Non-profits are moving from the model of talent management towards talent development, which focuses on developing individuals in ways that benefit the organisation and the employee. This Dasra session looked at how non-profits can make this change by implementing intentional strategies and support systems to create strong talent pipelines that build resilience in the organisation. 

Moderated by Carmeline Fernandes (ATMA), the panellists included Nita Luthria (Adhyayan Foundation), Vrinda Baheti (Teach for India) and Archana Kannan (Indus Action) who spoke about the learnings they gained from talent development initiatives in their organisations. 

The importance of shared values

Luthria reflected on her passion and experience as an educator, and how she applied similar principles to her work in the Adhyayan Foundation. Following quick growth in the team, she found that it was important that everyone was aligned around shared values and a common understanding of the organisation’s mission. 

She created a ‘Portrait of an Adhyanite’ that encompassed seven key values focusing on ethics, learning and accountability that align with her organisation’s core philosophies. To work at the Adhyayan Foundation, you need to have a ‘mindset that is comprised of these seven attributes.’ 

Through a series of check-ins and performance reviews with their managers, staff in her organisation were able to identify key areas of growth for themselves. They were also offered buddies or mentors, both internal and external to the organisation, to facilitate their individual growth in the skills, knowledge and mindset necessary to succeed in their roles. 

Adhyayan Foundation also prioritised group learning and set up a ‘professional learning community’ where teams could collectively identify things they wanted to learn and were facilitated in these learning journeys. This could be through internal huddles to share existing knowledge within the team, learning from other departments within the organisation, or bringing in outside experts to teach the team new skills. 

Overall, Luthria stressed the importance of valuing individual employees’ autonomy and supporting them through failure. This gives employees more confidence to innovate, and take risks and enables them to centre accountability in their work. 

Fostering a learning and growth culture

‘The first step to any mindset shift has to be from the leadership.’ Baheti spoke about the importance of change starting at the top, and leadership setting a clear direction for the organisation. 

She stated that non-profits can learn from grassroots organisations, who are generally better at developing talent because they have more limited talent options and therefore have to invest in their existing employees. 

Talent development at a deep level requires patience. ‘What is the culture that we truly value?’ Baheti asked. ‘Is it a culture that values learning and growth or not?’ To create a company culture that values these things, daily practices that incorporate learning need to become a reality. Feedback must be cherished and celebrated, and growth discussed inside and outside the organisation. Continuously evolving practices and structures are needed so that they stay relevant to the needs of the employees. 

In her organisation, the leadership created a small budget for each person on the team to take learning courses, as well as bringing in external coaches to facilitate growth. However, she warned that ‘there’s no one size fits all approach.’ Leadership must instead celebrate the progress the individual is making and their efforts to experiment and try new things.  

Agile leadership and change management

Kannan began as the COO during a significant scale-up of her organisation, Indus Action. She spoke about how agile leadership must ‘build fluency around a new framework, a new language’ so that there isn’t resistance to change. However, there’s also a balance to strike between when you should change a process because it’s not working, and when you should persist because it will bear fruit. 

Adaptive performance goals are ‘outcome focused not input focused’ which enables teams to make decisions more autonomously so that senior leaders aren’t ‘falling into the trap of bureaucracy for top-down decision making.’ 

While leadership has the space to innovate, there needs to be a certain reduction of cognitive labour at the associate level so that they can execute the strategies. Effective communication is essential for teams to function efficiently. ‘Communicate very clearly who is responsible, who is accountable, who only needs to be consulted, and who only needs to be informed,’ Kannan advised. Otherwise, when teams scale up, too many people involved in every project will lead to very little decision-making. 

When it comes to change management, it’s important to maintain a sustainable pace. Many organisations start ‘full throttle initially’ but then fizzle out. Leadership must identify what a sustainable pace looks like and maintain momentum towards the finish line to drive change successfully, while also allowing breathing room to reflect and learn on the way. 

Second line leadership 

Luthria felt ‘a sense of awe at the amount of talent available in this sector’ and discussed how her organisation’s culture of fostering independence, autonomy and freedom to fail has helped them nurture leadership qualities in their employees. Through this, they’ve been able to identify senior leadership candidates internally and have been consciously building the second-line of leadership both within the organisation and by hiring externally, to reduce the load on the first line of leadership.

Her organisation has also pushed the development of their field teams, which has produced positive results. They’ve done this by giving their staff opportunities, support, encouragement and constant feedback to learn new skills and focus on personal growth. While not everyone is comfortable receiving feedback, they’ve run workshops on how to provide, accept and use feedback effectively.

Baheti talked about helping people make the mental switch to taking ownership of their growth journey. ‘If you want people to grow, the ownership has to come from within.’ Once the shift is there, it’s just about providing the right opportunities. 

At the second-line leadership level, people are generally good at execution but are less confident when it comes to strategy. To help her second-line leadership gain confidence in creating strategies, she encourages cross-functional team collaboration to allow staff to think beyond their own vertical. Having external people to speak to about their work also offers a useful outside perspective and it’s important to help second-line leaders build those connections. Baheti is a believer in the ‘70-20-10’ model where 70% of learning comes from on-the-job experience, 20% from peers, and 10% from learning programmes and courses. She emphasised the need to help people ‘make meaning of their day-to-day work.’

Kannan stated that one of the biggest challenges where we need to be more intentional is promoting diversity and inclusion. Leaders must plan ahead to make recruitment accessible. She also acknowledged the amount of unpaid emotional labour in the organisation done by female employees; this included note-taking, following up, counselling and coaching other employees.

‘We must unlearn biases around what rigour and effectiveness looks like.’ She also spoke about bridging the gap between people with different academic backgrounds and making language more accessible for effective communication between both sides. 

A few other recommendations she suggested were: greater role clarity, more transparent performance conversations, skilful delivery of feedback, and the creation of individualized plans for employees based on their skills and interests to help them achieve their long-term goals. To build organizational resilience, she also noted that companies should be ‘constantly scouting for new talent’ to replace employees who leave. 

Summary

Overall there was a clear message from the panellists that talent development needs to be top-down and centered in an organisation’s culture, one which intrinsically values learning, growth and individual autonomy. By investing in employees and supporting them to take ownership of their own growth, organisations can develop a talent pipeline for future leadership that will drive resilience and success. 

Learn more about leadership in the philanthropy sector in Alliance’s new March 2024 issue, what leadership can philanthropy provide? Subscribe now to read the full issue. 

Annmarie McQueen is the Subscriptions Manager at Alliance.