Talent Maximiser

What a bird told me about managing talent

I hope the recent HR feature on organisations failing to fill critical talent pipelines acts as a prompt to get organisations thinking about how they can use their existing staff to fill those critical but all too often, hard to recruit for roles. 

Obviously the article is promoting the use of talent management software to gather the necessary talent intelligence on critical talent roles, but it is not a pre requisite.  There are still many companies (even large ones) that spend time meeting with their managers and leaders to gather the information and store their insight in nothing more complicated than Excel.  There are pros and cons to both but that's for another blog posting!

Personally, I think it is great that organisations are being prompted as to importance for considering other ways, other than the obvious but arguable higher risk option of recruiting externally for hard to recruit talent.  It means all those individuals languishing within organisations who have more to give, are in need of a new challenge, feel trapped because of the economic climate, or simply want to develop in a new way stand a chance of being considered.

Employees are often not given the chances they seek because they are not performing well enough in their role to be considered high potentials, but what if that is down to the type of work they are doing?  In my experience of working with individuals who have derailed, or want to maximise their talents, in the majority of cases, they are not performing well because they are not playing to their strengths, or are in an environment that is conducive of success for them personally.  Tweak or change what they do, where they do it and watch them go from 'average' to 'exceeds'.

Organisations who want to change the "war for talent" paradigm into "an excess of talent" will take a longer look at who they have, what their aspirations are, their development needs and how they could be better deployed.  Maximising what you have is a much more efficient strategy for growing your talent pipelines then simply trying to grab it from somewhere else.  And as the old adage goes "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". 

Focus On Productivity, The Extreme Way

How many of you are keeping up with your New Year's resolutions? It can be difficult because we often have to go cold turkey (pun intended) straight after a period of festive enjoyment. 

To help me this year I did some different, prep. Rather than just putting emphasis on creating goals (which are important) I spent time refining my understanding of How to Focus and How to be Productive.   

I talk a lot about the importance of Focus as the starting point to setting goals when working with clients, so when I came across Jack Cranfield, Mark Victor Hanson and Les Hewitt's book entitled The Power of Focus, it was a must read.  In addition, I recently listened to an interesting podcast by Bob Prozen on Extreme Productivity.  So armed with my new knowledge about how to implement Focus, I devised some New Year goals to raise my Productivity (with so many strands to my life, it's always the holy grail).  While most goals played to my existing strengths one was designed to make serious in-roads on a certain little derailer, 'doing that one more thing' (just before I am supposed to be leaving).  I will keep you posted.  In the meantime, let me know how you are getting on with your New Year resolutions and share what has worked and what has not.

Here are 4 proven ways to improve your productivity that I heard Bob talk about:

1. Focus on results and what you want to achieve, not how much time you should spent on something.  For example, think about what you want to get out of an article/chapter before you read it - think first then read - write an outline first then write.  Its not so much about how much time you spend in the office but what you are achieving in that time

2. Focus on your unique value that you bring to an organisation.  Define your comparative advantage, this is not just what you are the best at something, It is also what the organisation needs you to do.  You need to identify where your values to the organisation lies.

3. Focus on your priorities. The night before each day look at your calendar and confirm priorities and what you want to get or of each call/meeting.

4. Focus on making yourself more productive.  Bob has a dip mid afternoon and so takes a power naps of 30mins (he has trained himself to sleep for 30 mins), after which time he is refreshed, revitalised and ready to work some more.  Bob, in his quest to be more productive has selected things to be boring about e.g. his choice of the same breakfast cereal so you can focus your time on those things that are important.

For more information on Bob and to hear his podcast, go to the full HRB article, where Pozen has distilled his knowledge into six principles for a more productive work life.

Turn a trivial pursuit into the serious business of building your talents

Even in a game of trivial pursuits there is the opportunity for us to take a strategic approach to growing and managing our talent. Here's how...

Over the festive period I downloaded the trivial pursuits iPad app as a present for my trivia loving hubby. One evening, my hubby and parents sat down to play.  We all set about with our strategies for winning and in the post analysis (hubby and I had a long car journey home after the xmas break to talk about any and everything), it seemed that those who did better, adopted a strategy that played to their strengths, which also holds true in the real world.

Not unsurprisingly my trivia loving hubby won (not by much, but a win is a win), and as ever I was keen to learn more about what he thought made him successful.  He revealed that apart from spending a lot of time reading trivia, he also stuck close to the (wedge) option he wanted to acquire before moving on.  In order to maximise the number of hits on a wedge, each time he threw the digital dice, he took the question option that ensured he would have the best chance of answering and so getting another shot at the ulitmate (wedge) option. 

This behaviour translates into the real world too.  Staying close to the opportunities you want and playing to your strengths will give you the best chance of success.  It reminded me of a quote by Dave Hirtz in his book 'How To Castrate A Bull', where he talks of how he achieved success.  He said "it's hard to be in the right place at the right time, so perhaps the best alternative is to go the right place and wait there."

What's your strategy for building your strengths?

How will you create opportunities to be waiting near, or in the right place in 2012?

On a side note I was pretty shocked when the history questions were on topics that had occurred in my life time! I know I have just had another birthday but I don't regard myself old enough to be considered historic, maybe the pace of change is such that anything older than a Gen Y, is history!

Employee engagement, Pan Am style

Recently, there has been a flurry of coverage around the collapsed airline, Pan Am. First with a documentary of its rise, innovative contribution to the airline industry (use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets and computerised reservation system) and then its eventual collapse.  This was followed by  a TV series.  So what does this have to do with employee engagement?

A recent article in the FT magazine (November 26/27 2011) about a previous Pan Am employee, illustrated what an engaged employee would look like. Alieen Gauntlett an original Pan Am air hostess was quoted saying "it wasn't about the glamour.  It was the privilege of working for Pan Am". 

Having watched the recent shows on Pan Am (and seen to Catch a thief), it is clear that there was glamour working at Pan Am, but Alieen, like so many of her colleagues, was not just rationally engaged but most importantly, emotionally engaged with her employer.  She was proud to work there. 

At a time when many people are not feeling happy about wearing their uniform/corporate attire, how different would it be for an organisation who could get staff advocating their company, as Pan Am did...On September 23, 1974, a group of Pan Am employees published an advertisement in The New York Times to register their disagreement over federal policies which they felt were harming the financial viability of their employer.

Why TV and shopping can be good for female talent

I have just finished catching up on my TV viewing of the latest Mary Portas offering "Queen of Frocks", where she "defiantly redefin[es] middle age as the most desirable age bracket to be in".  She shows shop owners how to sell to this lucrative market, while providing an excellent female role model both for shoppers and organisations.

I love Mary Portas on a number of levels.  She makes great TV, she has taste, but most importantly because she gets how important people are, and the importance of their development. In her recent three part series, she is shown looking for people's strengths, she pushes, challenges and stretches people. She is a natural spotter of talent. What a great example of a leader (and dare I say in these pc times, a women too). Mary proved on her recent show that if you invest in your people (along with other key elements, such as knowing your customers) you will excel in meeting your business objectives.  In the world of fashion, where reportedly bitchiness often wins the day and at a time when the 30% Club are championing for more women leaders in the work place. Women (and organisations) would do well to take a good hard look at the great female role model that Mary Portas is shown to be.

Female leaders, what is your style?  Do you nurture and grow the talent that works with you, or do you seek to grind it into the ground? 

Organisation, what are you doing to ensure there are opportunities for your diverse talent to shine?  In our forthcoming book 'Innovative Talent Management' we have a great case study of how one organisation through their new approach to development, driven by business need, realised they had also created a genuine opportunity for female talent to release more of their potential.

Managers need the right tools to engage with employees

The online version of HR Magazine recently posted an interesting article about the lack of action Managers undertake following an annual engagement surveys, and what organisation can do to ensure action. 

I agreed with many of the points made in the article, principally around the importance of line managers being involved and responsible for employee engagement. But I question the overall existence of annual engagement surveys as we have come to know them.  They are typically long and increasingly over engineered, and as such outdated. The reams and reams of charts and statistics that are produced do not encourage the fundamental behaviour that drives engagement, talking to people, and this (along with a lack of time and confidence in how to discuss engagement) is why many line mangers typically fail to act on them.

The challenge then for organisations is how to collect timely data, and how to engage managers in their pivotal role.  To start, engagement surveys need to be adapted for the times.  Annual surveys, by their very name can not keep up with the fast paced world we live in, and therefore can only provide a rear view image of what has happended in the organisation and not what is happening.  Increasingly, people are asked for and expect to give immediate feedback on a situation, they don't want to wait months to give feedback.  With advances in technology, the arrival of social media and the embracing of concepts such as gamification, nowcasting and crowd sourcing, organisations no longer need to push annual surveys and hope managers act on the findings. Instead its now possible that organisations can motivate employees to provide regular, timely feedback on their engagement levels, and then create an empowering environment where it is easy for employees and managers to jointly discuss and solve the engagement issues that are current.  Along the way, organisation can also identify who are the most influential people at driving and delivering improved engagement levels.

We want to see needless complexity and time-lage removed from engagement surveys and have been developing a product, Employee Chatter that will help organisations engage with their employees in today's work environment and make use of the latest technology to make it quick, simple and easy to collect engagement data and engage everyone in solving the engage challenges.

2 years olds playing with iPads, whatever next?

One of my children recently had a birthday. They are now officially a toddler. Interestingly, we kindly received a number of gifts that on the box say they are for slightly older children, but younger children still manage them very well.

Should an iPhone and iPad be considered suitable toys for children?  (Note none of my children personally owes either one).

My husband works in technology, loves technology, and all but sleeps with technology, so not unsurprisingly, we are a technology driven house. Our children are schooled in the art of safely using, holding and carrying a variety of technology products.  Even at their age they are fascinated by what they can see, do and learn, with the age appropriate content we make available to them.

It is amazing to watch them make their way around the iPad and iPhone at such a young age, selecting an animal matching game, or an electronic jigsaw, or a children's movie, or an educational app. The interesting thing is that this does not stop them wanting to do the real things. In fact, I genuinely think it has sparked an early interest in playing with some of the real toys as well.

What will the future of eduction look like for this latest of generations and what about the workplace? My prediction is that children will not carry around stacks of text books when they go to secondary school, but instead carry an iPad, or tablet.  The use of the iPad/tablet will extend into the workplace as have the use of phones. There will be an increasing demand for immediate, real time responses and they will want to have much more control over their environment.

I am starting to see some neat real time applications being developed in the HR/talent management space and we ourselves are developing tools to meet this emerging need.

Simplify your way to success

One of the things I constantly talk with my coaching clients about is how they manage their time, work load, responsibilities, working relationships.  One of the key reasons people are not meeting goals is because they are not focused on the what is important to those who can influence their career, or they are not doing it in a way that meets their expectations.  A key starting point is to get really clear about what is important and how those they report to expect it to be delivered.  This is the start of what I think of as 'role responsibility de-cluttering'. We often carry with us activities we have always done, either because we like them, or no one has told us to stop, despite them not being needed by the organisation anymore.

The first week in August is 'Simplify Your Life Week'.  Onlineorganizing.com, define "simplifying [as] having enough without having too much -- cutting back on unnecessary spending, slowing down, and focusing on your true priorities.

Without realising the significance of this week, I happened to spend a couple of very satisfactory hours de-cluttering my wardrobe this weekend (having been previously trained by the wonderful Julia van den Berg in the art of clothes de-cluttering).  I can now see what summer clothes I have.  I also felt a lot richer without spending any money because I found some little gems of outfits that had got lost at the bottom of the drawers.  Whether it is clothes or work responsibilities, it may seem a daunting task at the beginning, but once you have done it you will find the effort is well worth the investment.  If it feels like too big a task, get some support.  Two of my recent coaching clients both undertook some work responsibility de-cluttering and both have reported some significant benefits to their careers.

So when the sun gets too hot this summer to be outside (or the rain begins to pour) take an hour to think how you can simplify your life/work to get an instance hit of the 'feel good' factor and an important step towards greater success.

Does the Apprentice turn out winners, or losers?

 
Yesterday's new headlines in the UK said the 'loser won' in reference to the winner of the recent Apprentice series, after suffering 8 defeats.  Meanwhile the runner up was the clear favourite with an outstanding track record, losing only 1 task before the final. In different circumstances, if Sir Alan Sugar was looking for an employee, rather than a business partner then the headlines would have been correct.  However, in this situation the right person was picked for the role that needed to be filled, despite the process they had to go through. 

What if this had really been a process within a company? Would they have taken a risk on Tom? Companies often put people through a series of tasks to help find a single best candidate, but are they reflective of the role they will be doing?  Thankfully there is a starting trend for scenario based recruitment, where companies seek to recreate real life situations in an interview and people have to respond accordingly.

Another important point to draw out about the Apprentice process, and all too often a company's process is, the obvious fact that there was more than one talented individual in the pool.  Those who do not pop out at the top at the end can be left disenfranchised.  The process is set up to deliver one not many. Thankfully, I hear organisations are starting to think about how they can create processes that build pools of talent ready to be deployed across their organisation and not just individuals for a select number of senior roles.

It might not make as exciting TV, but creating an Apprentice format that looks for the pool of talent within the candidates could help drive talent innovation within companies. Thus the winner might be a single person but it could equally be a collaboration (much more suited to how the Gen Y's work). Imagine Tom, Helen and Susan working across a company - powerful stuff!

New ways of training required to develop internal talent

 I recently read an article on HR morning that reported on a new study saying "some talent development programs could actually increase turnover rates," that immediately got my attention. Initially, I thought, this could be bad news for organisations seeking to develop their internal talent. But on reflection, I believe it should be used to provide the impetus and evidence for a move to a more appropriate and more sustainable model of development; and one that helps individuals to directly apply their learnings to their work.  

People are likely to move on whether they have professional development training or not, if it doesn't help them develop their career within in an organisation.  Traditionally, training courses have been about knowledge dissemination, so it's unfair to expect them to guarantee a person's future career development, or internal promotability. But, if the claim is against professional development that is delivered through 'on-the-job' training (in part or in its entirety) then it's more of a concern, but I expect not.

There are some exciting opportunities for the Learning and Development (L&D) functions to rethink how they provide solutions to meet the business needs and employees requirements.  Hard skill/professional knowledge training will probably still needed to be done as a traditional course, or an e-learning/m-learning module, (until we can get knowledge implants!), but for many other topics such a leadership, development planning, time management, strategic thinking, change management, there is a real opportunity to move to new models of learning that takes a more blended or bite sized approach to professional devlopment that crucially includes an experiential element.

For more examples of what is coming up in the world of L&D and how to use it to better harness talent, take a look at Paul Fairhurst's (Institute of Employment Studies) recent thought-leadership paper.