Talent Transformation: Develop Today's Team for Tomorrow's World of Work

Let me give the TL;DR summary of Talent Transformation. If you are involved in any capacity with developing people at work, whether as an HR professional, a supervisor, or a business leader, you should have this book on your shelf. What's good about the book is that it helps connect the individual and the collective efforts required for engineering human performance in organizations and teams. What is difficult about this book is that it covers a lot of ground and thus is more theoretical, and you need to spend more time on their website to get practical tools and tips.OK, for a little more context, read below.The struggle with a lot of discussion about how organizations and firms can leverage talent development -- through skills, knowledge, behavior and experience -- is that the tyranny of our collective understanding of education and its focus on the individual sometimes gets in the way of our recognition that organizations want to develop individual skills and competencies in order to deliver collective capabilities to produce results for clients.Let me use an American sports example to draw attention to this issue more clearly. In baseball, the double play is when three players execute a series of fielding, throws, catches, and touches by the - 4 (2nd base) - 6 (Shortstop) - 3 (1st base)The execution of the throws and catches from 4-6-3 or 6-4-3 is the “task” that matters to the team. The “skill” that is practiced by each of the individuals is fielding grounders, throwing, and tagging.When we talk about developing skills and knowledge, we often send employees to a learning or a training function. Three types of efforts are executed by a typical Learning and Development (L&D) function: (1) "UPKNOWLEDGING" all fielders (even catchers, third base, left fielders, and pitchers) on the benefits of the double play in reducing pitch count and reducing scoring opportunities for the opponent. What you want to make sure is that people recognize possible double-play scenarios and be ready to do their part (including watching how much the base runner is leading on first, where to position themselves to reduce safe hitting areas, and when to select high and inside pitches). Upknowledging is making sure everyone is on the same page when they see certain situations develop. (2) "UPSKILLING" the utility infielders, second base, first base, and shortstops on staff on fielding, throwing, and catching in order to turn a double play efficiently and effectively What you want to make sure is that specific infielders have sufficient practice on fielding, positioning, throwing, and catching to make sure that people are ready to handle all scenarios of double plays. Upskilling is making sure that people have had sufficient practice individually and are at an appropriate level of readiness to do their part in a double-play. (3) "UPPERFORMING" the infielders to apply the team strategy on turning the double play on the face of emerging and various offense strategies such as the high slide, or the wild base run. Upperforming means to make sure that the team strategy is executed consistently to deliver expected results.L&D often does (1) and offers content -- usually generic -- for (2), but does not generally offer much if anything on (3).And L&D reports on its effectiveness *not* on how well the infielders turned possible double plays *but* on how much time or how many completed double-play training. Upperforming is laying out the strategy and the collective measurements — both leading indicators and KPIs — and making sure that the "MIKE" is working properly ( "M"otivations as seen by individuals including shared reality; "I"ncentives as arranged by supervisors, teams, and org structures; "K"nowledge, skills, and behaviors as applied by individuals in a collective effort; and "E"nvironment, including the technology and other contexts in which tasks are executed and whatever barriers need to be overcome in order to achieve impact on collective action).When considering team or collective performance, you need to assess both individual skills and current processes to understand how well the plays are working. One would also need to consider the current and planned or considered adjustments to automation change the vector of performance.Talent Transformation helps to switch the discussion of organizational talent development from discussions about individuals being upskilled to connecting efforts more clearly to collective performance. The book offers a compelling model to conceptualize the different components of upknowledging, upskilling, and upperforming. They help to distinguish the difference between capabilities and competencies in this light. And then they make the case that assessment is a critical component for this work.The book is a solid book. If I were to offer one criticism, it would be that the chapter on assessing teams is not as solid as it could be, though in their defense, our understanding of how people individually contribute to the collective performance is not as significant as the work on individual performance.

If you are responsible for talent management and development strategies in your organization or a leader of people this is a must read. The way we work was changing before the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to do so as more technology breakthroughs happen. This book has simple and practical ideas and frameworks to help you transform your workplace to one that is innovative and inclusive. Highly recommend.

it is what is needed to help all professionals.