Developing Talent in a Down Economy

Posted on March 31, 2009 by mkizilos

About a year ago I participated in a panel discussion on Talent Management where the central question was, “What can we do differently to develop talent in a down economy?” It was a great topic then, and it has become an even more relevant one over the last twelve months as the economic environment has continued to deteriorate.

There was plenty of valuable discussion around the issues that you would naturally expect to be on people’s minds: How can we cut costs without reducing the value that we deliver? What is the business case for continuing to invest in learning and development in tough times? The panel responded to these and many other questions with their perspectives and generated a lively discussion. 

One response to this subject resonated particularly well with me.  It came from a panelist who essentially said, “I’m not doing anything differently now that times are tough—the business case for good talent management and development practices is the same in good times as it is in bad times.”

While the economic environment that we now face a year later is carrying all of us into uncharted waters, I still agree with the sentiment of this perspective.  Truly world class talent management systems are relatively robust in difficult times because they work, and everyone in the organization understands that they work.  I believe that at their root, organizations whose talent management systems are described as world class are described as such because they have done three things particularly well:

1.      Embedded talent management in the organization’s strategy process.  Mature talent management systems play the critical role of translating the organization’s strategic plans and priorities into concrete implications for the current and future supply of talent.  This linkage between business direction and people implications grounds the talent management system in the needs of the business in a way that makes it difficult to even raise the question, “Should we continue to invest in developing our people?”  Everyone in the organization operates with a clear understanding and awareness of how the talent development practices feed into the achievement of strategic objectives.

2.      Institutionalized senior leaders’ ownership for talent management.  The CEO and his or her senior team truly view talent as a key to success, and take personal responsibility for relentlessly developing talent.  Having senior leaders’ support goes a long way toward embedding the talent management system into the culture, but it is not sufficient.  Many leaders express the belief that talent is their greatest asset, and many of those leaders are zealous about people development. The best companies have institutionalized a common talent management ethos and apply talent management practices such that the effectiveness of the people development system is not dependent upon any individual leader. 

3.      Strategically guided the expenditure of development resources and effort for maximum impact and return.  When you have created a talent management system that identifies the capabilities needed to deliver on key strategic priorities, it is relatively easy to ensure that your development dollars are being spent to develop the right capabilities in the right people at the right time.  Rather than spending more or less on development, the best companies put their investments into those people who can provide the best return to the company.  That means that they invest less in some individuals and more in others–high potentials, top talent, or whatever you call them (John Boudreau and Peter Ramstad have written a great book that covers this concept well, Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital).   As you can imagine, doing this effectively requires well-developed organizational processes and systems.

Sure, there are likely a raft of cost-cutting measures that you can take to manage through the downturn:  expanding virtual work arrangements, better resourcing of vendors and suppliers, leveraging e-learning, etc.  But, if you are working in an organization that is on a journey toward world class talent management, perhaps the best way to develop talent in a down economy is to work at making progress on these fundamentals.  Not an easy task, but making progress on these dimensions in a down economy will leave you that much stronger when things turn around.

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Beating the Recession 101

Posted on March 25, 2009 by mkizilos

Our new Momentum Series short courses got a little press coverage the other day at Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal.

The article, titled “Beating the Recession 101″  mentions that Carlson Executive Education is offering 4- and 8-hour courses for $495 and $995 this spring.  Our timing for this set of offerings has turned out to be pretty good, given the economic environment.  We actually decided to do this back some time ago, when the general consensus was that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.  At that time, we wanted to provide shorter format offerings in order to connect with a broader audience from the business community.  When I reflect back on my recent experience as a corporate talent executive, I recall how difficult it was to get time out of the office for anything, especially time for my own development! So, one of the first things I wanted to do when I started at Carlson was to experiment with our program formats.   

Of course, the reality is that you can only cover so much ground in 4 or 8 hours.  So, these programs in the Momentum Series have a very targeted and focused set of learning objectives.  These programs also need to strike the right balance between content and application.  As a rule of thumb we figured that the 4-hour sessions would probably have about 1 hour of exposure to new ideas and content, and 3 hours of application and practice.   So, we worked with the instructors from that starting point and encouraged them to design each session to be highly interactive, provide hands-on experience with a focused subject or skill, and deliver concrete learning outcomes–new skills, frameworks, tool sets, etc.  

If you want to learn more about the Momentum Series, the  program page is here , and we have short audio interviews and flash presentations here for some of the programs.

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Five Things to Consider When Creating a Development Plan – part 5

Posted on March 10, 2009 by mkizilos

FIVE: The more you work at it, the more you’ll improve. 

Okay, this last of my Five Things to Consider may seem like a throw-away item, but I am including it for a reason.  One of the things that I have noticed throughout my career is that some people invest themselves in their development plans, and others treat their development plans as just an exercise.  I have consistently found that if you work at your development plan, you will improve.  It’s that simple.  If you create a good plan and you dedicate time to achieving that plan, your effort will pay off.  You might not turn your weaknesses into strengths, but you will make progress at improving yourself.

On one hand, this is reassuring and comforting to hear.  Of course, you need to be clear about what you put into your development plan.  You should be certain that you really, really want to follow through on it.  We each have limited time and energy, and by focusing on a development plan that you are serious about, you are committing yourself to channeling some of your energy into achieving a specific goal.  Try it, and you will see results.

On the other hand, if you want to see the glass as half empty, this post makes the converse point that if you don’t work at it, you will not improve.  I have never seen someone spontaneously improve on any significant behavioral dimension. It always takes work!

Filed under: Creating a high-impact development plan, Self-Development | Leave a Comment »

Five Things to Consider When Creating a Development Plan – part 4

Posted on February 24, 2009 by mkizilos

Fourth Thing: Experience is the best teacher. 

The only way to learn how to ice skate is to strap on a pair of skates and get out on the ice.  You could spend a lot of time reading up on skating and the importance of balance, but it would be difficult to apply any of that theoretical knowledge to your first time wobbling out onto the rink.  However, within even a few minutes on the ice, you begin to get immediate and direct feedback about what works and what doesn’t.  You suddenly find yourself on a highly accelerated learning curve.   

Most people spend less than one tenth of one percent of their work lives in formal structured learning programs.  As the head of Carlson Executive Education, I would certainly like to see people spend more time in formal learning programs! But the reality is that, formal structured learning is just one tool for developing yourself. In fact, if you are relying solely on formal education to develop your leadership capability, you may have fallen into the trap of trying to find a quick fix.  While formal learning programs, such as those we offer in executive education,  are a valuable resource, you should not think of them as the only resource.   In addition to looking for programs on leadership, you should be looking for opportunities to do things in your job or through special assignments that will teach you leadership lessons. 

 

Many leadership lessons can only be learned through experience.  The challenge is that, while experience can be the best teacher, great learning experiences are scarce.  And, the costs of bumbling your way through some experiences (i.e., “learning on the job”) can be quite high.  I would rather not go under the knife of anything but the most experienced surgeon, thank you very much!

 

My point is simply that you should be looking for learning insights in the workplace, and, when the great development assignment comes along, you need to be prepared to get the most from it.  In my experience, talking with hundreds of managers and executives about their development paths, few people are actually good at learning from their work experience.  Those that are good at it, are often the most successful leaders who see it as second nature, and don’t even think of it as learning.  

 

The subject of experience-based development is a personal passion of mine.  If you are interested in getting into this area more deeply, I will be teaching a 4-hour course on the subject in the new Momentum Series offered by Carlson Executive Education this spring.  Send me an email (mkizilos@umn.edu) if you want to get on the mailing list for this new series of practical and accessible progams.

 

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Executive Education and the Economy

Posted on February 6, 2009 by mkizilos

The Minnesota Daily ran a story today on the impact of the economy on executive education (see the story here).  I was quoted in a few places describing the Carlson School’s response to the downturn. 

As I noted in the article, we are introducing a new set of short, “bite-sized” courses this spring. This is actually an idea that we started kicking around in June.  Having come from industry myself, I know how hard it can be to carve out time to get out of the office.  Our core offerings require a pretty significant time commitment–at least 2 to 4 days.  I realize that there are probably a fair number of people who don’t come to our programs simply because they can’t get out of the office for that long.  So, we started thinking about what we could offer that would still provide participants great value, yet be delivered in a more compressed timeframe. 

What we decided was to pilot a set of much shorter-format courses.  The spring/summer programs will range in length from 1/2-day to full day, and will be very targeted to specific skill areas of interest to business managers and executives.  For example, if you are interested in identifying sources of financing for a new business opportunity, we have a course specifically on that.  If you are being asked to do more with less, we have a program focused on “personal operations management.” The full catalog of 20 short courses will be available soon. 

We will of course continue to offer the bulk of our educational experiences in the more traditional, 2-4 day  format, but these shorter programs offer a smaller, compressed experience for those who are not able to take advantage of the more robust programs we typically offer.

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Press covereage: Minnesota Business Magazine (February 2009)

Posted on February 4, 2009 by mkizilos

In case you are interested, my perspective on learning and development in a down economy were mentioned in the article,  ”Training Up in Down Times” that appears in the current issue of Minnesota Business magazine.  The story is on pages 26-27 (the magazine website is here: http://www.minnesotabusiness.com the full text is unfortunately only available to subscribers) .

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Five Things to Consider When Creating a Development Plan – part 3

Posted on February 2, 2009 by mkizilos

Third Thing:  Structured activity drives out unstructured activity. 

Someone once suggested that the defining feature of a totalitarian state is that anything that is not required by the state is prohibited by the state.  In other words, all activity is structured, and there is no room whatsoever for individual discretion.  When you talk to some people about their personal development, you might think that you were talking to citizens of a totalitarian state.  “My day is so filled with a constant barrage of activity—much of which is driven by the need to respond to others—that I don’t have the discretionary time to work on my own development.” 

 

The most powerful thing you can do to deal with the demands of an oppressive schedule is to impose a little structure on your development agenda.  If you create specific goals with action plans and timelines associated with them that are written down on paper, you will be more likely to make the time to follow through and improve yourself.  If you leave your development goals as vague outcomes you would like to achieve when you get the time, you will be much less likely to accomplish them.

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A Word About Leadership Competencies

Posted on January 13, 2009 by mkizilos

In the interest of truth in advertising, I have to preface any conversation about competencies by acknowledging that I worked at the Hay Group some years ago.  It was over ten years ago now, but my short time there had a profound influence on my views about competencies. 

Are Competencies a Failed Talent Development Tool?

While working with Hay, I saw carefully crafted competency models shape organizations’ entire language for leadership. Well done competency models can crystallize the core distinguishing elements of leadership for an organization and enable the learning organization to bring laser-focus to its development effort. 

I believe that competency models are doomed to failure if one starts the model development effort believing that the relevant competencies are already defined, and must only be “matched” to the particulars of the organization.  Sure, some leadership characteristics look similar across organizations.  But those characteristics are usually not the ones that offer the potential to provide the enterprise with a meaningful competitive advantage.  It is those other leadership behaviors, highly specific to the organizational context, and that have not yet been uncovered, that offer great promise to help organizations to take themselves to a higher level.

Unfortunately, it is a pretty major effort to develop competency models in a manner that measures up to a high standard.  I learned the approach at Hay over ten years ago and have developed quite a few on my own since then.  Model development has to be approached as part ressearch project, and part organizational intervention.  It is not something that can be done in afternoon, with a few people in a room and deck of playing cards.  Really impactful models require significant individual and organizational energy. 

The posts in this section represents a sampling of my thoughts about some of the competencies I have developed over the years.

Filed under: Leadership Competencies | 2 Comments »

What is “Executive Education?”

Posted on January 12, 2009 by mkizilos

I was at a meeting yesterday with a group of educators in which the discussion turned to precisely this topic.  The definitions ranged from “all adult learning focused on employees in the workplace” to short courses focused on the needs of business executives.   Wikipedia provides the following definition:

“Executive Education is the term used for programs at graduate-level business schools that aim to give classes for Chief Executives and other top managers or entrepreneurs. These programs do not usually end in a degree, although there is an ever-growing number of Executive MBA programs that are very similar and offer a Masters of Business Administration upon completion of the coursework.” 

This definition highlights several fundamental components of executive eductaion: 1) the providers; 2) the target audience; and 3) the comprehensiveness of the educational experience (degree or non-degree).  I suggest modifications to all three components of this definition:

1) Providers.  The Center for Creative Leadership is a good example of a top 10 rated provider of executive education that is not part of a business school.  In fact, a number of business schools have sliced off their executive education groups to allow them to run as independent corporations. 

2) Target Audience.  While most executive education providers do target “chief executives and other top managers or entrepreneurs,” you won’t find many CEOs sitting in class. Typical executive education classes are targeted to middle and upper management as well as top management. 

3) Degree vs non-degree programs.  My own personal perspective is that executive education does not include degree-bearing programs such as the Executive MBA.  Why not? Executive education is clearly focused on providing practical, actionable learning experiences to working managers, directors, vice presidents, etc.  The degree-granting infrastructure at any university must (for good reasons) use a different set of lenses to construct and assess the learning experience.  It is the very fact of imposing this degree-based logic on the educational experience that changes the nature of the learning experience and shifts it away from the core focus on providing practical, actionable learning experience to participants.  Do these experiences carry enough academic rigor to justify certain credit levels? How will we evaluate student performance?  (grades must after all be granted in degrees)…I think you get the point.

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Pattern Recognition

Posted on January 12, 2009 by mkizilos

 

This is one of my favorite competencies.  Some of the most effective leaders that I have seen are incredible at seeing patterns in complex situations that others don’t pick up on.  The videos below are from an e-learning program I put together for a client some years ago.  

We are constantly bombarded with information.  At any given moment there are literally hundreds of things you could be paying attention to—the sound of my voice, the computer you are viewing this blog on, the voice of a coworker, a smell that reminds you of a favorite food.  To deal with the complexity of the world around us, we naturally adopt certain shortcuts.  One of the most fundamental shortcuts that we adopt is we look for patterns in the world around us.  If we didn’t look for regularities in the world around us, there would simply be too much information for us to process.  To deal with the potential information overload, we look for patterns.
 
Patterns can be thought of as constellations of events, information or symbols that are useful because they provide an organizing framework for information that may otherwise be difficult to understand or organize.  Patterns are the basic building blocks for our personal “mental maps”.
 
Think for a moment of the stellar constellations—if you take an interest in star gazing, they provide a useful shortcut for organizing a large number of stars into a smaller number of manageable and memorable star clusters.  In this case, patterns are useful because they reduce the complexity of the environment.  By knowing the location of a single star, you can rapidly locate other stars in a common constellation.  The configurations of stars that comprise a given constellation are clearly defined, and documented.  If you want to learn them, there are clear sources to consult. 
 
But in most areas of organizational life, the important constellations or patterns in the environment are not so clear.  They must be charted by perceptive leaders, who scan the environment, looking for signs and patterns relevant to the organization and its direction. 
 
Pattern recognition for a leader is the ability to identify connections between situations that are not obviously related.  With the ability to recognize patterns, you can reflect on a situation and use experience to help understand the problem. As a result, you do not treat each new situation as a new, unique problem.  Instead, you draw on your experience, make connections between past situations and the current situation, and see what is important.
 
Since we all use patterns to make sense of the world, the real question is not, “are you doing pattern recognition,” but, “are you doing it well?”
 
Experience is one of the most powerful tools for honing your pattern recognition abilities.  Psychologists have studied the way that people play chess—the ultimate game of strategy—to try and figure out what is it that separates chess masters from the rest of us.  What they found is that, through experience, the best chess players are able to see more patterns than others.  They have played so many games of chess that when they look at the board, they don’t just see pieces, they see patterns—rather than looking at a field of stars in the sky, they are seeing constellations.   What that means is that they can anticipate the consequences of various actions, and predict longer chains of moves—if I move here, you’ll move there, and I’ll move here, etc…
 
Adept leaders are able to do the same thing in the business environment. Looking at patterns of events, they can see patterns of events that have important implications for the organization.

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