Every year, I join CrossFitters around the U.S. in a hero workout called Murph. This workout memorializes U.S. Navy Seal Lieutenant Michael Murphy who died in Afghanistan. It’s meant to be tough. The Murph workout includes a one-mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 pushups, 300 air squats and another one-mile run … all in a weighted vest.

The first year I participated, I did ring rows because I couldn’t yet do a pull up. And I split the workout with a friend, so we each did half the reps. We did not wear a vest.

The next year, I did jumping pull ups. Again, I split it with a friend, no vest.

The third year, I finally had my pull ups, so I did the whole thing, but still no weighted vest.

Why am I telling you this? I couldn’t train for Murph the exact same way each year. I was doing different movements. I had different expectations. I had to train differently.

The same is true for our organizations. We have new technology (hello, artificial intelligence), new policies and new expectations. So, we can’t rely on the same “training.”

Instead, we have to up-level our skills development strategy to meet the needs of our modern workforce. The question then becomes: How?

The 5S Method

In my work with nonprofits, I use the 5S method — sales, scope, science, signals and self.

• Sales refers to how we work with our stakeholders and subject matter experts.
• Scope refers to the amount of change we are trying to create.
• Science refers to the learning science and behavior change principles that are often overlooked in talent strategies.
• Signals refers to measurement and evaluation.
• Self refers to how we develop our own skills and mindset to do this work.

I want to share three of those Ss with you today in the context of building your skills development strategy.

Creating Your Skills Development Strategy

If you’ve ever created a training program, you know what happens. Everyone wants to include every single detail they can think of to fix every single problem. The scope — the purpose of the training — becomes messy and unclear.

Instead, we must be clear about what our skills development strategy will deliver, and what it won’t.

Defining a Clear Scope

We need to define the project scope. This is one S in my 5S method.

To do this, we need to ask ourselves and our project team questions like:

• What will this skills development strategy do for us?
• Why are we creating it? What is the driving force behind it?
• What does success look like?

For example, you might have a new organizational strategy that will require new skills. That’s the driving force. So, your goal will be to align skills with that strategy so your employees can be intentionally developed with the skills they need to execute that strategy. Success is when employees can clearly show they have developed those skills, and performance is changed.

You can use these answers to help define what is in scope for the project and what isn’t. For instance, a new skill related to conflict resolution might not be relevant if it isn’t part of the organization’s strategy, but a new skill about turning data into stories might be.

Planning for the Organizational Change

Defining the scope is an important step because we know that most organizational change fails. And a new skills development strategy? It’s a change initiative.

BJ Fogg, author of “Tiny Habits,” says if we want to create a behavior change, we have to make that change tiny. I believe the same is true for our organizations. Maybe it won’t be “tiny,” but it should be clear and specific — not a catchall like we see in so many trainings.

Once we have the scope defined as a project team, we can start to bring other people into the process. That is, you can start to engage your employees.

I recommend engaging employees in the process for two reasons:

1. People don’t like change when it’s done to them, but they are much more receptive when it is done by They want to feel like they are part of the process. Involving them creates buy-in.
2. It’s hard to identify skills that need to be developed without talking to the people who are implementing the skills. Your staff knows what it takes to get the work done. They have lived experiences and expertise that can help you define what those skills look like in action. Your doctor wouldn’t prescribe you medication without observing you or listening to your symptoms. We shouldn’t prescribe a skills development strategy without hearing from the people who have firsthand experience doing the work.

Creating the Strategy

You can use this information to create the strategy.

Here are some recommendations on what to include in your strategy:

• The skills your organization will focus on and for what amount of time
• What each of those skills looks like when performed well
• Of those skills, which are top priority for which audiences
• How you will develop those skills
• How you will measure success

Implementing Your Skills Development Strategy

How you will develop the skills in your strategy is a core component of the strategy itself. No one likes a strategy that sits on a (digital) shelf.

This is where I see a lot of organizations get stuck: How do we roll this out? What do we prioritize? How do we develop the skills we identified?

Creating a Communication Plan

When rolling out a new strategy, it’s helpful to create a comprehensive communication plan. This often means creating a one-page summary of the strategy that can be shared to socialize the new strategy. It also means creating emails that are segmented by audience. What do executives need to know or do? What do supervisors need to know or do? What do individual contributors need to know or do? Often, these groups have different responsibilities and will use the strategy in different ways. This tailored communication creates continued buy-in and awareness about the strategy.

Additionally, conduct small group discussions about the strategy. For example, you can bring together a small diverse group of leaders to discuss how the skills will be used in performance and career discussions. This allows leaders to imagine themselves using the strategy in their daily work.

Using a Phased Approach

In addition, use a phased approach to introduce the skills development strategy. Identify an audience you want to start with — for example, first-line supervisors — and determine what and how you will implement the strategy with them.

Identifying Priorities

Once you’ve established how you will roll out the strategy, you’ll also need to identify how you will prioritize the work. This might be based on the goals that are most urgent for your organization. It might be a needs assessment where staff identify how important a skill is and how confident they are in implementing that skill.

While there are many ways to identify priorities, the important thing is knowing what you will focus on when and for whom.

Creating Employee Development Opportunities

So often, training involves sitting in a classroom, listening to a talking head and returning to your work environment unable to implement anything you were taught.

Instead, we need to rely on learning science and behavior change principles to create employee development solutions.

For example, review the skills in your strategy. Can any of them be easily implemented with a checklist or other resource? If so, start there, and then if needed, create a training program that teaches employees to use that tool. Our brains can only remember so much information. Creating a tool gives employees an easy point of reference that clarifies performance expectations and helps them use the skill in the moment.

Remember, to change behavior, your employees will need a prompt — something to remind them to use the skill, a desire to make the change — what’s in it for them, and a reward. All of these things cannot be solved with training alone. This is why science is another S in the 5S method.

Evolving Your Skills Development Strategy

One mistake I often see organizations make is creating a skills development strategy and never revisiting it. We need to view the strategy as an evolving strategy.

• What we create the first time might not work. We need to look for signals — another S in the 5S method. We need to measure as we implement so we can adapt in the future.
• The world and the workplace never stops changing. We need to remain agile so we can adapt our strategy on an ongoing basis.