“What’s the next mountain that we need to climb as an organization?”
These moments of thought deeply matter for leaders today. If we can navigate these moments well, we can “futureproof” success for many years — sometimes even decades — to come. So, the stakes are high in getting it right.
When considering what the business needs to thrive in an uncertain future of work, leaders tend to be much more open and even vulnerable. They likely realize that while they have been successful to this point, that success may not carry them across to the next pivotal moment.
One real-world example we’ve seen is a media entertainment company that was reaching millions of viewers. As it was looking to scale to tens of millions of viewers, it had to decide what its “core” was. It had to decide whether to continue doing all elements of the value chain, or to focus on content creation, and working with others to build distribution and production. This, of course, had profound implications for its recruiting/staffing model and the type of organizational culture it wanted to create — as well as for the learning and development (L&D) function as a whole.
If it decided to answer these people-related questions in isolation, of course, the company wouldn’t have reached its full potential. It was critical to align where the company wanted to go with how it nurtured its people and developed its culture, at this important “inflection moment.” The company’s direction, team potential and culture need to fit like hand and glove.
As that example shows, at these moments, we can have enormous impact as L&D professionals, by helping leaders do the following:
- Dare to embrace a new direction (the next mountain) in a way that’s authentic and distinctive.
- Ignite the potential of the whole organization around that direction.
- Align the motivation of key stakeholders (internal and external) around the new direction.
- Learn to learn, as we start to climb that next organizational mountain.
These elements of the DIAL (Dare, Ignite, Align, Learn) framework can help us to support our leaders even more powerfully as we face these important moments.
The key is to first help leaders recognize that they are at an inflection moment. Leaders must understand that how they respond in these pivotal moments needs to be different from how they lead and manage on a daily basis. This sense of urgency can help reiterate the need to invest in leadership training and development.
To understand inflection moments as they pertain to leadership, it’s helpful to think about asteroids and starships. These are external and internal triggers of an inflection moment, that range from a shift in the market or regulatory landscape to a CEO or board chair transition. All of these can be strong drivers of an inflection moment.
These are trends that I have seen play out in many different sectors, from leading corporations to public sector organizations and non-profits.
Let’s recognize inflection moments as an opportunity for leaders to help the business thrive in the face of change, rather than as a threat. If we do so, we’re likely to be working on much more fertile soil as we plant our L&D seeds for future growth. And as a result, we’ll be regarded as much more impactful training professionals.
Ultimately, timing is everything: If we can recognize and call out inflection moments for leaders, we can increase the urgency and the mandate around leadership training and development. Because at these moments, it’s critical that everyone’s potential is realized — and that we bring everyone along on the journey of change. In doing so, we’ll create a personal leadership inflection moment in our own careers. We’ll also help our senior leaders and team members reach places they wouldn’t haven’t reached otherwise.
Let’s seize inflection moments for what they really are: An opportunity to climb the next proverbial mountain together. And to become the best organization we can be in the process.
