The world was pushed off its axis in the past few years, and no doubt your organization’s STRAP (Strategic Action Plan) was swept off along with it. As we navigate our way out of socioeconomic tailspins, are you effectively addressing your people strategy to enable your growth strategy?
Now, this blog isn't about hybrid working models or mental health advocacy or inclusion or burnout. These are all important conversations – make no mistake – but they're conversations for another blog, another time. What we’re talking about right now is:
Your organization made it through a rough couple of years, likely because of the deep experience, guidance and resilience of leadership. But, what if those same leaders weren’t at the helm: could you achieve the same results? Do you have the successors to step in and step up when the time comes? Does it need to take another catastrophic event to have a talent development and ongoing professional development strategy and succession plan in place? HR and L&OD leaders were asking for the C-suite's attention on effective talent strategies well before the pandemic. It's time we listen to them.
There is a unique opportunity to position the entire organization to capture value from your growth strategy and not simply brace for an economic downturn. To do so, you need a comprehensive growth strategy that leans heavily on the people and culture strategy. Below are three critical ways to effectively fuel and fill your talent development roadmap for the year ahead.
Great leaders are intentional about their leadership, and they understand that they operate within an organizational context. Leaders who understand and attend to this context are more likely to be successful in their roles than those who charge headfirst with an external approach counterproductive to the current organizational culture and objectives. We have a sneaking suspicion that the analogy of a bull in a china shop was first coined when a new leader returned from a self-funded week-long leadership training retreat program and decided to go rogue during a cross-functional QBR meeting.
What many leaders may not at once realize is that as much as they operate within an organizational context, they are also operating within the internal contexts between team alignment with departments, and functions that overlap. It is critical for new leaders to understand these nested contexts as well as to explore how these contexts shift together in time to drive the organization forward. It is important that your talent development strategy aligns the leader around your organization’s strategy, culture, objectives, purpose and the ecosystem within which it exists. By starting with your company’s unique characteristics and strategy, you are able to assess and create a custom roadmap for each and develop a more impactful method of leading.
Upskilling is a necessity, but it does half the job. For sustained behavioral change, leaders need to anchor their training into their daily leadership practices. Your leaders need to build their own SOPs (standard operating procedures) for how they are going to fit that newly learned skill within their current structure and system, how are they going to operationalize it on a consistent basis, and how are they going to work on perfecting it over time. Now, when you engage a bench of directors into this practice and get them to knowledge share their leadershipSOPs, you are activating the multiplier effect - creating consistency in leadership practice across an entire leadership bench and reducing the risk of silos.
Manager communication is the largest contributor to employee engagement and employer confidence. Consider how much importance your organization places on its strategy? How effective are your leaders at cascading that strategy in a meaningful way throughout the organization, any given year, quarter, or moment in time? When building your talent development strategy ensure that the outcome results in your leaders speaking the same language.
We mentioned in a previous article key excuses for not investing in frontline leaders, that leadership development is often provided to the upper ranks. You invest and enroll them in a 6-week or even a 6-month leadership development course. The leaders come out well-equipped with business and leadership acumen. Yet, the remainder of your organization (especially frontline leaders and high potentials) might as well bring an interpreter because your leaders are not speaking a language they can readily understand, receive, and repeat. Subsequently, these emerging leaders are not able to communicate the priorities of the organization to their team, and pretty soon a well-intended cascade can turn into a swamp of misinformation and resistance. By providing consistent frameworks for coaching, giving feedback, accountability, change management as well as self-assessments, your talent development strategy will yield greater self and other awareness, greater accountability, and greater commitment to your organization's strategy and vision.
The quick thinking and deep experience of your leadership team may have helped navigate your organization through this pandemic. What about future change events? How well is your organization positioned and postured to manage the next transformational change without so much heavy lifting from the C-suite?
At the enterprise and executive level, identify your change leaders, your command sergeants. Equip them with strategic thinking and leadership tools to effectively lead the organization through change. Your mid-level managers and directors are the bridge between the strategy and execution of a successful (change) initiative. Is this layer of middle management equipped to interpret the vision and objectives for the change and translate the organization’s goals into actions and measurable outcomes? Finally, the most resistance to change is likely to come from the frontline (as is turnover). Are your frontline supervisors aware of the crucial role they play as change agents in the change strategy? Are they equipped with how to communicate and navigate the change successfully and still retain talent?
The key is not to assemble the task force at the next change. It is to equip your task force now for any change. For each level to recognize what their role is in any given change event. To be poised, not braced, for the next change impact.
Your business strategy needs to include a talent development roadmap that spans from frontline through to executive-level leadership traits. Develop or invest in a program that grows in complexity with the leader’s role.
Not sure where to start developing leadership skills? How about here.