Specialist Development in Corporations
Today, hierarchical organizational structures are increasingly being replaced by networking structures, agile set-ups and highly matrixed organizations. Organizations are breaking down hierarchies in order to increase the speed to market, decentralize decision-making and mobilize innovation across the organization.
This changes the role of the leader, but even more so, it sets new standards for what is required from specialists. The specialists must be equipped to not only be able to operate through their managers, but also across the organization directly with specialists in other functions. The success of the specialists can no longer be boiled down to their depth of knowledge – it is their ability to bring their knowledge into play across the organization.
However, specialists are an increasingly scarce resource. For companies to retain specialists, they must of course be offered development opportunities and career paths in the same way as managers.
There are a number of obvious shortcomings in many organizations' approach to specialists. Some companies hastily establish three career paths: one for executives, one for specialists and one for project managers. But often the career path for specialists ends in a title structure in which the titles are assigned based on the depth of knowledge, years of employment or simply the need to maintain them in the short term, rather than on how the specialists best operate and deliver results with their expertise.
What is the Specialist Pipeline?
The Specialist Pipeline concept introduces a road-tested solution on how to design an enduring architecture for specialist performance and specialist development.
An Introduction to the Specialist Pipeline Roadmap
Value Proposition
The impact of working with us implementing the Specialist Pipeline principles will be significant. Not just for the specialists in question but for the entire organization. Below, we have listed examples of how working with the Specialist Pipeline principles will help your organization in various ways.
Organizational
Mobilizes the specialist workforce and enables a more agile way of working across the organizational hierarchy
Enables specialists and leaders to switch between specialist and leadership track without being demoted
Increases attraction and retention of specialists by offering a strong value proposition that acknowledge specialists and their work in its “own right”
People Managers
Helps clarifying and aligning performance expectations
Enables professional development at current level based on common performance standards
Creates better opportunity to have constructive conversations about career development and actual accomplishments in relation to expected results
Specialists
Provides an attractive career path and a “real” alternative to choosing the leadership track
Provides a transparent framework for performance, development, promotion and future growth
Demonstrates an organizational commitment to focus on specialists
The Specialist Pipeline Principles
The Specialist Pipeline offers first principles for mapping and building an efficient and agile architecture to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage through specialists.
It maps the core specialist roles within your organization
It defines the critical transitions in terms of work values, time application and skills that specialists are faced with when moving from one specialist role to another
It defines the expected performance standards for each specialist role in the organization
Some of the Typical Specialist Pipeline Roadmap and Rules:
The passage from one role to another requires new learning and new behavior. Development is cumulative: successful development at one passage enhances the probability of success at the next passage. Conversely, incomplete development (or skipping a passage) can hinder success at the next passage.
Each passage represents a major change in job requirements. Accordingly, the question “is she a good specialist” is the wrong question. The right question is “is she a good knowledge leader” or “is she a good knowledge expert” and so forth.
The specialist roles illustrated are just the typical leadership roles we find in most organizations. It is of course important to examine your own organization and tailor the architecture to meet your company’s business model and organizational set-up.
How We Work With Organizations
There are different approaches to implementing the Specialist Pipeline principles. Also, different organizations have different sweet spots for starting the implementation. We work with your organization on your terms and we start where it is most important for you to start. The scope of our role depends on what you are in need of and what internal resources you have in place for the project. Our contribution would most often focus on:
Mapping core specialist roles
Define performance standards for different specialist roles
Define work values, time application and skills for different specialist roles
Designing and delivering specialist transition programs for the core specialist roles
The extent of our involvement in each area varies from assignment to assignment.
A Typical Project Structure
Learn more about the leadership and specialist transition programs and succession planning.
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