Reaching the stars begins with getting off the ground

I thought I would follow my last post with something on the same lines and hopefully spark a debate on the future of work. Enjoy.

How many of us have had that uplifting moment when they've had a boss or colleague say they have the potential to do more in the company?  What about the inspiring and motivational speech that your company has the potential to be the market leader or leading innovator in its industry?  Or "we are sending you on the next intake of the company leadership development programme"?

These are all the things that give you and I would imagine your team that warm and fuzzy feeling, that makes you think 'I wanna stick around'.

Sticking around is the right answer in most cases...but sticking around where the dream or vision is bold can only be truly satisfying if you believe you have the ability to be developed to meet the challenges of a new role or take the company forward. 

All to often talent leave our businesses for new and exciting opportunities...or as most lazy leaders would say "they went for more money".  For those lazy leaders who are reading this and saying they definitely left more money, sadly you need to wake up and smell the double soy vanilla latte!  

The ability for us as leaders is to ensure we build on the potential and positivity with a clear ability to create learning or development opportunities for our talent.  The concept that we offer off the shelf training packages are gone and the challenge (and it is a big challenge) is to create a sustainable & evolving learning culture in my view.  I recent listening to Jacob Morgans's podcast recently which encourages executives and HR leaders to really think about how we get our people to Learn how to Learn in our organisations.  So true - how often to we step back and really understand how we create a culture which shifts aways for "mandatory or regulatory" training to a place where employees need to create a stronger knowledge base for the future. (https://youtu.be/6DketVxPVJA?list=PLYHnlELC8Z9sumHgmu5N-VkHjbwRe2AP-)

With the idea that we need to reach for the stars and achieve our potential, I would suggest as leaders we need to consider how our corporate culture is facilitating the ability to (a) ensure people reach their potential (b) sustain a level of performance to drive forward and (c) ensure that our people are ready to touch the stars when we get closer.  

Remember it takes six years of planning to reach Mars, six months to get their and only a few seconds to realise when we get their that we haven't got the capabilities we thought we needed.

Creating that culture of effective talent management, engagement and retention will play secondary to a culture of continuous learning and evolution in my view.

Just a thought...