Talent Management
Contemporary Context
Talent management has become far more than a question of simply finding a good leadership course or producing a succession plan. It starts with a clear understanding of the business mission, objectives and strategy and involves an integrated approach to developing cultural values, designing the structure, recruiting and selecting the right people to carry out the strategy and work effectively within the culture, retaining the right people through effective reward and support, developing the competencies required for effective management and eventually effective leadership of the business.
Talent management strategies
Organisations have different strategies for managing talent and these have implications for the development of future leaders. For example, an organisation with a long term talent management strategy may take in graduates and then develop them over a number of years. Another organisation may seek to recruit senior level individuals in the belief that these people will introduce ‘new blood’ at a strategic level and so drive the business forward.
Whichever strategy is chosen there will be implications for leadership development and for each of the other components of talent management – recruitment and selection processes, retention and reward, succession planning and people development.
Key Issues
What is Talent?
One key question is ‘what is talent?’ Is everybody talented? So should they all participate in talent identification and development processes or are the talented an elite – the top 10%, for example?
To answer this question an organisation needs to understand its own culture. Is the implication of, for example, selecting a small elite group – ‘the talent pool’ – that the rest are allocated to the ‘non talent pool?’ Does this exemplify the cultural values? If everyone is talented, do they all go through the same development?
An alternative approach may be that everyone has strengths and limitations and their talent is defined by their strengths and their potential. Consequently, people are talented in different ways and while some are excellent in support roles and some as managers there are those who have the potential to be leaders. Others may have the potential to be functional experts. Yet others may be talented people managers. This leads to different development streams for the different kinds of talent, in particular those who will fill pivotal roles in the future.
Openness
A second key question is how far people are to be made aware that they have been earmarked as ‘talented’ or not. When we worked with Shell in the 1980’s they tended to classify graduates on intake according to the likely final career level that they were expected to achieve. There is a danger of the self-fulfilling prophecy in this. With individuals who have been told that they have low or medium potential either exiting the business early or underperforming.
However, lack of openness about how individuals are viewed by the organisation can take away an important source of feedback. Direct and open feedback must be a key component of any talent management system. Any assessment of the individual should include straight forward feedback of the outcome to the individual. One option is the use of a 360 degree feedback process. A well designed system can provide relatively objective, direct feedback on how an individual is perceived by their boss, their colleagues and the direct reports.
Defining Competence
The foundation of an effective talent management system is a clearly defined set of competencies. But which competencies? Organisations put huge effort into defining, clarifying and communicating the competencies that are required to take the business forward. Relevant competencies provide the essential framework for measuring performance, for designing development interventions and for recruiting senior level people or promoting people into more senior jobs roles. That is, they provide the essential framework for the integration of the talent management components.
They run throughout the organisation’s talent development and performance management systems. If they are overly complicated or cumbersome they are readily forgettable, and so they are not fully utilised. HFI has conducted considerable research into the core competencies that any manager needs to display. We deliberately set out to develop a set of competencies that would relate to different managerial levels and different organisational contexts. We reviewed key empirical research which was based on observational studies of managers in the workplace. Subsequent statistical analysis identified a strong core of 6 competency sets which we call ‘Capabilities’ each of which had six behavioural statements describing the competencies. Almost all of our clients find that this six factor model covers all of their own competency requirements in a straight forward and easy to understand format. However, we include in our system four additional Capabilities which may vary from client to client and which represents a specific requirement of the client company and the job role.
A straightforward, relevant set of capabilities and competencies that everyone can understand and remember can then be embedded in all the key performance management processes– 360 degree feedback, annual appraisal, performance management, development needs analysis and development planning. The value of various development initiatives can be tracked by measuring improvements in individual and organisational competency.
Objective, standardised selection processes
What competencies do not do is provide a useful measure for recruiting at entry level since at this level you are looking for potential to learn and develop the competencies. Potential is not measured accurately by current or past performance. This is where psychometric assessments come into their own. They are objective, provide standardised method for selection and they identify future potential.
Organisational Commitment
When senior managers abdicate the responsibility for talent development and succession planning to HR, they are signalling that it is not really important to them. Senior management commitment to and involvement in talent management initiatives are crucial. In one company that we work with, the monthly management meeting has a regular agenda item to discuss the characteristics of high potential talent, to review their progress and to plan their next challenge. In another company that we work with, all this is expected to be in the remit of HR.
Learning and Development Experiences
When it comes to planning development activities, there is often a focus on identifying weaknesses and seeing development as a remedial activity. The answer is often to turn to formal courses and classroom training to remedy these weaknesses. However it is far more effective, both in motivating people and enhancing their performance, to focus on what they are good at and to help them to build up their strengths rather than put enormous effort in to marginally improving their weaknesses.
This is where the team approach to building competence comes into its own. No one individual is Superman or Wonder Woman but a team can be. Build on your strengths and get someone else in the team who can do superbly what you are not so good at. That is a recipe for individual motivation and team success.
Work place experience is the most effective development process if it is accompanied by reflection on that experience. This may need to be facilitated by a mentor or coach. Most people learn by doing and by reflecting on that doing. High potential, talented people need challenging work assignments and they also need someone to talk over the way they approached the assignment, what they learned from it and how they are likely to approach such assignments in the future. This is where the skilled mentor or coach really earns their keep.
Accelerated or Differentiated Career Path
Two different strategies to talent development:
- Everyone goes through the same process only some go faster than others OR
- There are different career paths and individuals are sensitively assessed and developed into different pathways which make the most of their strengths.
In the late 1980’s IBM had one career path. People could progress so far as technical experts and then, if they wanted more money and status, had to apply for a management role. Virtually no-one who applied for management was refused. This led to many failures further down the line when technical experts showed themselves to be both uninterested and unskilled in managing others. We worked with IBM to develop a ‘ Management Experience Workshop ‘ where individuals were assessed for their suitability for a management role and could try out being a manager to decide whether or not they felt suited for such a role. We also worked with them to develop an alternative career ladder – the technical expert culminating in the technical fellow – a very prestigious and important role but one which carried no management responsibilities.
CONCLUSIONS
Talent management can make a significant contribution to the development of leaders who can drive the business forward. This will only happen if the talent management processes:
- Are based on a clear understanding of the company mission, objectives and strategies
- Make selection, promotion and development decisions based on a clear understanding of the organisational culture
- Insist on those challenging conversations and are open with people about their career prospects and development needs
- Have a clear, relevant set of core competencies and run these throughout the organisational processes – recruitment, promotion, succession planning, personal development planning and performance management.
- Hold senior management accountable for the quality of talent coming through the pipeline
- Use a range of action learning focused on simulating real challenges or reflecting on actual situations in the workplace.
- Identify individuals suited to different career paths and focus development on fitting them for those careers. Many paths which are seen as natural career progression may not be if the qualities required are very different. For example:
- engineer to project team leader to programme manager to programme director
- financial controller to financial director
- hotel manager to operational vice president.