Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Leadership Growth Podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Stewart, along with my brother, Peter Stewart. And we're here to talk about tools and ideas to help you grow yourself as a leader. So welcome back, everybody. And if this is the first time, welcome to a fantastic conversation. So today's topic, how do you sync up development with strategy? Because so many times we hear of training experiences where it's kind of like the flavor of the week or the latest great idea, and they all can be helpful and interesting. But how do you sequence it up to the overall strategy of talent development and helping business leaders engage in that strategy and that development instead of having them kind of one-off efforts? So that's the topic today. But before we dive into that, Peter, you had a recent client experience. And I think it would be really good to share that. What was it about that client experience that would be helpful to share? Yeah, happy to talk about it. And it's always good to join for another episode. And thanks for promising that it's going to be a wonderful conversation. Well you set the bar high.-Yeah, exactly.-Exactly. But no, it was great. So recently I was helping to facilitate, it was an innovation summit conference for a team. And what I love about those sorts of engagements, those sorts of events, is you bring all these wonderful talented individuals together and you give them space to develop. So for this organization, they brought in, it was about 16 or 17 high potential individuals, and gave them a couple days. We had some instruction on innovation and helped broaden their horizon on what it meant. But it gives them space to look at some of the challenges that the organization is facing, some of the customer expectations, how you anticipate those, and to really develop some novel new ways. And the energy that comes when you bring those groups of people together is so contagious. And then they had the opportunity to share their ideas with some of the executive team at the end of the summit. And so then they get energized by it. And it was just a reminder to me of one, when you don't just talk the talk of innovation, but you actually schedule and look for ways to enhance it. But then just that, all of the side benefits from doing it, whether or not some of these ideas actually come to fruition or not, the entire group was energized. They're going to go talk to their colleagues when they get back to their respective base, home bases, you know? The executives kept talking about it afterwards of “What great ideas, and I never thought about combining these two products together for this offering. And the way they looked at what— man, what they could build with AI in a matter of a day just blew my mind.” Like those sorts of things. So I think we can think about how do we promote those innovative ideas in our organizations. So you're saying this was not across multiple organizations at a conference. You were saying this is within one organization, and they came and they invited. How did they decide who was to come to this innovation summit? That was a good question. And this was the first one they did. So they really just kind of thought, hey, here's some individuals that we've had our eyes on or thought that they're really in kind of some influential roles, some pivotal market leads and other things like that to bring them together. And in fact, the dialogue afterwards is, how do we expand this next time? And how do we bring a few more people in for another cohort or things like that? But yeah, it was all within a single organization is what they were doing. Yeah. And I'm curious, what sort of ground rules did they set or did they provide general ideas of areas to focus in on? How did they frame that up? Yeah. So this one, we spent kind of the morning of that first day really diving into some of the fundamentals of innovation, how you promote it, prompt it, how it fits within the culture at that organization. And then they started to get an assignment in which there were some ideas that they were able to expand on and they've broken up into teams. And we ran an idea lab, like a World Cafe format facilitation to help break out and get down some of those ideas. And then that second day was a lot of just building out their solutions, working in their teams. They were about four or five in a team.-Yeah. Getting ready for a presentation at the end of that second day. How did you help the senior team, the executives, know what to say or what not to say at the end? And there's a story behind this that I'll share, but give me a sense... How did the executives show up? How did they, what did they say or not at the end? We really kind of briefed them in terms of they knew what the assignment was. They knew they'd been working on this for just about a day and a half on the project and that the teams were excited to share the ideas and they were there to ask questions, to be able to share some thoughts and ideas. But it wasn't a, you know, let's try and pick things apart and dig into it to make... So we tried to keep it on a positive note.-Yeah, yeah. So you asked the question for a reason.(laughing) What's behind that? Yeah. So I led an innovation summit several years ago and at end of the two days, the senior leadership team came in and listened to all of the presentations and just totally shot holes through all of them, didn't adopt a thing, and began to tell everybody why they were wrong.(laughing) And it was, I'm laughing now because otherwise I would be crying. And it was one of the most like before the end, it was one of the most empowering, energizing, like innovative, great ideas. And they were, it was just shot down and people left so demoralized.(laughing)(laughing)-Oh no.-It was... And I'll never forget, like the CEO, I was coaching him and his team, saying, this is how you want to respond. Please. And he's like, wow, you are really concerned about the responses at the end. And I'm like, yes. And I did everything I could. But anyway, it was one of those big learning moments. It's a learning opportunity for all involved.-Yeah. Yeah.-Yup. Interesting. So, great idea though, to do it the right way and to then frame it up, a lot of great innovation summits. And what I love about the example is it's a bit of a free moment to allow people to explore and there's all sorts of great ideas of Google, you know, 20% of your time. And that's been used as kind of a yardstick, pros and cons with all of these things. But the point is to unleash in formal ways that innovative thinking.-Yeah. And there's so many ways innovation can come about. I mean, it doesn't have to be a new product offering. It can be an innovation in a process of how it's done, both internal or external facing. And there's lots of opportunities. And this one was more focused on an outward facing side,-Mm hmm. but even getting feedback from the group afterwards, it's how do you even expand the degrees of freedom in terms of those topics that they can select from. And as I've been involved in a few of these, the more degrees of freedom you give that group, I think it exponentially increases the ideas.-That's fantastic. So segueing from this innovation comment, innovation is often one of those skills that leaders need and they want to develop in addition to a long list of other skills. And so the question we want to tackle today, Peter, is whether it's innovation or whether it's communication or coaching or managing change or strategic thinking, all sorts of different skill sets that leaders need to develop and improve upon. How do we help do that, we as leaders and all of us as we're listeners here, and do it in a strategic way, so it's not just one offs? Now, maybe that's the place to start, but ultimately, how do we more clearly connect it to the strategy of the organization and to a broader, more specific talent strategy? And that's where we want to connect those dots and to be able to help us have that conversation. I want to introduce our strategic talent framework. And it's a three-part framework, and we can use that to guide our conversations. The first part is all about determining. Determining the talent strategy, determining the skills, determining the critical positions, determining the overall need and focus of the workforce development effort. And then the second stage is to discuss. And this is where you have the talent reviews and the succession planning conversations and the more formal conversations around how do we feel these folks are, in objective ways, against the skills that are needed within those positions? And then that leads to the third phase, which is the development, syncing up the development to the overall talent strategy and the conversations around the talent review and succession and getting very specific around the skills and approaches to then develop and then repeat and keep going. So this determine, discuss, and develop, we want to dive deeper into. So Peter, as you're here in this framework, what are initial thoughts that are going through your head as you've done this for so many different client organizations over the years? Where should we begin with this? Yeah, it's a question that comes up so often as we get involved, and particularly as we get to know clients even better and get to know their organizations and the pain points and some of the common struggles organizations have to fill that talent gap, to really understand what is the level of talent we have? How do we develop and improve and identify those individuals who are going to be the future leaders of this organization? And... And there's often, it just gets overwhelming. And I think we can look at this very, I say simply, and recognizing it's not simple, but we can look at this just, I think, at a basic level of, let's just take an example of a succession planning conversation and how that is illustrated with these three Ds. Because this framework applies to so many things. But if we're looking at succession planning, okay, determining. How does one determine how an individual is doing, where they are being plotted or placed or assessed based on an organization's need? So this is where a nine-box framework might come into play or other tools of that nature. So you have that determination, and then you're not just doing that exercise in a bubble. It's coming and bringing people together to talk about it, to have that conversation. And this is where that talent review, this discussion part happens, in which you're able to get feedback from multiple people across an organization so that there's an awareness of the talent that is there. And then finally, we're not just stopping of, okay, yep, we all agree they're in this box on the plot. No, no, now we're looking at, okay, these are strengths. These are areas of opportunities. What are we doing? What plan is in place? How are we giving them opportunities to grow? Because that's really the whole point of this whole process. It's not just, ah, we feel good. Everybody's plotted on their chart. Now we can go back and talk about it again in a year. And unfortunately, it kind of feels like it is that way. So that's kind of a quick, again, summary of that determine, discuss, develop side of it. So let's dig a little deeper as we think about determining. What tips or suggestions would you give, Daniel? And that's where I go back to, like, what the heck is the strategy of the organization? And how do we approach talent? And let's be upfront about it, because there are some organizations that it's kind of an up or out talent approach. If you're not ready to get promoted in 12, 18, 24 months, then we're not going to invest in you. And that's not where we're going to focus. And I want to be clear, none of this is right or wrong. It's matching that talent strategy with the strategy of the business and being upfront about it with people. Maybe that's a talent strategy of we are a lifer. We want you to build a career here. And we're going to then help you have lots of options and continue to develop in position for a long time and or move you around in various places and give you potential opportunities. That's a distinctly different approach as well. There might be other considerations such as, are you a smaller organization in a high growth situation? All right, then the talent philosophy is going to be very different and it's going to be rapid, it's going to be fast, it's going to be skill development. Are you going to be maybe in a situation where maybe it's you're in a larger organization and it's maybe a little slower of a marketplace or an industry or you're more of a mature organization and it's larger. You may not be able to be promoted in even four or five or seven years because it's a slower moving thing. And especially if that organization values loyalty or tenure, then that's a distinct talent strategy. Let's be upfront and be clear about it. All these are important to be very specific about. And they go into that talent strategy statement. And that's where we often will start with clients to be able to be... let's write these talent statements. We are committed to, we believe in, we want to support people who. All of these are statements to be able to help express what people can expect to manage their own expectations. And then as we've developed that, it then helps us recognize, or rather the organization to recognize what should we do next? And how many different positions are we going to invest in? And is it everybody, all positions? Are we going to emphasize certain positions more than others? And that's then this next conversation around these critical positions. And I'll just say, this can be so hard because nobody likes to hear that your position is not critical. And so I'll, I'll, I'll define that more clearly. A critical position is one that is very hard to fill and/or takes at least six plus months to get somebody fully proficient in. And then either one of those, and it has a significant value add to the most strategic parts of the business.-Mm hmm.-Now that's not every position. So you have critical positions and then you also have important positions. Nearly all of the other positions are important. They might not be as critical, important. And then you have essential and those essential positions. So we often think of in those categories, but the critical positions, they deserve the most attention to be able to develop... talent for. Anyway, that that's the place to then go next. And it's so helpful to have that because it, it provides a filter. Because especially when we're talking about large organizations, or even if you're doing this within a business unit of a large organization across, like it can be overwhelming. And I think that's one of the main reasons why so often these talent-based initiatives and frameworks, they stop before they really get to the end because you don't want to offend anybody by not including them. It's just too... So what level? And, and you go, well, we're just going to start at this level, but that's taking a lot of work. And by the time you're thinking that waterfall trickle-down approach to get down within all levels of an organization, it's like, oh man, we've stopped. You know? It just... So you're having that first off, having those talent strategy statements are powerful because it helps to then give the focus on what it is we're looking for and why we're doing it. And then to make sure you're focusing first on those most critical positions. And so even right there, it's given it a good place to, to start because you can't do it with everybody all at once.-Yeah. Okay. So when clients ask you, how many positions should we focus on? That is an important question, hard to answer. I often will say, let's try to make it as small of a number as we can, at least for year one. And the top leaders, the five or six or seven in the leadership role, yes. Maybe the next level. And let's stop there. And or maybe there's one or two other key feeder positions or another VP or another director level. Can we just do that right? You know, tackle that for year one. We can always expand versus let's do all people leaders or let's do everybody in the organization. And when you start getting into hundreds and hundreds of people and hundreds of positions, especially if you're just starting, or you were kind of rebooting. Overwhelming. And not all of those positions are equal in value to the business, hence focusing on the critical ones. 20, 25, 30. I'm realizing I'm answering my own question and let me shut up,(laughing)(laughing) Peter.(laughing) How would you answer this?(laughing) It's a good answer you're giving. I mean, you can give the classic psychological answer of, well, it depends, you know, because every scenario is a little bit different.-Yeah.-But you're actually reminding me of a situation. I was recently working with a leadership team of a business unit and we were really helping to dig in and prioritize some of their strategic efforts over this next year, over the subsequent year that was coming up. And they'd identified it. And one of the challenges they kept having as things kept being put on their plate and why we needed to focus on this prioritization is there was a small percentage of their overall workforce that continued to be tapped for all of these extra initiatives.-Right.-You know, it's the same, you know, quarter or so of their total workforce. And I had to keep pausing and saying, look, yes, we're talking about prioritizations here, but do you recognize prioritization is really not your core issue? You have a talent issue. You have a talent pool that is not being developed to meet the needs that are required of this organization. And that turned it totally on its ear because then you have the opportunity to build out these talent statements to be able to say, well, wait a minute, why are we limiting ourselves? What are we doing to grow and build and identify the needs? Do we have individuals that are not performing that or are not in the right role? You know, and so just to broaden that and that's really where we're getting into more of that discussion conversation as you start to identify-Yeah. and determine these things. I love that because it raises it back to a strategic conversation and it takes it away from the person per se and focuses on the work itself and what's really needed and where the value is. And then you can insert the person in the skill set to say, are they aligned? How can we help them be most successful in that current role? Or what conversations do we need to have with them to accelerate their development because they aren't doing as well? Or we need to have that tough conversation to shift them to a different role. And that strategic viewpoint then often will help accelerate and identify the conversations we need to have that maybe are not being held.-Yeah. And they're not the easy conversations. It also helps you see where you have gaps in skill set at an organizational level. And we'll hear this term strategic hires, you know, it gets thrown around all the time and it can mean a lot of different things. And I think one of the most effective ways to actually make a strategic hire is to have highlighted and recognize that this is a capability, this is a skill set that we currently are lacking in. We need to bring that in from the outside because we can't just develop it in here. You bring that in, hopefully then it's going to spark some other development and growth around it because people have had experience seeing this vision at scale at a larger organization or looking at how a different operation could be executed than what we currently are doing.-Yeah. Yep. It's interesting just as the meeting I have right after this recording of the podcast is to prepare for a talent review for a large manufacturing organization next week. And this is year two for them as they have rebooted their journey. And the decision was made to focus on 35 positions. And we have now, especially in year two, identified with greater clarity the skills that are going to be needed at each level and each position, which is also part of that determining first phase. Once you identify the positions you want to focus on, what are the skills that are going to be needed? And it's okay to start with a broad set of skills across all leaders. That's a good place to start. Five or seven or 10 or something like this that can be related to your values, your leadership profile, a great place to start. And then as organizations continue to mature, you can divide out those skills by level. And that's kind of the next stage of looking at what are the three, four or five skills needed by level, technical, but especially then the manager and leadership skills that are going to be most important to help the organization, again, accomplish its strategic goals.-Yeah. It makes it very real. And I think it also helps make it tangible. So that the decision-making process feels more clear-Mm hmm. as you're working at it. Because then you have that determining, then we launch into more of the discussion. And sure, there's going to be conversations as you're determining all of these things. It's not to say we determine in a bubble, vacuum in a backroom office, and now we just bring it all out. You're going to have people involved and hopefully the right people involved to be discussing each of these steps along the way. But as we have identified the critical statements, the critical positions, those critical skills, we're then able to then share that and really then talk about individuals at a broader level. And whether that is at a talent review in which you bring an entire leadership team together and do that or whatever format that might take. That conversation, it just highlights and it brings out the content, the materials, the fodder by which then you can build out these development plans.-Yeah. And, you know, speaking of this specific example that I was just referencing, one of the things that we've learned about now in year two is to identify a specific skill for the more senior level leaders that wasn't previously identified. And that skill is to develop talent and to, as a senior level leader, one of the skills that we are now expecting you to be good at is to develop other talent, which in some ways is kind of a duh. However, it's not because it's not always thought of as part of your job. But now in year two, we can add that to the skill set from which we can then view ourselves and see how we are doing in it. And then we can get, of course, more specific with each different level, which leads to the other part of this determine process. And that is to identify and create a talent profile for each person of which there will be conversations about. And that talent profile is critical for each person to complete on their own so that the leaders are able to understand their self-perception. What are the things they feel they're good at or not so good at? And let's put the performance reviews so there's objective criteria. What are the engagement review information? Did they complete their goals or not? Did they hit the deadlines that they agreed to? These are the objective measures that absolutely need to be included on a talent profile. And then also, what are the comments from the boss, their manager? And that needs to be included on the talent profile, as well as the aspirations of the person. The... The one... The thing that makes...-That last part.-Yeah.-That last part is so important because you can be preparing somebody to be the next VP or whatever it might be. If they don't care and they don't want to do it, are you really developing them or is this wasted resources? So getting their input... again, these are not processes that are done just in isolation, you know, covert acts.-Yeah. They need to be included. I just wanted to really hit that last part because we've seen where it's not it's not even taken into consideration.-Yeah. Thank you. I was going to emphasize that, too. And yet it may be an opportunity to then talk to the individual and paint a different picture, maybe challenge thinking. Sure. But it's not just to assume they're going to want it. However, I will say if the talent philosophy is one of a chess master. In other words, senior level leaders move people around and it is understood that you are to simply say yes and that's under that's the expectation. Again, neither right nor wrong. But that is a... if that's the strategy. I don't know if that's always as effective, especially today with people wanting to have more choice. However, that's that's an approach. The majority of the time, though, what we find, Peter, just as you were describing, check in with the person, see what they are after. And you can educate them as to more possibilities that they maybe hadn't thought of. But check in with them, especially say they're elderly folks, are aging and they need to be present in their lives. They can't travel as much, perhaps. Oh, this is good to know. It has nothing to do with who they are as a person. No, no, no. It's where their life stage is. Maybe they have young kids and they need to be able to stay close to other... There's a variety of factors to consider before plans are made about them.-Yep. And I think the last point we'll make on this part is recognizing those aspirations and these talent profiles. It's been very important that there are at least two clear tracks and areas of focus for individuals. We're not just exclusively focusing on the development of leadership or people leader talent. We're also focusing on the ability and of technical abilities, you know, that critical competencies, those other areas, because not everybody is motivated by wanting to be a people manager. But yet you want to create an atmosphere in which you're recognizing achievement on both avenues there.-Yeah.-Because you need talent on both sides. So I think that's where in that process we have to be very much aware that we're not just ignoring one side or the other. And I think we've started elaborating on this so much. I think we're going to have to do a part two(laughing) of this to get into the three D's. I completely agree. So, listeners, part two will focus on the discussing and the developing side of this. So look out for that next episode, which will be coming out soon as well. So otherwise, Peter, it's always fun chatting with you about all these things. Is there a one thing that you'd want to leave people with as they're wanting to connect at least that determined part to the development? What would you want to emphasize? I think the one thing is going to be two parts.(laughing) I'll expand it. Is one, you want to be sure and make the strategic connection clear. That connection to your strategy. We kind of glossed over it. And maybe we'll put some examples of those in the show notes of what these talent strategy statements are, because those are absolutely essential. And the second part of it is start small.-Mmm.-Start with a group and a size that is reasonable. Think beta testing. Think pilot. So you're kind to yourself, you're kind of the process, and you're not over promising to an organization that then you might not be able to fulfill. Great advice, especially because whoever you focus on, however many positions, you're going to want to have development plans for them and invest in their development. And let's do it really well for those positions and people who add the greatest value or who can add the greatest value in the future. Because that's the other angle for us to pay attention to. Peter, always a pleasure. Listeners, thanks so much for joining us as you're getting more and more tools and ideas to help you grow your own leadership development and capability, as well as the leadership of others. Please like and subscribe and we'll look forward to having you join at a future podcast. Take care, everyone. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Or better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show. And remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more great content or to learn more about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com.