Space to grow

It struck me recently, while doing some new planting, how often we talk about and tell our talent that we are seriously interested in their growth potential, but then how very seldom we select and place that talent so that it has genuine space and incentive to expand and grow.

In some ways this is understandable. In our attention to our mission we look at division of labour and collective attention to results. We tend to see all open spaces as gaps and simplistically label and 'fill them up' accordingly.

This tetris-like filling up (sometimes referred to as workforce planning) has a range of benefits. There is a mutual 'propping up' that allows otherwise delicate or underdeveloped talent to get going and performing to sets of minimum standards (and things like organisational capability frameworks) reasonably quickly. We can make people's worklives planned, predictable and performance-measured. We can talk about things like 'cultural fit' based on espoused shared mental models, values, norms and behaviours.

Any spaces left over or emerging are thus a result of turnover or lack of headcount budget.

Or nascent automation/AI takeover opportunities. Tetris indeed.

The crowding together and norming of talent comes with other risks, of course. There is reduced airflow, increasing the chance of (usually invisible until quite progressed) rot. There is more risk of rapid contagion when pests and disease emerge.

And there is more likelihood of collective stunting.

That means less room to grow into fuller potential for each individual point of talent. Less space for individuals to explore and expand themselves. Less chances to be exposed to the elements and build longer term adaptability and resilience.

It also means much less potential for the happy surprise of people becoming and achieving more than what they and others initially imagined they could be and do.

This can be the sort of emergent and exaptive 'x-factor' talent to develop and power the creativity and innovation engines most organisations will need to get ahead and not just get by.

But I think it has more generalised importance as well. There is something in this about living up to the potential and promise of being, belonging and becoming in the future of work.

Space to grow needs to become a new normal for all of our talent.

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