Building Talent at Work: Unlocking Potential Within Your Team

When employees see that their leaders are willing to invest in their growth, they feel valued, trusted, and more connected to their work. Talent development signals that people are not only needed for what they can contribute today but also appreciated and valued for what they can become. By creating meaningful opportunities to learn, stretch, and take on new challenges, leaders can strengthen employee confidence, engagement, loyalty, and sense of purpose.

Building talent is a valuable leadership practice because it enhances engagement, performance, retention, and the capacity for action and strategy execution. Every leader should be building talent; and every employee should have meaningful opportunities for development. When a strong culture of learning and development is fostered, organizations thrive.

This one-day, immersive program teaches participants how to develop employee skills, drive performance improvement, discover hidden talent on their teams, and expand human potential for sustainable business results. Participants leave with new skills, practical tools and templates, real-time action plans, deeper emotional and social intelligence, and new business savvy—a more strategic understanding of how to develop and retain talent for organizational success.

At the conclusion of the program, participants receive a Certificate of Completion from the I.H. Asper School of Business’ James W. Burns Executive Education Centre and will receive all program materials in electronic format.

Joel Shapiro, Ph.D.

CEO & Founder, Advanture Consulting

Biography

Joel Shapiro is an accomplished business leader, executive coach, and consultant with over 30 years of global experience. He has delivered transformative leadership programs and coached thousands of executives on three continents. 

As VP of HR and Board Member, Joel helped build and scale his family company, Metro 360. He managed the post-merger integration for six companies, helping the companies gel together as one team, and realigning the combined culture with the new market realities and competitive landscape—all while competing against a much bigger player. We successfully transformed the organization from being a sleepy, local, monopolistic, commodity supplier in Calgary to a value-added service provider and fierce national competitor. The business grew from 60 to 600 employees, establishing itself as a market leader in Canadian wholesale distribution. 

Following the successful sale of his family business, Joel focuses entirely on his passion: developing purpose-driven leaders. Joel teaches leaders how to build talent, manage culture, and make employees part of the solution to create exceptional workplaces and sustainable results. He is passionate about helping people discover and grow their potential, and he is always seeking the perfect blend of humanity and business performance.

Joel speaks French and German (rusty), earned a Ph.D. with Distinction in Philosophy, and was a former member of the Canadian National Freestyle Ski Team.