Category: Ideas

What performance does business need from its employees?

Today’s business environment has been termed and widely accepted as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous.)  This environment has placed a premium on organizations that are:

• Agile – able to quickly deploy and redeploy human capital to emerging needs and opportunities.
• Experimental – have a culture and resources able to conceive, test and iterate of new hypotheses.
• Innovative – ability to generate and execute new ideas in order to capture business opportunities.
• Data powered – human capital is augmented by data for management (ie. performance tracking, succession planning) and the delivery of the above capabilities.

Today’s business environment is as being what Robin Hogarth calls a “wicked domain.”  Wicked domains are defined as having problems that are not readily computable and have feedback loops that are long and may not provide accurate feedback. The answers to wicked problems are unknown at the outset and need to be created. Examples of wicked domains include improvisational jazz, and cancer research.

Net: Today’s business environment requires a P2P that makes human capital “wicked smart” (Boston joke)

What is the traditional/current/accepted P2P for employees?

Today’s development paths generally follow two paths depending n the employee.  Designated high potential employees are often provided a wide ranging development path early on in their careers. Business units rotations, projects and even mentorship expose this employee to all aspects of the company as a means of preparing them for future leadership positions. This cohort is typically extremely small relative to the employee base.  

The second path serves the typical employee.  On this path employes, who have been hired for a specific domain experience are funneled into deeper knowledge of that domain.  Sales people receive sales and product training, an operations employee may receive task management and process training wile operators might attend equipment and safety courses.  These trainings, limited to a single domain are associated with the assumption of a kind domain and problems.  

Kind problems are domain-constrained with tight and accurate feedback loops. Unlike the wicked variety, answers to kind problems are known and simply need to be found. Kind doesn’t mean easy, a sport can be kind because you quickly know if you executed the correct stroke. Examples of kind domains include classical music, hernia surgery and chess. Kind domains are are often the best targets for automation. 

Range principles, where existing, are often found in the initial hiring process. In 1991 David Guest introduced the concept of t-shaped skills. The vertical bar of the T refers to expert knowledge and experience in a particular area, while the top of the T refers to an ability to collaborate with experts in other disciplines and a willingness to use the knowledge gained from this collaboration. This concept was further popularised by Tim Brown, CEO of design firm IDEO. While the concept was seen to have value  and gained momentum with HR the concept of developing t-shaped employees never took hold. The priority for most recruiting and promotions involves an emphasis on the vertical domain of the individual.

T-shaped employees provide companies with increased talent agility and mobility. Having an agile workforce can spell the difference between being an industry leader or falling behind. PwC reports that when businesses have development programs that increase agility, 86 percent respond rapidly to changes in the business environment. Without these kinds of programs, only about half do. A Forbes article from earlier this year stated  that talent mobility enables organizations to rapidly adapt to changing environments, with the ability to deploy and move key skills across projects, across the business and across borders when needed. Mobility provides avenues for staff to progress and evolve within an organization, and can lead to 30% better processes and 23% more productivity.

Epstein captures it this way. “Facing uncertain environments and wicked problems, breadth of experience is invaluable.  Facing kind problems, narrow specialization can be remarkably efficient. The problem is that we often expect the hyperspecialist, because of their expertise in a narrow area, to magically be able to extend their skills to wicked problems.  The results can be disastrous.”

Net: Today’s P2P does not fit business to a “T” (I am on a roll)

What are the principles that define the Range P2P?

First it is important to acknowledge, as Epstein does multiple times in the book, that while Range-enabled generalists are critical to business success the value of specialists is not diminished.  A multitude of examples are provided showing how generalists draw on the deep expertise of specialists in order to achieve the results delivered. Distilling the book’s insights and translating them to corporate talent management creates three levels of guidance.  The first contains the characteristics of a Rangey(?) path-to-performance (rP2P). The second, is guidance on keys to rangey teams. The final level is focused on the organizations itself.

rP2P

The goal of the rP2P is to build polymaths.  Polymaths differ from T-shaped employees in that the emphasis is on the horizontal dimension. A polymath’s breadth is greater than T-shaped human capital while their vertical depth may be less than traditional T-shapes. The polymath’s superpower comes from a range of transferable thinking skills (conceptual, computational, lateral, and ambidextrous for example) that allow for innovative problem solving across multiple domains.  It also includes more tangible skills such as communication, collaboration and anticipatory competencies that drive higher value solutions. The final element of a range-y employee is attitudinal with value-adding polymaths displaying active open mindedness and scientific curiosity. 

The first two principles associated with a Range-aligned P2P focus on the structure and focus of the developmental path. The rP2P contains:

• A sampling period – This is characterized by what experts often call “unstructured play.”  This feature of the developmental path allows for individuals to experiment in domains other than their own.  In the corporate environment this may be a rotational program or project-based. The unstructured element forces participants to improvise first before learning existing rules.  This is analogous to the way in which humans learn language. We learn the sounds first before we learn the rules of grammar. This element should be designed to provide the participant with experiences that allow them to better understand alternative domains giving them knowledge of resources that may be valuable when facing later challenges as well as exposure and personal knowledge of their interest and proclivity for other areas. 
• Mechanisms for improving “match quality” – The rP2P should include opportunities for individuals and organizations to re-deploy individuals to domains better suited to their skills, interests, and proclivities. Short-term assignments, internal internships and project participation can be used to serve this purpose.  Up or out development paths serve neither the individual or organization.

The final two principles associated with a Range-aligned P2P focus on the content and presentation of that content on the developmental path. The rP2P contains:

• Flexible content – Flexible content is content that is both sticky (retained over the long-term) and broadly applicable. Retention of rP2P content is driven by two key factors.  The first is the use of testing. rP2P test questions are connection making in nature versus procedural. Testing should focus on cross domain application, pattern recognition, categorization and decision making. Procedural questions such as “what are the four steps in handling a customer objection?” are minimized in far of questions such as, “what other uses for the customer objection handling process are there?” Stickiness is also enhanced by the use of spacing. Delaying the testing process forces the knowledge to be placed into long-term memory.  End of class assessments are less indicative of future performance than follow up assessments given at a later date.
• Difficult learning experiences – Learning should include what Nate Kornell calls “desirable difficulties.”  These productive difficulties include creating a generational effect, where participants produce their own answers exclusive of guidance.  Learners benefit greatly from this self-reliant process even if the answer generated is incorrect. Instructors should also be creating environments in which learners struggle. This may include problems beyond learners’ capabilities, mixing multiple areas of new knowledge together to prohibit “block” learning (aka memorization) and assessments in which few learners achieve a passing score.  While this often results in lower instructor/session ratings from participants it has been shown to have significant long-term benefits in retention and performance.

Rangey Groups

While the book focuses primarily on the individual, Epstein highlights two characteristics of high performing groups.

• Diverse –  High performing groups included a wide variety of participants.  This includes range in:
  • Geography/World view
  • Demographic
  • Experience in domain from novice to expert
  • Domain, but still polymaths not a collection of specialists  
• Porous boundaries – Groups that performed well were also not walled off from the rest of the organization.  Groups frequently showed improved value when they were able to reach out to specialists across the organization and even outside the organization. 

Rangey Organizations

Example such as 3M are cited in the book as examples of an organization that supports its range-y individuals and teams.  From creating an internal award for innovation to the ways it allows individuals to follow their passions (increased match quality) 3M regularly produces significant innovations across a wide range of domains.  Epstein touches on a few organizational keys.

• Culture –  3M’s internal award and its talent management approach are operational examples of a culture that sees the value of supporting its rangey employees. By celebrating, facilitating and empowering range, 3M has created a culture that makes it values more than just an annual statement cliche.  
• Long-term focus – Because range often does not show immediate results the organizations that embrace it must have a longer view.  Think of the innovations that emerged from Amazon and the newly approved LTSE (long-term stock exchange) that clearly states that “Companies that operate with a long-term mindset tend to outperform their peers over time. But going public can pressure even the most visionary founder into a short-term mindset.” 
• Risk tolerant – Creating new solutions that work often means finding many more that don’t.  Acceptance, even encouragement of failure, and the adoption of an experimental scientific mindset are cornerstones of organizations that deliver higher performance over the long-term.

Net: The principles of Range have implications for a number of areas in talent management including; candidate selection, onboarding, development, succession planning and leadership. In order to drive success in today’s wicked environment organizations, and talent management functions that support them, must become an integrated farm (egg-to-soup) for free-range talent. (the roll continues)

How can we objectively measure the alignment of a company’s current P2P?

Standard measures for HR practices are in limited supply and often not publicly available. The table below captures some initial thoughts regarding potential metrics/proxies for the various elements of range. Primary research in collaboration with one or more of the partner listed at the end of this section and/or analyst-like interviews focused on HR leaders may also prove useful in the development and testing of a quantitative range “score”.