Foreword by Stephen Drotter
You probably have specialists of some kind that are critically important to your business or organization. Do you have a system or architecture that rewards their growth and offers career opportunities that don’t require transition to management work? The Specialist Pipeline provides the architecture.
Built on the same principles and philosophy that made The Leadership Pipeline a global classic, The Specialist Pipeline provides a model for organizing the development and careers of your critical population. The differences in skill requirements, time application and work values for likely levels of specialist work are spelled out. Why should you pursue this?
Consider the business issues.
Organizations of all kinds are always faced with a wide range of challenges. Because organizations must deliver-products, services, answers, etc.-many of today’s challenges can be expressed as “how to” questions. Some pressing challenges in today’s businesses include the following
How do I innovate in ways that will grow the business?
How do I use AI effectively?
How do I satisfy customers better than competition?
How do I attract and retain top talent?
How do I improve employee engagement?
How do I keep up with technology?
How do I assure consistent quality?
The answer to “how” is “who”. There is a strong focus on leaders when thinking about “who” will provide solutions. Leaders may think up the answers but they don’t execute them. In the vast majority of situations SPECIALISTS DELIVER THE RESULTS! They are the answer because they do the work and are closest to it. They innovate, define AI and its use, satisfy customers and deliver quality. They work more often with each other than they do with their leader so they have a powerful effect on retention and engagement.
Consider the managing the complexity of this population.
There are all kinds of specialist, probably as many as there are specialties. Engineers, scientists, programmers, nurses, doctors, researchers, consultants, analysts of all kinds, financial advisors, architects, talent acquisition, inclusion, etc., the list goes on and on. It is a rare organization or business that doesn’t have them. The emergence of the service economy including information technology, high tech, health care, consulting, financial advisories, and many others has only increased their numbers and importance. The underlying idea is that specialists have a technology or science or information or a body of laws, or some other significant basis they apply when doing their work. Lets call it their “technology”. (They are not usually doing simple transactions.) Each technology is different so managing them effectively is a daunting task. A systemic management solution is invaluable.
Consider the retention of key talent.
If they are critically important and there are many varieties, how do you address their development and careers? How do you retain them? How do you assure ourselves the “technology” they use is up to date and applied appropriately across the organization? What kind of reward system satisfies their long-term needs?
Defining your own specialist pipeline is a must for offering legitimate specialist careers and retaining a motivated and productive specialist population. Seeing the path forward is critical for their continued enthusiasm.
If you are leading an organization that relies on specialists you will improve your ability to lead them and to assure consistent application of their technology across the organization if you use The Specialist Pipeline.