Is Talent Management Destroying Your Business?
Undoubtedly the focus on individual excellence is an important lever of organisational performance yet is the current obsession with the attraction and retention of key staff just a remnant of the great leader warrior obsession that has dominated the corporate culture and business bookshelves of the last decade or more? In contrast to the mythological status of extraordinary individual heroes and their transformational powers, many great organisations that have grown rapidly over the last twenty years can attribute their success as much to the close and effective relationships between a group managers and the good sense of the CEO to recognise and nurture this. This is surely a form of social capital - what could be termed ‘leadership capital.’ Social Capital is increasingly recognised, including by the World Bank, as an important asset. Social Capital sees economic performance and value creation as the function of quality of a set of relationships rather than the attributes of particular individual.
It’s like Greece winning the European football cup- many nations had on paper players with greater individual talent yet they failed and some failed spectacularly. Or alternatively the continuing failure of the Washington Redskins!
What’s this to do with talent management? There are several issues here not the least of which is how you define ‘talent’ in times of high volatility. But perhaps the core problem is the impact defining and rewarding people on the basis of individual achievement. So much work in the global market place depends upon responding to emerging opportunities and threats in ways that have little regard for formal roles and performance targets. Instead what is required is: trust, mutual understanding and a willingness on occasion to put others before yourself. Could formal talent processes and frameworks actually undermine this making an organisation increasingly rigid and unable to respond?
I am at present writing a series of articles on this subject and would be very interested in hearing your comments and views.
Comments
Steve, as ever thought provoking... It seems to me you have a nugget of good sense here that needs exploring. Whilst I think at some level 'talent management' is just another bandwagon akin to tqm, Ulrich's model, WCM, benchmarking, BPR etc and at sometime it will be surpassed by the next best thing underlying them all is the thought that there is
1. a right answer to the question 'how do we create successful organisations'
2. that it's possible to take an 'engineering' process oriented (serious/conforming/mastery...) approach in isolation from trust, mutual understanding
and the other things you mention and achieve sustained success for organisations and INDIVIDUALs.
It reflects poorly on the level of sophistication we have reached that people still have a scientific management mindset... when it is people, in all their richness, variety and unpredictability that make things happen (or don't)...
As evidence. In research we have seen that when measured on a broad range of factors it is issues related to, Personal Responsibility, Collective Responsibility, Fun, Friendship, Mentoring that drive improvements in business performance not job descriptions, competence profiles, SMART targets, business plans etc etc.
Yours rantingly
Andrew Kerry | Organisational Development Manager, West Sussex County Council
Some practical things which come up when I'm talking about 'Talent' to organisations:
Firstly, as you have mentioned in one context, how to define talent.
Some say it's about how we ensure we have the upcoming talent within the organisation to fill senior positions in future - avoid costly exec recruitment, delays, mistakes etc. More crucially, an understanding and fit with the corporate culture to ensure consistency in the qualities and behaviours which make the organisation special. Your example of the Greek football team is perfect in this respect - they can't buy Thierry Henry to play for them.
Others say everyone has talent (which is effectively development as part of a perf mgmt/appraisal process) - so being clear about what the organisation means by talent is step 1
Then, what's the best way to support talent? Both on the job and with extra external support (which is where I add value - including using AMSP). Many organisations have little defined structure and welcome suggestions.
Also, how do you get talent management at the top of senior management agendas when the challenges of hitting targets and running the business day to day are so demanding? The people on the 'talent programme' will soon recognise when its only lip service and become cynical. This is critical - if the talent programme is out of step with what is really required (you mention some broader 'competences' so does Andrew Kerry) everyone knows and the process becomes worthless.
Harvard BR had a good article on talent in June edition - 'Make Your Company a Talent Factory
Bob King, Business Coach, Bob King & Associates
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