Developing Talent Through Internal Partnerships
Organizations with highly engaged workforces almost always have significantly better outcomes across all business drivers. However, engagement does not come from something that human resources or senior leadership is doing to people but rather by being baked into the culture of the organization. One of the most effective ways to do this is by encouraging and facilitating internal partnerships to harness and share expertise already within the organization. Internal partnerships help break down hierarchal silos by creating collaborative relationships between people who each are committed to sharing their knowledge, experience, and expertise for the purpose of helping others develop, while at the same time advancing the shared vision and objectives of the organization. Internal partnerships must be organic reflecting the changes in capacity and experience as people and their needs change. In this sense, internal partnering acts as a learning mechanism that teaches people to be better at what they do, enabling them to achieve their goals.
In an idea meritocracy, good ideas can come from anyone’s thoughts, questions, or experiences. To maximize the effect of a meritocracy, you need to get people out of their “silos”. Different but overlapping experiences and perspectives can teach everyone something. They create a synthesis of knowledge and experiences that supports continual growth and accelerates individual development. By breaking down the hierarchal silos, internal partnerships also relieve some of the burden on senior leadership to provide development opportunities.
Internal Partnerships also help reinforce a shared common vision and purpose that builds trust, openness, and a recognition of the value and contribution of all members. The acceptance of shared goals and aims leads to improved coordination and ultimately better outcomes. In addition, having respect for the contributions of others helps to break down status barriers which further encourages participation so necessary for radical truth and radical transparence.
People who invest in the development of internal partnering skills and the knowledge and competence they can bring should be highly valued within the organization. The creation of healthy internal partnerships at all levels promotes an atmosphere of learning while at the same time removing all the burden for talent development from the senior leadership. By creating an open mindset and spirit of facilitation opportunities are created for everyone to shape each other’s work and learn together. In this type of environment, members can more effectively reflect on both their developmental successes and failures.
The success of learning and development through internal partnering is based upon the Action Learning Model, a proven and effective way of gathering knowledge while working with other peers in a group setting to find a solution to a problem or scenario. In doing so, people will be able to not only develop their own skill sets and knowledge base, but also those of the group and organization.
Internal Partnering applying action learning promote the “same team” mindset, builds positive relationships and helps minimize “silos”, encourages people to ask for help and think beyond “what” to learn “why”, acknowledges the expertise of others, is a two-way street, built on mutual respect, trust, and desire to learn and support.