Leaders How Do You Stop The Wasting Of Team Wisdom?

START TO ACKNOWLEDGE BRAIN DRAIN

To stop the waste of wisdom amongst our teams we need to start with understanding what brain drain is and acknowledge its existence in our organizations.

So what is brain drain?

Let's start with a typical definition of brain drain.

Investopedia.com defines brain drain as follows:

"Brain drain is a slang term that refers to?the loss of human capital from one area to another or from one industry to another.

It usually happens when skilled individuals and professionals leave their home countries, often developing nations, and go elsewhere to take advantage of better opportunities"

When defining brain drain, I am focusing on professional, lived experience at both a team and organizational perspective.

Brain drain from my experience has shown itself as

?? the inability to fully leverage people's potential

?? the lack of current systems to fully leverage skills and expertise

?? having no means to share internal wisdom and lessons learnt within the organization

?? the commercial impact and loss of revenue when talented staff leave and the above is not addressed

THE ANSWER TO SOLVING THE WASTING OF WISDOM STARTS WITH AN ENTREPRENURIAL MINDSET

Think how many problems and challenges would be solved if everyone regardless of role had the ability to think and act entrepreneurially.

We need to reject the premise that people and commercial growth comes from strengths.

Not true.

You must be able to start creating space and time for thinking and responding differently to skill gaps, threats and risks.

You cannot be entrepreneurial and create different economic opportunities if you’re not willing to invest in this process.

It’s a mind shift.

Strengths matter but not every strength is going to help you solve challenges and problems you know about now.

And the ones you are not aware of in the future.

One of the first places to start is stage 1 of the Circular workplace.

Lots of action happens at this stage including the innovation capability review which is co-designed between Leaders, Managers and teams.

This is like a risk assessment on creative steroids and allows teams to see how well placed they are to deliver entrepreneurial thinking and action.

It’s normalizes discussing the areas that we have been conditioned to avoid.

And making sure we have the right capability, support and environments in place to create people and commercial opportunities.

The Innovation Capability review is shaped by the following in stage 1 of The Circular Workplace.

-??????? The team’s objectives and goals

-??????? The broader organizational strategy and purpose

And it connects individuals and teams back into the bigger picture early.

What’s identified in the innovation capability review helps shape:

-??????? The strategic direction of project delivery.

-??????? What’s defined as high value work at role and team level.

-??????? The capability gaps to be fulfilled to be able to deliver on the plan/strategic direction.

To be able to solve brain drain and the wasting of wisdom it's essential we are able to connect the dots across key areas as noted above.

TURNING THE 'TOO HARD' CHALLENGES INTO GENUINE OPPORTUNITIES – EVERYDAY.

We are all in start up mode regardless of how long our organizations have been in business.

This is key to thinking entrepreneurially and turning “too hard” challenges and problems into opportunities.

It’s never set and forget.

There are many benefits to adopting a start up mentality – culturally.

These include:

-??????? Never being complacent and challenging average.

-??????? Constant reflection and reviewing.

-??????? Trialing and experimenting with skills, wisdom and ideas.

-??????? Pushing to raise the bar on the day before.

-??????? Respectfully challenging the way it’s always been done before.

-??????? Knowing that there is a different way to be able to produce durable outcomes

and impacts not seen before.

?WHAT THIS MEANS IN TERMS OF HOW WE WORK

- Making space and time to unpack what works as much as what doesn’t.

- Having a process for continually reviewing skill gaps, threats and risk – with a plan

to respond – Innovation capability review.

- Investing space and time for ongoing review and reflection - The only way to

build genuine capability and talent is to do out in the real world.

?-?Making time to review each project outcome and impact in real time.

This requires a commitment to challenging the cultural sway towards “success bias”.

Success bias is what it says it is – only focusing on what is working?well, on what people have delivered successfully.

Watch for it as it’s a killer of commercial success and people development.

REAL-TIME SOLUTIONS FOR CAPTURING AND APPLYING WISDOM WITHIN TEAMS

This requires a critical review of the current points of connection and interaction across all roles in a team.

Including Leaders and Managers.

Below are three key actions I take with purpose led brands to capture and utilize wisdom as part of everyday delivery.

1.????? IDEA SESSIONS

The first place to start is to move from a traditional meeting mindset to idea sessions.

Team idea sessions are fair and equitable and rely on the input and participation of everyone.

When moving from traditional meetings to idea sessions as a team we are focused on the following areas:

?-??????? Key wins – can be large or small.

?-??????? Challenges in the last month – what are solutions – throw to the group once the

staff member has identified solutions.

?-??????? Something that didn’t go to plan. Lessons learnt and wisdom that can benefit

the business, your own role, the client experience and the team as a whole.

?-??????? Who else in the business can benefit from these lessons and wisdom and how do

you want to share it.

?-??????? Any client observations, ideas and feedback that will help the team and the

business improve and build new opportunities.

Instead of agendas there are real time plans that are co-designed and updated by the team each time they meet.

2.???? CONNECTING IDEA SESSIONS TO INDIVIDUAL ROLES

Each member is responsible for actioning the plan post idea session and reporting back in as a team.

They are also responsible for responding to the agenda previously walked through.

This connects the team wisdom plan created in team idea sessions to individual role delivery.

Everyday.

3.???? INDIVIDUAL CHECK INS AND REVIEWS/ CHANGING HOW WE DELIVER PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

Action three focuses on the co-design of a personalized L & D plan as part of a holistic review of not just role performance but overall workplace experience.

As part of this review we look at:

-?????? How team idea session plans have been implemented at individual role levels.

?-????? Identifying the most valuable sources of wisdom and insight as it relates back to

role, team objectives and organizational goals and purpose.

?-????? Taking these insights and sources of wisdom and looking at how it will be used

within succession planning for that person if relevant.

?-??????Capturing other lessons learnt and wisdom that has relevance to the broader team

and organization.

To capture and build on wisdom across our teams we need to create the support, environments and conditions to make it part of everyday reality.

Every time we deliver in a role or on a project, the team is creating what is referred to as “corporate memory”.

When we fail to implement practical actions like those above, we lose valuable opportunities to embed this corporate memory back into daily role and project delivery.

And generate new opportunities for people and commercial growth.

Article written by Ali Uren Founder of Kiikstart and Creator Of the Circular Workplace ??.

If you're a purpose led Leader wanting to solving organizational brain drain, please follow me @Ali Uren and subscribe to my monthly LinkedIn newsletter - The Experiment ??Full of orginal and proven advice and insights.

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