How do you design a talent mobility program for corporate development?

Designing a talent mobility program for corporate development is crucial for ensuring that your organization has the right skills and capabilities to execute growth strategies, manage mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and foster partnerships. Here’s a structured approach to develop an effective talent mobility program: 1. Identify current and future talent needs. 2. Assess current talent pool. 3. Conduct a gap analysis. 4. Develop talent mobility objectives. 5. Implement talent development initiatives. 6. Monitor and evaluate the program. 7. Communicate the program internally. 8. Leverage technology and tools.

As an investor, I was presented with various tools trying to build an in-house "linkedIn" like network censing all the skills of all the employees of the company. I am not sure that any of these solutions has gained massive traction but it seems actually key. Especially that today, using AI tools such as ChatGPT 4, it is possible to build really high-performing matching engines, as long as the system is properly fed. So much in-house value is lost because Managers most often than not don't know the full scope of skills available in-house, including from their own closest team members.

Designing a talent mobility program for corp dev requires a strategic approach to developing and retaining talent while ensuring alignment with the company’s long-term goals. A few ways to create an effective talent mobility program for corp dev: Talent Development: The program should aim to build a pipeline of corporate development professionals with the necessary skills to lead M&A deals and strategic partnerships. Skill Diversification: Focus on giving employees exposure to a wide range of roles, including finance, strategy, ops, and project mgmt, to develop a well-rounded corp dev skill set. Retention and Engagement: The program should increase employee engagement and retention by offering growth opportunities within the company.

The whole question of internal mobility, whichever direction you want to take it, is potentially obsolete for many organisations. Especially Native Digital or even Tech driven environments and businesses can't think anymore in terms of traditional mobility. Rather they need to adopt a more agile, fluid and rapidly evolutive structure such as the one promoted in the EcoLeadership framework. This framework is made of a fabric of overlapping sub-ecosystems, where each ecoleader with his team is assigned a mission that is a part of an overall strategic objective. These ecosystems are not set in stone and members of one ecosystem can move to another once they have accomplished the mission, or more often than not,they can handle several missions

When offering talent mobility within a company it is extremely important to provide employees with the correct support systems. A skills or career change is more than a momentary movement, especially given the rapidly developing tech climate. Facilitating a continuous learning culture that empowers employees to effectively communicate their needs will ensure any issues are quickly identified and can be resolved. Implementing communication loops that run throughout the company/ team is imperative for success and will allow faster decision making and more transparency.

In spite of the strong push towards a more empathetic, inclusive, emotionally intelligent and collaborative workplace, the reality is still very far from the ideal. I have several times, as a CEO, attempted to establish collaborative, participative and trust-based models and unfortunately, the outcome was very mixed. Some of the shareholders / stakeholders / Board members, still set on old-school models, can often consider that as lack of management or lack of purpose or decisiveness, as they expect the CEO to take decisions and the teams to follow. As for the staff, if many of them welcome the approach, a lot try also to abuse the system, reducing efforts or hiding behind over members of the ecosystem. Control, therefore, is key.