In the past two weeks I’ve posted blogs about talent development in the research function: first about instilling motivation to learn new skills and then about supporting cross-project synthesis, one of the main skills that heads of research functions wish their team would focus on.  And speaking of focusing on specific skills, I thought I’d use this week’s entry to talk about one of the staffing strategies that we’ve seen the most success with in corporate research functions: role specialization.

Results from our talent survey did find that important researcher skills like consultation and synthesis are trainable, but not all researchers can, or even want to, be all things to all business partners.  Rather than working to create a team of “bionic researchers” who are each excellent technicians, insight generators, solutions-focused consultants, and high-capacity project managers, try cultivating a “bionic team.”

Helping researchers play to their strengths with role specialization makes your team more effective as a whole and allows each researcher to focus on his or her core competencies.  Motorola Mobility, for example, carves out distinct roles in its research function:

1. Traditional/core researchers-concentrate on primary and secondary research projects
2. Consultants-embed in the business units to develop a deep understanding of business issues, communicate  research insights, and provide recommendations
3. Synthesizers-integrate existing research across the organization into concise and compelling insights that address strategic issues

And even if you don’t have the team size to support full-time role specialization you can use a project triaging system to dedicate scarce synthesis talent to high-priority, strategic initiatives.  Allstate’s research team uses a project triaging system that prescribes three different levels of synthesis support based on project importance and available resources.

The departments that we have spoken with that have role specialization experience many benefits:

• Saved from unsuccessfully chasing scarce, “bionic researchers” in hiring
• Avoided requiring staff to be responsible for activities they either don’t enjoy or find too difficult
• Allowed for further specialized training and development within individual roles
• Saw continuous, on-the-job learning, creating true experts within individual roles

Related Resources:

• Avoid the “Bionic Researcher” Trap
• Role Specialization Resource Center
• Motorola Mobility’s Dedicated Research Roles
• Allstate’s Synthesis-Allocation Protocols
• Accelerating Consultative Skills Development through Experiential Learning

Related Blogs:

• Motivation to Learn New Skills
• Supporting Cross-Project Synthesis