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Lisa R. Delman, The Dialog Diva, innately inspires individuals and organizations to unleash their magic of communication to the next level of productivity and be their best. As a communication specialist, she is masterful and insightful at facilitating dialogue that restores passion, meaning, and purpose to conversations and that creates powerful results to the bottom line. Presenting and sharing ideas in an engaging and passionate manner to more than 10,000 people, Delman has created great success for herself and others personally and professionally. Dialog Diva provides proven, reliable, customizable training materials that serve as the core to interpersonal communication programs; DialogDiva.com; LisaDelman@DialogDiva.com.

Lisa Delman

ATD Links Archive - ATD Links

Assessments can provide valuable information, but the key is to take that to the next level of productivity with effective dialogue.

Personality Assessments: A Powerful Tool for Dialogue

Burnout is pervasive in today’s professional world, particularly among leaders. In fact, DDI’s research reveals that 72 percent of leaders report feeling used up at the end of every day, with rates even higher among women and minorities. It’s no wonder given the relentless demands they face—balancing packed schedules, coaching teams, executing initiatives, and shaping strategy—all on top of personal responsibilities.Given these pressures, HR professionals cannot afford to ignore burnout. Its long-term effects can be damaging for your leaders and organization: retention drops, quality of work declines, and for leaders, physical and mental health can suffer.The good news is that burnout isn’t inevitable. By providing the right environment and tools, HR can play a critical role in supporting leaders and preventing burnout.Ahead, we’ll explore three important ways you can prevent leader burnout: cultivating psychological safety, providing personalized training and support, and developing a strong leader pipeline.Build a Culture of Psychological SafetyTo create a resilient workplace, begin with culture. An organization’s culture profoundly influences how people behave and feel about their work.Protecting leaders from burnout requires cultivating an environment where they (and their teams) feel empowered to give candid feedback, collaborate effectively, and voice dissenting opinions without fear of retaliation. These behaviors thrive in a culture defined by psychological safety, empathy, transparency, and ethical integrity. Between deadlines and high-stakes presentations, occasional stress is unavoidable. However, when organizations lead with empathy, they see higher employee engagement and productivity, and lower rates of burnout.HR should establish and maintain workplace norms that encourage psychological safety and empathetic leadership.Strategies for HR to foster a psychologically safe culture include: Consistently champion and reinforce organizational values.Model vulnerability and transparency from leadership. Implement processes for safe escalation of concerns. Hold all employees accountable for ethical standards. Celebrate actions that reflect the desired culture. Provide Personalized Development for LeadersDeveloping capable leaders is another powerful way to prevent burnout. The key? Start by assessing each leader's strengths and growth areas to focus on development needs.Today’s leaders can’t wait for comprehensive 360-degree assessments that only appear every few years. They need immediate, objective feedback on exactly what to continue doing and where to adjust to support their development. One-size-fits-all training that doesn’t target specific needs only contributes to their time crunch and burnout risk. With real-time assessment results, HR can provide highly relevant, targeted development, giving leaders tools and a safe environment to practice their skills ahead of challenging situations.DDI’s research has identified seven critical skill areas that are associated with lower rates of burnout: Empathy Coaching and Delegation Influence Leading Change Leading Virtual Teams Driving Inclusion Developing Future Talent HR is uniquely positioned to help leaders address skill gaps to not only improve their capabilities but also reduce burnout risk. Finally, consider incorporating peer learning into your development program. While leadership can be isolating, bringing together leaders who face similar challenges helps build empathy, strengthen networks, and encourage mutual learning and coaching for shared growth.Develop the Pipeline of Emerging LeadersA plan to protect leaders from burnout wouldn’t be complete without designing a strategy to cultivate future leaders within the organization.As experienced leaders become overburdened, HR can ease their workload by building a robust pipeline of emerging talent. Nurturing future leaders not only provides growth opportunities that retain top performers but also ensures a steady supply of skilled leaders who can step in and share the responsibilities. Try these strategies to strengthen your leadership pipeline: Leverage a strategic, data-driven approach to identifying high potentials.Identify and develop high-potential talent at all levels.Focus on leadership potential—not just performance—by carefully observing critical skills like interpersonal skills, coaching, and building trust. Roll out development initiatives to nurture emerging leaders, including formal training, stretch assignments, and coaching.ConclusionHR's role in preventing leader burnout extends beyond crisis management. By fostering psychological safety, offering tailored development, and cultivating a strong talent pipeline, HR can proactively build a sustainable, high-performing workplace where leaders truly thrive.For more on preventing leader burnout, visit our blog, Understanding Burnout Culture: 10 Ways Leaders Can Reduce Workplace Stress, and discover how leaders can fight burnout at work.

3 Keys for Preventing Leader Burnout

Over 50 percent of CEOs say skills shortages and technology disruption will impact profitability over the next decade, and roughly 75 percent of companies are focused on investing in automation, upskilling, and deploying advanced technology, according to PwC. To meet these organizational demands, many talent development leaders are investing, on some level, in a skills-based talent development strategy. Yet many others are left wondering where they stack up and how far along they should be in the development process.
To address this need, ATD's senior leader executive consortium CTDO Next created the Skills-Based Talent Development Maturity Model to provide a structured approach to assessing, planning, and improving an organization’s skills-based TD efforts. Attend this webinar and learn how to align your skills-based initiatives with the business’s strategic goals, foster continuous improvement, enhance accountability, and ultimately drive long-term success. During the webinar, ATD staff will describe the model and review research that drove its design, and a senior leader practitioner will explain use cases for the model within an organization.
Primary Capability Covered: Talent Strategy & Management
Participation in this event, either live or recorded, can be reported for one (1) professional development point toward initial certification or recertification requirements for the APTD or CPTD credential.
 
 

How Mature Is Your Skills-Based Talent Development Strategy?

Knowing what skills your people have and what they need is an essential part of any upskilling and reskilling strategy. According to Bridge-sponsored research, it's never been more important, as 77 percent of HR professionals and business leaders consider talent development a top priority over the next two years. However, despite talent development’s importance, survey ﬁndings also reveal that less than half of HR teams currently match learning to future talent requirements or assess employee needs and gaps in knowledge.Let’s take a look at how developing a skills matrix can keep your talent management strategy in step with learner needs and business demands, as well as how to use AI-powered upskilling software to personalize your L&D programs.What Is a Skills Matrix?Think of a skills matrix as an inventory of your employees’ current abilities. By evaluating these skills and competencies and presenting them in a table, you can easily monitor skills gaps, ﬁnd your strongest performers, and ensure your people are equipped to undertake a project or succeed in their roles.A skills matrix is useful for quickly identifying and comparing people’s competencies and experience, allocating resources, and targeting L&D programs.The Beneﬁts of Using a Skills MatrixSome of the beneﬁts of a skills matrix include:1. Finding and Filling Employee Skills GapsKnowing what skills are required to drive organizational success means you can organize your talent and prioritize training programs based on demand.Mapping your workforce’s skills, capabilities, and experience levels makes it easy to spot any skills gaps across teams or departments, and then direct them toward learning and development opportunities they need.2. Assessing Employee PerformanceConnecting the work your people do to organizational objectives with a set of measurable goals reveals your strongest performers and the capabilities that drive organizational success.A robust skills framework can help your people understand what’s expected of them, showing them the areas in which they make the most impact and providing actionable steps for improvement.3. Incentivizing Learning and DevelopmentBeyond delivering mandatory training, a skills matrix can help identify employees’ strengths and career goals and connect them to meaningful learning opportunities. When your employees develop and grow, everyone beneﬁts. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report ﬁndings show that people are four times more likely to engage in training when it’s connected to their career goals. And 87 percent of L&D pros say they show business value by helping employees gain skills to move into different internal roles.4. Workforce Planning and Risk MitigationAssigning tasks is easy when it’s clear who possesses the needed skills and competencies and who’s most experienced to undertake projects. With a view of skillsets across the organization, you can mobilize talent most effectively and tap into otherwise hidden potential. Additionally, you can guard against future disruption and anticipate changing needs by identifying high-potential talent who can step into business-critical roles and prioritize training programs for in-demand skills.How to Build an Employee Skills MatrixAssessing employees at scale requires a system for collecting, categorizing, and organizing these skills. Follow the steps below to build a skills matrix for your organization.Step One: Identify the Required SkillsWhether your matrix is focused across a team, department, or the entire organization, you must be clear about the essential skills each person needs to perform in their role.Start by compiling these skills and competencies with leaders and key stakeholders across departments, including both soft and hard, or role-speciﬁc. You could also review your company’s competency framework to identify core values and behaviors that your people should possess—but remember to keep the list speciﬁc and only include what’s relevant.It’s likely that some of these skills and competencies will be the same for everybody in the organization, while others will be more technical and role-speciﬁc.Step Two: Create a Scoring System to Evaluate SkillsOnce you’ve gathered a list of skills and competencies, you’ll need a way to rank and categorize proﬁciency and map it onto your matrix.A popular way to score and manage skills mastery is using a Likert scale. For example:ScoreRatingDescription1LimitedThe employee has limited knowledge or understanding of the skill or hasn’t yet had the chance to apply it.2BasicThe employee demonstrates the essential components of the competency or skill with the ability to develop a greater competency in a reasonable timeframe.3WorkingThe employee demonstrates experience using the skill at a necessary level to advance organizational objectives.4SeasonedThe employee effectively applies the skill in practice in most circumstances.5ExpertThe employee specializes in this area, showing consistent, superior application of the skill, even in unanticipated circumstances.For an accurate picture of employee proﬁciency, consider collecting and combining several sources of data, such as: Skills assessments Manager and peer reviews Employee self-evaluationsStep Three: Consider Employees’ Career GoalsAlthough including employees’ career goals and the skills they want to develop is optional, doing so can inform development plans and direct people to meaningful L&D opportunities.To uncover this insight, partner with your people managers. By making career and skills development a staple of regular manager-employee discussions, you’ll understand what motivates people and what skills they want to learn. You can use this insight to ﬁnd opportunities that develop these skills aligned with organizational goals.Step Four: Compile Skills Data in a TableAn Excel spreadsheet is a popular format for mapping skills data, and this sheet will give you a visualization of each employee’s proﬁciency level.You’ll plot this information using two axes, with employee names on one and a list of skills on the other. Then, you’ll populate the sheet using the data you’ve collected.Once you’ve built your matrix, you’ll have an overview of each person’s abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. You can sort these skills into categories based on tasks and projects, ﬁlter to ﬁnd gaps, and use them to inform employee development plans.Step Five: Keep Skills Matrices Up to DateUp-to-date skills data is a must for tracking growth over time and prioritizing skills needs. To get the most out of a skills matrix, you’ll need to review and update your data regularly to reﬂect your people’s current skills, proﬁciencies, and certiﬁcations.How Dedicated Employee Upskilling Software Can Streamline Skills AssessmentsHere are some ways an all-in-one learning, development, and upskilling platform like Bridge streamlines creating and managing your skills matrix and keeps your data accurate and up to date.1. Creating a Single Source of Truth for Employee SkillsA dynamic skills taxonomy is the foundation of any skills strategy. However, gathering data to present an in-the-moment picture of your people’s skills takes time, and skills inventories quickly become outdated as employees continue to learn and grow.An LMS allows you to swiftly identify, group, and measure the skills within your organization, giving you a transparent and agile framework from which to build.Using a learning, development, and upskilling platform with AI to combine your existing employee data with external labor market data gives you an accurate, ever-evolving, and easy-to-visualize view of competitive in-demand skills and where they exist in your organization.2. Assessing Employee Skills and CompetenciesOnce you know what skills your people have and what’s required, you’ll need a way to ﬁll any gaps with training and development and measure learner growth.An L&D platform gives you a single destination to conduct performance conversations, record employee one-on-ones, and share skills feedback and recognition. With AI, you can take this a step further by helping people identify the skills they need to grow and recommending competencies based on their roles.3. Personalizing Employee DevelopmentMapping skills using an AI-driven taxonomy keeps learning targeted andgrowth-oriented with minimal administrative input. Once learners know what they want to develop, you make their growth actionable and measurable by connecting them to employee development plans and assigning tasks and training.However, formal training programs are only one way to strengthen your talent pool and close skills gaps. You can also harness these skills and insights and direct learners toward gigs, projects, and mentorship opportunities that put these skills into practice.

How to Create an Effective Skills Matrix With the Help of AI-Based Skills Suggestions

The next generation of high-potential leaders has different behaviors and expectations than those of previous generations. High on the list of expectations are trust, passion, and inspiring purpose. It’s no surprise that their learning styles are technology-driven, and the preferred leadership style is that of a partnership. This type of partnership will demand consistent and frequent feedback. The main delight of this generation is making a difference.Personally, I have found the characteristics of the Millennial generation and Generation Z to be refreshing. When compared to the workaholic work habits of the Baby Boomers and the now and up-and-coming workaholics of Generation X, the new and upcoming generation values meaningful work, relationships, autonomy, and mastery.How are companies addressing the leadership needs of this generation? Companies such as Whole Foods, The Container Store, Medtronics and Tom’s Shoes to name a few are embracing the organizational behavior movement, conscious capitalism, and its four pillars:Higher Purpose – focusing on a deeper purpose than profit.Conscious Culture – values that foster care and principles and practice that build trust among team members and stakeholders.Conscious Leadership – focusing on transformation through servant leadership and serving the purpose of the organization.Stakeholder Orientation – recognizing the whole business ecosystem and engaging employees, customers, suppliers, funders and supportive communities for sustainability and resilience.One might argue that conscious capitalism works great in the public sector; however, the government sector is faced with different challenges, such as:building a workforce with a faltering “B-team”lack of transparencycontracting outdeferred maintenance.Although budget cuts, some form of mediocrity, and lack of control will most likely always be a part of the government culture, those factors do not need to become excuses for unconscious leadership. For government managers and employees, each will need to ask the question, “How conscious is my own leadership and how conscious is the team?”Leaders will need to engage their internal “action log” interpreting their surroundings and reacting when issues of power and timing are at stake. There are eight transformations of leadership in relation to conscious capitalism: opportunist, diplomat, expert, achiever, redefining, transforming, alchemical, and ironic. Learning how to move through these leadership styles is crucial for working towards conscious leadership in a more controlled work environment.Conscious capitalism advocates a way of being that requires a long-term process of well-being and serving a larger community. To that end, authentic leadership will play a critical role in implementing a conscious capitalism culture that attracts and retains high-potential leaders.Additionally, acting from a place of purpose and passion can prevent us from becoming victims of our ego. Open communication and the ability to establish enduring relationships with the support of mentors and coaches will provide a culture of accessibility. Likewise, self-discipline and staying grounded with personal and professional advancement will help present opportunities for mastery.Bottom line: Intentionality and clear navigation will be the leadership qualities that influence the development of this next generation of workers. Extraordinary organizational cultures and remarkable employee and client experiences just don’t happen. Being open to leadership transformation will be the key to attracting and retaining the high potential leaders of this next generation.For more insight, join me for my session, “Next Generation Leadership Development: Learning for Every Phase,” at Government Workforce: Learning Innovations. I will discuss what you should be doing to develop the next generation of leaders, as well as overall government trends and how individual agencies are meeting the training challenges of next-generation leadership development.

Addressing New Generation Leadership Needs with Conscious Capitalism

Demanding, inflexible workplaces are negatively affecting everyone’s well-being. Women have an especially hard time because they have to add household and caregiving responsibilities to their list. After surveying and interviewing hundreds of women, Beth Cabrera has come to the conclusion that they should stop trying to find balance and focus instead on increasing their well-being. Her book, Beyond Happy: Women, Work, and Well-Being, offers strategies for experiencing greater joy and meaning in life so that women can thrive despite the challenges they face.
At the end of this webcast, attendees will be able to:

Describe the two key dimensions of well-being.
Explain the benefits of pursuing well-being.
List strategies for experiencing more positive emotions.
Name steps they can take to increase their sense of meaning in life.
 


Beyond Happy: Women, Work, and Well-Being

Eddie Turner is an in-demand, Harvard-trained leadership development expert. Leading organizations hire him to accelerate the development of their leaders, making them more effective and profitable.

Eddie has significant experience driving digital transformation, systems integration, and developing leaders at all levels of organizations, such as Pepsi, Deloitte, GE, and Dell. His work extends to organizations, such as Apple, ExxonMobil, the United States Naval Air Systems Command, the NFL, and the WNBA.

Eddie has expertise in multiple disciplines, such as professional speaking, leadership and executive coaching, and facilitation, as proven by his numerous industry credentials. He is recognized on global rankings, such as being one of the Top 10 Motivational Speakers in the world by Global Gurus for four consecutive years. Forbes recognized him as the Preeminent Authority on Emerging Leaders. He is ranked as one of the Top 25 Thought Leaders in Leadership by Thinkers 360, the Power List of the Top 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership by leadersHum, and one of the Top 25 Mentors on the Globe by the International Federation of Learning and Development.

Eddie is a member of several prestigious organizations, including Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and the National Speakers Association, where he earned the coveted CSP credential. He is also a member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), where he was honored as “ICF Coach of the Week” among more than 60,000 members in more than 170 countries. Additionally, Eddie is part of the Association for Talent Development, contributing as one of 60 subject matter experts to the first and second editions of the Talent Development Body of Knowledge—The Definitive Resource for the Talent Development Profession. He holds the ICF Professional Certified Coach credential and serves as an official ICF Mentor Coach, mentoring others to achieve their ICF credentials.

As a media personality and commentator, he has shared his expertise in national print, radio, and television media, such as the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, PBS, NPR, and ABC. He is the author of the internationally bestselling book 140 Simple Messages to Guide Emerging Leaders and one of 52 coauthors of The Light Book 2. He hosts the Keep Leading! podcast, which earned Apple podcasts’ coveted New and Noteworthy designation and reached 80 countries. 

Eddie studied leadership and organizational behavior at Northwestern University, earning a bachelor of science degree and an executive certificate in public leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Eddie Turner

Adam Witty is founder and CEO of Advantage, The Business Growth Company. What began in the spare bedroom of his home is now a family of publishing, media, and software businesses that collectively serve thousands of customers in 50 US states and 67 countries.The Advantage Family includes Advantage Media Group, a large independent business book publisher comprising Advantage, Business Journals Books, and ForbesBooks; BusinessAdvantage TV, a video-on-demand learning platform for entrepreneurs; Magnetic Marketing, a marketing education company for entrepreneurs; and mLive, multistep marketing automation software for dentists.Witty was named to the prestigious Inc. 30 Under 30 list of America’s Coolest Entrepreneurs in 2011. Advantage has been named to the Inc. 500/5000 list for six of the past eight years. Witty has appeared in USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, and Wall Street Journal and on ABC and FOX. In 2012, he was selected by the Chilean government to judge the prestigious Start-up Chile! entrepreneurship competition.

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