The Top 5 Things I Learnt at the World HRD Congress
The 25th World HRD Congress in Mumbai has been beyond fascinating! The conference covers all manners of Human Resource Development from employee engagement and strategic HRM to talent management and recruitment. I attended the ‘World Training & Development’ section of the congress. Alongside HR professionals from all industries and continents, it has been a joy to watch the passion and humbleness of all involved.
The top 5 things I learnt were:
1) Change my perspective to improve my solutions
Sushma Panikker Ceasar from Dubai led a session on design thinking. She simplified what design thinking really is and how it needs to go beyond designers and is in fact for everyone. My favourite takeaway was how we can deepen and widen our perspective with this approach, and get through failing faster to learning quicker.
2) Do the right thing in the right way
Khalid Bomtaia from Bahrain Quality Society shared his thoughts on training leaders for the future – starting by illustrating that we have no idea what will be required of leaders in the future. I loved his 2 x 2 matrix considering that leaders not only have to be able to do the right thing, but do it in the right way. The wrong thing in the right way is worthless, as is the right thing in the wrong way!
3) Focus on behaviours – not results
Bambang Yapri spoke about managing the behaviours of your employees, not the results. Ensuring you have the behaviours your organisation desires will lead to the required results and will give more leverage for improving performance. This was a theme also raised by Sunder Ramachandran from GSK Pharmaceuticals India at LT17 back in the UK earlier this month when I was hosting the roundtable session with Towards Maturity. I look forward to seeing more organizations taking this approach.
4) Purpose is the emerging driver of society
Maria Liz Pressentin led a passionate session about the importance of purpose in today’s organisations and across society, as individuals strive for personal and professional purpose. She shared that as we move from the information age to the purpose age, organisations will need to listen. This is especially true given that by 2025, 75% of the workforce will be millennials.
5) Genuine recognition delivers engagement, retention and results
Maria shared another report, also highlighted at LT17 UK, which made me sit up and listen. When millennials were asked what motivates them at work, the top 4 included – “a great relationship with my boss”, “a great relationship with my colleagues”, “meaningful work” and in top “position recognition”. The World HRD Congress models recognition every step of the way and the energy it creates through this medium was inspiring.
Thanks to Dr R L Bhatia for not only inviting me to present at the World HRD Congress but for also being recognised amongst 100 Leaders in Learning and Development. It has been an honour to be involved.
Image – receiving the “Global Training & Development Leadership Award” on stage in Mumbai.