerberg-led company focuses on having a culture where people are ready to lead.

In a nutshell, the culture looks a lot like a Facebook page that neatly conjoins life and work, said Lewis.

“A lot of times when you join companies, in your mind, you keep work life and personal life separate, to a degree,” she said. “At Facebook, we use our real pictures, our real posts. There’s a level of transparency and authenticity at Facebook that’s just a part of the culture. It’s how we do business; it’s how we speak; it’s how we develop people.”

With a Facebook profile and page at the centre of the business landscape, being a leader includes taking subtle actions such as “liking” posts by all types of team members, not just specific individuals, said Lewis.

“This is the first reality check as to how authentic and real the culture is.”

The social media giant’s family of apps also includes Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, and the push is on to add virtual reality and augmented reality to the offerings going forward.

“This is where a lot of growth is coming, and where a lot of the manager and leader capability is needed,” said Lewis.

Developing leaders

The company’s rapid growth is due in part to the open and transparent culture, she said. Managers can quickly go from guiding many direct reports to just a few, then back again, while employees can choose which team they want to work for.

Getting a feel for a variety of roles is important to organizational success — something that can also be achieved through events known as “hackathons.”

“Our organization is very flat and what we like to do is see people move around, across, up, down, all over the place,” said Lewis. “Career development is like a jungle gym.”

“We are OK with movement,” she said, noting that moving into a management role does not equate to a promotion at Facebook. Instead, it is viewed as connecting workers with their strengths.

Eventually, when a worker has picked up enough new skills in her compensation level, she can move into a more senior position, said Lewis.

Manager expectations and job experiences are laid out at every level, while training or conversation is offered through a very open Facebook group process.

“Our feeling is ‘I can learn from everyone around me,’” she said. “There’s a lot of learning that happens through connections, posts.”

“We have a couple of things we don’t bend on: crucial conversations, situational leadership, and strengths — that’s it,” said Lewis.

“The reality is everyone is expected to be a leader, to be able to lead within your space. Becoming a manager at Facebook is not a promotion. It’s a choice.”

It’s a company of builders, she said.

“When you become a leader or manager at Facebook, you don’t stop building, you don’t stop doing work. You’re actually doing real work and you’re managing in addition to that.”

Corporate culture is focused on preparing workers to be ready to lead, and identifying those in which leadership is a strength.

Hiring managers who naturally jive with Facebook culture can prove challenging, she said. About 25 per cent of managers are hired into the company.

“We try to keep a ratio of 70-30 homegrown to hired-in, though some teams are as high as 90-10, especially in the engineering space,” said Lewis. “It’s a very tricky proposition that we face.”

Challenges include getting new recruits up to speed quickly enough to have an impact, and relying on millennials — many who have never managed before — to earn team trust.

The company is constantly looking for impact and results alongside performance and employee satisfaction reviews held every six months, she said.

Training, coaching, career development

Facebook is openly different, said Lewis. After boot camp, new recruits are able to choose their role and can alter their positions following scheduled hackathons. Managers often need to work to keep high performers on their team.

“This is where some of their real-life learning and training and switching and strengths application occur,” she said.

Facebook offers few formal coaching programs, relying on people to solve issues in online groups or high-tempo, half-hour meetings, said Lewis. If training is offered, it is very intentional.

“We pull people into classrooms very rarely, and when we do, we really put a stake in the ground and we measure to see if it’s actually having the impact it’s supposed to,” she said. “It’s really happening on the job.”

Overall, Facebook is aiming for authentic and customized development by making coaching available to everyone, said Lewis. The company favours on-demand coaching over executive coaching as it allows for a wider swath of the working population to have access.

“We’re all about culture,” she said. “As a manager, you’re expected to be able to demonstrate that culture, lead that culture. Everyone in the company is expected to be able to do that, so it’s extremely important that everyone understands it and is embodying that as they go through their roles.”

To develop individual employee strengths, Facebook offers career conversation classes to hone in on each worker’s “sweet spot.”

“People that are playing to their strengths every single day are more engaged, they stay longer,” said Lewis. “They’re more content.”

From there, the company attempts to support career development building on those strengths alongside inclusive, diverse teams.

 “That represents our world and this is where we think we’re going to get the best ideas and best innovation,” she said.

Facebook’s learning and development techniques are derived from the organization’s values: build social value; move fast; be bold; be open; and focus on impact.

“Everything that we are doing should be connected to the vision and mission of the company and how you can actually build something of value to the communities outside of the company,” said Lewis.

“You need to get going. You have to just move, even if it’s only partially done. We bring that into everything we do.”

“These are our tenets,” she said. “These are things that we do. That’s why we’re here and this how we do it.”