I speak, counsel and write consistently about the critical need for an organization’s leaders to institutionalize the process of identifying, developing and retaining talent. In a recent workshop, less than 20% of the organizations represented indicated that they had any form of succession planning or early talent identification programs in place. The numbers got worse when we talked about development activities for established associates.
While I suppose that I should be grateful for how miserably organizations perform in the area of talent development—after all, it means a large market for workshops, programs and books, it frankly pains me more than it pleases me. This isn’t that hard or expensive people. What are you waiting for?
In the Monday, January 28, 2008 Wall Street Journal, Carol Hymowitz writing in her In the Lead column, offers up: "They Ponder Layoffs, But Executives Still Face Gaps in Talent." She indicates: "Even as they contemplate layoffs, many companies also are hunting for new hires to fill management gaps. One reason for the hunts: Companies haven’t been grooming and training enough employees for promotions and now have a mismatch of talent for open positions."
Art’s comment: This is an execution failure of massive proportions. In my opinion, it is symptomatic of the bizarre quantitative exercise that many large organizations use to keep ratios in-line. The task often involves making then numbers work to satisfy operating target commitments, and the actions include cut first and fix later. Corporate triage with a high fatality rate and a guarantee that things won’t get better.
In the February 4, 2008 print newsletter from the career networking service, ExecuNet, survey results indicated that, 67% of executives and HR professionals Strongly Disagreed that their company has an effective succession plan for top leadership positions. 65% Strongly Disagreed that their organizations have a plan for knowledge management and transfer as older workers retire.
Art’s comment: No succession plan and no plans for knowledge transfer tells me that the organization is not interested in sustaining, or that the top leadership has yet to draw the critical connection between great, knowledgeable people and success.
Hymowitz drills down into more of the organizational dysfunction around talent development and retention. "Employees who lack guidance and opportunities are more likely to quit and look for jobs elsewhere, even during shaky economic times." A survey cited in her article and performed by YSC, a London-based consulting form that polled nearly 20,000 workers, "…indicated that more than half belief that they don’t receive enough feedback from their managers to help them improve their performance."
Art’s comment: Aaarrggghh! Feedback fuels performance. A manager must be giving effective, constructive feedback (as well as genuine, positive feedback) early and often. Every manager has many opportunities every day to get this right, yet most still don’t. If they are not giving feedback, what are they talking about? Sports? The weather?
The bottom-line for now:
My own informal polling into the root cause of all of the talent development dysfunction described above, tends to yield one consistent answer. I always ask my groups "Why?" and the response is consistently: "We don’t have time." Try as I might, I usually cannot restrain myself and I let out an audible groan of pain.
Stay tuned for some practical thoughts on "How to Make Time" in your daily pursuits for incorporating high-impact, low-cost talent development practices.
Art,
“We don’t have time” is a cop out. You could come up with ways for managers to “find the time” and they’ll just fill it with something else. It won’t be on constructive criticism, or positive feedback, or recognition. The real reason is fear – fear of confrontation, fear of anything remotely uncomfortable, and for positive feedback, fear that the employees will be perceived as better than the manager.
Nick,
Thanks for the comment. I agree that fear is a significant issue, but I don’t think it is the root cause. A great number of managers lack context for their role and are unaware (polite term) of their responsibilities for development, feedback etc. Why should they understand the scope of their role, as we generally fail to train and mentor them once they are placed in a leadership role. Others lack an understanding of the mechanics of development or feedback and avoid the situation. In workshops, we help people apply very straight-forward approaches to developing and delivering effective feedback, and the fear melts away. You are right…it is an issue, but I’m not willing to give up. -Art
I think fear is part of the cause but not all of it. Many people are uncomfortable talking to another person about their performance or behavior. I recommend that when you consider promoting people from individual contributor to supervisor that you promote people who have shown a willingness to do this task, since a good supervisor should do it a dozen or more times a day.
That’s another part of the issue. Companies don’t seem to understand that this is part of the boss’s job. Consequently they don’t evaluate bosses on how they do it and they don’t provide training in how to do it well.
That’s the third part of this issue. Most bosses don’t know the simple techniques for having these Supervisory Conversations that can reduce the potential confrontation level and increase the odds of success.
So, we pick people to be bosses who are uncomfortable talking to others about behavior, we don’t tell them that we expect them to do it, we don’t evaluate them on this dimension of their job, and we don’t offer training to drive out some of the fear an improve performance. So why are we surprised that these conversations don’t happen?