In October, the World Business Forum will gather several talent experts and business executives in Madrid so they define the challenges that organizations will face in 2018.

World of Business Ideas (WOBI), a business content hub and a spade where experiences and knowledge meet, has consulted its experts to understand what will be the new trends. This has led WOBI to identify the most significant challenges in talent management during 2018.

This year, the World Business Forum will be developed in Madrid, on October 3 and 4. The event will focus on pointing out the importance of enhancing people’s diversity and creativity at its most to promote business success, under the idea of “Humanification”.

◾Empowering people

“The key to release a company’s potential and promote innovation lies within the work teams”, experts from WOBI state. In other words, every company is made up by people who manage to turn every project into a reality.

“Appreciating their importance, nurturing their creativity, developing talent and releasing their potential are keys to the concept of “humanification”, born in the 19^th century, but only recently applied to business”, they claim.

◾The importance of transformation

Empowering people will be key to get extraordinary and sustainable results. In every industry, scenarios that once might have seem unlikely become more and more real, leading CEOs and executive councils with decaying business models to adopt a transformation process.

“Frequently, companies vaguely use this term (transformation) to refer to any kind of change” – WOBI experts explain – but the transformation we shall be talking about in 2018 will be a transformation defined as an intense and global program that highlights performance while strengthening organizational health-

The most important starting point for a transformation is a CEO that acknowledges that a new approach is the only valid alternative to dramatically improve a company’s performance. It is important to identify a company’s full potential; defining a new road using a “transformation office” with the autonomy to make decisions; reinforcing the executive team with a CTO or Transformation Director; changing the mentality of employees and managers who are pushing the organization back; and soaking the organization into a new culture on which transformation may be based.

◾Reaching the full potential

CEOs must demand a clear analysis of the company’s potential to create value: specific costs and income goals, based on solid information.

According to WOBI, the message must be state that “it is better to take just one step forward, being self-confident, than trying a number of gradual steps that lead nowhere”. “Goals that exceed two or three times the initially estimated potential of a company are not an exception, and they are usually reachable”, they state.

◾Changing the rhythm

A lesson learnt in time has been about the importance of creating a single pole that supervises the transformation and promotes a very different rhythm. This “accelerated clock” is one of the most important characteristics of successful transformations.

“Managing a complex transformation is a full-time executive job”, experts from WOBI claim. “The role must be developed by someone who has the authority to lead an organization to reach its full potential”.

◾Removing barriers and creating initiatives

World of Business Ideas alerts that there are lots of companies that work below their top potential, and not because they are “under structural disadvantages, but because of a combination of deficient leadership, poor culture and conflicting incentives”.

During good times, and even during not such good times, these barriers can be managed; however, the transformation will only achieved its goals when these obstacles are faced directly and in advance.

“The influence model” recommends four interventions to help change these mentalities: tell a convincing story on change, building support mechanisms, making the leading team a role model, and providing workers with the necessary tools for change”, they say.

◾All for one

Acknowledging talent and releasing people’s potential are key actions for successful business leaders. Assessing the importance of professional and personal development for every team member is vital for any organization to succeed.

“People perform better when their values are aligned”, says Stewart Friedman, management professor at Wharton Business School. Friedman’s idea takes three key concepts for personal progress: reality, integrity, and creativity.

◾Determination, a key value

The most relevant feature to determine success is not social intelligence, good looks, physical health or IQ. It is determination. Several elements are very important to promote determination. One of them is to find out what are your interests and align them with daily activities. Another, is the relevance of the purpose, used as the basis to reach goals.

 ◾Personal disruption

Considered as one of the most influent business thinkers in the world, Whitney Johnson analyses how people can foster innovation at work and on their own professional career. To do this, she uses seven variables: choosing what risks to take, identifying your own strengths, accepting restrictions, fighting against privileges, working to grow professionally, being unafraid of defeats and discovering.

◾Managing diversity

Tamara Erickson, one of the most important specialists in work culture and organization, gives advice on how to make the most of each generation’s strengths and characteristics to enrich daily coexistence and improve results.

◾Compliment instead of criticizing

Richard Brandson, CEO of Virgin, says: “when managing people, it is important to genuinely care about them, to bring out the best in them. This is the key to entrepreneurial success: to compliment instead of criticizing. Put the team first, even before customers, and provide them with a product that is the best in the market. Offer them tools to properly do their job. Your product must be the best in the world for customers to smile”.

Source: equipos&talento