Prioritise and Accelerate Capability

Many of my clients ask me how they can accelerate capability and learning in their organisations in order to support growth. Here are some ideas.

Business models and talent needs are changing faster and is more emergent than ever. A 2008 IBM study on “Unlocking the DNA of the Adaptable Workforce” found that the biggest issue faced by organisations was “the inability to rapidly develop skills to address current and future business needs”. This was followed by “lack of leadership capability” and “employee skills not aligned with current organizational priorities”.

First question: How well is it being led? Heidrick and Struggles write that it needs a Chief Human Resources/People Officer with broad general management skills, a broad business perspective, analytical insight, innovative thinking and a strategic and agile mindset. They also say that it needs talent management to become an instrument of business transformation that advances strategy, develops agile leaders and transforms culture. They need to actively shape the company’s direction and they need to ensure the organisation can stay ahead of the curve. This requires them to be disruptors and detach themselves from the urgent box.

Furthermore, it needs a CEO that is the Chief Enablement Officer. As BCG states: “ CEOs have an obligation to to make their company stronger in a sustainable way. Therefore, they need to create an enabled enterprise.”

Second question: Are focusing on the right things? The Institute for the Future for the University of Phoenix Research Institute call out these skills required for 2020. Are you focusing on these?

• Sense making – determine the deeper meaning of what is being expressed
• Novel and adaptive thinking – thinking skills and solution orientation that are systemic and critical
• Social intelligence – able to connect to others in a deep and direct way
• Trans disciplinary
• New media literacy – able to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms
• Computational thinking – able to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and understand data-based reasoning
• Cognitive load management
• Collaboration (incl. virtually)
• Design Mindset
• Cross cultural mindset – able to operate effectively in different cultural settings

Finally, are your Talent and Capability development strategies innovative and world class?

• A good talent model like the one Booz and Company has developed includes a strong talent culture, differentiated capabilities, leadership development and performance acceleration that interacts seamlessly.
• The competence approach needs to be changed out for an experience based approach. And use advances in learning science, cognitive psychology, educational psychology, neuroscience and other fields to innovative your learning approaches. The Talent Strategy Group write: “Typical competency approaches do not help managers accelerate employee development. A fundamentally different approach is needed to develop learning faster.” Experience accelerates development and actually demonstrates capabilities. Yet, very few organisations use experience based development frameworks to focus on outcomes. We are too busy focusing on inputs.
• The 2008 IBM study found that the two most effective methods of employee development were “on the job training” and “job rotation”.
• The 70:20:10 model needs to change to a Workflow Learning model. As Arun Pradhan writes in his Linked In article, organisations need to blend Formal training, Social learning and Performance support to ensure there is adequate reflection, mindset and behaviour shifts and learning and unlearning occurring. He describes the dynamic interplay between behaviour and mindset as the key driver of learning and change.
• Formal training must be experiential and based in the real world. Stories need to be used liberally and learning must be collaborative. We need to help people reduce cognitive overload.
• Use that technology or you will be left behind. If you are not combining e-learning and virtual coaching with real experience and collaboration, if you are not tracking performance and using analytics, you are stuck in slow and expensive talent and development processes.