Tony Bingham and Talent Management (ASTD General Session)

Here I am in the back of the opening session, and they just told us to take our seats. Then they turned off the lights. Nobody can see, except by the bight light of my screen.

Tony Bingham, ASTD President and CEO was just introduced. He is a rather engaging speaker. “There has never been a better time to be in learning.” Sounds positive. Hopeful. Yet also with its own challenge by being involved in a field that is the first to be cut as non-revenue generating. Of course, the possibilities are also limitless for demonstrating strategic value.

Tony is speaking about the BEST winners.

Tony stated that Talent Management is now the hottest area in organizational workplace learning and performance. People are the strategic advantage.

Evident that there is not a unified vision of talent management. Talent management was not even easily defined, so they defined it in a five-line definition. I wonder if it is really that complicated that it can not be simpler. Talent management, as a definition, looks like it was developed via committee.

There were just a few short videos on people discussing talent management and development. Senior executives seem, in those firms, to identify those with high potential and then track / support / engage them.

Tony asked two questions, “How many know your organization’s key strategies?” “How many people know your organization’s key metrics?” He then spoke about linking the two. Link learning with what is most important with our organizations. Sounds like good advice to me. How can budgets get cut

Tony’s recommendations:

  1. Create a learning brand. A culture of learning. Leverage it to help recruit, develop, and retain staff
  2. Leverage learning to manage talent.
  3. Take action on the skills gap. There will always be a skills gap. Fill it with training that follows #4.
  4. Be a business partner. We must deserve to be at the leadership table.

There are tremendous prospects in learning, as training effects the greatest resource in organizations–their people.

CP2Tech01 Has Concluded

Our CP2Tech01 workshop has ended. It was one of the fastest five week experiences I can recall. I am certainly a bit sad to have such an active few weeks of posting and reading and searching come to an end somewhat abruptly (and now I am forced to further it all on my own), so thought I would reflect a little on the experience.

  • I struggled to keep up. Reading, posting, new tools, conference calls, and lots of wonderful new people, many of whom I only started to know on a very high and almost surface level. With all that said, I wish there would have been some way that more of a sense of community and (dare I say?) friendship begin to develop? Yes, it takes time, but with so many interesting and generous and wonderful people out there in the area of communities of practice, I think I will need to make more of an effort to remain in touch with some of these fine people. This has always been a struggle for me (out of sight, out of mind), but here is a new opportunity to work toward improvement.
  • I learned that I am not alone in not understanding or processing things at times. When I feel overwhelmed, perhaps (as I learned) others feel the same way but just do not say it as loudly. While this is not misery loves company, it is nice to hear that I am not as alone as being overwhelmed makes me feel at times.
  • I also learned that I do not have to master every new Web 2.0 tool out there. We looked at lots of programs and technologies out there, and while some people gravitated to some and others to others, I do not need to know everything about all of them to use one or two that I did not use before. Look at the buffet, and choose what works best (rather than stuffing on everything!).
  • Finally, I learned how generous people (colleagues) can be when we are sharing toward a common purpose. The amount of time John Smith and Bronwyn Stuckey and Nancy White and Sus Nyrop and Caren Levine and LaDonna Coy and Shirley Williams and Nick Noakes and Sylvia Currie and Steve Gance and Barbara Dieu and numerous others helped me to understand my own learning, communities of practice, technology stewardship, and working collaboratively on such important areas between scholarship and practice. I appreciate all of them making me feel welcome and part of the conversation.

Always looking for the practical application, I am wondering where all our work will lead us all?