Performance Consultants, Chief Learning Officers, Talent Managers, and OD professionals have a common mission: to ensure that an organization is able to deploy the skills and knowledge needed to produce necessary outcomes in order to achieve company strategy. It's a long sentence, but it's not as complicated as it sounds. It just can't be summed up in a sound-byte.

I've spent a lot of time recently putting together a description of the kinds of deliverables I'm able to produce and the the type of contributions I can make to organizations. I've always found the task to be difficult and have struggled to figure out why it's so hard. There are very few corporations of any size that are without Human Resources Functions and the disciplines encompassed are pretty easy to grasp: compensation & benefits, recruiting, labor relations, payroll, even human resource information systems are pretty well recognized functions.

On the other hand, Human Resource Development, Talent Management, Performance Consulting, and good old "Training & Development" have always meant different things to different folks—even among human resource professionals. It was always easy to explain the "training" department. People have to know how to do their jobs, they've got to understand standard procedures and compliance requirements. No problem. It's when you begin to treck more deeply "into the weeds" that folks start to get lost. 

This always starts when you begin to ask what "training" is about. It's always about performance—getting the job done that needs to be done, whether it is a series of clearly, pre-defined tasks, or a set of decisions for action. Where most problems begin is at the point where you start to define what it is you want people to do. Training always works backwards from outcomes. A corporation needs to produce some tangible outcome, the ability to produce that outcome requires that specific skills and knowledge be applied.
The causal chain from identifying individuals who have the capacity to do a job, teaching them to do a job and then actually producing the expected outcome gets fairly complicated.

Most organizations don't think this way. The tradition instead has been, to hire people who have skills and knowledge, tell them what you want them to do, and they do it. If they don't; you fire them and find someone who can. That's one way—and it works if all the pieces are there, you really do know exactly what you want them to do, and the outcomes you desire don't change over time. It works much better in manufacturing than in knowledge or service work.

So what do talent managers and performance consultants do? They start from the end. Like all good strategists, they start from the vision, mission and strategy of the organization. If the vision is clear with a solid foundation in the mission and the strategy is aligned, a good "Chief Learning Officer" should be able to discern the types of skills and knowledge that are needed to implement the strategy—the competencies that are core to achievement of the mission and necessary for the implementation of strategy. Some of these competencies are pretty static because their tied to the core business: Beer companies require Brewmasters and Brewers. Some competencies are more volatile and ties to new strategies—a new local marketing strategy requires that marketing competencies be pushed closer to the frontline, for example.

Folks who do what I do might simply say that we ensure that the skills needed to produced the necessary outcomes of the organizations are available where and when they are needed. More specifically, we ensure that the ability to create that competence is available. Whether it's actually put to use is always the responsibility of front-line management. We are enablers, but we can't take responsibility from the frontline. We have a pretty large toolbox available to help us in our endeavors: process analysis and design, job re-design, job aids, performance support, performance management systems, knowledge management, eLearning, self-paced learning, simulations, games, and good old instructor-led training and coaching. 

I've always been frustrated when a Subject Matter Expert says something to me like, "I can't tell you what I do. You won't be able to teach it to somebody else. It's taken me thirty years to learn it. It's an art."  OK. So I sound just like them. Performance Consulting is an art. Ya betcha. But, it can be taught and if that's true. It can be explained.