The Talent Pool: Returns on Students-to-Business & Cultural Investments

It seems like less than a year ago, none of us realized that healthcare was complicated. In my organization, we pursue our mission to improve the health of the communities we serve in the face of forces of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Healthcare features overlapping markets ripe for disruption--and so we attempt to prepare for a future we cannot predict. I suspect your organization sees some of the same factors at work.

Our leaders recognize and remind us of the nature of our markets, and encourage us to be the disruption we would otherwise experience for our organization to thrive. Our mission is clear, but the road ahead is not. Continually recognizing the need to not just adapt - but evolve - is our best preparation. We also need to recognize that in addition to our core functions and competencies--whether those are delivering healthcare, providing DJ services for weddings, or selling mascot costumes--that we're also all participating in and shaping the talent marketplace. Our ability to function in that marketplace will always be a core determinant of our our greater ambitions and our balance sheet.

In times of the greatest volatility and uncertainty, leaders are called upon to make critical strategic decisions about how the organization's resources are invested and how plans are prioritized. Databases become spreadsheets become pie charts as the future is divided into ever-more-narrowly-defined discounted cash flows in an attempt to transform difficult strategic decisions into simple math problems... but math problems don't require leadership to solve.

There will never be an immediate financial return associated with sending your employees to local universities to discuss their functions or your industry in the classroom--unless they ham it up for tips. Meaningful internships will always reduce the productivity of managers and mentors as they invest operational time and resources in development and supervision--unless you plan the whole internship around saving money and end up with a potential future employee who hasn't learned anything new in their fourteen weeks with you. Our disinterest in money we can't see on a check or an invoice might bring us a society that seriously debates gutting its investment in public STEM education to prepare for the economy of the future.

Organizations with vision and wisdom recognize that programs that build a culture of compassion, support and fun reap dividends that are difficult to forecast and -- conscious of the passing of time -- remain engaged and forward-thinking when it comes to investing in the future of the organization's talent. However loyal and engaged our colleagues are, they will someday retire. We invest in our people's development with the understanding that the great spark we ignite in them has a chance of propelling their career trajectory outside of our organization... but the potential benefits to us exceed that risk.

No matter the source or scale of disruption in your organization's markets, your ability to achieve your mission hinges directly on recruiting the strongest possible colleagues and then providing them with exceptional challenges, exceptional opportunities, and exceptional support. When our organization calls on a leader to do "math problems," how does a leader respond?