#17 🎮💡💎 Podcast notes: Creating more value by transcending jobs (8/14)
Recently, I've had a nice conversation with Liz Ștefan, the host of the L&D Spotlight podcast. Here's the part where we discussed about creating more value by transcending jobs (min. 31:47 in the podcast episode).
Liz: So this Data Science example explains for me at least, the purpose of having an L&D function that is really, really well immersed in the work context. Understands what's going on, for lack of a better way to phrase it.
I wanna say here two things. One of them is that I feel that very rarely does an L&D function or professional even considers these aspects. Especially the macro aspect. I feel like most L&D people spend a lot of time in the micro, in the behaviors, in the "let's train this skill, that skill", but not necessarily connected to the strategic purpose of building that skill. That's one thing.
And the other thing that I'm thinking about is: Does it even fall on the shoulders of L&D to live so much in the macro? Almost like saying: Why would L&D look at the market context to figure out that Data Science is a capability that could enable business growth when maybe it's the job of someone in the board, or the CEO or someone in the leadership team. Almost like, are they overlapping responsibilities? Who bares the true weight of this strategic thinking?
Bülent: Yeah, I got the gist of it. So, to the value conversation we had earlier, if you truly connect to creating value, this transcends jobs. So jobs are basically a way in which to structure work to create reliable outcomes, reliable results, in a specific area of the organization.
And if you're connected with this question of, for example, how could we create more value for our colleagues in this learning and development space? How could we create more value for our customers, maybe to educate the market?
Many times businesses are needing to educate the markets they are serving so that the customers see the value that the business is creating and so on. So, if you have these kinds of questions, these questions transcend the boundaries of your job. You don't ask yourself anymore: Ok, is it my job or is it the job of a director? Or is it the job of the HR Manager? Or of some other people. So that's one point.
And my message here is that you don't have to spend most of your time and energy at the macro level. What I'm saying is to be connected to these levels. And connection can happen through various ways.
You could have direct connection, in the sense that you put some time aside to do a bit of market understanding activities, like following some news about your Retail sector, or your Banking sector, this kind of stuff.
You could, for example, be connected through some colleagues, like having 1:1 once in a while, maybe once in a quarter. You don't have to have it weekly. But having the pulse of what goes on in the market or the whole ecosystem through some people that are operating, are interacting with competitors, are interacting a lot with customers, regulators and other people.
Or it might not be a 1:1. It might be, and I've seen this and we've done this for example in Adobe and in other companies I've been with, the idea of having a colleague that is connected to a specific level and to a specific part of that level to come and do a 30 minutes sharing, like 20 minutes sharing + 10 minutes Q&A. It's enough to get a pulse of what's happening in this specific market. Or with that specific line of products. You don't need lots of investments of time and energy to be connected.
In order to "live" at that level, you would need significant investments. But in order to create this value that we were talking about and to come up with these anticipations, these proposals, with these initiatives that might create more value for how L&D happens in the organization, you might need only to be connected. And to get this pulse that would help you make the decisions to come with the initiatives and all that.
Bülent Duagi is a Sr. Strategic adviser for Tech companies and a lifelong learner. He works at the intersection of Strategy, Foresight, Leadership, Org Design, Product and Capability Development. Connect on LinkedIn and learn more by exploring his professional one pager.