Many of the benefits of agile talent have been widely reported. But a benefit that has received less attention is the contribution they can make as mentors to an organization’s full-time staff. Tapping into your outside experts to help in the development of internal employees is a valuable way to address the needs of both.
A practical framework for mentoring is based on the career stages work of Gene Dalton and Paul Thompson, former professors at HBS. Their research has found that high-performing professionals tend to transit through four distinct stages of development:
- Apprentice: Helper and learner; establishes a reputation for trust, teamwork, and cultural congruity.
- Individual contributor: Builds recognized functional expertise; makes a significant independent contribution; demonstrates accountability and ownership for results.
- Mentor/coach: Contributes through others as a formal manager, an idea leader, a project owner, or an informal employee developer.
- Sponsor/strategist: Sets or influences strategic direction and important decisions; exercises power on behalf of the organization; prepares future leaders.
This type of entrepreneurial mindset is extremely helpful and is very often lacking among full-time employees who don’t have significant market or competitive contact.
How can an organization encourage the mentoring of employees by their critical outside experts? We suggest five steps that leaders can take.
- Establish Informal Coaching Relationships
- Provide Channels for Sharing Knowledge
- Involve Experts as Part of the Brain Trust
- Engage Experts in Providing Developmental Feedback
- Connect with Experts’ Networks
We live in a time when keeping up technically and professionally is increasingly important and difficult. Mentoring is one of the important tools that managers have to contribute to the development of their team. Utilizing agile talents as mentors and coaches is a way to multiply the value of an organization’s investment in outside experts.
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“The promise of quasi-infinite and free energy is here,” Thierry Lepercq, French energy company Engie SA’s head of research, technology, and innovation declares, in an interview with Bloomberg. His arguments aren’t based on any environmental concern. Rather, he takes the perspective of price.
Lepercq isn’t alone in seeing the price potential of renewables, particularly solar energy. The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently published a report showing how solar power now costs cheaper than fossil fuels.
Renewable energy technology, especially solar and wind, has made exponential gains in efficiency in recent years, enough to achieve economic competitiveness and, in an increasing number of cases, grid parity. For instance, the unsubsidized, levellized cost of electricity (LCOE) for utility scale solar photovoltaic, which was highly uncompetitive only five years ago, has declined at a 20% compounded annual rate, making it not only viable but also more attractive than coal in a wide range of countries.
This is all because, as mentioned above, we have seen an increased use of solar energy. Innovations thrived. Nations and private corporations were both in on it, too. We are seeing the construction of large-scale solar energy infrastructure.
Indeed, quasi-infinite and free energy is well on its way.
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2017 Global Risk Report of the World Economic Forum
In this year’s annual survey, some 750 experts assessed 30 global risks, as well as 13 underlying trends that could amplify them or alter the interconnections between them.
Patterns persist. Rising income and wealth disparity and increasing polarization of societies were ranked first and third, respectively, among the underlying trends that will determine global developments in the next ten years.
Similarly, the most interconnected pairing of risks in this year’s survey is between high structural unemployment or underemployment and profound social instability.
The environment dominates the global risks landscape.
Society is not keeping pace with technological change.
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