Recently, a vice president at a Fortune 500 company was speaking with us about a meeting he had had with his executive team.
It was a good meeting.  We discussed the talent development opportunities for the up and comers, and I feel confident that we have a strong bench to back fill any important positions that might open up. 
Did you ask them and the rest of your organization about their hopes for talent development?
Maybe we’ll do that next time.

The meeting is not unusual.  The dominant theme at many talent development conferences and in the current literature is about how business objectives must drive talent development.  The model is top-down, command and control.  “The company needs the following results, and we design our talent development programs to deliver them.  Our throughput is ____ and our metrics show ____ level of retention and application.”  Purveyors of such programs have a mechanistic view of how people engage in the organizations.  It’s like Newtonian physics.  For each action, there is a reaction.

Are you trying to drive your people?

It would make complete sense, except that people aren’t machines and don’t like to be “driven” like cattle.  Certainly, such programs have a role for transferring knowledge and helping people learn how to complete routine tasks.  However, they aren’t likely to get the breakthroughs in new ideas and genuine engagement that we need for innovation and growth of both organizations and their human capital.

When companies pursue engagement from the perspective of how do we get employees to contribute more than what they are being paid for (i.e. discretionary effort), they have lost right out of gate.  This transactional view of engagement stimulates a shortsighted response from employees.  “OK, I’ve got my skills.  You’re my employer.  How are we going to barter?  What’s the deal?”

Wellsprings of Talent takes a different tack to move talent development from a transactional paradigm to a generative paradigm.  Based upon the near universal desire of people to tap more of their own talent and experience the resulting satisfaction, we provide ways to help them put their yearnings into action.  This generative view shifts the dynamic.  “I want to use my talents.  I want to expand what I can accomplish.  How can my employment be a forum for me to do that?  How can we make it work for both me and my employer?”

Here is a critical choice for organizations.  How much of a command-control structure do we need to insure that we can deliver outstanding results?  How much can we work with people and their generative nature and trust that things will work out…perhaps even better than we could have imagined?  How much of each of these paradigms is right for us?  The companies that give lip service to engagement but lean heavily on command and control are seen right through and the efforts flounder.  Firms wonder, “Why isn’t it working?”   It’s because the underlying ethos, and more importantly practices, don’t support self-generated engagement.

When people get into transactional mode, it triggers their fearful brain.  Everything is a negotiation.  “What are you going to give me for my extra effort?  Is it fair?  Who’s going to come out ahead?  Who’s in charge?  Do I like him or her?”  That line of thinking takes us to the wrong set of questions.  They won’t help us get to our best work.  But, organizations sure spend a lot of time on these issues and questions.

Even positive answers to the transactional questions won’t be fulfilling.  For example, so what if the deal is fair?  Lack of fairness can kill motivation, but fairness doesn’t inspire it.  The transactional view fixes attention on all of the wrong things.  The generative view focuses on what I am doing to identify, develop, apply, and celebrate what I can contribute.  How am I reaching and connecting with my coworkers and others to accomplish that?

Tap sustaining self-motivation

When we are in a generative place, we’re looking for how to make things better not only for ourselves but also for other people.  Our spirits are full.  “This is working for us, how is it working for our coworkers, our boss, and our organization?”  We can take this stand when we choose to come from a place of deep engagement and tap our best thinking.

The generative view has a strong foundation in the latest scientific understandings of how natural systems such as beehives and flowing streams adapt, shift, and organize themselves.  This alternative organizational paradigm emerging from the work of Margaret Wheatley [see, for example, Leadership and the New Science  (Berrett-Koehler, 1999)] and others invites us to unleash the human capacity for self-organization.

More recently, Daniel Pink has challenged the traditional transactional assumptions that incentives yield performance in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Riverhead, 2011).  He notes that while piecework production responds to monetary incentives, today’s knowledge workers don’t.  They seek autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

When, organizations honestly embrace helping employees develop the talents that they are inspired to use, they gain a powerful, self-motivated workforce.

“We are unique because we tell stories — and live by the stories we tell.”

George Gerbner

Each of has a story about our aspirations and our talents.  Most of us have some story about how we have applied and enjoyed our talents.  Maybe, it was learning a musical instrument in grade school, developing key skills for a trade or profession, or leading a community organization.  A few people have seemingly magical stories about heroically overcoming obstacles and achieving great results.

Even if we are the top of our profession, however, there’s often a hitch or snag in our story—something that is holding us back now from even greater fulfillment.  It sounds like this:  “I would like to [aspiration], but [obstacles, limitations, challenges] are in my way and I can’t get past them.”  In fact, we often become attached to our stories and become vindicated by them.  They explain why we haven’t progressed as much as we’d like and get us off the hook for not gaining results.

Are you stuck in a limiting story?

Here are some real-life examples.

Margaret—I want to be a supervisor, but all of the openings require experience in managing others.  It’s a big “Catch 22.”  I guess I just need to make do with where I am.

Kevin—I want to take the company that I’ve built to the next level and enjoy my work again, but I’m bogged down in a myriad of details.  I want to escape (and often do) to outside activities and new sources of stimulation.  Meanwhile, the company stagnates and employees are nervous about our future.

Sheila—I’ve got a great idea for dramatically improving how our company implements teamwork and gets results.  Top management is so conservative, however, that I don’t think anyone even wants to hear about it.  It frustrates me because I want to grow professionally and have us get better results together.  Do I have to look for another job?

Jim—I have much more that I could contribute to the organization, but rising higher in the leadership would compromise time with my family and require me to be too political.  I’ll keep my head down and continue plugging away at my current role.  I guess it’s better to be a little bored.

Each of these stories is true, and the obstacles that the people mention are real.  But, the conclusions are only inevitable if they allow themselves to be victims of their circumstances.

Do you notice the sense of resignation imbedded in their stories?  Do you see how some have sought diversions elsewhere because they don’t see a path to what they really want?

Their stories beg the question: “Is that how you want your story to end?  Or, do you want your story to have new chapters filled with new opportunities and success in pursuing them?”

What’s your story like?  Is there a hope unfulfilled, a thirst unquenched for you?  Is your story stuck?  Would you like some fresh and exciting chapters in your story?  By looking at use of your talent as a story, you’ll gain some detachment and perspective to think about it differently and formulate new ways to write and live the next chapters of your life.

Or, maybe you know people in your organization, community, or family who’ve become stuck or stale and need refreshment.  Are you hearing stories from them that you’d wish would change for their benefit and yours?  Would you like to help them enjoy a better future?

The Wellsprings of Talent program unleashes your power to be the creator of your story rather than a victim of its limitations.  It’s about how you can use your talents to change your story now and for good.  If you are less than fully satisfied with your life at work you might try finding a new job; or you might try telling a new story.  The Talent Catalyst Conversation is actually an opportunity to tell a new story about yourself; and then begin to live by that story.