Page 225 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

HOW DO I RESPOND TO DISPOSABILITY AND CHANGE? (GROWTH, LEARNING, AND RESILIENCE)

TABLE 8.1 Checklist for Acquiring Talent for Learning

BUY BUILD
To buy learning and generalization skill, we . . . To train for learning and generalization, we . . .
■ ■
■ Attend as teams rather than
■ Hire outside experts as consultants
■ individuals
■ Acquire new competencies by hiring
■ Focus on learning application not
skilled full-time employees ■
■ just knowledge acquisition
■ Hire and promote curious chiefs
■ Attend in cross-functional groups
■ ■
■ Seek fresh blood (from universities,
competitors, oddball places) ■
■ Invest in ongoing education
■ throughout the organization
■ Follow the whims of superstars (but
insist that the stars share) ■
■ Involve customers in all aspects of
■ training
■ Formally recognize learning
(e.g., “Director of Knowledge ■
■ Share ownership of training
Management”) between line managers and HR
■ ■
■ Hire people known as learners with
■ Plan training to stretch participants
competencies such as inquiry, intellectually and practically
reflection, systems thinking, mental ■
■ Use training forums to challenge
modeling, conflict management, work assumptions and processes
disciplined postmortem processing, ■
ability to make data-based recom- ■ Require systems training for all
mendations, networking employees
■ To continually develop employees,
■ Outplace nonlearners and tell people
about it we . . .
■ ■
■ Promote learners in the hierarchy and
■ Use postmortem format to learn
give them public recognition from experience: What did you
■ learn? What will you do differently
■ Leave people in jobs long enough to
demonstrate learning as a result?
■ Sanction cross-functional moves
■ ■
■ Source candidates for every position
from multiple sources ■
■ Support learning sabbaticals
■ ■
■ Put people with varying backgrounds
■ Rotate people across jobs
into management positions ■
■ Encourage innovative job assign-
ments (e.g., start-up, turnaround)
■
■ Participate in task forces
■
■ Practice external job sharing (share
employee with customer or supplier)
■
■ Assign people to special projects
■
■ Have on-the-job apprenticeships
■
■ Ensure that every person has a
learning plan
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