Daily Archives: January 25, 2017

Talent Tempering: Part II

In our last post we discussed that in our last two series we discussed Technology Advances and Process Transformation, which SI calls Transition, that collectively comprise two of the three T’s critical for organizational success. The third T is, of course, talent, which must not only be in abundance, but which must also be appropriate for the organizational needs. This means that you not only need talent with a good mix of IQ (intelligence and skills), EQ (emotional intelligence and wisdom), and TQ (technology and mathematics/logic), but that the mix must be suitable to cover the range of Supply Management tasks before your organization, and in sufficient quantity.

In order to temper your talent, you need to start with a page from the process transformation handbook that says before you can make any changes for the better, you first have to understand where you are, then where you want to be, and identify the gaps. And then, of course, make a plan to close the gaps. But how do you understand where you are?

As per our first post, you do a collective assessment, which is defined as the (weighted) average of a self assessment, a manager assessment, a team assessment, and a third-party assessment that provides a reasonably accurate view of each individual on the team and the overall team.

Then you temper the talent. You look at the gaps between where each individual is and where you want them to be and put together a plan to get them there. What will that plan consist of? Charles Dominick of Next Level Purchasing offers us some good advice here as well. Put together a plan that takes advantage of the multitude of offerings that are available to increase the skills of your team members (without sending them back to school) that include, but are not limited to:

  • Internal Training
  • On-Site Seminars
  • Conferences
  • Online Courses
  • Certification Programs

Each of these has advantages and disadvantages, but they can collectively address your IQ, EQ, and TQ needs at the individual and group level in interesting and unique direct and indirect ways, allowing you to adapt a training program to the learning needs of the individuals and the team. If a team member learns best by doing, online training with detailed exercises might be the best training method. But if a team member learns best by being shown, on-site seminars might be best. And so on.

The best way to figure out the right training mix is to use a mixture of self-selection and third-party assessment. Ask your team members what they want, provide a reasonable cross-section of the collective requests to each team member, and have a third party help you measure the improvements. (This way if a team member asks for internal training, another for an online course, and a third for a conference, and you give these three employees all three options, and measure their capability against a skill before and after, you can see what works best and refine the training plan as time goes on.)

And now you have the basics of how to measure where your talent needs tempering and the methods to best achieve that tempering. But is it enough?