Helping Organizations Develop Their Leaders - Leadership Facilitator, Keynote Speaker, Podcast Host
Over the past 12 weeks, I've had 39 conversations with talent and learning leaders at Fortune 1000 companies. As I near the completion of my analysis, one common theme has stood out above all others: 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 This isn't shocking or new, I'm sure it's true for all of us, regardless of industry, function, or role. But in every single conversation change surfaced - sometimes in obvious ways other times woven into broader or more complex/nuanced organizational challenges. Rather than just to simply name "change" as the headline, I wanted to understand what this really looked like for talent and learning leaders. From those interviews, five levers or change emerged: 1. 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 - Think of these as your systems upgrades, process or program revamps, or rollouts that require adoption 2. "𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐎𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞" - This was around building "organizational capacity" for continuous change, especially in industries that face constant flux. This could mean enhancing or investing in your Change COE, building it as a function in your remit, or, revamping your tools and frameworks for change to be future ready. "The change management frameworks of the past were very helpful for a complicated world, but may not be as relevant a complex one" is something I heard. 3. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫 - Embedding the ability/behavior to lead through uncertainty into your leadership models, frameworks and expectations. This often occurred, either due to the result of an industry shift, business model change, or desire to take a stab at what a "future-ready" leadership model looks like 4. 𝐀𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐯𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 - This was all about how do we balance the immediate change challenges, with long-term transformations that companies believe know will happen but will unfold over a longer time horizon. This could be something to the effect of: "A new CEO was brought in during the end of 2023 to help us transform our business model, and now has a dual mandate with figuring out how AI will be a part of that today, but also for the long term" - How do you find ways to invest in both, and balnce the tension between the two? 5. 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐎𝐰𝐧 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 - The personal challenge that talent and learning leaders faced, of either, having to change themselves, or lead through team through disruption while navigating it personally. In every interview, leaders described experiencing one, two, or sometimes all of these levers at the same time. I’d love to hear your perspective: Do these resonate with what you’re seeing? Which of these levers are most present in your organization today? PS – If this posts resonates and you’d like a sneak peek of the report before its official release, send me a DM. I’ll make sure you’re included in the early distribution list.