Potential is the worthy investment and hidden dimension of talent management to discover our inner strength and build unique capabilities.
Either individually or collectively, potential is an investment. Potential is about the future performance. Thus, potential management needs to be an integral part of talent management which has to be continually fine tuned to reach its maturity. There are varying indicators to assess the intrinsic capacity of human potential and there are multiple path to unlock of our collective talent.
Learning plasticity (fast learning) with intellectual engagement: The exponential growth of information and unprecedented uncertainty makes it impossible for us to have complete knowledge and understanding of many issues. However, we all have unlimited potential to learn. In fact, learning plasticity is always an important indicator to assess talent potential. An open mind with learning plasticity is able to absorb all necessary knowledge and adjust its thinking processes according to changes in its environment , as well as applying the acquired knowledge and lessons learned to capture unique insight for succeeding in new situations significantly. To reach the state of knowledge proficiency, it is also important to identify and close the gap between knowledge and insight. High potential people proactively learn, share, debate, stimulate intellectual curiosity and improve their learning plasticity with varying intellectual engagement.
Individually, in order to tap your potential, investigate your passion, discover your strength, define competency and build capability, establish yourselves as having a very strong reputation as an insightful expert, not a static guru (as you always need to learn and relearn to keep knowledge fresh) in a particular topic area and to connect wider dots for sparking creativity. Digital learning is multidimensional, dynamic, interactive, informal and integrated. There is no single path that will raise the plasticity of an individual. The key is not to choose one path over the other but to tailor your own path based on your reality. Collectively, it’s important to break down silos or bottlenecks, set up a platform with powerful digital technologies and collaboration tools for enforcing intellectual engagement, empowering people to contribute, keep our mind open and keep ideas flowing.
Interdisciplinary expertise & skills, with unique cognitive abilities and styles: Humans are part of the natural world, full of potential, full of variety. We look differently; we think differently, we are interested in different things, by unleashing our potential, we can all accumulate enriched life experiences and drive progressive change. In the considerable static industrial age with knowledge scarcity, silo mentality and overly rigid organizational hierarchy, geographical or industrial boundaries stifle change and lead inflexibility, people get stuck in their comfort zone, hold conventional belief or wisdom, use linear logic or insufficient knowledge to solve overcome complex problems, that perhaps cause more issues later on. Organizations evaluate their people’s performance with certain quantitative measurements which are perhaps disconnected with their long term strategic goal of the business. Without the art and science of potential management, talented people suffer, organizations and our societies get stagnated.
Each person has a different level of knowledge (the consciousness about a problem) and reacts to environmental changes. To continuously grow and unleash professional potential, we need to build a unique set of cognitive abilities and interdisciplinary knowledge, to see things from different angles and convey the balanced viewpoints for solving complex problems effectively and consistently. Technically, cognition involves exploring varieties of meanings or thoughts and abandoning old connections and establishing new relations to create new knowledge and deepen cross-disciplinary understanding and competency building. Professional strength needs to be built via continuous practices, and competencies are interrelated with the traits and expertise. Neither one overshadows the other, they complement each other. They are both the products of effective potential management.
Tendency to capacity to adapt, with openness to new experience: To deal with “VUCA” new normal, adaptation is an inherent characteristic of humans to survive - for adapting themselves smoothly and fast to changed circumstances, and thrive in the future. Adaptability is not a soft skill, but a hard professional competency, which needs to be developed based on individuals’ tendency to capacity to adapt, with openness to new experience. Our intentions to gain experience need to be pure and the aim should be solely driven towards understanding the truth, filling our emptiness in the glass; solving certain problems without causing undesired side effects, it will definitely drive us towards progress personally, professionally or socially.
Being adaptive also means we need to be selective and flexible, do not get overwhelmed by the exponential digital era with continuous disruptions. Both attitude and aptitude count; good change attitude includes such as openness to new ideas and experience; optimism for things getting better; the passion to discover, and the vision to inspire. Develop adaptability through seeking ways of unlocking your potential and taking means of adjusting your perspective and those around you, Build confidence because you know you are able to positively adapt to any given situation, accepting, embracing changes accordingly.
Constantly question some common belief, common sense, conventional wisdom, rules or status quo to innovate with emotional intelligence: We live in the hyperconnected and interdependent modern global society now, there is a mixture of old and new, right and wrong, truth or false; to unlock our potential, it’s important for us to refine our “raw potential,” think independently, leverage critical thinking reasoning skills to ask insightful questions, apply creativity to think alternative ways to do things or get work done. To move forward, we have to be determined to not get limited by conventional wisdom, make real progress somehow, and it will help us try unconventional practices, with a better result. Focus on individual capabilities and potential to innovate.
Nowadays, the fresh knowledge can be captured from the abundance of information almost in real time; on the other hand, it doesn’t take long for that knowledge to become a commodity once the market is exposed to it. Unsurprisingly, the “commonly known” method is no longer working anymore when the circumstances change radically. An essential aspect of unleashing your potential, both at the individual or group level, is the ability to challenge different assumptions, subjective conclusions, traditional beliefs, our outdated methodologies/practices by asking great questions such as: What’s your intention to change, what’s your potential to innovate? What is triggering your emotions for doing innovation? What about trust? Or what about happiness? What about the right climate to drive transformation? Your personal climate, your team climate or your organizational climate? Dissatisfaction with the current situation could trigger creativity, motivate actions, broaden thoughts and connect wider dots for leading changes relentlessly.
Systematic problem-solving, with a risk-intelligent attitude to tolerance of ambiguity: Individual potential is our inner gem which needs to be crafted intentionally for building our talent portfolio and developing ourselves as a part of solutions to many complex problems facing humanity. The more sophisticated we become, the more complex problems we can take care of smoothly by taking logical steps to define situations and success criteria systematically. Keep in mind, most problems often do not exist in isolation, but as an interacting system of problems.
How we find a solution to any problem depends on our perspective to that problem, but every problem has numerous angles to take into consideration. There is a philosophical connection between wholeness and partness; there is emotional connectivity between past and the future; there is cognitive connection between subjective perception and objective actuality; there is a continuum of old saying and new concept; be able to peel back the layers to discover the root cause by asking “WHYs,” or take other system analysis to discover the real cause and address it. Knowledge is no doubt important but more than that is complete awareness of what is happening in the context from a system perspective. It’s critical to get the “scope” of the problem, see a larger system with interactive pieces and “conflict” goals; understand the interdependent pieces, provide the insight into the emergent properties, appreciate the interaction and interrelationship dynamic, and gain an accurate understanding of the overall situation in order to deal with it cohesively.
The digital workforce is a hyper-connected generation with a multitude of varieties. Potential is the worthy investment and hidden dimension of talent management to build unique capabilities, explore the emerging opportunities, encourage autonomy and self-discovery, design new business models, and investigate hidden paths for accelerating growth. Building an ideal digital workforce won’t happen overnight, it takes planning, experimenting and scaling up.
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