Every week, I review blogs that cover talent development to find the very best talent development posts. This week, you’ll find pointers to pieces about bridging the leadership skills gap, six passages of leadership and management, a hard look at training, and walking the walk in HR.
From Industry Week: Critical Steps to Bridging the Leadership Skills Gap
“Global competition has permanently changed the workplace. Consumers want cars and appliances meant to last and have little tolerance for overhead costs that snake their way into product prices. Amid the rising competition, the battle to find the best workers to produce goods and manage increasingly complex manufacturing processes has never been more pitched. A recent research report indicated that as many as 10 million manufacturing jobs may emerge globally over the next few years. At the same time, certain competencies have risen above other skills as critical to global competitiveness and success.”
Wally’s Comment: This article is aimed at manufacturers, but it describes a problem that faces companies in many industries.
From Dan McCarthy: The 6 Passages of Leadership and Management
“Unless you are an heir to a throne, people usually don’t begin their careers leading a large organization. There’s a progression of passages, or at least there should be. Charan, Drotter, and Noel wrote about six leadership passages in their classic book The Leadership Pipeline. However, they use the terms “leadership†and “management†interchangeably. There’s a big difference, right? What if we took a simplified version of the Pipeline model, and mash it with a distinction between leadership and management? We’ll call it The Great Leadership & Management Passages Model (OK, so we need a catchier name):”
Wally’s Comment: Most talent management people are familiar with the leadership pipeline model from the book, The Leadership Pipeline. Dan McCarthy describes the leadership learning and development challenges that a person will confront as he or she moves through that pipeline.
From the Human Capital Institute: Training Professionals: If You are Not Alarmed, You Should Be
“Two alarming statistics crossed my desk recently which should be wake-up calls for all of us in learning and development. The first was in a McKinsey Quarterly article entitled “Getting More from Your Training Programs.†What really got my attention was the third sentence of the opening paragraph: “only one-quarter of the respondents to a recent McKinsey survey said their training programs measurably improved business performance.†In other words, a whopping 75% of the senior managers that McKinsey surveyed felt that their training programs failed to contribute to the success of the business. The second was even more alarming. According to a study by the Executive Board’s Corporate Leadership Council, “more than 50% of line managers believe that shutting down the L&D function would have no impact on employee performance!†Can you image the alarm bells that would go off in your company if market research discovered that more than half your customers were dissatisfied with your products?”
Wally’s Comment: How effective is your training? How do you know? What does the CEO think?
From Katherine Jones: “Talking the Talk:” Applying Talent Management Best Practices to HR Itself
“I had the pleasure this week of participating in a workshop with a group of exceptionally dedicated, smart, and enthusiastic HR professionals who were spending several days together with the common goal of improving their efficacy and the effectiveness of HR within their large global company. As a group, we looked at Bersin & Associates research – research that looks at best practices in talent acquisition, performance management, leadership development, succession, and learning – with the goal of applying them not to the constituents that these HR professionals serve – but to themselves.”
Wally’s Comment: It’s always a squirm-in-your-chair moment when you review how well you’re following your own advice.
