What We’re Learning About Talent

VOLUTION VIEWPOINT

Insights & Highlights from Volution Advisors
3rd Quarter | Sep 2026

Hi Colleagues and Partners,

Welcome to the latest quarterly edition of Volution Viewpoint.

We hope you find our latest quarterly newsletter with lessons learned, insights, and resources on talent helpful. One thing we believe deeply at Volution: talent strategy is organizational strategy. There are no programs, services, or ambitious plans without the people who make them happen. High-performing organizations build high-performing teams—putting the right people in well-designed roles, deploying their talent where it matters most, and creating the clarity, support, and accountability people need to do their best work. In this newsletter, we share some of what we’re learning about how to get that right.

We'd love to hear what resonates and what other resources would be helpful: email me with your ideas and requests. Thanks for the opportunity to learn with you!

With gratitude,

Jacquelyn Davis
Managing Partner

SPOTLIGHT: Talent Decisions in Changing Times

From staffing decisions to a talent strategy

Your strategy is only as achievable as the talent built to deliver it.

Talent is not an HR side project. Every major organizational choice - growth, program expansion, technology adoption, restructuring, or partnership - changes the people, capabilities, roles, and leadership capacity the organization needs. Treating talent decisions one at a time leaves leaders reacting to vacancies and turnover. A stronger approach connects talent decisions directly to strategy.

As organizations grow, talent practices have to grow with them. Leaders need to clarify the capabilities required by the strategy, build leadership capacity before it becomes urgent, and design roles and systems that allow people to do their best work.

Read the full article

A Useful Shift in the Leadership Conversation

Featured Tool

A five-part workforce diagnostic

Can Your Talent Deliver Your Strategic Plan?

Most leaders naturally think about three parts of talent strategy: recruiting, developing, and retaining. Danielle Pickens’s framework adds two equally important dimensions: deploying and sustaining. Deploying asks whether your strongest people, their time, and their expertise are positioned against your highest priorities. Sustaining asks whether critical roles are designed so talented people can succeed without unreasonable workloads, inadequate resources, or constant heroics.

Together, recruit, develop, deploy, retain, and sustain form an interconnected workforce system. A weakness in one area will eventually create challenges elsewhere. Explore the full framework and diagnostic tool here to assess each component and identify where your organization should focus next.

Rate each dimension red, yellow, or green. The goal is not five greens. It is to identify where your talent system is strong, where it is fragile, and where talent practices may be getting in the way of results.

Leadership team prompt
Where is one red or yellow rating creating downstream problems elsewhere? Choose one cross-functional change to test over the next 90 days, name an owner, and define what improvement will look like.

Webinar Access
Watch our September Webinar with Danielle Pickens, CEO of US Human Capital Academy on Talent Strategy. (Passcode: 0&?0TbM?)

Talent in Practice

Three resources to help leaders move from insight to action

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT REMINDER

Keep It Simple. Keep It Continuous.

Effective performance management begins with clear goals and role expectations, focuses on two or three meaningful growth priorities, uses evidence rather than assumptions, and makes feedback a regular two-way practice. The annual review should summarize a year of conversations, not introduce surprises.

Revisit Volution's performance management guidance

GUEST INSIGHT

Is Your Talent Team Ready for What's Next?

In research with 103 K-12 HR and talent leaders, the US Human Capital Academy found a significant capacity gap: talent leaders are increasingly expected to shape strategy while day-to-day operations, people management, crisis response, and compliance consume most of their time. The implication extends well beyond education: organizations cannot ask talent teams to lead transformation without giving them the authority, capacity, and tools to do so.

Explore guest articles by Danielle Pickens, CEO of US Human Capital Academy

VOLUTION VIEWPOINT

What We Can Learn From Ted Lasso

With Ted Lasso returning for a fourth season, we are thinking again about what makes a great coach. Ted may not be on the field scoring goals, but his ability to build trust, strengthen relationships, and help people grow offers valuable lessons for leaders. Here are eight practices that great coaches and leaders share:

1. Make the mission your North Star.
Use the mission to set priorities, create boundaries, and decide what deserves your organization’s limited time and resources.

2. Turn the North Star into an accountable plan.
Connect the larger mission to clear goals, measurable results, and the work each person must do next.

3. Build the team you need, not just the team you have.
Look ahead to the roles, skills, and capabilities your future strategy will require.

4. Work to your edge.
Keep learning, testing, and stretching beyond what you already know how to do well.

5. Make the data impossible to ignore.
Use timely, visible information to understand progress, identify problems, and adjust while there is still time to improve.

6. Build simple systems people will actually use.
Reduce unnecessary complexity and create routines that make consistent performance and growth easier.

7. Build a resilient and realistic winning mindset.
Focus on what you can control, adapt to what you cannot, and maintain enough optimism to keep moving forward.

8. Give feedback from a place of belief.
Make feedback candid, specific, continuous, and grounded in the belief that people can grow.

Try this at your next leadership-team meeting. Name one role that has changed materially, identify the capabilities now required, and choose one system change - not only one training - that will help the person succeed.

SPOTLIGHT: Jacquelyn, Managing Partner, Speaks at National Nonprofit and Philanthropy Conference

From Strategic Partnership to M&A: Finding the Right Level of Collaboration

At Bernstein Wealth Management’s national nonprofit and philanthropy conference, Jacquelyn Davis joined sector leaders for a timely discussion about how organizations can collaborate to strengthen their missions, expand their impact, and build greater long-term sustainability. In these challenging times, collaboration is often a strategic imperative — not just a nice to have.

Collaboration is not a single strategy. It exists along a continuum.

Organizations might begin by coordinating programs, sharing knowledge, or pursuing joint funding. Over time, collaboration may deepen through shared services, formal strategic alliances, joint ventures, affiliations, or, in some cases, a merger or acquisition.

The goal is not to pursue the most integrated option. It is to choose the structure that best advances the mission.

The Collaboration Continuum

Coordination: Sharing information, aligning activities, or making referrals.
Strategic partnership: Working together on a program, initiative, funding opportunity, or shared objective.
Shared services: Combining selected administrative functions, infrastructure, talent, or systems.
Formal alliance or affiliation: Creating an ongoing relationship with shared commitments, governance, or decision-making.
Merger or acquisition: Fully integrating organizations, programs, assets, or operations.

Highlights from the Conversation

Start with the problem, not the structure. Leaders should first clarify what they are trying to accomplish before deciding whether a partnership, alliance, or merger is the right vehicle.
Explore collaboration before a crisis. Organizations have more choices when they begin these conversations from a position of strength rather than waiting until financial or leadership pressures become urgent.
Mission alignment is necessary, but not sufficient. Potential partners also need to examine organizational culture, leadership expectations, financial health, governance, decision-making, and appetite for integration.
Boards and executives must be aligned. Strategic collaboration requires candid conversations about institutional identity, control, risk, and what each organization is willing to change in service of greater impact.
Success should be measured by mission impact. The most important question is not whether an organization remains independent. It is whether the chosen structure allows the mission and the communities it serves to thrive.

Strategic partnerships and M&A should not be viewed only as responses to financial distress. When explored thoughtfully, they can be proactive leadership strategies that help organizations combine strengths, extend their reach, use resources more effectively, and sustain their impact.

The right question is not, “How do we preserve our organization exactly as it is?” It is, “What form of collaboration will best advance our mission?”

Curious about how Volution works or wondering whether we're the right partner for an upcoming opportunity? Let's connect for a quick virtual chat and exchange ideas.