Maverick Mastery®

Talent Management is about attracting, developing and retaining employees who have key skills that the organisation needs to meet its objectives. It is a holistic approach to the strategic management of the organisation’s people, although many companies choose to concentrate their efforts in a specific area. For example Talent Management for some companies means recruiting the right people or developing the ‘high potentials’ of the organisation. I believe that this is a flawed approach as it doesn’t recognise that key talent often resides at all levels of the organisation and not just across the top few layers; which is where most HR departments focus their succession plans or Talent Management programmes.

Taking the right approach to Talent Management is essential especially in these economic times, and an incorrect approach can mean that the company can falter in fulfilling its objectives. This is often costly in financial and human terms. Effective Talent Management programmes will not only include succession plans across the organisation, strategic planning of how that talent affects the company and its strategic objections but also how the company interacts with those individuals. The company needs to advise these individuals on how important they are to them and the company’s plans for them. It is key that the company manages the expectations of the employee – unrealistic expectations by either the employee or the company is often the cause of key talent exiting the business. Highly talented individuals are more susceptible to being poached by a competitor that may feel that this is a more cost effective way of recruiting the talent that they need. How the host company has dealt with them in the preceding months or years will be a key determinant of whether the competitor company will be successful in their attempts to poach key talent.

Loss of key talent can be very destabilising for a company and it can take months or even years for the company to recover.

If your company has a Succession Plan is that enough?

The terms Succession Planning and Talent Management are often used interchangeably but are in reality quite different. Talent Management is a holistic approach to the managing of the entire talent pool of the company. Effective Succession Planning is an important element of Talent Management and is about identifying future potential leaders from the workplace to fulfil key positions within the organisation. Once potential leaders have been identified succession planning moves onto the development of the key skills that they require and their subsequent movement throughout the company. This movement is how they can develop the requisite skills and competences that will enable them to take increasing responsibilities within the organisations. It is important for a company to understand the differences in the strategic and operational approach to Succession Planning and Talent Management if it wishes to truly fulfil its strategic objectives.

An example of how Talent Management can be applied

Troublesome Talent® or Mavericks if you will are wilfully independent people and are often the first to be considered for redundancy. This is usually because their great talent is obscured by their sometimes disruptive nature and penchant for blunt language and brutally honest opinions. Mavericks at work tend to have high potential and are usually amongst the best performing employees in the workforce. Companies often find it difficult to engage this talent as they often concentrate on homogenous solutions that work for the majority of the organisation.

An effective Talent Management programme will have devised the best way to harness the skills of a maverick to enable these high-potential employees to fulfil their potential and assume business operational critical roles. Key components for a Talent Management programme for Troublesome Talent® would include:

• Discovering the short and long term objectives of the maverick
• Demonstrating how these can be aligned to the company’s objectives
• Analysing the key skills and competencies of the maverick and check for alignment to the company’s future needs
• Design a career path that will help him develop and enhance key skills and competencies
• Be honest and transparent in how the Company sees his future
• Provide and manage realistic expectations

The benefits of Talent Management

• A holistic approach to the management of talent
• The company understands the critical skills and competencies of the business and have ensured that their HR policies and procedures are designed to develop and nurture these key requirements.
• Employee productivity and morale is improved as employee objectives are aligned to company objectives
• An effective succession plan to ensure that leadership potential is identified and managed
• The right employees are recruited and retained
• Increased bottom line results

Talent Management is not just the purview of corporate companies. It is vital and essential for entrepreneurs to have an effective Talent Management policy. Smaller businesses often do not have the resources available to have a HR team that can advise and co ordinate Talent Management activities. Specific questions that entrepreneurs should take into account when considering Talent Management activities are as follows:

• What are their long term objectives?
• What are the key skills required in the business?
• What are the key skills of the workplace and are they aligned to the business objectives?
• Who will run the business in their absence and do they have the appropriate skills?
• How will the company cope with the loss of key talent?
• What is the company doing to recruit and retain key employees?
• How can Talent Management add to the business and be time and cost effective?

We have an ageing workforce and as a result, a large number of senior management positions are likely to arise over the next five years, with very few suitably qualified or experienced successors available to fill them. In my experience, if companies are finding it difficult to retain top talent, it is because they are finding it almost impossible to maintain their relationship with their ‘maverick’ or ‘troublesome talent’. Talent Management is about attracting, developing and retaining these vitally important employees who have key skills that the organisation needs to meet its objectives as without them, businesses will struggle to survive.

Tags: Talent Management

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Articles, Talent Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.