Maximizing Returns on Leadership...Competencies That Drive Growth

Greetings,

Many of us are looking for the magic answer to propelling our organization's business strategy. While we all recognize the importance of leadership and talent to that endeavor, we sometimes struggle to identify what we need to do to execute business strategy.

Research by the Corporate Leadership Council titled "Improving Returns on Leadership Investments" identified three places to focus on improving returns. This included:

1. Disconnected Strategy: Leadership Strategy is Not Integrated with Business Strategy
2. Misaligned Outcomes: Leadership Outcomes and Metrics Are Not Connected with Business Outcomes
3. Uncoordinated HR Activities: Leadership Activities are Not Integrated with Other HR Activities

At a high level...these are excellent approaches to improving returns on investment in leadership development activities. I have leveraged these approaches and still believe in their benefits in my new organization. These also align well with the Center for Creative Leadership's think piece on "Developing a Leadership Strategy."

Yet...while these high level pieces help align our thoughts...we have been missing something. What depth and breadth of leadership we need to drive growth?

Enter an interesting study from McKinsey&Company and Egon Zehnder, an executive search and consulting firm, titled "Return on Leadership - Competencies That Drive Growth." In the think piece, McKinsey and Egon Zehnder attempt to answer the following questions...

"There is little doubt that leadership quality is a key determinant of a company’s growth, but the specifics are frustratingly elusive. What matters more – analytics or people leadership? Is growth driven by a small group of stars or a broad leadership cadre? Should executives conform to one corporate leadership profile, or does diversity deliver faster growth?"

Leveraging McKinsey’s Granularity of Growth data from an extensive analysis of more than 750 leading companies worldwide and Egon Zehnder's leadership competency data in it's management appraisals, the report is able to identify areas of leadership development focus.

When companies in the bottom 25% and top 25% are compared against each other, those leaders in the top 25% are more highly rated in leadership competencies.

Specific areas from the think piece draw conclusions that are extremely relevant...

What this means is that companies can build leadership excellence in only a few selected competencies – and even then, this requires considerable time and investment. The companies with executives that excel at the competencies most relevant for growth therefore enjoy a significant competitive advantage that is difficult for others to replicate.

To generate growth, all companies need to build a critical mass of excellent leaders. Setting the bar high does not suffice but must be complemented with adaptations of business systems, talent management processes and high-impact capability building. Hence, companies should:

- ƒƒ Sharpen leadership development, by defining required competencies and skill levels for each job family and hierarchy level; anchoring critical competencies in all talent management processes, including recruiting, deployment, and assessment; and providing targeted support for the transition between senior management and top team roles given their differing skill sets.

-ƒƒ Innovate competency building, by building a “competency factory” to focus existing business processes and talent management practices on critical competencies; using “field and forum” approaches and “action learning” for sustainable change; and embedding leadership development in the company’s talent culture.

ƒ-ƒ Develop and promote “spiky” leaders by assessing the competency spikes of the current leadership team and talent bench; review the company’s existing leadership model and talent management practices for tolerance of spikes; and adapt the leadership model, talent practices, and internal communication to recognize the value added by the more unusual profiles. In addition, the utmost importance should be given to the composition of top and senior management teams. Our findings call for diverse teams with individuals of complementary leadership spikes.



These kinds of think pieces continue to point to the overall importance of leadership to organizational performance and success...but this starts to quantify in ways that can be explained to leaders in companies to drive investment decisions.

Cheers,
Keith

J. Keith Dunbar is a Global Talent Management Leader...Creator of Talent, Leadership Capability, and Culture Change...He can be found connecting and sharing knowledge on Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter: JKeithDunbar
LinkedIn: J. Keith Dunbar
Google+: J. Keith Dunbar
Blog: DNA of Human Capital

The opinions or views expressed here are mine alone and do not represent the views of the SAIC.

Global CEO Studies...A Broken Record

Greetings,

At the Davos World Economic Forum, PricewaterhouseCoopers unveiled the findings from their 2012 Global CEO Study.

I really like to look through these kinds of studies to get a sense of what CEOs and other C-Suite leaders are thinking. I am always particularly interested in what they see as talent and leadership challenges or priorities they want to address.

The PwC study is no different in that respect.

When asked "Have talent constraints impacted your company’s growth and profitability over the past 12 months in the following ways?" 1,258 CEOs responded with the following:

43% - Our talent-related expenses rose more than expected
31% - We weren’t able to innovate effectively
29% - We were unable to pursue a market opportunity
24% - We cancelled or delayed a key strategic initiative
24% - We couldn’t achieve growth forecasts in overseas markets
24% - We couldn’t achieve growth forecasts in the country where we are based
21% - Our production and/or service delivery quality standards fell

CEOs planned to attack these challenges primarily by three areas...

- We plan to move experienced employees from our home market to newer markets to circumvent skills shortages
- We plan to develop and promote most of our talent from within the company
- We plan to primarily recruit local talent wherever we have market needs

Additionally, not surprisingly, CEOs are looking for better information...this section of the report gives great insight that CEOs are looking for the right information to make informed decisions about their people/talent investments.

"CEOs are seeking a better understanding of the scale and effectiveness of their investments in talent. Productivity and labour costs remain important measurements; these are the tools investors, lenders and businesses use to benchmark progress (or lack of it). They are largely standardised in many industries, and thus easy to implement.

Yet for many CEOs, those tools aren’t enough. They’re very good at telling a CEO how the business is performing today relative to its peers, but not at indicating whether the organisation is investing enough in employees to generate future growth. Such measurements cannot isolate skills gaps, and struggle to identify the pivotal jobs that drive exponential value; they do not measure employee engagement or team performance, both of which are so critical for investments to foster innovation to bear fruit. These measurements are much harder to make, which is one reason why they’ve been neglected and why today, so many CEOs are frustrated with the issue of talent."

As my last post discussed...the people and talent challenges that many organizations face are very similar. That point continues to be driven home in CEO studies like this one from PwC. Year in and year out we see the same CEO perspectives...

If we were doing our jobs...would we continue to see these challenges over and over? Is the world we are in going to always be like this where our profession makes little progress in solving the problems that our leadership continues to see?

I recently had a discussion with HR professionals in an organization and the discussion turned towards business strategy. One person shared they didn't know or understand the business strategy in their organization...so let me be frank...if you don't understand your business strategy and how strategic people and talent capabilities support its success...you shouldn't be surprised to find the same things coming up over and over again...

Cheers,
Keith

J. Keith Dunbar is a Global Talent Management Leader...Creator of Talent, Leadership Capability, and Culture Change...He can be found connecting and sharing knowledge on Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter: JKeithDunbar
LinkedIn: J. Keith Dunbar
Google+: J. Keith Dunbar
Blog: DNA of Human Capital

The opinions or views expressed here are mine alone and do not represent the views of the SAIC.

The Osama bin Laden OP...Leadership and the Long-View

About a week ago we got the news that I didn't think we would see...a successful effort against our #1 threat...Osama bin Laden It was going on over 10 years since September 11, 2001 and the scars from that fateful day are still long and raw...But there is a lesson in this successful operation for public and private sector organizations. That is taking the long-view...

In many organizations we are so tied to the here and now and achieving short-term results and generating immediate self-gratification that strategy or long-view activities are really not a factor in discussions. Like you...I have seen it time and time again. That is why the Osama bin Ladin operation is so important from a leadership lesson in achieving long-term success of an organization.

Soon after the events of September 11th, our primary goal became to bring Bin Ladin to justice. While much has occurred in the intervening days that were both short-term wins and setbacks, we continued to focus on that long-term goal. Resources and planning were dedicated to this one goal that would represent a culmination of a nation's need to bring closure. Through three different presidencies...this has never waivered.

A leader must consistently balance the need for short-term results with planning and preparing for events that provide long-term success of the organization. My perception is that we sometimes forget this...whether Wall Street or 4-year Presidential terms...people that can envision and enable a long-term strategy are worth their weight in gold...even at today's prices. These people need to be identified and put in positions to use their skills to enable organizational success...not this instant...but at a point in the future.

Look around your organization and think of the numbers of people that operate as tactical, day-to-day task oriented people and the numbers in the organization that can truly develop a vision and long-term strategy for organizational success. There are PLENTY of the first and FEW of the latter. The few that you have are probably not being utilized for the strength they bring to the organization and if your leadership falls into the "PLENTY" category...unlikely that they will see it or value it. That has to change...

Take this lesson from the bin Laden OP and take a different perspective in your organization...you will be amazed at what results you will achieve.

Cheers,
Keith

J. Keith Dunbar is a Fearless Transformational Global Leader...Creator of Talent, Leadership Capability, and Culture Change…He can be found connecting and sharing knowledge on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter: JKeithDunbar
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jkeithdunbar
DNA of Human Capital: http://dna-of-humancapital.blogspot.com/

The opinions or views expressed here are mine alone and do not represent the views of the Department of Defense or the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Now We Know...Why CHROs Don't Think They Are Effective at Leadership Development

Greetings,

I have discussed on DNA of Human Capital a couple of times (OK...maybe more) about importance of leadership development and various studies that detailed importance and effectiveness considerations for leadership development. The most recent study was the 2010 IBM Global Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) studies. The CEOs communicated that leadership was important, even going as far to say that creative leadership is what is needed in today's world. The CHROs echoed this, but 2 of every 3 CHROs also indicated that they were not effective at building and developing leaders. That is not a good sign...

So at an event two weeks ago, I was expecting more of the same. At this meeting of Federal government leadership development leaders and practitioners was the Corporate Executive Board's Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) to discuss "Improving Returns on Leadership Development." At the beginning of the presentation were the details that I expected...In the CLC study, many organizations were moving to increase their investment in leadership development...that much was understood. Additionally, I wasn't surprised to find that only 19% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that their "Programs have delivered the Leader Capabilities Needed by the Organization."

So there I am sitting and thinking...OK...same results from the IBM work, but not anything new. The important questions for me were the following:

- Why do CHRO's think they are not effective?
- What do CHROs do to fix it?

I was pleasantly surprised to hear answers to those questions...

According to the CLC research, root causes for the poor returns on leadership development investments are attributable to three things:

1. Disconnected Strategy: Leadership Strategy is not integrated with business strategy.

2. Misaligned Outcomes: Leadership outcomes and metrics are not connected with business outcomes.

3. Uncoordinated HR Activities: Leadership activities are not integrated with other HR activities.

The rest of the presentation looked at three organizational case studies that were considered best practice. While I would like to discuss the details of the case studies...that goes beyond my agreement with CLC to share these results at a high level with each of you.

The great thing for my organization is that we were already working on developing both a Leadership Strategy and Leadership Capability Measurement Strategy, and aligning our leadership development processes with other Talent Management processes. While there is no magic dust that will help you and your organization in creating great organizational leadership capability, these three basic activities (OK...they are basic...maybe not easy...) these steps are the right things that can start to raise the veil of leadership development and the ability to improve returns on leadership investment.

Cheers,
Keith

J. Keith Dunbar is a Fearless Transformational Global Leader...Creator of Talent, Leadership Capability, and Culture Change…He can be found connecting and sharing knowledge on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter: JKeithDunbar
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jkeithdunbar
DNA of Human Capital: http://dna-of-humancapital.blogspot.com/

The opinions or views expressed here are mine alone and do not represent the views of the Department of Defense or the Defense Intelligence Agency.

You Need a Leadership Capability Portfolio Manager...

Greetings,

So we know that the 2010 IBM Global CEO and CHRO studies identified that both groups believe that leadership and leadership development is important, but 2 of 3 CHROs didn't think their organizations were effective at doing it. Let's start to take a closer look at something that can help change that equation.

Learning can be directed in one of three areas based upon the Unit of Analysis. This is typically focused on individuals or teams, but it can also be at the organizational level. The linkage to today's blog is by taking this same approach in the management of the learning and in this case...focused on an organization's leadership capability.

Disclaimer - I am NOT a financial investments expert. That is why I pay for the service from the pros to help me manage my resources. So what I am about to say is my simplification in terms for today’s blog.

In the financial services sector, it is fairly well known that as individuals we can make investments in a number of different financial instruments like money markets, bonds, stocks, etc. Each of these involves a strategy to maximize the return on investment, but each carries a form of risk. Investment strategies are intended to develop a portfolio of financial instruments that can weather periods of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity…like today’s global environment…for both short-term and long-term gains.

Now look at the investment your organization is making in leadership development. As discussed in previous blog posts, it is estimated that within the United States, that over $9.5 billion is invested in making leaders better. However, that investment is typically focused at the individual level. By investing in the individual’s leadership development, it is assumed we will reach a tipping point in the organization that will lead to maximizing the overall organizational leadership capability.

This doesn’t account for risk though. In the current global environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous…the VUCA environment plays havoc with the development of an organization’s overall leadership capability. In order to maximize short-term and long-term investments and returns on leadership development…a different approach is not only recommended, but required…that is portfolio management. Like a mutual fund manager, organizations need someone that can act as the Leadership Capability Portfolio Manager or LCPM.

To do this requires a strategic perspective by understanding the business strategy and the leadership capability needed to execute that strategy…so that is a no brainer. However, we know that most competency models that leadership development programs are based upon are focused on what leadership capability you need now and not building the kinds of leaders you need for future competitive advantage. Additionally, if you take a strengths-based approach to leadership development like me, you know that there are going to be some capabilities within your competency model that no matter how important they are…not everyone is or will be a 5 (On a 1-5 scale) in every competency. The law of diminishing returns kicks in and increased investment in developing a tactical execution focused leader into a strategic vision leader will be wasted.

Now enter the realm of the LCPM…Because this person or group in your organization understands the business strategy, HR/HC strategy, leadership competency model, future leadership needs to execute, etc. your team is better positioned to manage for risk in the leadership pipeline and make targeted investments in areas where more risk can be taken or areas where less risk is advisable. This approach also allows you to manage individuals as a true capability. For example, if you know that the business will need frontline leaders that are collaborative and with high emotional intelligence in the next 2-3 years and reduced change management because your future looks stable (OK…this is probably WAY unrealistic)…then you can afford to “divest” change management investment in the leadership development program in order to “invest” in more leader capability in collaboration and emotional intelligence.

Taking this approach shows a direct understanding of the business and future HR/HC needs o enable its continued success AND a prudent approach to human capital investment. So the only thing left is one question…

How are you managing your leadership pipeline?

Cheers,
Keith

Twitter: JKeithDunbar
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jkeithdunbar
DNA of Human Capital: http://dna-of-humancapital.blogspot.com/

Flexible Human Capital Response Options...

Greetings,

The world is filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) as I have discussed several times. This kind of environment makes agility and adaptability a premium in being able to deal with this environment and prevent what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls "Black Swan Events." Taleb's theory "refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences."

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) and military understand the importance of trying to identify Black Swan events early and prepare plans that allow commanders Flexible Deterrent Options (FDO) in the deployment of available forces. These show of force operations usually involve the build-up or deployment of forces, an increase in readiness and level of activity. The concept of Adaptive Planning provides the following:

"The adaptive planning concept calls for development of a range of options during deliberate planning that can be adapted to a crisis as it develops. Where the crisis builds slowly enough to allow, appropriate responses made in a timely fashion can deter further escalation or even diffuse the situation to avoid or limit conflict. Where such options fail to deter or there is not time to execute options, a stronger response may be required to protect vital interests. The eventuality of attack without prior warning must also be considered."

So in understanding this approach and why it is used in the Department of Defense, I turn to Human Capital Management(HCM). The current economic environment has created challenges in looking at strategy as a "long-term" need. In some respects during the initial stages of the financial meltdown...strategy was emerging on a weekly basis in many organizations. In that context, it was difficult for HCM to be proactive and support the business and really precipitated reactive tendencies.

So this provides the context for application of adaptive planning in creating flexible human capital response options (FHCRO) in private and public sector organizations. HCM leaders must start by getting into the organizations strategic planning cycle. Playing a proactive role in this process by understanding the organizations short-, mid-, or long-term strategy allows for defining the human capital capabilities (knowledge and skills) required to execute the business strategy. This however, is just to start...to create FHCROs, HCM leaders should conduct scenario planning sessions that seek to identify the most and least likely human capital situations aligned to the strategy. This allows thinking about potential Black Swan events and their effect on the organization's human capital.

By combining scenario planning and business requirements definition, the HCM leader can develop a series of tailored FHCROs that are agile and adaptable enough to adjust to quickly changing events. Because in the future...organizations that can adjust the fastest to VUCA environments will be the ones best positioned to excel.

Cheers,
Keith

Twitter: JKeithDunbar
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jkeithdunbar
DNA of Human Capital: http://dna-of-humancapital.blogspot.com/

Human Capital Dominance...That is the Goal!

My Department of Defense experience has provided me depth and breadth in a number of areas over the past 25 years. One of those is the concept of Information Dominance and application to our work as Human Capital Management (HCM) Leaders. The formal definition for Information Dominance is captured in this issue paper and is located below:

"Information Dominance" - the degree of information superiority that allows the possessor to use information systems and capabilities to achieve an operational advantage in a conflict or to control the situation in operations other than war while denying those capabilities to the adversary. (Current - FM 100-6, Information Operations)

When we think to what we are trying to achieve for our organizations...strategy execution, competitive advantage, long-term growth, etc...this is applicable to our activities in HCM. What a similar definition of Human Capital Dominance would look like is below:

Human Capital Dominance - the degree of HCM and workforce analytics superiority that allows the organization leadership to use human capital capabilities to achieve an strategic or operational advantage in a competitive market or industry sector while denying those human capital capabilities to the competition.

As HCM Leaders...this is what our goal should be. Providing our companies Human Capital Dominance and Superiority. A number of challenges impact our ability to achieve this ultimate goal in positioning our organizations for future success. We discussed one last week in the defining of knowledge, skills and capability requirements to execute business strategy. Others from the study included the following:

1. Determining headcount and FTE capacity requirements by job assignments and location.
2. Sourcing and recruiting individuals.
3. Developing training strategies.
4. Retaining valued talent within the organization.
5. Evaluating workforce performance.
6. Determining strategies for reduction in force, redeployment and retraining.
7. Understand collaboration and knowledge sharing.
8. Developing succession plans and career paths.

Recent articles and studies indicate challenges are on the horizon that will impact Human Capital Dominance at our organizations.

A recent i4cp survey of senior executives indicates "Nearly 50% of business executives say that the pace of change is becoming hard or impossible to predict...and it appears many companies will suffer as change inevitably happens: almost 20 percent characterize themselves as poor or very poor at handling such initiatives."

This has a direct impact on at least three of the human capital challenges addressed above. Particularly collaboration and knowledge sharing. The most agile and adaptable organizations now and in the future know that one person like the CEO must depend of a collaborative network of leaders to embrace and execute in the complex world we exist in now. This then impacts retention of valued talent and succession planning to provide organizational leadership the right human capital capabilities to succeed.

A recent survey by Execunet also identifies items for consideration. In its annual 2010 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report identified the following trends among senior executives.

• 45% of corporate leaders considered or prepared to voluntarily leave their organizations in 2009
• 80% of HR executives are concerned about retaining executive talent in the coming year
• 46% of CEOs claim their résumés are ready to send to a recruiter right now


What these informative surveys tell us is that Human Capital Dominance, while the goal, is a challenge to achieve. Those organizations that can negate their importance vs. effectiveness gaps at executing these key human capital challenges and can establish strong workforce analytics capabilities (human capital information superiority) will have a greater opportunity to achieve Human Capital Dominance. These organizations will enjoy greater alignment of HC to strategy, greater agility and adaptability in executing strategy, and a greater competitive advantage...no matter what market or sector the organization decides to engage.

A storm is brewing...as the economy improves, HCM Leaders will get opportunities to really show what our profession's contribution is to the organizations we serve. Doing our best to provide Human Capital Dominance will speak volumes!

Cheers,
Keith

Taking the Long View...Why "Strategic" Can't Mean One Year...

So I am a huge believer in Strategic Human Capital Management (HCM). Taking a strategic approach allows for you and your team to play a more proactive and impactful role in positioning the organization for success. Yet I am the first to admit that in today's world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA)...the ability to look strategically and plan for the Human Capital Capabilities (HCC) to execute the strategy is extremely challenging.

Because of VUCA pressures, the need for agility and adaptability are forcing time compressed strategy development and execution. During the recession, it appears strategy took a backseat to managing the organization's resources on a day-to-day basis. The external environmental factors were changing so quickly that survival was critical success factor...nit strategy.

A March 2010 Harvard Business Review blog titled "Strategy on the Morph" by Walter Keichel (Author of "The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World") really provides insight in to what was happening in respect to strategy. In the blog, this quote really points to the perspective that strategy is wounded.

You may have read one such proclamation in the Jan. 25 Wall Street Journal. "Strategy, as we knew it, is dead," argued Walt Shill, who leads Accenture's North American consulting practice. An article titled "Strategic Plans Lose Favor" goes on to quote him saying, "Corporate clients decided that increased flexibility and accelerated decision making are much more important than simply predicting the future."

So if HCM leaders buy in to this view...we should just sit and react. We can sit and wait for our customers to come and tell us what they want and how they want it and we can deliver on it. So if you believe that...you may be in the wrong profession.

Research by the Stanford Center on Longevity released in February that taking a strategic and "long-view" in HCM will be critical. The report titles "Population Age Shifts Will Reshape Global Workforce" indicates taking the long-view will be important based upon future workforce demographics. If we don't take a proactive stance to drive customers to think strategically about HCM and impact to future capabilities required to execute the strategy...then we are really not doing our job to support the organization's continued growth and mission accomplishment.

My virtual friend, Daniel John Roddy (HCM Leader for the Institute for Business Value (IBV) at IBM Global Business Services) stated it simply in a discussion on the One HCM Global Community on LinkedIn...

"But would you really want to recommend a major investment in building out your workforce in any country without understanding the social and economic implications of its urban development and demographic trends? I don’t think so.

And what if, in taking the long view, the emerging market workforce strategy itself could become a source of sustained competitive advantage? An input to strategy formulation, rather than only a work stream of the business execution plan?

In my view, firms hoping to differentiate on their emerging market workforce strategy will need to add three additional competencies to their current workforce analytics toolbox: population demographics, cross-cultural attributes analysis, and an understanding of, and vision for, what the United Nations has termed ‘Human Development’.

So actually, I don't think the quantification attempts in relation to human capital are the problem, more at issue is the typical reactive and short-term perspective we are bringing to the task.

Maybe I have been in China too long, but I have become a big believer in the importance in taking the long view of desired outcomes, in business and in life."


Taking the long-view is a critical competency for HCM leaders...one that we will need to continue to develop in order to lead our organizations in to the future.

Making the Globally Integrated Enterprise and the Human Network a Reality

So let me be upfront…I am a big fan of the companies I am about to write about this week. I think IBM and Cisco are world leaders in their respective industry sectors and we have much to learn from them, and if applied correctly within the context of your operational environment and culture can allow your human capital organization to “leapfrog” to a new level of partnership.

I think IBM and Cisco continue to do a fantastic job of looking at the external environment, understanding what is happening and looking into the future to see what the world will look like. Without this ability they cannot position themselves for future success and transition their business as necessary to meet changing market conditions. So the real question is what makes them so successful at it? Once they define a strategy…what makes it happen? Cash is always a good thing…can do a lot with that. Technology is super…it allows the connections to happen. But at the end of the day it takes human capital to execute, human capital that has the right knowledge, skills and attributes to execute the business strategy. Without it… doesn't matter how good your strategy is…you will not get from where the business is now to where it needs to be in the future.

So if this hypothesis is true…what makes IBM and Cisco better positioned to execute their business strategy? For starters, the Human Capital elements within IBM and Cisco are world-class organization themselves. I have seen Ted Hoff, VP for Learning at IBM, several times and the things they do are a testament to the position he has as a trusted advisor supporting IBM global operations. Both human capital organizations have an ability to understand what things are important in human capital development in enabling execution of business strategy and jettisoning transactional activities that while necessary, provide limited strategic value. By focusing on the business strategy and what human capital is necessary to execute, they are able to play a more proactive role as a partner to recommend various human capital courses of action, vice being ordered to create a five-day course (We have all been there…right?).

They are able to execute their role as strategic human capital developers because they have a process that identifies what organizational capabilities are needed to execute the business strategy, identify top performers overcoming these challenges daily in executing the business strategy and develop the necessary human capital development requirements down to the performance behaviors and knowledge, skill, attributes necessary for individuals. With human capital capabilities defined, IBM and Cisco are able to determine the current capacity of the workforce in these areas and make recommendations on where valuable and scare resources should be applied to develop the human capital capability. These recommendations can take the form of buying new talent, developing existing talent or outsourcing where talent is located.

The power this provides is amazing…As we have executed the same human capital development model within the context of my organizational environment; we have seen a compelling difference in our ability to engage our customers at a strategic level on what human capital capabilities they require to execute their mission strategies. Doing so has allowed the Defense Intelligence Agency Directorate for Human Capital to “leapfrog” 10 years of applied process in the private sector. While still early in our journey, it has started to pay dividends in having meaningful discussions with customers on their most important strategic human capital needs.

As Human Capital Leaders, we have spoken many times in the past about being strategic mission or business partners and showing the value of our efforts to the organization. Organizations like IBM and Cisco have achieved their success with a determined approach to human capital and talent development and its alignment to organizational strategy. My experience has shown that it can alter the customer relationship in a positive and meaningful way. As Human Capital Leaders...let's stop talking and start doing...it can make a difference.

Chief Learning Officer and the Chief Talent Officer - Natural Evolution or the End

I got to participate in a virtual meeting this week with two people from a leading executive recruiting firm. They shared their perspective on what firms were looking for in relation to Chief Learning Officer positions. While there were a number of interesting insights and perspectives about CLOs based upon their recruiting experience. The one that caught my attention was this one statement.

"In the last year and half, I have conducted one CLO search, but 15 Chief Talent Officer (CTO) searches."


For me, that leads to a number of questions about the profession I have chosen...

- Is the CLO still relevant?

- Is the CTO replacing the CLO?

- Is there something that CLOs are not doing that is needed?

First, I think there is still a significant role for the CLO in enabling execution of business and mission strategy. As key strategic human capital capabilities, the CLO will support those by providing business-aligned and high-impact learning solutions that enable such key capabilities as collaboration, speed, and innovation in organizations. The CLO will have to determine their role in developing these capabilities...how they leverage social networks and informal learning as other learning tools in the toolkit.

There is evidence that the CLO may need to do a better job in aligning learning to business. The current economic situation drove this home as cost-cutting became critical. But the need to do detailed planning of how to align learning resources and initiatives to business strategy has been a constant and consistent message to learning professionals. While a number of companies come to mind that are leaders in their ability to do this, like Cisco, IBM, and Bank of America, there are indications that significant room exists for improvement.

A survey report by the Masie Learning CONSORTIUM on learning governance stated:

"86% of organizations do not have an enterprise-wide plan for learning that spans the organization."

While our profession has a number of articles and conference proceedings on this topic, something prevents it from pushing forward and obtaining that position as a trusted business partner.

With this perspective in place, I don't think the CTO will replace the CLO. The CLO has their role to play supporting learning and development and the leadership development efforts at organizations. What the CTO does bring is a focus on the integrated talent management process. Developing an employee value proposition, communicating employer brand, recruiting, performance management, leadership development, succession planning, etc.

As I have discussed in my first blog post, CEOs recognize the importance of people skills in moving their organizations forward and enabling them to be successful. That requires talent. Talent that is either bought, developed or rented to execute the strategy. CEOs will continue to look for CTOs as the mechanism to position their organizations for future success. The difference between the CLO and CTO is that the CTO will focus on the integrated solution approach to developing strategic human capital capabilities. The CLO will be a part of the overall integrated solution.