Wednesday 28 September 2011

Sustainable leadership and management development

Our website home: http://www.keystonetrainingltd.co.uk/ 



It's nearly that time of year. We're waiting for the latest Good Practice Learning Trends Index to come out in just a month or so, and we're eagerly predicting the results.

The last report showed leadership development remaining a high priority for organisations across the UK - the highest priority for 58% of you in March, and 57% of you in July. Given the increasingly complex environments in which our leaders operate, that's no surprise. In fact, we've just posted on our Latest News page about the challenges of leading and managing in ambiguous, complex or matrix environments.

However, management performance took a huge step forwards to jump into second place. From March to July it went from 18% to 38%, overtaking all sorts of hot issues in the process such as talent management and retention, performance management and change management.

So, is management performance going to hold its place? Will leadership development keep its lead? Whatever you predict, these subjects are likely to remain a key focus for the foreseeable future. With that in mind, we think there are some easy wins to get the most value from your investment in developing your people. 

Firstly, we're not surprised that these are the two L&D priorities of the moment. The last quarter has seen especially tough trading conditions. A strong foundation of leadership and management skills is key to meeting your organisation's objectives and getting the most out of all your people.

But as always, this development needs to show results quickly and prove to be sustainable. We've all had the experience of going to courses in the past, enjoying the training, and then back at work two weeks later we're doing the same things we've always done. Now, you can't afford to have that happen!

We suggest using a range of methods to make sure the learning is remembered after the training, applied outside the learning room and delivers business benefits. Alongside facilitated learning, you could also consider using (in no particular order) peer teaching and coaching, action learning groups, cross-functional project work, social media, mobile learning and ongoing mobile support, specific workplace and on-the-job development challenges, mentoring or being mentored and cascade of learning to others.

Any of these can make a big difference to what your people take back to work with them and how well they use what they've learnt to the benefit of your organisation. We're always happy to have a no-obligation chat with you about how you can get the very best outcome from your people development.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Managing your talent

Our website home: http://www.keystonetrainingltd.co.uk/


The CIPD annual survey report 2011 into Learning and Talent Development was issued back in March and it had some interesting findings. Here at Keystone, we’re passionate about talent management as a means of supporting delivery of your organisational strategy – to say nothing of giving you a unique competitive advantage. Imagine our disappointment, then, to read that: “Only half of organisations with talent management activities rate them as effective and only a very small minority (3%) rate them as very effective.”
The good news? That means quite a few organisations, potentially your competitors, are failing to make the most of a golden opportunity. But because we’ve been banging the talent management drum for a while now, many of our clients have robust and successful talent management programmes in place to support them. So for a change, we thought we’d take a light hearted look at how you could join your competitors in the talent management doldrums.

7 easy steps to make your talent management programme become a damp squib:

1. Don’t under any circumstances align your talent management programme to the organisation’s strategy or organisational development needs.
2. If you can, manage it exclusively within HR or L&D. Discourage board or SMT involvement. Senior champions are definitely a no-go.
3. You really don’t need agreed strategies, outcomes and ROI measures. A talent management programme will magically deliver the results you want.
4. These days, who has the time to do consultation and research with managers, focus groups and so on? Set the programme up and any important feedback will most likely get back to you as it goes along.
5. Only focus the programme on your high fliers. You’ve always got performance management to deal with the underperformers, and everyone else will be fine with an occasional training course and their annual review.
6. Don’t design a series of planned talent management activities. Besides, you followed steps 1-5 as instructed, so you’re not sure what would best create value for the organisation anyway.
7. Make sure you’re too busy to do regular strategic reviews for the programme. If it starts to fizzle out, accept it wasn’t the right thing for your organisation at this time.

Ok, we wouldn’t really suggest any of that, but it’s surprising how often we hear of organisations doing one or more of these points. How does your organisation’s talent management programme measure up? How effective would you describe it as being? If you think there’s room for improvement (or you’ve got examples of best practice – we love to hear about those!) then why not contact us for a chat?

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2011) Annual Survey Report: Learning and Talent Development [online], CIPD. Available from: http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/survey-reports/learning-talent-development-2011.aspx [accessed March 2011]