Right now, every organization is cranking up its strategic planning processes. Offsites are scheduled, calendars are being tweaked, and the annual routine of budgeting and planning is getting underway.
6 H6 g: J) ^0 K% GBy September, everyone will be deep into the process, but many will be unsatisfied and unconvinced that they have addressed the really meaty issues. From my experiences, all the reams of paper that will be passed out containing minute details of past efforts and all the PowerPoint charts will not change anything very substantially.
: s& w- T4 X* Q) s5 n e* Y2 z; HI speak with recruiters who tell me their strategic planning process is used to justify spending the limited budget they have. Others say the entire process is pipe dreaming, and when business reality hits, the strategy will be forgotten as everyone rapidly falls back to reactionary tactics. It doesn't have to be that way.
o7 l8 X& o2 {! d, C. _$ nThere are many organizations that have used the time spent to grapple with big issues and make some important changes in the way they recruit. This is an opportunity that can be squandered or used wisely. The choice is yours.
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Start Early and DramaticallyKick this process off as soon as you can, and way before you have to, to give your team the time to explore, brainstorm, and get outside of their comfort zones. I often suggest bringing in an outside speaker to illuminate an issue or discuss trends.
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Some approaches might be:
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- Bring in a futurist or an economist from a local university who has an appreciation of the talent issues the world faces.
- Find a "guru" in this space and invite him or her to address your team on key issues. Ask to be really challenged.
- Locate a speaker who works in another industry with different challenges and see how they have dealt with their issues.
- Assign different recruiters to uncover issues through conversations and reading and then get them to illustrate and explain them to the team. They have to do some homework, talk to people, read, and summarize their findings.
- Invite your corporate strategist or head of R&D to come and speak about emerging business directions or new products that might impact the talent in the organization.
The idea is to expose your staff to the key issues and trends that affect them today and those that will in the future. Don't get bogged down in specifics or budgets or reviews of last year's plan until you complete this step. Start broadly and then do a deeper dive.
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Use Stories or NarrativesMany leaders turn to a technique I find very helpful. Rather than deal with abstract issues and concepts, turn them into stories about real situations and people. Sometimes this is called scenario planning but whatever it is called, it can be more effective than any other technique in getting people to understand how significant the issues are.
! k# [; D) X" s8 H4 d5 M. k5 PTo do this, assign a small group (three people or so) to develop a theme or issue into a story. Have them pretend they are writing a sitcom or a drama that acts out the issue they are assigned.
9 _+ Q' f2 o6 W& \8 P& ]2 ^Start with a mini-situation like this, perhaps:
"The phone rang. It was the new VP for international sales, who was opening an office in Peking in two months and needed it to be staffed ASAP."
! [, S- D, L) bThe team's job is to write the story of their reaction, steps taken, resources used, and their successes. You could have several of these, each written by team members based partly on their own experiences and partly on the stimulation provided by the speaker in the first step. Assign groups to write and act out the scenario.
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Some teams craft a series of unfinished sentences such as this:
"We suddenly had three open requisitions for positions I had never heard of. This happened because. . . ." Once again, by working through the completion of this sentence you will find many areas for improvement.
