Category Archives: Talent

Do You Make These Six Common Talent Management Mistakes?

It might be a “jobless recovery”, but the talent war is here as firms have to do more with less. Are you ready for it? Or are you making these six common talent management mistakes, as highlighted in a recent Harvard Business Review article on “How to Keep Your Top Talent”, that will cost your organization your top talent?

  1. Assuming that High Potentials are Highly Engaged
    • 12 in 60 (20%) believe that personal aspirations are not in line with organizational plans
    • 15 in 60 (25%) intend to leave your employ within the year
    • 20 in 60 (33%) admit to not giving 100%
    • 24 in 60 (40%) have little confidence in coworkers and even less confidence in the senior team

    Your high potentials have great expectations with respect to

    • personal goals,
    • corporate goals, and
    • the caliber of teammates and leadership.

    If the employee’s goals aren’t compatible with organizational goals, if the employee doesn’t believe that her goals can be realized, if the employee doesn’t see the same level of aspiration and commitment from her teammates and leaders, and doesn’t get challenged regularly, she’s probably not going to give 100% and is probably keeping her eyes open for a new opportunity if she’s not actively looking already.

  2. Equating Current High Performance with Future PotentialWhile a high performer is driven to maintain performance, chances are you’re expecting high performance in future roles that are more significant and challenging than your employee’s current role. More than 70% of top performers lack critical attributes necessary to succeed in more senior roles. Only a subset of your high performers have future potential, and they will need training to realize it.
  3. Delegating Down the Management of Top TalentWhile it’s true that line managers know their people best, it’s a bad idea to delegate management and training of true high potentials to line managers. These employees are your future and should be treated as a valuable long-term corporate asset. Top talent must be trained and groomed by senior managers if it is to grow into larger, more senior roles, within the organization.
  4. Shielding Risking Stars from Early DerailmentBy being too cautious and too focussed on success, emerging talent is never truly developed and tested. This puts the business at greater risk in the long term as it ends up with a sizeable cadre of middle managers who are unable to shoulder the demands of the company’s most challenging opportunities.
  5. Expecting Star Employees to Share the PainThe decision by a senior executive team to freeze or cut salaries and performance based compensation across the board may seem fair, but it erodes the engagement of the star performer. Under normal circumstances, a high potential will put 20% more effort than other employees in the same role — and in sales or cost savings roles, such as strategic sourcing, their contributions will tend to be significantly higher than the average employee. The reality is that, in tough times, it actually costs less to create meaningful differentiation in compensation than to slash across the board and risk losing key employees.
  6. Failing to Link Star Performers to Corporate StrategyA star’s confidence in her manager and her insight into the firm’s strategic capabilities is a key factor in her engagement. An organization that goes “radio silent” with respect to strategy runs the risk of alienating a rising star when she is needed most.

So how can you identify and properly manage top talent? Check out the “10 critical components” (subscription required) of a talent development program identified by the authors of the HBR article on “How to Keep Your Top Talent”.

Share This on Linked In

Are You Ready For Change?

Take this short 3-question quiz to find out!

1. Is Management Ready for Change?

Management must be ready and willing to demonstrate their commitment to change and keep their resolve through good times and bad. If the rank and file don’t see commitment, they will believe it’s just the fad of the month and ignore the effort as they expect it will be forgotten in a few months anyway when the next fad is announced.

2. Is Talent Ready to Step Up?

Management has to be ready, but the rank and file have to be willing and able to implement the change. If your employees aren’t committed, aren’t trained, and aren’t capable of implementing the change, you’ll be stuck at square one until they are.

3. Are You Ready to Communicate?

Regular and consistent communication is key to success. Efforts will need to be carefully coordinated, and this won’t happen without crystal clear communication. If you’re not ready to communicate, you’ll be stuck at square two indefinitely.

The reality, as clearly pointed out in “driving a turnaround in tumultuous times”, the case study on PolyOne Corporation that we will cover in our upcoming post on coming back from the brink to cash in the bank, if you can’t answer yes to these questions, you won’t have the basic building blocks for change and any change management initiative you undertake will just be a waste of time. Sorry, but that’s just how it is.

Share This on Linked In

How Will McKinsey’s Five Reshaping Forces Affect Your Global Supply Chain? Part II

Our last post overviewed a recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly that discussed the “five forces reshaping the global economy” that every executive has to grapple with, which left the reader with as many questions as answers. This post will attempt to shed some light in the directions the answers may lie.

The following are the forces that were identified:

  1. Growth and Risk Management in Emerging MarketsMultinationals will have to get in on the ground, attract local management talent, and let the local management talent craft an appropriate strategy for the local market. The multinationals that don’t do this will likely miss out on most of the growth opportunities that are available as the current economic climate, coupled with declining population growth, will significantly limit growth opportunities in developed markets. As a result, your supply chain leaders will be working considerably with local talent in analyzing product costs and sourcing for remote developments.
  2. Labor Productivity and Talent ManagementMultinationals will have to look to developed countries for R&D talent, engineering capability, and innovation and focus on grooming talent in emerging markets to manage the new breed of talent available to them. In addition, management will have to double down on new technology, process innovation, and alternative delivery models to maintain productivity levels with a decreasing workforce in developed economies. Sourcing teams will continue to become global. At first, the team leaders will be in the developed world, and the supporting analysts, with the technical and mathematical skills, will be in emerging markets. (A couple of big consultancies are already very successfully applying this model today.) As time goes on, your leaders will move to emerging markets (following IBM’s example), and the leaders of tomorrow will be just as likely to be in Shanghai as Chicago or London.
  3. Global Flows of Goods, Information, and CapitalMultinationals will have to learn how to maximize efficiencies in existing trade flows as current global economic conditions will likely slow down the introduction of new channels and opportunities. They will need to adopt trade management software to automate manual processes, decision optimization to optimize carrier and route selection, and “spend” analysis to analyze trade data to identify emerging trade patterns that they can take advantage of. Your supply chain will increasingly see solutions developed by Asian multi-nationals, like Algorhythm and Zycus, implemented by local consulting powerhouses, like InfoSys and Wipro.
  4. Natural Resource ManagementCompanies will have to design new products with resource and environmental management in mind, or risk incurring additional costs, and bad press, in the future. Even if the up-front costs are higher, decisions not to use more environmentally friendly materials and processes will have to be very carefully considered. In addition, identifying the effects of forthcoming regulations in India and China will become a top priority.
  5. The Increasing Role of GovernmentsCompanies will have to continually analyze the potential impact of major government programs on the economy and GDP and determine the best markets in which to pursue not only new product introductions (NPI) but new product development (NPD).

Share This on Linked In

How Will McKinsey’s Five Reshaping Forces Affect Your Global Supply Chain? Part I

A recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly, that summarized some of their global survey results, tackled the “five forces reshaping the global economy” as executives are still grappling with how to seize the opportunities of an interlinked world economy. It provides some good information and insight, but leaves one with as many questions as it provides answers. This post will summarize the five reshaping forces and the next post will attempt to shed some light in the directions the answers may lie.

The following are the forces that were identified:

  1. Growth and Risk Management in Emerging MarketsEmerging markets and their young and growing populations will not only raise consumption, but will also become the major contributors to the global talent and innovation pools. However, most multinational executives in developed economies still aren’t betting on significant revenues from emerging markets for at least the next five years.
  2. Labor Productivity and Talent ManagementDeclining birth rates and greying workforces in developed economies are impeding growth, mandating the need for major gains in productivity just to maintain stability. Developed economies are already projecting significant talent shortfalls in management, R&D, and strategy.
  3. Global Flows of Goods, Information, and CapitalThe relatively free flow of goods and capital in recent years drove globalization to unprecedented heights, but the economic downturn and global financial crises appear to be preventing further growth. Most executives do not expect more than moderate increases in the short term.
  4. Natural Resource ManagementIncreasing constraints on supply or usage of natural resources continues to affect companies’ bottom lines in the developed world. A significant number of executives, 25% on average and 45% in energy and manufacturing, expect this trend to have a negative effect on profits.
  5. The Increasing Role of GovernmentsExecutives in North America and Europe are haunted by the perception of crippling public debt levels created by the government and expect that the net impact on GDP growth in their home markets will be negative.

Share This on Linked In

Is the West Going to Lose the Talent War?

I have to say that I’m worried after reading “grow, grow, grow” in the special report on innovation and emerging markets in the April 17th edition of The Economist. Near the end of the article we are told, point blank, that the best companies in emerging markets treat “talent” as a supply chain that needs to be relentlessly managed, not an isolated problem that can be solved on a piecemeal basis and that firms invest heavily in creating “educational ecosystems”.

While the first thing we do is slash the training budget every time money gets tight, companies in eastern emerging countries dispatch managers to give speeches at Universities. For example, GE has charged its top ten managers in China with cultivating relations with a particular university where they can spot bright youngsters and treat them to campus tours and scholarships (that will grow the brand and attract these future superstars).

While we expect unreasonable exceptional performance for a meager base salary and verbally lash out at anyone who doesn’t exceed her performance metrics by at least 10%, eastern emerging companies celebrate good performers. Haier prominently displays photographs of good performing managers, celebrates outstanding innovators in public ceremonies, and names new products and business innovations after their creators.

While we still assign undue praise to the University you attended instead of the degree you earned, your GPA, or, more importantly, what you actually learned, Infosys has adopted the mantra of “no caste, no creed, only merit” for its modern campus in Mysore. Furthermore, to ensure its employees had a better chance of not only climbing the ladder but becoming a millionaire than if they worked for a foreign multinational, Infosys was one of the first Indian companies to issue stock options.

And while we are the first to walk our best talent out the door every time the market dips, even though we just told them they were our most valuable asset the day before (as we, obviously, lied through our teeth), companies in emerging countries, who are experiencing much more rapid turnover than we need to deal with, will stick by their talent through thick and thin — cutting staff is the absolute last resort, not the first.

All told, it looks to me like we’re going to lose the talent war, which means that we’re also going to lose the innovation war, which we were supposed to win by outsourcing all of the manufacturing and back office to focus on our “core strengths” which, apparently, is middle management, junior art directorship and telephone cleaning, as that’s all we will be able to do if we don’t start focussing on talent, the true producer of innovation.

Share This on Linked In