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Thriving in Challenging Times
Strategic Development: ensuring your best people have the edge they need to steer you successfully and profitably through troubled times.
The purpose of this series of articles is to provide a structured set of ideas on how your business can cost effectively take its learning and development investment to the next level by aligning it specifically and systematically with the strategic aspirations of the organisation. We call this strategic development.
Inspire Ltd is experienced in helping organisations move from investment in learning and development to strategic development. Through the series of articles that will be published on our website in the coming months, we will explain to you in detail how this is done.
The principles behind what is set out in this article, and indeed all the work that Inspire Ltd does with organisations, are simple: Identify the people resources and capabilities you require to deliver your organisations vision, then invest in turning these people into a cadre of key individuals and teams who are capable of being the engine of the desired growth.
Moving from learning and development to strategic development
As we have said, strategic development is about enabling the delivery of superior long term business results through targeted investment in the organisations key resource, its people. It is a process that must always be owned and directed by the senior executive team, not by HR. The role of HR is to act as a business partner in offering strategic level consulting to the senior team and coaching to line managers.
Unlike more traditional approaches to learning and development, value creation through strategic people development starts with ensuring that the organisation has the right people in place, now and in the future, to deliver the businesses ambitions for profit, growth and competitive advantage. It is a means of retaining and pulling talented people through the organisation and of building populations of motivated people who are endowed with the required knowledge, skills, experience, attitudes and beliefs.
The role of the senior executive team
Whatever the nature of the business, the purpose of the senior executive team is to deliver long term competitive advantage and profitable growth. They achieve this through fully understanding the complexities of the current business situation, having a shared and compelling vision of the future, and a growth strategy to get the business there.
To successfully deliver this strategy, they need to answer the following questions
o Who is going to take us there?
o Who, besides us, is going to provide the energy, engine and direction for growth?
o Who will provide the leverage?
o What are the consequences of them continuing to behave as they always have?
o What do they, and we, need to do differently in terms of knowledge, skills, experience, attitudes and beliefs?
In answering these questions, the senior team start to move the organisation towards a strategic people development mindset.
An emphasis on outcomes
The whole point of a strategic approach to development is that it should be tailored to the needs and preoccupations of a given business. However, in our experience of working at this level with client organisations, the following deliverables are always present:
o A greater sense of urgency
o A clear link between development and business performance
o Stronger accountability and results delivery
o Retention of key talent
o A growing culture of innovation, learning and creativity
o A cadre of key individuals capable of being the engine of future growth
o A passion for growth and excellence
The intention is to build capabilities that deliver strategic advantage. These capabilities will vary according to the given business, population and individual concerned. However, along with a greater engagement with the business and its strategic objectives, we have seen evidence of substantial growth in the following areas:
o Business acumen
o Commercial awareness
o Leadership
o Presence and impact
o Mental acuity
o Self awareness
o Strategic awareness
o Creativity and innovation
o Communication, teamworking and networking skills
Strategic segmentation: the critical first step
In looking at marketing strategy we learn early on to segment our customers on the basis of shared needs. Strategic development is no different, we need to start by thinking about how we address the development needs of various key populations. These populations will vary from business to business, but are likely to include the following:
o The senior executive team the top team needs to be seen to take the lead or others will be reluctant to follow. Any marginal increase in the performance of this group, either individually or collectively, will have the largest payback in terms of business results. A number of organisations have recognised this and have asked us to start our intervention by working at this level. Sadly, however, for most organisations, this is the population that receives least development.
o High potentials this is the group that are most likely to leave and that the business can least afford to lose. The price of replacing these individuals is many times higher than even the most costly development interventions. These people need to be objectively identified, cherished, developed and pulled through the organisation in order to ensure they are retained and that the organisation gets long term benefit from their talents. They must be seen as an organisation resource and not owned by a given division, function or region.
o Identified successors once individuals are identified on succession plans, it is important to invest in their development. If they are not able to hit the ground running as soon as they are moved into an identified role, the cost to the organisation and the individual can be significant.
o Talent pools many leading companies now use the concept of talent pools rather than, or in addition to, traditional organigram based succession plans. Once again, the same principle holds good: once talent has been identified, it should be invested in.
o Strategic skills most organisations have a number of key specialists, the loss of whose skills would have a substantial negative effect on the future profitability of the business. All these individuals need to be identified, appreciated and developed. This should be especially the case where they are difficult to replace on the open job market.
o Graduates successful businesses need to recruit and retain the best graduates that our education system can offer. Research suggests that, more even that starting salary, good graduates are looking for development and career progression. Any organisation with ambitions to be an employer of choice, should have an organisation wide graduate development programme. Small levels of investment here can deliver substantial payback.
o Poor performers and blockers these are the people that organisations tend to ignore and they do so at their cost. People are often promoted to the level of their own incompetence and then sit there, blocking the career progression of other more talented individuals. In the interests of the individual concerned and of the organisation, these people need to be moved. Sometimes, but not always, this means moving them out of the organisation. For many, this is the hardest population to tackle. If it is not done, however, all the rest of the good development work can be undermined.
In the next article we will look in detail at the importance and practicalities of implementing a strategic review process, taking you step by step through what needs to be done and why.
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