Early in May in Los Angeles was the Association for Talent Development (ATD) International Conference and Expo. This is my fifth year consecutive year attending and 4th year speaking. I like to think of it as the Super Bowl for the Talent Development profession.
I spent a couple of days there, a mix of speaking at the conference and connecting with people across the broader talent development ecosystem.
While I attend a lot of conferences, this one is my favorite. This is my home. These are the people who have supported me along this journey, helped me navigate to where I am today, and who constantly push me to think differently and elevate my craft.
Talent development, like many other professions, probably yours too, is at a challenging moment. Like many in the knowledge workforce, we’re starting to see roles face real pressure, whether from macroeconomic conditions and tightening budgets, or from the downstream implications of AI on organizations and the work itself.
While the first years I attended people were happy to be back in person as a result of the worldwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that same excitement and genuine happiness of being in person exists (and if anything, is greater today) but perhaps for a whole set of other reasons.
Many people remarked at how much they enjoyed being in person and being able to connect with their peers, friends and colleagues. I know this to be true across many professions right now, and I think at least some of this speaks to the broad state of the world, at large, and the world of work right now. A desire to be connected, be open, learn and ask for help during times that feel challenging or uncertain.
If I could use one word to describe the overall temperature of feelings at the conference that word would be uneasiness. This could be about all sorts of things – geopolitics, AI disruption, macroeconomic strain, market and industry pressures. Certainly, it’s hard to talk about the talent and learning profession and its future without the ambiguity that hangs over our head.
In my conversations with other solopreneurs, many of us talked about feeling the market pressures, and even those of us who are making positive progress this year seemed cautious about being too optimistic given the uncertainties that exist.
In some respects, this does give some credence and credibility to why events like this are important and why we should continue to invest in them – the greatest challenges rarely get solved off in a silo, but rather when people look outward to one another and collectively share and problem solve to find solutions.
This year at ATD, I was speaking in their Talent Talks (A TED Style Track) on the topic of Reimagining Talent Development for a New World of Work. In this talk, I shared my perspective on the change and uncertainty that many organizations and leaders (and thus talent development professionals) are facing right now.
And to me, that is highlighted by the concept of the liminal space. A liminal space is the threshold between two states, the in-between. On one end is the past, a world we know well, but one that is becoming less relevant by the day, but something that is both legible and known. On the other end is the future, a world we can sense but can’t fully see. When we squint, we can make out parts of it. But we can’t navigate it with the certainty we’d like.
Additionally, in this talk, I was able to present some original research that I conducted earlier this spring. Here are a few data points that I found:
- 82% of talent development professionals say are experiencing significant or constant organizational change
- 60% believe that the talent development profession will be >50% different in 3-5 years.
- 50% believe they have the adequate time to prepare for the future
But I didn’t just share statistics, I also offered perspective on the specific shifts and practices we could make, to evolve so we can remain relevant in this changing world of work. Here are two in particular that seemed to resonate with the audience.
1. Flip the ROI
Most people know relationships matter. I’d argue they matter even more right now, when uncertainty makes it tempting to pull inward. Whatever challenge you’re facing is probably going to be better solved when you’re out connecting with people, not when you’re waiting for things to settle down.
But here’s the problem: most of us get the equation backwards. We tell ourselves we’ll invest in relationships once we have more time, once we get that promotion, once things slow down. That thinking keeps us stuck.
We also get the acronym wrong. ROI, we put the R (return) before the I (investment). But that’s not how it actually works. We need to flip it. The investment has to come first.
Think about relationship capital the way you’d think about financial capital. You make small deposits, of trust, of genuine connection, of showing up for people — long before you ever need to make a withdrawal. Those deposits compound over time. And when you need them, they’re there.
2. The Opportunity Flywheel
The second idea that resonated was the opportunity flywheel (Which I wrote about in this article) and the shift from being someone who waits for opportunities to being someone who creates them.
This landed, I think, because it gives people a sense of agency when things feel uncertain and out of their control. But the piece that makes this idea different from generic “go create your own luck” advice is this: it’s not just about creating opportunities for yourself. It’s about creating opportunities and bringing other people along with you.
When you create an opportunity and involve others in the process, two things happen. First, you increase the surface area for opportunities to come back to you.
Second, you increase the potential impact of whatever you’re building because more people are invested in the outcome, and the ripple effects go further than anything you could have done alone.
These ideas were shaped for a talent development audience, but they apply to anyone navigating change and uncertainty right now. If either of them resonated and especially if you’re thinking about how to help your leaders and teams move forward, I’d love to connect. Reach out and let me know how I might be able to support you and your organization.