Don’t Have a Seat at the Table Yet? It Might Be Your Fault

I’ll be honest, the “seat at the table” complaint is a topic I find difficult to write about. Whenever I hear the words “seat at the table,” it’s like nails on a chalkboard in my brain. The biggest reason? Complaining about not having a seat is admitting our own ignorance about how the table works.

What Is “The Table?”

In the world of talent development, the table generally refers to the place where meetings and conversations are happening among the top, most influential leadership in a division or company.

We see our seat at this table as crucial to influencing talent development strategy and adding our voice to important decisions before they’re made. Thus, signifying our function’s move from a team of transactional order takers, to one of strategic business partners.

Sure. It’s logical to assume that if we were an active participant at this table, we’d be able to work in partnership with the business at a more strategic level. But the issue isn’t as simple as a lack of participation. The issue is we lack the understanding of why we’re left out.

Often, we think it’s because we aren’t respected, don’t have the right leadership advocates, or the company just doesn’t understand the impact we could have, if given the chance. This may be true, but more often, the real reason talent development isn’t included is that we haven’t done anything to show that we deserve to be there.

We act like once we get invited to the table, then we can start being more strategic. But this approach is completely backwards.

We aren’t invited in because we don’t act strategically now. We don’t demonstrate an understanding of business initiatives now. Based on how we act when we aren’t at the table, why would a senior leader believe that we would act differently once we’ve pulled up a chair?

The Art of Self-Sabotage

We like to think that there are organizational barriers in play, stopping us from this seat we long to occupy. But in most cases, we’re the ones stopping ourselves from participating and we don’t even realize we’re doing it. The very actions that we think are helpful are the same actions that hold us back. Consider the following “helpful” work patterns exhibited by the typical TD team. Do you see yourselves in any of them?

We take and deliver orders as requested. It’s great to fulfill neatly outlined requests from stakeholders for training, but it’s also our downfall. Every time we say yes to a request without diving deeper or ensuring it ties to a larger strategic initiative, we reinforce that a transactional process is the best way to work with talent development.

We strive to be helpful and easy to work with. We often go into this profession because we genuinely want to help. Pushing back on requests doesn’t feel helpful. It seems like it’ll cause conflict, discomfort, and make others not want to work with us. But our desire to help keeps us from asking tough questions, proposing alternatives, and looking through a longer-term strategic lens in our approach.

We believe someone else vetted training as the needed solution. When a stakeholder comes to us requesting a learning solution for their pain point, we often assume that they have already vetted other options. This stakeholder can be quite convincing, even using our language, telling us that people don’t know how to do “x,” so that means training must be needed. We believe them. Why wouldn’t we? Don’t they know their team better than we do? The truth is this same stakeholder is likely overwhelmed, buried in other problems, and may not have done the legwork to determine whether training is the best answer. Without diving deeper, we waste time, energy, and resources creating fantastic training that doesn’t solve the problem.

We create great content based on the latest request. We push out content continuously, based on the newest, most current ideas and needs. Our course libraries are packed with expertly created content. But each offering is somewhat one and done. There isn’t a strategy for continued development of skills or, if there is, it’s continuously changing. This reinforces the order-taking narrative with our stakeholders and makes our work appear haphazard vs. strategic.

We’re proud of our great work. When our TD programs are well-designed and enjoyed by participants, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the glow of our own solutions. In truth, the rest of the organization is more worried about responding to demanding customers, meeting their metrics, and quickly solving daily challenges. The fun and engaging TD program isn’t their priority. Whenever we let our own egos run the show, instead of business improvement, we sabotage our success.

We lean into our learning expertise first and foremost. We show up as learning experts who work in a business. Not business pros with an expertise in learning. Yet everyone who sits at the table thoroughly understands the business, how it operates, and its major challenges and goals. Sure, they bring their individual areas of expertise along for the ride and tap them when needed, but they don’t start there. Without understanding the business first, we aren’t seen as credible partners worthy of a seat but as nice-to-have extras waiting in the wings.

We capture and share positive activity and engagement metrics. We can easily report how many people attended training, completed e-learning modules, or clicked-on videos. We can also report that people enjoy our courses. So, when we’re asked for metrics, this is what we tend to share. But these metrics only show that we’re busy and that people like us. Put yourself in the shoes of the people at the table who are making critical decisions and setting the strategy and direction for the company to succeed. Would you conduct that work based only on participation numbers and smile sheets? We need to share metrics that help to make business decisions and show how our work moves business forward.

Final Thoughts

From our TD lens, we might see all these actions as positive. We aren’t trying to sabotage our success. But we are living smack in the middle of a pretty big blind spot in terms of what’s needed to think and work differently.

From the standpoint of the senior business leader sitting at the table, each of these approaches reinforces the narrative that TD is great at taking and delivering orders. They don’t show any inkling of TD’s ability to work as a strategic partner to the business.

If we want to work as strategic business partners, we need to drop our complaints about not having a seat at the table and focus on doing the strategic work that shows we understand what it means to sit there.