Honesty Or Heresy? Admitting You Have Talent Fatigue—Part 3

The talent issues we’ve been exploring in this article series are real—catch up here and here. Without effective intervention, objective demographic data shows us that a crisis point is looming. For some industries like the trades, there simply won’t be enough ready-to-work, early career talent to meet market demand. Other sectors may get younger workers in the door, but will find themselves on the short end of succession demands as Baby Boomers continue to retire without enough people qualified to take the leadership helm.

And yet, business leaders are exhausted from the plethora of vendors shaping the conversation, the implementation burden required to deploy new solutions and the often disappointing, lackluster outcomes that associate talent development initiatives. After all, why do we keep throwing resources at a problem only to rehash the same issues 6, 9 or 12 months later? Given the very real talent issues and the reality of leader fatigue on this topic, the question is – where do we go from here? Let’s start with some simple steps forward:

Admit your talent fatigue

Awareness and honesty are far better than ignoring this critical issue. Create an environment of candor where others in the organization can be honest about this issue as well.

Choose impact over the status quo

While evaluating programs may seem like a can-of-worms to avoid, start with your most pressing talent issue and look at the solutions you have in place today. Examine all evidence as to whether or not they are working and choose one program to upstart or upgrade.

Select vendors wisely

While most are sure to offer expertise, speed and in some cases, scale, these goodies cannot be at the expense of underestimating your internal implementation burden. Ask the tough questions and choose solution providers that understand the system conditions required for their products or services to deliver strong outcomes. Chances are your best partners will likely be individuals that have run businesses themselves at one point. Ideally, you should have confidence that the provider you choose will stick with you to the end.

Assuming this has been a therapeutic, yet practical read the time is now to re-engage on the specific talent issues. Start with the ones that you know are concerning today, before they become an all-out crisis point tomorrow. Tune down the volume on expert chatter and park ideas that don’t come with a clear path for implementation. Do the next, best thing for your business.

The payoff of putting one, meaningful win on the board is sure to be both professional rewarding and personally energizing.

 

 

 

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