Guest Post by Dr. Stacy Feiner

I’m delighted to celebrate the launch of Talent Mindset with this guest post by Dr. Stacy Feiner.  In her just-released book, Stacy provides a step-by-step process for acquiring, developing and deploying people within any organization. It’s no-nonsense, in-the-trenches advice that will help any leader make the most of his or her most valuable asset, talent.

Here are important questions to ask yourself:

• How is training being delivered at your organization?
• How are your people learning?
• What tools are you providing to facilitate engaged mindshare?

I find so often that business owners are locked into the belief that you don’t need to develop someone you hired to do a job. In other words, if someone needs to be developed, they’re not right for the job.

On the other hand, owners know that people need to develop on the job to grow, but they don’t know how to tell the difference between someone with high potential or someone who is just tapped out.

Most training professionals acknowledge collaborative activities are critical for workplace learning, and when typical corporate training is deployed, workers tend to get frustrated and “check out.” The old way of training doesn’t produce the type of worker needed to succeed in today’s networked society. That is, someone who is collaborative, who creates value, fulfills personal and company goals, is flexible and forward thinking.

There is a movement that is changing the way we work, the meaning we give to work and what we should expect from our careers. There’s a radical paradigm shift that is altering the formal, rote training we applied during the Industrial Age into a network-based mindset that emphasizes knowledge and connection, and that really works for today’s Information Age.

In a Strategic Talent Management framework, Training is an enterprise-wide campaign that sets the tone for your expectations of employees’ performance. It is the foundation upon which you will eventually build Performance Management and Leadership Development.

Training is also a Recruiting tool that attracts valuable players who desire a learning environment where employers invest in their success, and support their growth.

When we change the way training is formatted and delivered, we empower the people in our companies to engage, collaborate, think strategically and deploy their talents for the purpose of reaching the organization’s goals.

What do you think? How is training changing in your organization? How should it?

This is an excerpt from Talent Mindset (available on Amazon).  Learn more at stacyfeiner.com or follow Stacy on Twitter @stacyfeiner.