Category Archives: Talent Development

Part 1 – Rewarding Effort There’s a new movement in education called Gamification; this involves learning lessons from the gaming industry about how to make learning compelling. Video games have a unique characteristic – people will pour hours into learning how to get better. What is it that makes learning in games so addictive, but learning in real life is often put off? Can we ‘gamify’ learning in real life, so that it becomes more attractive, and people put more effort in?

Early on in their career, people are very focused on finding the ‘ideal job’ or on how to ensure a series of perfect jobs. However, for many people, waiting for that move into the perfect role they believe is waiting for them is a frustrating and fruitless exercise.

Here’s an interesting question – do you know the strengths of the people in your team? Or, if you’re a Talent Manager, do you know the strengths of the people on your programme?

Your main objective when developing talent should be to create a culture in which people are responsible for their own development. They should be self-directed and drive their development forwards themselves. However, what can happen is that people who have so far been progressing quickly and choosing their own career moves come onto a programme and stop taking the initiative.

When it comes to Personal Development Plans (PDPs), one thing is true of almost all Managers – they’re good at identifying weaknesses. But they don’t distinguish between two very different types of weakness. And this has led to a misplaced focus on bringing every weakness up to satisfactory performance, instead of helping people develop their strengths, or move satisfactory skills to excellent.