Andy Longley
Director Talent Partnering – Global Sales & Global Brands
adidas
Cultural change is a hot topic now, but something which still lacks clarity, is how best to achieve change. Building leadership capability, is accepted as a business imperative for sustained change, so how can HR and Talent professionals support our leaders to do this in a lean and digital way?
We find out more from Andy Longley, Director Talent Partnering – Global Sales & Global Brands at adidas on the successes they have had in their leadership when driving true cultural change with a new talent development approach.
What does a ‘holistic talent development approach’ mean and how does it benefit cultural change – can you explain this concept in a bit more detail?
To me this means that everything we do in HR or Talent Development is integrated and overtly linked to the same objective. As people we are more motivated and engaged when we see and connect to the ‘why’. So, a holistic approach shows the connection points of all initiatives so that we are repeatedly demonstrating how this particular approach is taking us towards our final destination. All people development is in essence cultural change when it’s applied broadly in an organization. So, when we articulate why we are introducing or adapting something and making the connections to our people strategy clear for all, the cultural change is more likely to not only be adopted, but also accelerated. When we identify our ‘north star’ for our approach to development at the start and share this openly, then as employees we are more likely to engage with it because we understand where we are going.
What are the major illusions that organisations are susceptible to?
The key determinant for a successful cultural change is changing attitudes, which in turn changes behaviours. Then overtime when an organization begins to consistently behave a certain way, the culture will also evolve. So, the main illusion organisations have is that we can label the culture we want to have using things like mission statements and vision statements etc. and repeat this messaging expecting cultural change to follow. Firstly, we must focus on connecting the change with our team members so that they both understand and buy-in to it, and then we have the foundation for evolving our culture as the behaviours drive this. A great example of this is with digital transformation. In digital transformation, an illusion often seen is that if we introduce technology then we are transforming. The mindset shift is the foundation of any cultural change sticking, so we must focus on the mindset of our colleagues first and foremost. If we are able to make headway here, then the introduction of technology will be more impactful and more transformational in its true meaning.
Can you tell us how you’ve transformed your pain points into HR successes?
In any large organization all transformation takes time and there’s no easy fix to accelerate through this whether it be a primary focus on cultural change or digital transformation. The pain points we have experienced are predominantly around shifting mindsets of our leaders and employees. This has been in the form of focus areas like building up the acknowledgement that individuals own their own development and are responsible for driving this, and the role of leaders as coaches (and not merely managers). So, these traditional pain points have been slowly transformed as we have implemented a companywide approach to alter how we as a company think about performance development. These 2 areas have been at the root of the approach and we are starting to see the successes in the mindset shifts reflected across the business.
How easy will it be for larger firms to include a digital, high-performance coaching model into their best practices?
I see this question in two parts. Firstly, the use of technology will enable much greater connectivity for international and global organisations so that we can leverage of simpler and more accessible technologies to connect our leaders, or team members no matter where they are in the world. We can all utilize a system or a platform to enable coaching conversations to happen more often, and then use this as the springboard for developing a high-performance culture. Secondly, the movement towards being a high-performance coaching requires our leaders to have the capabilities to do this. Many leaders don’t have this capability, so to further enable this transformation an organisation need to commit to investing in building this capability in all leaders so that the high-performance coaching model becomes part of what we do and how we act every day. It is certainly feasible for larger organizations to achieve this, but it will involve not only the key prerequisites such as senior leadership sponsorship and drive, and financial investment into the system, but also some patience to plan for a realistic timeframe to achieve this.
How do you see the roles in HR progressing from 2019 onwards?
As with all things in business which operate in cycles, I see the role of the HRBP evolving back to being the true people generalist. Currently we are in an environment where a lot of large organisations have centers of excellence such as Talent Development & Talent Acquisition. I believe that the HRBPs of the future will have a stronger focus on talent & leadership development as part of their daily role supporting the business to truly link development with all people topics. This will enable the HRBP to elevate the conversations to the more strategic level, but of course will also need the support for achieving the transactional elements of HR efficiently through the use of shared services centers and new technology such as AI.
Andy will share the successes, learnings and pain points of his journey at the upcoming HR Vision Summit. A truly inspiring session where you will leave with strategic insights, practical processes and new ideas on how to introduce a new performance development approach, as well as what obstacles you may face in your own organisations.
With working styles rapidly changing, HR Vision will explore the biggest challenges affecting HR and business today. Our expert speaker line-up includes brands such as Shell, L’Oréal, airbnb Experiences, Oxfam International, Cisco, O2, Kier Group, Stella McCartney, Heineken just to name a few – and we’ll delve deeply into how digitisation, AI and a host of other technologies are profoundly changing people management practices and the way we work. View the conference brochure for more details.
Despite HR being a human-centric discipline, technology is rapidly evolving the conventions of good practice. We have put together a free 11 page e-book which includes:
– NASA’s perspective on the rise of the bots
– ‘Getting social’ with Deutsche Telecom
– Karen Brown at Baker McKenzie address humanised technology
– The concept of human robotic partnership
