Thursday 10 February 2011

Supporting Talent Development

Last week Level Seven attended the HR Directors’ Business Summit at the ICC, Birmingham both as exhibitors and speakers  www.wtgevents.com    As speakers we ran a masterclass on talent development which we co-delivered with our client, Tata Consultancy Services, part of the Tata Group.
The format of the workshop was to share the elements of our talent development programme, putting your talent to work™ which we have recently facilitated for TCS and some of the individual and organisation benefits achieved.     In addition, we also delivered a short session on creative thinking that was an integral part of the TCS programme.  As is common practice, at the end of the formal presentation, we asked the audience for questions and a theme that emerged was how do you engage senior management as part of any talent development programme?  We shared our approach which is to ensure that we gain buy-in from senior managers particularly around the issue of supporting the project work which participants undertake as part of the programme.
Recently, I came across an article written by McKinsey Consulting which summarised some research they conducted.   The research looked at how important it is for senior managers to engage or even set the agenda for any talent development programme.  Where senior management support was apparent, business improvement exceeded that of those companies who did not have the support or engagement of senior managers in their programme.  If you would like a copy of this article, please contact me at info@level7live.com also if you have any ideas, comments or observations on this thorny issue we would be delighted to hear from you so that we may share them with our Level Seven network of professionals and practitioners.
One last question that comes to mind is that if senior managers are responsible for supporting participants on any talent development programme – who supports the supporters?  We assume that senior managers are self motivated and self directed.  It is an assumption that is easy to make but is it a fair one?  So if there are any senior managers reading this who may want to comment, please get in touch, again we would like to share your experiences with our wider community.
Thank you
Dr Gill Stevens
Director