On Any Given Work Day You Can Focus on the Fundamentals
This time of year I spend the weekends indoors watching a lot of football games even when my team is out of the playoffs, which as a Cincinnati Bengals fan, is usually the case. The teams that advance deep into the playoffs always execute the strategy that their coaches emphasized in the week of practice prior to the game. And after the game a sideline reporter asks a question to the coach something to the effect of, “What did you say to your team to get them focused for the game today?” And the coach replies in typical coach-speak; “We went out there with a total team effort and did the little things well and everyone did their job. It was just an example of our guys going out there and playing solid fundamental football, which at the end of the day is what we asked them to do from the very beginning back in training camp.”
The Fundamentals. Back to basics. These are clichés thrown around the business world as much as they are the world of professional sports. It is so common to hear these concepts come from the pages of success stories that there must be some merit to them. But how do you go back to basics?
It has to start from the top.
A leadership team first has to go through a period of self-reflection to connect the mission, vision and values of the business with the competencies that must be present in the people that represent them. It boils down to leadership saying this is what we believe in as an organization and these are the non-negotiable skills required to sustain this belief. These must-have competencies must be mandated from the top down and integrated into job descriptions, individual development plans, candidate interview questions and performance reviews.
A great example of this can be found at the Estee Lauder Companies where Executive Director of Global Talent Development, Soni Basi, has carried the torch of leadership development by insisting that all teams at ELC have an equitable distribution of 9 High-Touch Leadership Competencies that are applicable to all employees regardless of level or role. Without her team laying these foundational guidelines, ELC’s commitment to a strengths based performance management system would not be nearly as effective.
Leverage Competency Models into Organizational Learning Initiatives
Once the competency model has been formed and tied to the values and goals of the business there arises the more tactical challenge of implementation. To go back to the football training camp metaphor- you’ve had the first big team meeting where the coaches roll out the goals for the season and now it’s time to put the pads on and go to work. Given the rich pigskin tradition of Central Pennsylvania it’s fitting that the football analogy around organizational learning takes us to The Hershey Company where the learning and development leaders have done something quite remarkable. With strong support from the organization’s leaders, Mary Farrell, Senior Manager, Global Enterprise Learning & Development, and her team have rolled out a unique approach to leverage The Hershey Company’s competency model into a fully integrated learning initiative. One prime example of that is with an emphasis on technology as a learning platform to which employees are given the opportunity to create self-directed programs, yet each of these align closely to the stated competency model which ties to the business strategy.
The Human Capital Institute encourages those interested in learning more about The Hershey Company’s learning initiatives to watch the on demand webcast Change Is on the Horizon: Learning as a Catalyst for Global Growth in order to get first-hand knowledge of how this program was implemented and how its results were measured. Of course the challenges of organizational development aren’t typically solved by simply going back to the basics; but sometimes you have to just put your head down, focus on the next opponent and win one game at a time.