Out-of-the-box thinking from Talent & Potential...

Many Talent Managers and Directors we work with find themselves caught up in talent processes and systems – grids, talent ratings, talent assessments, talent review meetings…. the list is seemingly endless. The problem is that all of this activity causes us to be deflected from the reason we got into talent management to start with: developing talent!

When graduates come straight from university to your company – the first week will imprint them either with high flier skills in dealing with ambiguity, or a consumer mentality. Take our quiz to see if you are creating the right expectations…the answers may not be what you expect!

Often organisations want objective benchmarking of people who managers rate as having high potential. A common ‘gateway’ to the high potential pool is by using a Development Centre to identify the best 2-3% of talent for fast tracking. But there is a risk – the risk of demotivating 50% of your potential high fliers – those who DON’T get tagged as high potentials.

I recently saw a talent management question on LinkedIn – “Do you use a basic performance curve to force distribution of performance grades? If so what are the pros/cons?” This refers to the practice of asking managers to plot their team against a performance curve, so that they are only allowed to put 10% of names in the top category, and must put 10% of the names in the bottom category, to achieve a normal distribution of ratings. In some organisations, the bottom 10% are routinely managed out of the organisation.

Your main objective when developing talent should be to create a culture in which people are responsible for their own development. They should be self-directed and drive their development forwards themselves. However, what can happen is that people who have so far been progressing quickly and choosing their own career moves come onto a programme and stop taking the initiative.