Leadership bsr 2011_final
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This was presented to the Business Services Leadership and Technology Training Event, May 3-4, 2011. The event was organized by the US Department of Labor's Employment Training Administration.
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Leadership bsr 2011_final
- 1. YES,THIS IS THE LEADERSHIPSESSION VINZ KOLLER, KRISTIN WOLFF, ALISON GASH & YOU SOCIAL POLICY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
- 2. SPRINGFIELD PROSPERITYPRIZECOMMUNITY RESPONSE BRIEFING VINZ KOLLER, KRISTIN WOLFF, ALISON GASH & YOU SOCIAL POLICY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
- 4. Your briefing should address the following questions: What are the most important goals we should aspire to in order to move us toward regional prosperity – buoyed by a strong manufacturing industry - by 2016? What are the most essential industry/jobs/workforce strategies we should employ and why? What policies would need to shift in order to implement these strategies? What are the most critical community-wide engagement approaches strategies we need to employ?
- 6. THINGS WE’VE LEARNED ABOUTWORKFORCELEADERSHIP SOCIAL POLICY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
- 8. 1. IT’S MORE LIKE . . .WE-ADERSHIP “We bring different players involved in workforce development, from tech schools to trade associations and state government agencies. We are conveners. So much depends on the willingness to collaborate.” –Lana, State Representative
- 9. 2. 31 FLAVORS Literacy, BroadbandConnectivity, Industry Transition(it’s all workforce) "Expectations are greater today as the public's understanding of education and economic issues has increased. It's a positive change – our agendas are bigger, even if not always realistic." – Paul, WIB Director
- 10. 3. “In order to form a more perfect …” ALIGNMENT ”Diverse partners add the resources and expertise we do not have and the reverse is also true. You need partnerships to take on the hard issues. Knowing how to manage them is an important aspect of leadership.” – Christine, WIB Director
- 11. 4. IMPACT > PROGRAM + SYSTEM ”Metrics matter and they should be strategic – linked to a collaboratively negotiated community-wide strategy and owned by multiple stakeholders who can hold each other accountable. Then they are powerful.” – Sam, VP Membership Association
- 12. 5. IT’S A GLOBAL VILLAGE ”Technology and innovation are key. We need to keep in mind that we are part of a global economy. The world is bigger than the community we live or work in.” – Stephen, Interagency Workgroup Director
- 13. 6. WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT = PICK-UP BASKETBALL? ”Leadership has to see a greater range of choices coming and deal with them faster and better than ever before. We do what we can to anticipate change – and make sure what we design is sustainable after the flurry is over.” – Mike, WIB Marketing Specialist
- 14. 7. EFFECTIVE LEADERSCAN PLAY MANY POSITIONS ”Since the downturn, mayors have asked for more workforce services delivered more locally – I have 34 municipalities in my area.” Jennifer, WIB Director
- 15. 8. WORKFORCE LEADERSHIP DEMANDS LIFELONG LEARNING ABOUT LEARNING AND WORK ”We are trying to build an understanding of workforce and how systems work at all levels in our community – but those systems themselves need to change.” Shari, VP of Member Association
- 16. 9. THE LIST OF “NEED-TO-KNOWS” IS GROWING STRATEGY INFORMATION& ANALYSIS PEOPLE NARRATIVE
- 18. ”Younger people have different expectations about the workplace, and about work. How should we be thinking about knowledge-sharing vs. adaptation?” Shari, VP of Member Association ”Younger people have different expectations about the workplace, and about work. How should we be thinking about knowledge-sharing s. adaptation?” Shari, VP of Member Association ”One of our biggest concerns has to do with the number of people reaching retirement age…how do we institutionalize the knowledge and skills they have?” – Roy, Program Director
- 19. 11. IT’S SERIOUSBUSINESS ”Leaders do real things. Last year we put 15,000 young people to work – the need is 70,000, but now everyone knows it and a partnership is taking root.” – Robert, Department Manager
- 20. 12. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT: WHAT’S NEXT?
- 21. US Department of Labor, National Association of Counties, National Association of Workforce Boards, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Governors Association, National League of Cities, US Conference of Mayors, California Workforce Association, 102 Individual Workforce Leader Contributors (to Date) Flickr Friends: Letter P (takomabibelot), IceCream (kthread); Kayak (barryskeates); NUFC (mikebrown59): Board Meeting (isgce); Basketball (jdanvers); Work, School (JD Lasica); M&Ms (averain); Street sign (Thomas Frederick) SPR Research Team: VinzKoller, Kristin Wolff, Trace Elms, Alison Gash, RickiKozumplik, with assistance from Annie Nyborg and MiloneyThakrar Follow us on Twitter: @WFLeadership For more information: www.EnhancingWorkforceLeadership.org
- 22. Enhancing Workforce Leadership is a project of: Supported by: The US Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration
Editor's Notes
- About the project:Recognizing that work leaders in the workforce business do has changed dramatically over the past decade, and possibly more so during the past two years, the Department of Labor was interesting in how the nature of leadership has changed, how leaders are building leadership capacity in their communities. SPR was engaged to help convene a series of conversations with leaders to explore these issues.Partnered with major associations: USCOM, NAWB, NACO, NGA, etc. to convene a series of group discussions/chatHalf-way through conducting individual interviews with leaders nominated through that processLit review – constituting a romp through theories of leadership, but drawing inspiration from long time leadership gurus like Barry Posner and James Kouzes (The Leadership Challenge) and those offering new insights about network forms of leadership (Beth Kanter from Nonprofit World, Charlene Li from the for-profit one, lots of lit from social innovation).Social media search – to ascertain how leaders are or are not participating in open forums and what kind of variation we see in that domain.On that particular front, BSRs seem to be higher users of social media than other leaders we’ve engaged.BRIDGE:
- 102Key:Blue (dark) = Local/Regional-level Contributors Green = State-level ContributorsMagenta = Post-secondary Education ContributorsPurple = Contributing Associations and OrganizationsAqua = Anonymous Contributors (via large group discussions or post-cards)Also on our website enhancingworkforceleadership.org, which we’ll send you a link to as a follow-up to this session.
- Asking people about leadership is a great way to get at real issues – turns a conversation serious.12 Highlights – Themes that were prevalent during our interviews.Convening partnerships, amongst the most important work leaders say they do. (Dr. Perryman, public/private; Ed Morrison Link&Leverage; Jeff Padden, Guiding Coalition)Hierarchy vs. networksProblem-solving vs. strength building (balance, priority-setting? Need to advance a lot of things…)Following from these – emphasis on relationship building and not just transactions (A version of this came up yesterday – moving away from transactions and toward strategic relationships?)Importantly, good leaders also know when to step back. We heard from many who learned that they can be more effective by giving away control – a hard lesson for some.Talked about roles and contributions – used a network way of organizing to do work.
- Leadership questions get at priorities differently – not just strategic goals/plansMany issues, but not just issues – different scales, and within unique ecosystems.Jobs, skills, and wages anchor the work, but the breadth and depth are varied, the partner mix, complex and ever-changing.Ambiguity about the relationship to “jobs”Ambiguity about how to balance priorities (community, people, firms)Data plays an increasing role.So do new methods and initiatives tied to technology, like SOCIAL INNOVATION, GOV2.0.This is a big change from a decade ago.
- Lot’s of orgs using theory of change.Morethan just coordination:Working toward shared goalsUsing incentives that reward appropriatelyInvesting in ways that reflect public interest – Grace noted the difficulty of this yesterday (firms needs would swamp us)(Gus says leaders know why they do what they do? To build prosperous community, investing in ways that reflect the public interest)4. Building toward lasting partnershipsSimple concept not easily operationalized.A word about RISK (and intransigence)…People bring different risks to the table.
- System cleared the field, program kicked the ball. But impact goes beyond the win, to the thousands of people cheering.Point of pride, point of frustration.UI directors & rural communitiesUrban college completion initiative – Philly.So much of what “industry transition” is really about is culture change – right? You are training people in skills, but the intent is to shift a division, firm, industry, to another place, another level of contribution/competitivenessSCALE gets in the way – collective impact versus, growth, replication. (Foundations…)Applies to system as whole and every partner in itThis is a place BSRs could really help – metrics that matter for their work. The metrics I heard described yesterday begin to get into impact territory.
- NPR story. Ten year old American kid practices Chinese with the Chinese president and a reporter asks her why the President is here and she says “because we trade with each other.” Wow.This manifests in workforce in a few different ways:- Cities and regions are comparing themselves with cities and regions outside the US, not just those inside their states or nation – for their part, states are playing more active roles in the international trading world.- Workforce professionals are doing more peer-to-peer learning exchanges with other cities, and also other countries (NAWB just went to the UK) More foreigners are coming here for events, conferences, learning opportunities (and there’s more interest in us going abroad, though economic development has a much strong history this, so there’s $, whereas wf professionals have tended to do this only occasionally). Sister cities, traded sectors Commercial connectivity between immigrant communities and home countries This, too, is different than a decade ago, and workforce leaders know they need this global awareness to do their jobs effectively.Next step – do we help people get jobs even when they are not local?
- Balancing this with issues of fairness, transparency – access. There are lots of employers, under what circumstances is it okay to play pick up basketball vs. not.?“Whoever is there is the right people”Wikis, bb – this is like community problem solving. Different timelines, partners, not everyone has to be at the table.Metaphors might even get in the way sometimes – tables, tents, buses…Wikis, Networks, agile way of workingGraph D/T. Ed: There is no strategic plan.
- NBA is rather protective of copyright, so…Leadersjuggle different kinds of capacity over different kinds of issues in different jurisdictions with different partners – Gaps remain in leaders understanding of each others’ roles and statutory responsibilities.Gaps are particularly pronounced between states and locals (WIBs, Legislatures/mayors and county commissioners, etc.) but gaps across systems matter too.You offer an interesting take on this issue – you are all BSRs, but you may work for different agencies – some for WIBs, some for contracted partners. Based on your priorities and structures – some are extensions of HR offices for firms or sectors, while other play more information and engagement support roles. You can lead from any of them, but it depends upon the value you bring.
- In terms of BSR role – raises questions about your role in working with firms.Do you working with cutting edge firms because you are ultimately after regional competitiveness?Or with laggards because they hold you back? But is it fair to place people with laggards?
- How many m&ms?That’s about how many skills were named as essential, but they fell into four categories.Highlights:- Strategy – more complex – who owns it when it’s collaboration based and always in development- Info/anal – transparency, data sharing (open data, open format) – are jobs that come from this workforce development?- People (managing diversity, across boundaries, internal and external – public facing, social media);Narrative (social media, transparency, power of story – not just individual success stories but using story to share information and make meaning. For example, economic transitions. Last one really impt for BSRs who are communicating labor market stories to their industries/firms.
- Workforce leaders are concerned about who will replace them.Uncertain about what knowledge/wisdom needs to be transferred. Workplace is changing, tech is changing how work gets done – leaders are sure next generation will need help learning the ropes, but what help? How delivered?
- Workforce leaders are concerned about who will replace them.Uncertain about what knowledge/wisdom needs to be transferred. Workplace is changing, tech is changing how work gets done – leaders are sure next generation will need help learning the ropes, but what help? How delivered?Parallel in here how business services has changed…But that, too, will continue to shift.
- Doing this work gave a boost to my faith in public service.Nearly universally, the individuals and groups with whom we spoke expressed a deep and nuanced understanding of the work they do and a commitment, not just to program or even system, but to effective stewardship of public resources.They were quite blunt about for instance, what it means for families, communities, and the nation’s economy when large numbers of people in a region or an industry are laid off, and equally candid about the tendency to be distracted from the forest by the trees and their efforts to self-correct. You ask about leadership, you get real insight.
- The crux of the issue – building leadership – is a significant challenge.Leaders recognize that the answer is not one thing, it’s many things. But how do you decide what to do?Resource constraints are also an issue, but perhaps less than the uncertainly about a future course of action.Programs and initiatives have never been so varied – what’s a sane approach?Haven’t really had leadership dev programs for the kinds of jobs you are now doing.WHAT ARE YOU QUESTIONS ABOUT WF LEADERSHIP?WHAT ARE YOU CHALLENGED BY?