Or… Allow your employees the latitude to become experts on their own.
For those rare and truly passionate people who’s outside interests and daily jobs mesh – giving them latitude to grow and be recognized as team, corporate and then industry experts grows you and your business as well. It creates a positive feedback loop and if you help these people through honest commentary, attending conferences and eventually having them speak at those conferences, the amount of credibility flowing back to the organization will be phenomenal. Not to mention the expertise that these individuals develop and bring back with them. Expertise is what helps organizations separate themselves from their competition and should be developed as a strategic imperative. When you marry an employee’s passion with objectives of the company – you’ve got a killer situation – but only if you listen and allow it to develop.
How do you recognize these individuals? Talking to them is a great place to start. Reading their blogs, is another. Watching them in meetings, how they contribute, which meetings they tend to participate more in – all are signs of what their interests are.
How else can you help build experts? If you’ve got the space then let them host an event on the campus. Demonstrate your support by sponsoring an event or even go so far as to help these individuals put on an event. Keep it small if this is their first one and and allow them to prove themselves. As long as it all ties back in some way to the corporate strategy and objectives. All of this leads back to thought leadership and it’s the social currency that’s driving a lot of individual contributors who want to stand out. Do this for one person and soon you may have several stepping up. Once that begins to happen you may see a lot more resumes, and business, coming your way.
