I have probably impressed upon you by now that creating a sustainable business model requires a shared commitment within an organization to have social and economic interests simultaneously guide the business. The role of talent development is to help shape the dialog, develop early advocates, capture new knowledge, and anchor the best practices in a new business culture. To use an analogy, you are creating a new building from the ground up, while standing in the framework of the old one.

I learned some of the most important concepts about talent and sustainability from two dissimilar organizations: the United Nations and Galaxy Entertainment. At face value, these organizations don't have much in common, but both operate in talent-constrained environments. When I joined the UN in 2002 as chief learning officer of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), all open positions in the Learning Resources Center were filled prior to my arrival. The reasoning was that a full complement of staff would allow me to hit the ground running. Coming from the private sector, my feeling was the opposite. Leave the positions open until I have the chance to assess our talent requirements. The problem as I saw it was that if you hired first and then created your strategy, it was unlikely that the resources would match.

Working within the UN system was always of matter of working with a highly diverse set of talent and structured work rules. Although the structure initially felt constraining, I understood fairly quickly that most people joined the UN because they wanted to make a difference. I had a team of people from Peru, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, India, Taiwan, Argentina, the US, and another half dozen countries in my New York office alone. In addition, my 156 learning managers represented almost as many countries and cultures. Essentially, I was the outsider joining a community that was purpose driven. The successful talent strategy was about discovering each person's ability, redesigning services to match capabilities, encouraging a shared sense of purpose, and developing partnerships to fill capability gaps. Going in a direction contrary to the system was a losing proposition. Success was about removing barriers and finding new doors to open and unlocking potential.