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Paul Warner

With the release of its new Talent Development Capability Model, the Association for Talent Development serves TD professionals with the most comprehensive compilation of skills, concepts, and strategies necessary to fulfill their roles. It is important to emphasize that those efforts can achieve maximum impact only when guided by a comprehensive talent management (TM) strategy.ATD’s new model groups capabilities into three domains: building personal capability, developing professional capability, and impacting organizational capability. Talent strategy and management is one of the model’s 23 capabilities and resides in the impacting organizational capability domain.A TD professional with capability in talent strategy and management will need knowledge of:talent management functions (for example, workforce planning, acquisition, employee development, performance management, and compensation and rewards)succession planning and talent review processes (for example, assessment, scenario planning, talent mobility, and critical roles identification)methods to identify the critical requirements of tasks, jobs, and roles (for example, job analysis, competency modeling, and leadership competency development),talent acquisition strategies and concepts (for example, talent mobility, employment branding, sourcing, passive and active recruiting, and onboarding), and approaches for identifying and developing high potential talent.According to Capabilities for Talent Development (ATD Press), to fulfill capability requirements, TD professionals need to be skilled at:creating and aligning the talent development vision and strategy with the organizational and business vision and strategydesigning and implementing strategic plans for talent development projects, programs, or functionsidentifying anticipated constraints or problems affecting talent development initiatives (for example, resource deficiencies or lack of support)establishing and executing a marketing strategy to promote talent developmentcommunicating how talent development strategies and solutions support the achievement of targeted business and organizational resultscommunicating the value of learning and professional developmentdeveloping workforce plans that articulate current and future talent and skill requirements designing and implementing a performance management strategy.Among TD veterans recognized for leadership in this area is Martha Soehren, who transitioned from CTDO to senior vice president of HR at Comcast in November as she prepares for a July 2020 retirement. Throughout her career, Soehren has appreciated the importance of a multifaceted talent management strategy built on fundamentals.“For a TM strategy to work effectively, it must be embraced from the top down,” she insists. “Over time, it evolves from the bottom up, especially in the evaluation of talent and the determination of successors for key roles within the organization.” She adds that it’s important to build a “holistic support system” for such activities rather than conduct them on a piecemeal basis.Those activities must be tightly connected to development, Soehren says. “Regardless of whether that development is formal or informal, internal or external, high potential or broad-based, there must be a way to help build future capabilities so that people can progress and align with both short- and long-term objectives.”But most importantly, she believes, talent management and development must be rigidly aligned with the business.“That’s not easy and people don’t always do it,” Soehren observes. “After all, it’s difficult to build those relationships that get you a ‘seat at the table.’ We have to earn that seat by showing that we’re learning the business, that we’re operationally focused, that we ‘get’ L&D, and that we achieve measurable impact to support our initiatives.”Soehren believes that some TD professionals are often “so tied up with the didactics of L&D that they overlook the connection between learning impact and business impact.” She says some have even abandoned the practice of measuring TD impacts entirely because their companies don’t expect a return-on-investment of training.“That’s sure not my world,” she muses. Comcast’s senior executives expect to know the precise difference that learning makes for employees and hold her accountable. The scenario includes a heightened priority regarding inclusion of women and people of color in the workforce.Sometimes that accountability can surface in ways one can’t envision, such as in 2014 when Comcast announced its intent to acquire Time Warner. Comcast University was ordered to identify top talent within Time Warner for possible reassignment to new roles within the combined company. For six months, Soehren and teammates visited Time Warner markets to meet with key talent and high potentials for the proposed new organization.The merger was ultimately quashed by the U.S. Justice Department but not before Soehren and colleagues learned some valuable lessons. Among them: “When you’re going through that period of analysis, you have to evaluate the best and the weakest of both companies so that you emerge with the best of the best,” she reports.She says that’s not an easy process because “you must accept that your own team isn’t composed of all A players, and that this is an opportunity to up your game for your organization.”Soehren also has strategic thoughts about the future of her profession. “In the world of L&D, we haven’t nailed down what it means to work and lead within a global, digital organization. Learning leaders have a great opportunity to define what that looks like and set the stage for success—not just for the learning organization but for business leaders too,” she says.“Learning leaders, trainers and program managers will all be operating and training differently. They will have to learn a new kind of software set and other technologies. As a result, I believe most L&D professionals will become learning coaches and learning builders.”

Talent Strategy and Management Is a Vital Capability for TD Professionals

Program failure in government can have dire consequences. Aside from the highly visible nature of mismanaged public programs, failure results in wasted taxpayer dollars in a political and economic climate that requires scrutiny on every dollar spent. A new study released from Project Management Institute (PMI) found that government organizations risk $148 million for every $1 billion dollars spent. This is $13 million more than the general survey findings—demonstrating that government lags behind private industry in key success areas that point a way forward for effectively managing programs.PMI President and CEO Mark A. Langley announced these and other findings from the 2013 Pulse of the Profession™ at a meeting of the Government Efficiency Caucus, chaired by Rep. Todd Young (R-IN) and Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT). Other featured speakers included Dr. Paul Light, Wagner’s Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service, New York University, and Mr. Richard Garrison, Vice Chancellor, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Acquisition Academy.“There are pockets of excellence in the federal government that are already using strong program management practices, and are seeing positive results,” said Langley.  “It is essential to continue nurturing a program management culture government-wide.  Establishing a job classification agency or government-wide for program managers, and ensuring a career path—two relatively simple steps—can help government complete programs more successfully, use taxpayer dollars more efficiently, and deliver more value for their constituents.”According to the Pulse, despite a strong link between dollars at risk and program management, just 46 percent of government organizations understand the value of program management. Additionally, program success rates are declining, with just under two-thirds of programs meeting their original goals or intent, a significant decline since 2010.The study shows that both government and the private sector have work to do in effectively aligning program management with organizational strategy and mission. More than half of the government respondents (52 percent) acknowledged that they frequently focus on their specific departmental performance objectives as opposed to the strategic goals of the organization or agency (significantly higher than the 43 percent reported in the global average).The study also found that the role of program management in government is not reaching the level of executive visibility seen in the global average. Only 11 percent of government organizations have a senior-level program management related role— a critical component of high-performing organizations—compared to 22 percent in the global average. Only 37 percent of government respondents reported that their organization currently has a formal process for developing program management competency and only 25 percent reported having a defined career path for those engaged in project and program management—a full 17 percentage points lower than the global average.Aligning with overall organizational strategy and understanding what it takes to become a high performer—completing 80 percent or more of projects on time, on budget and within goals—can improve an organization's outcomes.To access PMI’s _Pulse of the Profession_™ please visit www.pmi.org/pulse.

Poor Project Management Can Cost Government $148 Million, Says PMI Survey

May 2018 - ATD Links

Starbucks was front and center in the news on Thursday April 12, 2018, after two black men were arrested for loitering inside a Philadelphia store. In light of the respect Starbucks garners for exemplifying a servant leadership approach, the news headlines they drew point to how challenging it can be to operationalize servant leadership throughout an organization even under the best circumstances.Whichever side of the controversy you’re on, to his credit as a servant leader, CEO Kevin Johnson quickly, publicly, and personally acknowledged and took ownership for the incident. The challenge Starbucks is facing provides a timely opportunity to take a closer look at a leadership practice that is rooted in 2,000 year-old principles and to examine how Starbucks’s post-incident actions align with servant leadership principles.The term “servant leader” refers to Leo, a character in Journey to the East, a short novel by German author Hermann Hesse published in 1932. The story explored Eastern mysticism and a group’s travels in search of the ultimate truth. Leo, behaving as a servant, always seemed to have what travelers on their journey needed to move forward and, in the end, revealed himself to be the leader of their truth crusade.After reading Journey to the East, it took Robert Greenleaf several years to formulate the ideas that became a worldwide movement with his 1970 essay “The Servant as Leader.” He writes: “The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”A myriad of researchers and leadership practitioners, including Greenleaf, have explored many aspects of the original ideas to apply them to business leadership—so much so that today the term “servant leadership” returns almost 3 million results in a simple Google search indicating a pervasive interest in this leadership point of view.In The ASTD Management Development Handbook: Innovation for Today’s Manager, Bret Simmons makes a good point about why the idea of a servant leader is hard to grasp. He writes: “People have a hard time understanding how servant leadership might work, mostly because they have rarely personally experienced leadership practiced this way.”So, how do you know you’re working with a servant leader? Ken Blanchard, in Leading at a Higher Level describes barriers to being a servant leader. You’re not a servant leader if you are• motivated by self-interest• driven to collect and protect money, recognition, and power• hierarchical• killing the messenger (when you get authentic feedback)Considering the Starbucks incident, Robert Greenleaf’s description of what it means to be a servant leader is prescient and sets an even higher bar for anyone who serves their employees and customers. To Greenleaf, leadership is nothing less than a calling. The measure of a servant leader is focused on the development of those they lead. Greenleaf asks us to objectively observe the following.“Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or at least will they not be further deprived?”Greenleaf’s ideal for what it takes to be a servant leader is quite an undertaking and in practice, not for the fainthearted. The CEO of Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants offers up a more succinct but still encompassing description of what it takes to be a servant leader describing it as “the ability to both serve and lead and to do so without expecting anything in return.”Even so, selflessness of this kind takes time to prove to followers. It requires consistent evidence of employee and customer centered actions and decisions. Only over time will both learn to trust the leader’s motivations as being for the greater good. As result, one drawback to servant leadership is that it takes a commitment from leaders to persevere to see down-the-road results. But this long-term view may also be what’s required to support our current era of digital disruption.As the workplace continues to evolve towards flatter organizations and leverage collaboration across business functions to pursue innovation and ultimately customer-centricity, the role of leaders will be to get off the stage, clear the aisles, and serve up resources attentively and with deference to the needs and experiences of employee teams.Servant leadership in short or grande supply?As a servant-led organization, how has Starbucks served its employees and customers after the April 12, 2018 Philadelphia incident? Let’s see how Starbucks’ post-incident actions align with servant leader traits as defined by Larry C. Spears.Listening: Maintain a deep commitment to listen intently to others.Starbucks CEO meets personally with men arrested and with Philadelphia city officials to understand what happened.Empathy: Accept & recognize people for their special and unique spirit.“I’d like to have a dialogue with \[the two men\] to show some compassion and empathy for the experience they went through.” Excerpt from Starbuck CEO Statement April 16, 2018.Healing: Help make whole those with whom we come in contact.Starbucks CEO meets personally with men arrested and with community leaders. Starbucks is coordinating unconscious bias training with experts support on May 29, 2018.Awareness: Understand issues of ethics, power, and values.Both the CEO and the Chairman of Starbucks admit that the men did not deserve what happened and that the incident was a management not the store manager’s issue. (Starbucks, 2018)Persuasion: Convince others rather than coerce compliance.Not able to determine whether this was achieved.Conceptualization: Dream great dreams beyond day-to-day realities.The Starbucks CEO released a video as a follow-up to his statement making a commitment to address the circumstances and “be a better company for it.”Foresight: Consider lessons from the past, realities of the present, and consequences of a decision for the future.According to the Washington Post, crisis communication adviser Mike Paul says, “When you have a highly flammable emotional situation like a racial crisis you must match it with a highly emotional solution in the opposite direction,” he said, rather than a legal or branding solution.Stewardship: Hold something in trust for another.Starbucks has been the steward of the Philadelphia incident as well as of its employees by offering racial bias training.Commitment to the growth of people: Believe that people have intrinsic value.Starbucks closed 8,000 stores on May 29 to hold unconscious bias training at estimated cost of $12MBuilding community: Believe that true community can be created.Meetings with 40 Philadelphia clergy by Howard Shultz, executive chairman, and Kevin Johnson, CEO.There are critics and supporters of how Starbucks managed this crisis. Critics point to missteps Starbucks made by not calling the incident a racial issue in its initial communication and instead releasing a legal-sounding Twitter post. Critics also point to the futility of providing unconscious bias training, when the issues of racial profiling are systemic and hundreds of years in the making. Supporters laud Starbucks for its quick response and for going against the tide of legal advice by admitting wrongdoing. If, however, the measure of success is instead how closely Starbucks remained true to the principles of servant leadership, then its leaders seem to have done pretty well.What do you think? Does your company practice servant leadership? Did Starbucks do a good job of displaying servant leadership principles? Share your thoughts in the Comments below.References“Anatomy of a PR response: How Starbucks is handling its Philadelphia, by Jena McGregor, Washington Post.“Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders,” by Larry C. Spears, Spears Center for Servant Leadership.“Here’s how much it may cost Starbucks to close 8,000 stores for an afternoon,” Market Watch, by Tim Rostan and Max A. Cherney.Leading at a Higher Level, Ken Blanchard, 2010.“New Evidence of Servant Leadership’s Efficacy as a Managerial Approach,” by Bret Simmons, The ASTD Management Development Handbook: Innovation for Today’s Manager, Lisa Haneberg (editor).“The Servant As Leader,” Robert Greenleaf, The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.“Servant Leadership: A Worldview Perspective,” by J. Randall Wallace, International Journal of Leadership Studies, 2007."Starbucks and Servant Leadership", Penn State Leaderhip blog.“Why Isn’t ‘Servant Leadership’ More Prevalent?” Jim Heskett, Harvard Business School.© 2018 ATD, Alexandria, VA. All rights reserved.

Paul Warner

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