Why Traditional Talent, Learning & Development can’t support organizational agility
Traditional Talent, Learning & Development
In the past, organizations were designed around who was going to do what: Engineering, Manufacturing, IT, Sales, Marketing. Everyone had a mission. It was the responsibility of Learning & Development to identify what people needed to be able to do, then build training that would help them do that. It was the responsibility of Talent Management to ensure goals were set and performance was managed by their line manager.
Why Talent, L&D is different today
Fast forward to today.
Corporate strategy and the vision for how to achieve it may change throughout the year
The pace of skill changes is accelerating (digitization, automation, AI) requiring regular upskilling/reskilling
The org chart barely exists
Talent moves between teams as often as needed (for one week, one month, one year)
Part time gig workers/freelancers/contingent workers are likely to be involved
Teams have goals, people don’t
Team goals change rapidly with their assignments
Success achieving team goals is dependent upon the team as a whole, not the individual parts
So how in the world can Learning & Development support skill development that quickly when people’s skill requirements are changing frequently? How can Talent Management use traditional performance management approaches to measure success?
The answer? They can’t. Traditional Talent, Learning & Development can’t support organizational agility. So what do we do? Like the organizations themselves, we evolve.
How to adjust to new organizational agility requirements
We need to identify and build capability in real time, just-in-time, to support changes. We need to allow people in the roles who need the capabilities to own their achievement. There is simply no way for us to track the moving pieces. We must inspire them and empower them to do it themselves. That includes creating a development habit and culture of learning.
That means that they must be able to assess their skills against the competency model/requirements of whatever role they are in, and be provided with a personalized learning plan to close those skill gaps.
We simply provide the competency-based learning in consumable chunks (microlearning) across the 70-20-10 spectrum so everyone can get ONLY what they need. Some we’ll create… some we’ll curate. Most of what we create will be activities for experiential learning (e.g., skill practices). Our job is to make sure people have what they need and can access it with one click, regardless of where in the learning ecosystem it exists. Skill acquisition becomes more important than tracking.
Talent management will support a new growth mindset that measures performance based on continuous learning and contribution to team goals. Check-in conversations with the line manager of the moment will ensure calibration between individual and team, and help that person challenge themselves to maximize team value. This way every team has the capability to meet the short term changes in corporate strategy.
Do you buy into this rationale but need help selling a different approach to leadership? Watch the free ATD webinar, Building Capability vs. Performance Management: Using Competency Models to Look Forward Instead of Backward.