“Many major organisations are increasingly realising the importance of the acquisition, management and retention of talent. Some foresee severe shortages in the next ten years; others see that they are vulnerable to the loss of high-performing teams or ‘star’ executives,” says management consultant John Pope; who reviews a seminar on talent management, run by Maximum Performance.
I have been concerned with management and development of talent for many years, but found much that was new and stimulating at this seminar, organised and run by Jeff Benveniste and Paul Neville , directors of Maximum Performance. Maximum Performance’s team and strategic partners and those with whom they have worke, gave excellent presentations on different aspects of talent management, their experience, and the effectiveness of different approaches. Some 20 seminar members attended and contributed to the discussions and the issues raised.
The first issue was how to define ‘talent’. The majority view was that it was the top five to ten percent of management whose presence or loss would drastically affect performance. However, as was pointed out and amusingly illustrated by Viv Miles of Gcap Media in his presentation, those who are star performers in their own field can be more valuable to their organisations than the senior management and their retention can be crucial. Another issue raised was the difficulty of assessing talent when actual performance is often a result of many factors, some of which are outside an individual’s control.
Bill Templeton, of Network Rail, presented a behavioural competency model, which helps to identify the talented individual by recognising ‘higher-level behaviours’ regularly shown by individuals in their current role. Those who do so, regardless of position, are considered to have talent and potential and can be selected for the ‘talent pool’ of around five to ten percent of managers. From the layman’s point of view, this is equivalent to looking at excellent performers who already behave more like their superiors.
A rather different line was the subject of a sparkling presentation by Katy Dunton of Legoland, who described the work they had done with Maximum Performance. They increase the standard of behaviour across the business through raising awareness of the right and wrong behaviours in simple ways with high impact. It was clearly a practical and human approach using dramatic examples within a culture of excellence and initiative, showing staff at all levels that they could make a difference. It had worked quickly and effectively and achieved major changes.
Tracking talent and identifying the talented high performers in a worldwide organisation was the subject of a likely and forceful presentation by Billy Ward of Cable and Wireless. They had wanted to know where the talent was in their various subsidiaries. Working with Executrak he had set out in 2004/5 to produce a common measures and profiles standard throughout the Group for a world-wide database for the top ten percent of managers. The base was developed in two stages, the first being the capture of the basic data, the second being the supplementary data of performance, potential diversity, experiences, mobility. At the touch of a button this provides detailed information, allows for succession planning, identifies gaps, and helps assess of retention risks. He stresses the need for the systems to be ‘off-the-peg’ as far as possible, and identical world-wide with no local variants. He also made the point very strongly that having the whole information accessible is the essential to any talent management system.
Max Blumberg, of the Blumberg Partnership, gave the final presentation. He emphasised the importance of measuring the return on investment. He bases this on being rigorous in first defining the results required, then identifying the behaviours and competences needed to achieve the results before making the investment on people and their development. He sees subsequently the measurement of the improved performance, achievement of objectives and the financial benefits as essential.
Wide ranging points were made in the final discussion. These included:
- The importance of looking after the apparently untalented ‘safe pair of hands’, but whose loss can be just as damaging to the organisation, and usually faster than the loss of the select few.
- That talent exists everywhere in an organisation and that HR may not be right to concentrate on the top five percent.
- That talent management is impossible unless there is already a good performance management system in place and it is being operated correctly.
Others, with whom I agree, made the point that talent is more common than we think. Too much is submerged or has been suppressed. The real shortage is of people whose talents have been exercised and who have had enough experience in using them to be entrusted with higher level and ever-more demanding work. Though this is a minority view I agree wholeheartedly with the general theme of the seminar of the importance of managing talent and of having the right tools and suitable approaches to make it effective. This was a very worthwhile and stimulating afternoon and Maximum Performance and their colleagues are to be congratulated.
Full notes on the seminar can be found on the Maximum Performance Website at: www.maximumperformance.co.uk
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Email: John Pope
