Generative AI and Talent Development: Part Two of a Three-Part Series

Laura Nathanson
3 min readJun 12, 2023

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In Part One of this series, I shared my perspective on generative AI and talent development, and how it’s critical for executives to strategically Ask 3 Questions before deciding on a solution that will work for their organizations. Step 1 is to ask the first question, “What’s the problem to solve?” After some hypotheticals and discussion of practical root-cause analysis, we answered Question 1 with this problem statement, including a Pain Point and Root Cause:

Pain Point: Our workforce isn’t producing the innovation we need to stay ahead of the competition.

Root Cause: Our organization isn’t designed to promote innovation.

That is a thorny problem, and you can see why formulating it this way may cause tension in your organization. Remediating this Pain Point and solving this Root Cause would be complex, and in addition, cost money and time executives may not have budgeted. Yet, there are ways to solve this problem incrementally, driving value through each stage and avoiding the 70–95% risk of failure inherent in all digital transformations.

To work towards this type of solution, Step 2 is to ask the second question: “What’s the outcome to achieve?”

When formulating the answer to this question, it’s important to break it into two parts: Actions and Motive. The Actions are the high-level steps to take when solving this problem, and the Motive is the “Why” that keeps you on track as the Actions move forward.

One thing about this method is that the Problem to Solve naturally leads to the solution. As noted in the first article, the Root Cause of the Pain Point was determined to be organizational design, and hypothetically, the answer to at least one of these questions was “no”:

· Talent Development: Does the organization offer training on methods to spark innovation, such as brainstorming or design thinking?

· Workforce Strategy: Are employees incentivized to innovate?

· Talent Acquisition: Are recruiters empowered to hire innovative talent?

· Process Design: Do employees have the opportunity to participate in an innovation process that helps them grow their ideas into products and services?

Let’s say that in this case, the answer to the Talent Development question was “no, the organization doesn’t offer training on innovation methods.” It would naturally follow that to solve the Pain Point and address the Root Cause, the organization should prioritize rolling out that training.

The Problem to Solve and Outcome to Achieve would then look like this, from the executive sponsors’ point of view:

Question 1: What’s the problem to solve?

Pain Point: Our workforce isn’t producing the innovation we need to stay ahead of the competition.

Root Cause: Our organization isn’t designed to promote innovation.

Question 2: What’s the outcome to achieve?

Actions: We will identify, acquire, and implement an enterprise-wide innovation training program. Generative AI will be used to improve the learning experience and provide insights about the program’s results.

Motive: We want our workforce to have the skills they need to innovate, so we can stay ahead of the competition.

At this point, we’ve narrowed our broad question about generative AI and talent development to a specific problem and solution, which takes us one step closer to moving forward with confidence. But to successfully implement the Actions and make sure they’re staying true to the Motive, solving the Pain Point and addressing the Root Cause, Question 3 must be asked and answered.

I’ll share more in the third and final installment of Generative AI and Talent Development. Stay tuned!

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Laura Nathanson
Laura Nathanson

Written by Laura Nathanson

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Laura is a people-focused senior executive with 25+ years of management consulting experience. She is the founder of Ask 3 Questions, Inc.

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