It’s a foregone conclusion that people are the biggest asset of any organization. It has been discussed, dissected and thrashed out thoroughly in multiple forums across the world. So the question is, what do we do to develop our people?
I will try and answer this to some extent.
In my experience there are four main factors related to development of people in any organization:
The first and foremost being assessing and understanding the needs of an individual, the team and organization as a whole. Most managers know that they need to train their teams but neither do they have the time nor the skills to assess the need for every individual. This is where a proper training needs assessment is required along with a competency framework.
Most of the successful companies put in a lot of effort to develop leadership for the future. Once training needs and competency framework are identified, companies must (absolute must) identify their future leaders and work in direction of training, motivating and retaining this talent pool. This is the second most important factor – Leadership development.
Not everyone in the company wants to be the leader, however, every individual requires guidance and training for career growth which also leads to higher contribution towards the organization. This is where Training and Career Development is so critical for people development.
Once people receive formal training, they also need hand holding and informal mentoring to grow dramatically and put to right use, whatever they have learned so far. Hence the fourth most important aspect is that of Coaching and mentoring of people, more so the future leaders. For most people, coaches and mentors should be from within the organization and these coaches must also undergo training for being a coach – it’s a must again! However, for few people at the top – CXO level, it is again very critical to have an external mentor or coach.
All of the above four factors are a must for any organization to grow. Remember – Growth of an organization only happens when the people running the organization grow with it. In fact it’s a precursor!
