One of the most significant challenges facing leaders today is how to embrace and engage in the 
process of developing future leaders to be productive today and tomorrow. In a business world that is both changing rapidly at the same time resources are being frozen or reduced, today’s leaders don’t have the willingness or time to nurture human capital development. The pressure of living quarter-to-quarter and achieving ever-impossible-to-reach financial metrics is forcing leaders to push toward results regardless whether employees have the skill and / or the will to execute the strategies and decisions that will achieve those results. In other words, too many leaders have unrealistic expectations that inexperienced employees and leaders can excel at their jobs by being experts in their work.
It’s time to acknowledge the reality; no matter how great and wonderful an expert is today, at one point that person was a novice without experience, grit, or the skills to be effective. Think about it. At many moments in time all the typical business heroes – Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, etc.- were novices who were able to turn their environments and circumstances into unparalleled success. Unfortunately, as corporate training budgets evolve and shift towards buying licenses of self-serve crappy eLearning, the reality gets even more troublesome as employees and managers are even less likely to receive that skills and tools they need to move from novices to experts.
Given that the momentum of the “evolution” in talent development isn’t going to change any time soon, here are five practical suggestions that can be accomplished to move the needle to help employees and leaders move from novices to experts:
Provide a big picture view
Experts see the big picture; they see the system of business and they understand the business ecosystems of their own company, customers, and competitors. Experts use the knowledge of the ecosystems to accurately forecast the future based on analysis, facts, and skills.
Teach them the metrics and drivers of business performance
Once experts understand the big picture and the systems of business, they understand the key metrics of success and the drivers of business performance that the metrics are based on. By knowing the drivers of their own company, customers, and competitors, they effortlessly make the best business decisions.
Do everything possible to enhance the technical skills of their roles
Assuming employees will have or will easily learn how to be expert at their jobs is a huge mistake. It’s critical to do everything possible to provide the skills needed to enable employees to become technically exceptional at their jobs. If someone is in sales, then they should be the best at sales; if they are in marketing, they should be the best in marketing, etc.
Provide an environment to develop behavioral skills
Experts understand that it’s not all about the technical or business acumen skills; they also understand that without the behavioral skills such as understanding personality styles, having hard conversations, providing coaching and feedback, having emotional intelligence and many other factors that enable the work to be done with and through other people.
Create an environment that rewards desire
Experts are hungry for success and accomplishments. One of the most important things you can do is create an environment that drives people to become experts and use their desire as the fuel for success.
In summary, it is easy to forget that expertise is a concept that occurs only when the recipe includes training, development, resources, and patients. Skills such as Business Acumen, Business Leadership, and Strategic Business Selling are the foundations for how to achieve success through expertise.
