A Home For Talent: BDP's Leadership Development Program

Growth is second nature to us at BDP

Our history has evolved from stories of typewriters to launching voice-activated tracking technology. Leadership is critical to steering the ship in the right direction to navigate changes.   

Just like a high-performance vehicle needs high octane gasoline, leaders - and future leaders - need lots of fuel. If you want employees to achieve peak performance, you need to invest in new resources and challenges to grow their leadership skills. An investment in leadership always pays dividends, because leadership is contagious. 

Leaders impact their teams, their peers, their managers - they don’t settle for the easy answer; they ask ‘Why’ and take the extra step to solve fundamental issues that benefit the customer and the organization. 

As we have grown larger and more global, the need for a global leadership program has grown too. So, in 2017, BDP launched the BDP Aspire Leadership Development Program (LDP). Employees from various levels across the organization were encouraged to apply. The program, which has just concluded this year, had over 250 total participants from the coordinator level up to senior-level executives.  

We were fortunate to have such a diverse group of ambitious, driven, and innovative leaders participate in our inaugural program; my team and I were excited to have the opportunity design a program to enrich our leaders’ professional experience to tackle future challenges! 

By customizing each level, we were able to help them develop professional skills and career planning in the most impactful way for them, and thus the organization as a whole. It was interesting to see the response of the participants at each level, particularly the EDP group of individual contributors. We found that our developing leaders had a sense of their skills but wanted the freedom to use the right tool for the right outcome. We challenged them to complete an ‘Opportunity for Improvement’  (OFI)  project. Personally, I thought this was one of the most impressive outcomes of the program. As I watched their presentations, I could not help but feel inspired – and all the more eager to help foster an environment where future leaders can share their ideas to shape the future of BDP! 

“Our employees are the most important part of our past, current, and future success," our CHRO, Marcia Lyssy notes in BDP’s Strategic Plan, “Growing Better, Growing Stronger’. 

“We are committed to helping our people build successful careers by providing enhanced job skills training, leadership development, and opportunities to contribute to organizational innovation.” 

The BDP Aspire LDP program is a key component of our strategic plan, as the LDP participants are tomorrow’s leaders, who will carry the torch to the future as we write a new chapter for the organization.