Jeffrey Pfeffer (psychologist) once said: Managers are so bad at giving feedback and having delicate conversations about people's performance and careers they should just stop it and never do it again.
But your people will join you and leave you for the same reason: "my career is important to me".
So I'll join to get resume brand glow and experience
I'll leave because no one was interested enough in how I'm going, or where I'm going, or to give me feedback. 2 years later they are gone.
And Copany value rests on 3 things: Customer experience, people' talent and commmitment, and cash
I have seen so many approaches to managing the talent cycle. For me talent and capability are substitutable. The majority of these are focussed on the process itself and ticking boxes. The difference between this and excellence is not as wide as it needs to be. Here are the biggest gaps I usually see:
This is a focus for Cormack Consulting
1. Understand that talent is a function of performance and capability
Make sure your people have the big picture about how talent/capability drives business results.
The best way to become a high-performance organisation is to ensure that the talent and capability is there in the first place.
Performance is about outcomes and results ("what they did") and behaviour ("how they did it")
This is what the performance management system should be generating.
I believe you should use the last performance rating from the last performance review as input for the talent review. After all if you were "top right box" 4 months ago and now you are not - what happened!
Performance should change gently over time not bounce around like its on a whim.
Capability is a function of impact and potential.
Impact is related to seniority and business criticality. Your COO is highly senior, has lots of authority and can really have a huge impact on the business, for example, - or a disasterous one. I think this is what happenned to Sara Lee Corporation. In Australia I see such a cavalier approach to CEO appointments that it is often reckless.
Potential is about promotability and that is usually about demonstrating consistent commitment to things values, the customer, trust, growth potential and learning agility. You do need to spell it out but there is good research about what a highly talented person looks like. You show me a high potential 21 year old and I'll show you a future CEO (if they don't burn out by 35).
Your performance management system is usually pretty good at defining results and behaviour (you should have a behaviour taxonomy liked to your values and business plan). The biggest problems there are 2-fold:-
The goals were poorly set a year ago and now we can't agree on whether there were results
People use "gut feel", or recent behaviour examples to assess behaviour. This is why the behavioural assessment taxonomy needs to be tight and used.
There are two common problems with performance assessment.
However what Companies really often lack is a sensible way to understand impact and potential. For example if you have a high potential in a job with limited impact - she won't be here next year.
Seperate performance management from talent management.
When assessing talent/capability, too many executives use recent examples of performance (usually behaviour) to inform whether someone has talent or not. Talent should be about capability and potential - not performance and recent behaviour. It's about the future not the past. I like to do talent/capability in one half of the year and performance in the other. Most people know that your best performers are not necessarily your future stars, and sometimes your highest potentials are not currently fully performing. There are usually 2 reasons for this:-
You promoted them early, as you should
They have no mentor or coach, and maybe even are seen as a threat to their boss
Define talent/capability
What Companies often lack is a sensible way to understand impact and potential. For example if you have a high potential in a job with limited impact - she won't be here next year. If you have a person with limited talent in a critical job you will have higher and higher turnover and flagging results.
Process, Feedback, "my team"
Have clear rules and principles about the talent review meeting - what we are doing here, why it matters, what it is and is not, your role as a Manager, the facilitators role, etc. Most Companies don't do this and the meetings go off the rails.
Talent/capability assesments are best done in a rolled-up, team-based manner.
Good talent reviews use the overall observations of the group to take a view on the persons impact and potential.
Never over-ride the Manager but neither can Managers get huffy and defensive in protection of "their team". Pull them aside if they are behaving like this in the talent meeting. There is no place for power, cleaques in talent meetings if they are going to work well. The talent review is meant to make sure the Manager has a 360 view of their people and able to make the right call on behalf of the Company overall.
If in doubt use an extenal facilitator like us (so your HRD can work on content and not just process - her/his view can be very insightful.)
Document every agreement and key point and use this as the first agenda item of next years talent review to ensure action gets taken from these meetings.
Have an icarus list and a Lazarus list
Icarus was last years star who flew too close to the sun and is now no longer talented or capable.
Lazarus was on last years "has six weeks to fix this" list and is now a superstar.
If your talent assessments are bouncing around like this your Managers are assessing things without clarity and confusing performance with capability.
In your talent review meeting roll-ups - address and discuss this objectively.
Is it how you are recruiting?
If your performance and talent/capability assessments are not increasing over time there is something wrong with the way you are either recruiting or promoting. This is a seperate excercise but should be done annually to track your talent meovements over time.
Confidentiality
Feedback from the talent review is a matter between the manager and the employee. All feedback to the employee about performance, behavious, potential and impact should be being delivered by the Manager maybe/often with HR support. To be respected, these messages should be delivered frankly and constructively. Any mananager that can't do this needs help or shouldn't be a manager.
The worst thing a Manager can do is the old "here is the feedback from the meeting" routine implying "it isn't me who has these concerns". This leads to instant disrespect of the Manager and a blow to the culture. It feeds gossip and politics.
Employees must never be able to ask for accounts of the talent meeting from others who were there, maybe including HR. Anyone who breaches this and plays "he said. she said" should be in very big trouble. Being in the talent review meeting is a priveledge and we ought to be able to trust you can keep a confidence. You will be marked down heavily in your own assessment of potential if you make such a poorly judged mistake,
I was rated as having high talent potential but nothing happened
Firstly, I don't think you should tell your most capable and high potential people that they are on a list. All that does is raise their expectations that you will do something about it, and if business conditions change, you may not be able to follow-through.
More importantly it tells your high performers who have limited future run-way that they are not important. High performance feeds today, potential feeds tomorrow.
The last thing you need is to drive down the engagement of your current 7's and 8's on performance.
Something should happen to everyone, not just a few and there should be a plan.
HIGH POTENTIALS - High Performance/High Potential (Top 3 boxes)
Development options for this group:-
High Potential
Must move in next 6-12 months Next role likely to be bigger
Must be on Group radar
Focus on soft skills and leadership development
Should attend CSR top talent programs
Consider for Exec University Program
Check comparatio - fix any anomalies
Install a 2-Up mentor
Make sure they have a leader who is Core Talent or higher
Must have a coach
Should do the leadership program
FUTURE POTENTIALS - Mid Performance/High Potential
● Ensure they are learning in current role
● Attend the Mentoring Program
● Action Learning Program
● Focus on soft skills and leadership
● Quarterly check-ins with GM
● Consider coaching for them
● Must do the Leadership Program
● Ensure they have a leader of solid performance and potential
CORE TALENT - Mid performance and mid potential
● Should do core skills modules to keep skills up
● Rigorously apply behaviour fundamentals
● Must do LSI
● The best of these should do the Mentoring Program and be mentors
ANCHOR TALENT - Mid to high performance and lower talent
● Must do LSI feedback to keep them where they are or better
● Focus on any performance deficits - results, but particularly behaviour
● Anyone scoring 3 on performance - consider retention plan if they are in a technical role
TALENT AT RISK - Low performance and low potential
● Remedial coaching if their issue is behaviour
● A Performance plan in place
● Must not be in this category in 16 weeks - fix them or lose them
● Examine the relationship with their Manager (Is there bullying, home problems not being addressed, etc)
Of course the ultimate test of whether you are managing like a pro is whether there were actions coming out of it that retained talent, grew talent levels, and helped you promote the right people. The rigourous approach shared here will help you be a top decile company and an employer that people will be attracted to.
Comments