MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

Companies With the Best Talent Win

We've come so far from the days when companies just worried about teaching their workers which button they needed to push. That's partly because most workers today do far more than just push the same button day after day. It's partly because the button we push today is different from the button we pushed last year and will be a different button next year. And it's partly because we've learned a lot about the performance of our button-pushers, about how management and training can make us all into better button-pushers that will take our organization to the next level.

Enter "talent management." Talent management systems and packages offer a comprehensive strategy for attracting, developing, and retaining workers. It goes hand-in-hand with learning: learning programs are the key fuel for all three of those objectives - the attracting, the developing, and the retaining.

The evolution of talent management and the role that learning plays within it is one of the topics we're most fascinated with at MindLeaders. We've released a new white paper, "Companies with the Best Talent Win: How Learning & Development Is Vital to Strategic Talent Management," that puts together some of the most useful information we've found so far.

This white paper will give suggestions, background, and best practices for building a talent management strategy, making it as effective as it can be within your organization, and how to integrate learning & development within it.

Here's the table of contents from the white paper:

• Who Needs Talent Management?
• From Products and Technology to People
• The Challenges of Strategic Talent Management
  • Level of Complexity
  • Automation as a Perceived Solution
  • Integration with Business Strategy
  • Appropriate L&D Support
• Why Traditional Approaches No Longer Work
• An Effective Strategic Talent Management Solution
  • Part of a Unique Business Strategy
  • Pull Biggest Lever First
  • Measurement Over Automation
  • L&D Plays Integral Role
• Effective Strategic Talent Management in Action
  • Lack of Strategic Talent Management
  • Integrated Strategic Talent Management
• Learning and Development That Supports Integrated Strategic Talent Management
• MindLeaders
  • Large Library of Courseware
  • Distribute Your Learning with MindLeaders Central
  • Provide Learning Support When and How They Need It
  • MindLeaders Personal Learning Service (PLuS)
  • Exceptional Service

The white paper is free, please download the PDF and/or contact your MindLeaders representative for a printed copy. We hope it will spark new ideas and conversations in your workplace!

Focus your Project Management training

Project Management is one of the most demanding (and in-demand) skills that has a direct impact on how well an organization executes its strategy. Learning the core skills of planning, tracking, and shepherding projects is a big job itself, but true project management also includes skills in building a project team and keeping it moving forward, reaching throughout the organization to build a network that will help a project succeed, and juggling mutiple projects that are usually on a project manager's plate.

MindLeaders has released their Project Management Roadmap, a document that breaks down the skill competencies that are needed for project management and identifies the courses and online books that MindLeaders offers to build each of those competencies. Out of the over 2,000 courses and 1,000 online books MindLeaders offers, this roadmap will help guide project managers to the resources that will help them the most.

I hope that even organizations that are building their own PM training will be able to make use of this roadmap's breakdown of the key skills for successful project management.

Download the PDF of the Project Management Roadmap on our website, or contact your MindLeaders account manager for print copies.

P.S. This is our second in the series of roadmaps: if you missed it earlier, be sure to check out our Leadership Roadmap, too!

When two or more are gathered together

I'm back in the office and madly catching up after being in San Antonio for the MindLeaders International Users Conference 2008. So many presenters shared fantastic tips, success stories, and inspiration that I left the conference with a couple of pages' worth of new ideas to investigate try out when I returned. I saw plenty of other people with similar lists in hand.

My takeaway to write about, though, is the amazing things that happen when dedicated learning professionals get together. As part of the team putting this conference together, one of the things we worry about is facilitating networking - encouraging everyone who attends to talk with each other, share their stories, talk about what's concerning them and what home runs we're hitting.

We didn't need to worry a bit. This conference was attended by people from all parts of the MindLeaders universe and the learning spectrum: training managers and resellers; people training white collars, blue collars, and developing countries; MindLeaders clients for years and people who are considering MindLeaders for the first time. But everyone had one common love for learning that they easily used to connect with each other.

The buzz of conversation and compatriotism  happened in every meal, between every session, and even in the bars some of us wandered to as the nights wound down. It was the most inspirational part of the conference to me. People couldn't wait to talk with others about the work we're all doing. What a great sign that we're all in an exciting industry and part of really meaningful work.

In addition to the happy-cheerleady stuff, I also have a couple of new pieces of information and product details that we premiered at the conference and I can now announce to the world at large: stay tuned, I'll be posting about those in the coming days!