Creating Talent Champions...

Greetings,

I had a very interesting conversation this past week with a Senior Vice President of Talent at a Fortune 500 company. The intent of the conversation was to get a good understanding of how their organization developed talent and integrated it into the overall strategy of the organization. We focused on leadership development specifically during our conversation, but it was obvious that this organization's culture had the concept of talent and development embedded in its DNA.

As I reflected on that conversation this weekend, it became apparent that this organization didn't get to this point overnight. It is unlikely that it started with Talent Champions, but over time has created them and ingrained it into their culture.

The key for organizations in this new talent war is to create Talent Champions. In this new war for talent it is not just a Human Resources (HR)/Human Capital Management (HCM) or a line responsibility. It is a shared responsibility

Why is this important? Corporate Leadership Council research titled "Creating Talent Champions" explains...

"While few business leaders are Talent Champions, most business leaders have the skills necessary to become Talent Champions. HR’s role is not to develop a new set of skills in business leaders but instead to help business leaders apply their existing business skills to talent management. When accomplished, HR can improve business unit revenue by as much as 14%."

Additionally, CLC indicates that the HR/HCM-Line partnership accounts for 68% of talent management program effectiveness.

It is not about creating talent management programs for the sake of having talent management programs. They need to be connected to business strategy and positioned where line managers can leverage the programs to successfully meet their business needs. In many organizations, the partnership piece is missing. To get to that partnership requires healthy HR/HCM engagement. Leading and educating line managers that also helps build a climate and culture that creates talent that flourishes.

Our organization's success depends on it.

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 Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter: JKeithDunbar
LinkedIn: 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 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.

Developing Organizational Capabilities - The McKinsey Global Survey...Same Old Song...

McKinsey is a quality company that does some great research in the way of human capital and talent management. You may remember they were the first to point to a War for Talent in 2001.

Their most recent global survey focuses on Developing Organizational Capabilities and the role that training plays in this. There are a number of key points it makes and implications to strategic human capital capabilities needed to execute business or mission strategy.

“Building organizational capabilities, such as leadership development or lean operations, is a top priority for most companies. However, many of them have not yet figured out how to do so effectively…”

This opening statement in McKinsey’s Global Survey: Building Organizational Capabilities speaks volumes and is absolutely horrible news if you are an HR professional or Human Capital Developer. On one hand the study says building organizational capabilities to enhance competitive advantage is a top priority to leadership. That is great news that people realize it is a priority. However, the second part of the opening statement says to me we don’t know what we are doing. What kind of confidence building and message does that say about our profession to a CEO, C-Suite, business unit or potential customer? And let’s be clear…the people you and I work for will read the report because they trust McKinsey.

In the report there are a number of other statements that drive me to one single conclusion…we have lost our way. While the report is explicit in a number of areas, what it implies is that we don’t know what organizational human capital capabilities need development and even if we knew…we are not good at developing the organizational human capital capabilities required to create a competitive advantage or how to measure we have developed the right organizational human capital capabilities.

As I have discussed in earlier blog posts, there are a lot of great organizations with great CHROs, Chief Talent Officers and Chief Learning Officers that get it. They are successful and extremely effective in developing organizational human capital capabilities that support their organization’s continued agility and adaptability leading to competitive advantage. These are the same people that graciously give their time and talk to us at conferences and symposiums about what they did and how they did it. This hasn’t been happening recently…these have been happening assuredly for the last 10 years, but longer. And yet here we are with another study that paints us as inept at doing our job. We can’t lament that we have no “seat at the table” or we want to become a “strategic business partner.” That time is past because in the eyes of the customer, we don’t hold up our end of the bargain. If that is not the case and just our customer’s perception…then all the worse because perceptions drive decision making in a vacuum when there is no data or metrics. So ultimately we are responsible or our own plight and have no one to blame but ourselves.

This blog post from Kevin Wheeler has a lot of valuable points that are still quite valid today...Chief Talent Officer 2020...We would do good to heed his advice...

My perspective is a simple one…we hold, and have held for some time, the power to change ourselves, how our profession conducts business and the perception that is held about it. The only thing stopping us is…well…us. To be successful, we ourselves need to understand how to think strategically, be as agile and adaptable as our customers, execute flawlessly, and measure.

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.