Category Archives: Talent

(A Great CPO is) The Practical Visionary

A recent article in Strategy+Business which started off by noting that today’s Chief Information Officer must enable the organization to meet its strategic goals and to envision goals that were never before possible caught my eye. The article, which quickly quoted Michael Giledman who said that you (need to) spend a lot of time listening and fixing things in the background because you need to prove yourself if you want to be taken seriously, really emphasized why today’s CIO needs to be The Practical Visionary.

Moreover, not only is the article packed with great advice for CIO’s – but it’s also packed with great advice for CPO’s! The article noted that today’s CIO also trains her focus on the demand side of the business, becomes a serious contributor to business results, and harnesses powerful new technologies that make (real-time) information attractive and accessible. This is because a strategic CIO has much to offer the organization with her specialized knowledge of the capabilities, requirements, and costs of new technology – capabilities that uniquely position the CIO to help the organization set priorities that affect each and every one of its operations.

Replace “CIO” with “CPO” and add “product” to the above and you get Today’s CPO also trains her focus on the demand side of the business, becomes a serious contributor to business results, and harnesses powerful new (on-demand) technologies that make (real-time) information attractive and accessible. This is because the strategic CPO has much to offer the organization with her specialized knowledge of the capabilities, requirements, and costs of (new) products and technology – capabilities that uniquely position the CPO to help the organization set priorities that affect each and every one of its operations. That’s one of the best descriptions you’re going to find anywhere on what today’s CPO needs to be!

It’s a long article, but like many of the articles on Strategy+Business, it’s a good read. The article also stresses the importance of openness, intelligence, and interoperability – which are also key to supply and spend management success. And of course, just like the CIO has to manage the information life cycle, the CPO has to manage the product and service life cycles. The guidelines it gives for strategic leaders are also very well thought out and worth the read. So check it out.

To Win the Talent War, You Must First Defeat the Enemy Within

As evidenced by my recent Talent Week series, and many posts on Talent here on this blog, a major war for talent is building, and you stand to lose your business if you don’t start preparing now. However, as clarified in a recent McKinsey Quarterly on “Making Talent a Strategic Priority” article, before you can win on the global talent battlefield, you have to first insure that you’ve defeated the enemy within.

The article notes that, to a considerable extent, executives should be blaming themselves for their talent woes. Although it’s true that shareholders and investment analysts are largely responsible for the obsession with short term performance, it is managers who too readily treat talent in a reactive, knee-jerk manner – by hiring additional sales and marketing people only after new products take off and by cutting discretionary spending on people development when performance drops. As Charles and Don were quick to point out in their posts, the best way to acquire the talent you need is often to develop it within. Furthermore, companies that cut talent are making the worst innovation mistake they can make. This failure to focus on talent creates a vicious circle: a lack of talent prevents corporate growth which creates additional performance pressures which causes executives to put even greater emphasis on the short term which starts the cycle again.

Furthermore, when companies do make talent a priority, they tend to fall into another trap where they adopt an overly narrow focus on HR systems and processes – which diverts attention away from the place where the biggest obstacles lie: their heads’. Systems and processes don’t create innovation – innovative people, with the right experience and training, do.

Then there’s the seven obstacles to good talent management:

  1. Senior managers don’t spend enough high-quality time on talent management
    People are the key to your success, so why aren’t they your top priority?
  2. Siloed organizations that do not encourage constructive collaboration and resource sharing
    Establish organizational wide goals and organizational wide teams and focus on common objectives. (And whatever you do, don’t tear all the walls down and build an “open environment” thinking that it will solve all your problems.)
  3. Line managers are not sufficiently committed to the development of people’s capabilities and careers.
    Which is not surprising, since they take their lead from the CEO who is consistently failing to put people as his or her top priority.
  4. Line managers are unwilling to differentiate their people as top, average, and underperformers.
    Differentiation is not necessarily a bad thing. If you don’t know who’s underperforming, than you don’t know who is the most desperately in need of training. And if you don’t know where they’re weak, how will you select the right training?
  5. CEO’s and senior leaders are not sufficiently involved in the shaping of the talent management strategy.
    Talent management needs to start at the top.
  6. Senior leaders do not align talent management strategy with business strategy.
    Talent needs to support the business. Shouldn’t the two be aligned?
  7. Line managers do not address under-performance effectively, even when chronic!
    This is a triple whammy. First of all, under-performers might not even realize they are (chronically) underperforming. Secondly, they are not getting the help they need. Thirdly, it’s sending a message to the rest of the organization that under-performance is okay.

In summary, you need to win the battle within before you’ll be ready to fight the coming war.

Talent 2008 Week Wrap Up: Purchasing’s Report on Procurement Professional Development

I hope you enjoyed this special mini-series on Talent and associated issues this week. With the talent crunch about to hit in a big way, we could all be losers in the talent war if we don’t start taking steps to make sure we have the talent we need in place when we need it. As Charles points out, this will require us taking a good look at our organization and ourselves and making sure that we’re ready to face the challenges ahead.

To wrap up the week, I thought I’d share some highlights from Purchasing.com’s Special Report on “Procurement Professional Development”, since they took great care in timing their report to more-or-less coincide with Sourcing Innovation’s Talent 2008.

In “How to Build the Procurement Dream Team”, Purchasing notes that building the procurement dream team doesn’t happen overnight, it starts in the minor leagues by recruiting the best interns and ensuring that they have meaningful experiences to encourage the next crop of top interns to take a chance on your company. It requires you to benchmark and review your organizational capabilities, to understand what competencies you have in house, and what skills you need to bring in. Furthermore, attracting talent will require more than just a job description – it will require the organization to clearly outline its priorities and give candidates as much feedback as possible. Then, once you bring your new talent in, you will need to make sure they stay up to date on the latest best practices through regular training.

In “Got a Procurement Job Interview? Here’s What NOT To Do”, Purchasing outlined some big don’ts that you should probably avoid in an interview.

  • Prominently placing your cell-phone on the table
    (as this can give the impression you’re more important than the interviewer)
  • Rummaging through a folder
    – of projects you are currently working on –
    to answer a question
    (as it looks like you are disorganized and don’t take care in protecting confidential information)
  • Swearing in the interview
    (it may be deemed to show a lack of control and will offend the religious)
  • Supply-Chain Buzzword Mania
    (chances are your interviewer is not holding a supply-chain buzzword bingo card and will not appreciate it)
  • Telling the interviewer you’re not looking for a job
  • Telling an interviewer you know a test inside out
    because you had to take it three times …
    and then telling the interviewer you failed all three times
  • Inappropriate attire
    (especially if you show up to Coke wearing a Pepsi hat!)

The “Talent” Game

Today I’d like to welcome Don Dougherty, a Partner with SupplyStaff and Denali Consulting.

In today’s global economy, hiring and retaining top talent is a driving concern of corporate and human capital management professionals. Escalating retirement rates are looming, fewer resources are entering the job market than in previous generations, and required skills sets are more sophisticated than ever before. The end result is a tighter market for top-tier professionals and unprecedented challenges for organizations in the area of skills development, retention and recruiting. It is on every executive’s agenda.

What should companies be doing now, before it’s too late? We see development of a “talent strategy” emerging as a key business consideration…leading companies are determining what skills they have, what skills they will need, and how best to retain or obtain those skills. They are then executing aggressively on that strategy. Is your company? Here are some learning’s from those having success navigating the talent battlefield.

Determine the Real Needs
Executives always state they want the best professionals that the market will bear for their organization, but often times too little thought is given to what that is. Assessing what the organization actually needs in terms of skills, knowledge, and ultimately talent, is the first step; not only for now, but for the future.

Identify Current Skill Sets in the Organization
Assessing the organization’s skills may seem like a daunting task, but with a focused effort, some planning and follow through, it can be done relatively quickly. After first determining who will be in the assessment group, a combination of internal interviews, online skills testing, and performance reviews can help you identify and summarize your current organizational skill base. Identify systematic organizational gaps, as well as individual gaps.

Develop a Strategy to Fill the Talent Gap
Once the desired mix of competencies is determined, it must then be assessed whether the talent gap is something that can be trained or developed internally, recruited, or a combination of the two. Filling the talent gap is more of an art than a science, but is typically done through the two primary mechanisms; talent development and talent acquisition. Here is where the company or organization leadership team plays a key role, determining the right mix. Management will often have to make the tough call…understanding where development efforts stop and where recruitment begins.

Train and Retain
Studies have shown that companies with the best retention practices outperform the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P500. Surprisingly though, we see it’s not the things that have never been thought of before that hold the most promise, but rather the things we knew we should be doing but have not been applying enough. The simple answer – train and develop a creative culture. To fill at least part of that talent void, employees of leading companies are completing extensive training courses & seminars to develop today’s needed skills and abilities. Additionally, talent gaps are being filled by focusing on interpersonal skills, including communication, teaming, innovativeness, and leadership. Ultimately a learning environment is provided where individuals are engaged in their own development and are rewarded for the right behavior. When employees are unwilling to change or grow, another position or even another organization might present a better fit.

Recruit the Difference
To truly transform and operate competitively, companies in all industries, and of all sizes, are aggressively recruiting the best and brightest…and it is sometimes easier and quicker to hire than to develop. While some companies continue to take on this effort themselves, many are soliciting the help of outside experts to help in the process, or take it over completely. Sources say the recruitment outsourcing market in the U.S. is expected to grow at an annual rate exceeding 20%. The strongest areas of growth are expected to be in the areas of recruiting, education and training, and personnel administration —essentially those areas having the biggest impact on overall competitiveness.

The new corporate organization is facing unprecedented demands made upon them by their customers, suppliers, senior management and themselves. While there are many efforts that management may pursue in the quest for competitive success, few are more important than having the right people with the right skills. Bottom line – be proactive in your task to build the right mix of talent.

Procurement Transformation

Today I’d like to welcome Charles Dominick of Next Level Purchasing (now the Certitrek NLPA) with his post on Procurement Transformation.

Procurement transformation. It’s a buzzphrase. It’s a goal. And it’s a reality for some organizations.

But what does it take? What are the necessary ingredients to take a purchasing and supply management department from a state of being mired in the tactical to being a key driver of the strategic success of the organization?

Look at the marketing materials of vendors touting their ability to assist a procurement transformation. You’ll see software that will transform your organization. Consulting services that will transform your organization. Outsourcing services that will transform your organization.

And they all can – and, possibly, should – factor into a successful procurement transformation. But there is one constituency associated with a procurement transformation that doesn’t market to you. There are no glossy mailers. No full-page trade journal advertisements. And (thankfully) no spam.

Who is this constituency?

It is the personnel who fill the seats in your purchasing and supply management department. And they are arguably the most important ingredient that differentiates successful procurement transformations from those that only sounded good on paper.

For success and sustainability in a procurement transformation, you need a great team. You need people to establish synergy with your internal customers. You need people to develop continually improving relationships with suppliers. You need people who are aligned with the long-term goals of your organization.

Many purchasing and supply management leaders recognize this, but don’t always approach building their teams in the best way. Many of them think that having a team primed for procurement transformation simply means firing their current staff and bringing in “new blood.” I’ve seen this approach fail. And cost the organizations a lot of money in the process of failing. I’ve seen the poachers become the poached.

So, having the right talent for procurement transformation isn’t just about recruiting. It’s about three cornerstones:

  1. Talent Development
  2. Recruiting
  3. Retention

Talent development is first cornerstone and the topic for the rest of this post. Almost every purchasing and supply management leader will look at her own team and not be 100% satisfied. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

But why is the grass always greener?

If Company A across town seems to have a more talented team, why is that? Was your organization’s recruiting that bad? Or could it be that Company A just focused more on developing their talent through the years? And if your talent development efforts paled in comparison, don’t blame your team members.

Purchasing and supply management is a rapidly changing field. Your team can’t do the same things day after day, year after year and expect to keep up. Your team needs exposure to what is going on outside of the four walls of your office.

The responsibility for the talent in your department lies squarely with you – the leader. So what exactly do you do to develop the talent for your procurement transformation? Here are a few ideas that you may find helpful, though these certainly do not exhaust all of the possibilities:

  • Enroll your team in training.
    Training is a great way to really get your team to focus on nothing but true learning. Have a clear picture of what you want your team to know or be able to do. Then find the training that is specifically designed to give you those results. Training should offer a step-by-step, how-to approach for teaching your team how to meet your goals.
  • Share relevant trade journal articles, newsletters, and even blog posts with your team.
    These types of media can help your team understand what is going on in the world. They will get to see how other organizations are going about achieving success in purchasing and supply management. They will be exposed to some great ideas and will eventually be able to separate real-world ideas from textbook theory.
  • Coach your team.
    You are the expert. Your team will only appear “dumb” if you think that they don’t know what you know. So impart your knowledge and your experience. Don’t withhold it. You will have a stronger team for it.
  • Employ shadowing.
    Sometimes one of your experts will be working on a challenging project. Think about having one of your more junior employees assist on the project. No, it is not the most efficient use of resources especially if you have a busy department. But will it pay long-term dividends when you have a more experienced team and less dependency on one specialist? You bet!
  • Rotate your team.
    One of the richest assignments in my career was when myself and three coworkers were in a two year program to switch positions every six months. Even though we were in the same company, each position taught me something new about purchasing and the organization. Job rotation can give your team new skills and reinforce those purchasing and supply management principles that have cross-category applicability.

Having the optimal talent to support your procurement transformation isn’t an accident. It takes leadership. It takes effort. It takes a plan.

Be a leader. Develop your talent. Then your procurement transformation will be a reality, not merely a buzz-phrase.