Summary: [You might view the earlier post "Talent development: Does anybody really care?" before this.] Perhaps a relying on experience and external motivators contributes to apathy. A strong commitment to learning is needed to really develop talent.
Experience versus change
Many organizational members rely heavily on experience. They expect to know already how to adapt to various situations.
They assume they’re fully competent to execute on all occasions despite the many challenges of environment, cultures and diversity, since they’ve seen it all, been there and done that.
- Technology
- Demographics
- Regulations
- Economic shift to other markets
Experience can’t be relied on blindly to carry the day, every day, because work is increasingly both ambiguous and limitless.
Neither does effective performances come automatically with race, gender, academic degrees or level in the organization. The truth is we don’t know all the answers, and can’t cope with the unforeseen.
The motivators
Perhaps organizational dependence on external motivators - like money - also contributes to the resistance to change. Its members have learned to value targets, incentives and appraisals for career betterment. Without them they feel lost.
Intrinsic motivation, that is, moving without the external push, depends on our locus of control – the sense of whether we’re responsible for our actions or forces outside of us are. Obviously in the context, this intrinsic drive is attenuated.
With no perceived relationship between anything educational and advancements in power, pay and profits, the collective organizational will to develop talent is weak.
Evaluation of self
Our motives are also guided by our self-concept. This relates to the image of self created and viewed in the mind’s eye.
The person each one of us becomes over time may differ in reality both from that we should be, or have potential for. When the gaps widen between these aspects of self, there is dissonance and discomfort within.
It hurts the self-concept to admit truth. We generally deal with discomfort by refusing to accept the reality that we may in fact require learning, un-learning and re-learning to deal with change. We tend to become defensive to protect our self-concept and bolster our pride - for example, with over-optimism in our evaluations of self.
We rate ourselves higher in strengths, like smarter, more capable, and lower in our weaknesses, like less prone to mistakes, than we do other people.
Commitment to learning
Members must be open to feedback from the collective, without feeling personally attacked, and becoming angry or otherwise defensive.
It needs a strong commitment to learning, to build interpersonal networks and share knowledge across the system, to shake out of apathy, and to develop talent resources. The longevity of the organization depends on it.
Comments/Opinions, Anyone??
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