Best Practice #8: Talent management
is more about the “hows” than the
“whats.”
Organizations have many “whats” relative
to talent management, including executive
resource boards, software platforms, ninebox
grid comparing potential to performance,
development plans, and training,
training and more training. These “whats”
promise nothing on their own. Guarantees
come from “hows” instead. Our five realization
factors for sound execution are:
> Communication—Links the talent management
initiative to the business drivers,
puts forward a vision the organization can
rally around, and sets expectations for
what will happen in the organization.
> Accountability—Role clarity so that each
individual in the talent management initiative
knows what is expected of them.
> Skill—Developing the right skills and
providing coaches and mentors for
support.
> Alignment—Must align talent management
initiatives to the business drivers
but also need the right kinds of systems
to identify high potentials, to diagnose
for development, to link to performance
management, and to do development that
really changes behavior.
> Measurement—You can’t manage what
you don’t measure. It creates the tension,
and objectives become clearer to help
execute a talent strategy. The most effective
measurements go beyond mere statistics
to quantify what’s working in talent management,
why those initiatives are effective,
and what impact they have on the
organization.
As part of our Global Leadership Forecast
research23 we compared the effectiveness
of organizations’ leadership development
efforts and how well they used the five
factors of realization. Organizations with
the most effective leadership development
programs in place also used the realization
factors most effectively to execute development
strategies—outperforming organizations
with the least effective development
programs by 28-62 percentage points!
Best Practice #9: Software does not
equal talent management.
Claiming a piece of software can provide a
full talent management system is a bit like a
food processor will produce a five-star meal.
These tools are valuable in support of a
good plan or recipe. The right tools clear
the path for smoother execution and may
improve the end product. But tools mean
nothing without the right expertise and the
right ingredients behind them.
A recipe for five-star talent management
includes a potent blend of content, expertise,
and technology. It takes best-in-class content
to drive the assessment and development of
people, and a system constructed by knowledgeable
experts who have seen a range of
implementations—they should know what
works, and what doesn’t. Software should
support the process, but it can’t stand alone.