We know that in our ever-increasingly dynamic environments, agility is key and temporary competitive advantages are the new reality.  Whether we recognize it or not, those temporary advantages include our people.  We want to attract, motivate, develop, and retain, yet what does that model look like when we know our best people are inevitably going to leave?

Attract (and Assimilate)
What if, along with attracting people to our organization, we begin to assimilate them into our culture with the first shake of hands?  The sense of belonging is one of the greatest needs we have as human beings and is just as important in the workplace.  So where the attraction fades away—dare I say just like in romantic  relationships—our people are brought rapidly into the culture so, no matter what, they feel as though they belong (or together we find out right away that it’s not a fit).   Our employees may not always stay in the same job, yet if they feel part of a larger family there is a greater chance they will move within the organization rather than out of it.

Motivate (To Do and To Share)
Many of our performance & rewards programs do a fair-to-excellent job of extrinsically motivating people to do a job well.  I don’t see this going away; it is an important part of the employer-employee value proposition.  Yet how often are we motivating our people to share their knowledge with others?  Is knowledge transfer on any of your organization’s performance objectives?  Given we may have only a limited duration with key employees, we are best served to get as much knowledge and wisdom from them as we can without delay.  The supplemental benefit is that others in the organization have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of your organization’s giants.

Develop (Horizontally &  Vertically)
Horizontal development—what we would think of as our traditional development—focuses on imparting new skills, abilities, and behaviors through training, job assignments, and even mentoring and 360° feedback.  Vertical development has been defined as “…the ‘stages’ that people progress through in how they ‘make sense’ of their world.”  To be vertically developed is to have a high level of self-awareness and  consciousness and the mindset to think more clearly, work and live more proactively than reactively, and communicate and collaborate more authentically. However, vertical development is something one must attain on his or her own.  The good news is: organizations can not only create the conditions but also offer different types of approaches to incorporate the practice and exercise of vertical development capabilities.  We may end up creating the conditions in which some of our brightest are so vertically developed they realize they want to be somewhere else, yet we get the very best of them while they are with us.

Retain (and Prepare)
We would love to have our top performers stay forever.  Retention programs are as important as they ever were.  Yet at the same time we’re asking our people to stay, we can be preparing for them to go while including them in the process.   Most of us have heard the saying “I’m working my way out of a job.”  And in this case, I’m not only talking about doing exactly that but talking about being planful, proactive, and strategic in the way we go about it.  So while we finish up our High Potentials plan, we are asking those same HiPos to find their replacements, mentor them, and groom them for achieving the next one or two levels. For the 40%of organizations with inadequate bench strength, I suggest you get going!

When I co-founded the Entertainment Software Human Resources Association what feels like lifetimes ago, one year we had the great pleasure of having our annual conference hosted by LucasArts.  The meetings were held at Big Rock Ranch, adjacent to the famous Skywalker Ranch.  As we walked past lifesized Storm Troopers, and original Princess Leia and Darth Vader memorabilia, we noticed there were very few people.  Upon asking where they were, we were informed by our tour guide that the Ranch allowed for approximately 1,300 square feet per person and that it might feel a little more empty than a typical office building.  1,300 square feet per person?  That is more space than each of the three apartments my husband and I shared when we were first married!

Starbucks was packed yesterday morning at 9:30 a.m. - and I don't mean packed in the sense of a long line out the door for coffees-to-go.  I mean packed in the sense of nearly every seat was taken (and it's one of the larger Starbucks), whether individuals with their laptops and headphones, dyads easily comparing notes and sharing reports, or triads soaking in the sun while discussing the minimum amount for which they were willing to sell their company.  Coffees were on each table for sure, yet the buzz of conversation had little to do with caffeine and everything to do with community.

Another patron was equally astonished at the number of people, and as she and I waited near the cream and sweetener station for our drinks, we struck up a conversation.  Marla is a mother of two and works part-time out of her house.  When she really wants to concentrate, she comes to Starbucks.  She described it as being 'trapped' - her compulsion to jump up and do laundry, pick up after the kids, or clean the showers was held at bay by removing her from that environment.  She could be around other adults - that is, be in the midst of community, while still getting her own work done.

Starbucks seems to have captured that 'fireplace experience' at LucasArts, whether or not there's an actual fireplace.  People have their own space (more likely through headphones than 1,300 square feet), yet at any moment a conversation could break out between four strangers, or three dyads, or two groups - and the possibility of creativity is born.

I think about Yahoo  and wonder if bringing their employees back into the office actually thwarted any of this organic creativity stemming from these types of 'fireplace experiences' within employees' own communities.  Understandably, Marissa Mayer is hoping to create the environment in which these experiences happen in-house to harness and leverage the innovation that emerges within this type of collaboration.  Yet I wonder how much credence and credit we give our employees working even part-time from home  that they're making their way toward connection, community, and creativity already.  They want it as much as organizations need it.

Yet not every organization can afford 100 square feet per person let alone 1,300.  And likely not all buildings are constructed nor legally coded for fireplaces.   As organizations great and small, for-profit and NGOs, what is it we can do to create the environment in which we enable this organic, "Let's stop here, have a coffee, and brainstorm about our next big challenge" moment?  Perhaps it's easier to look at what's getting in the way - furniture, walls, doors, stairs, coats and ties, or invisible boundaries like silos or lines of authority - and slowly begin to eliminate, or at least soften them one-by-one.

We were made to be with each other; relatedness is in our make-up.  And as odd as I first thought it was to see such a packed coffee house at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning - when people would typically be boxed up in their cubicles, heads down and flourescent lights aglow - looking back on my enlightening LucasArts experience, it made perfect sense.  More elbow room, only four large walls, natural light, outdoor seating, and sometimes even an indoor fireplace.  If Luke Skywalker would have been one of the employees to move from Big Rock to the Presidio, I'm guessing more often than not, we would have found him at the local Starbucks.