Cris Beswick on why your top performers are not always those you want to promote. Really? Read on and find out…
 

In my experiences of working with businesses, stimulating fresh thinking and new answers comes from diverse viewpoints and perspectives. I encourage businesses to actively seek out and recruit people who offer something different to the business, not just filling vacancies with people who are most likely to “fit in”.  Thinking about this, it can mean that sometimes the most seemingly obvious choices for promotion – those who seem to tick the boxes – may not always be the right choice when cultivating talent. 

Here is the fundamental value that I believe should be at the core of every successful business:

“The value of any brand is based on the talent of the people in the organisation. It’s not a business that takes a revolutionary step or comes up with a must-have product, but the people behind the business. Good leaders understand the importance of finding and cultivating talent. They recognise that one of their key purposes in the organisation is to ensure that they recruit the right talent to take the business forward. They’re not frightened or threatened by other people’s skills and abilities. So the first step is attracting talent. The second is knowing what to do with it.”

The most crucial part of this statement is the last part – knowing what to do with your talent. No matter how forward thinking they may be, many organisations still operate in a traditional way of promoting talent – the best sales person becomes the head of sales. But it’s an approach that at best misplaces talent and at worst does serious damage to a business. Sales people do not automatically make great management people! Another crucial point to remember is that if your head of sales has been rewarded with a pay rise and a change in their role and responsibility, the business has lost its best sales person. This may, in cases where the management skills are lacking, contribute to a major downturn in the sales team’s morale and performance.

You all know that getting the right people on the bus is hard enough to do in the first place so finding the right way to retain them should be your top priority right? The traditional approach has been to reward top performers with a promotion as it typically comes hand-in-hand with a pay increase. As the global economic recovery slowly gains momentum research suggests that nearly half of your top talent will undoubtedly look to the horizon for fresh opportunities. But ask yourself, is the dangling carrot of ‘career advancement’ the best way to retain them?

I think it’s time organizations started to look beyond linking engagement and remuneration with ‘promotion’ as it won’t align employee goals with an organizations fundamental objective! Engaged employees are people that are highly motivated and are passionate about your organization. They’ll have an emotional attachment and in most cases be willing to contribute far more than contractually obliged to. When you have a culture where discretionary effort is part of the day-to-day, differentiation, business performance and shareholder return will far outpace your competitors.

What you’ll also have is shared purpose; openness and a level of understanding (being ‘people centric’) that will allow you to fully align your peoples’ aspirations and goals with the vision and strategy of your organization in order to inspire them to maximize their personal potential.

When you start dialogue with your people about what they want, you might be surprised to find that ‘promotion’ probably isn’t it but it’s a fait accompli. The worlds leading organisations have ‘talent mobility’ that allows alignment, engagement, development and freedom for their talent to rotate or take different directions other than upwards. It’s about allowing your people to decide how they want to progress through your organisation instead of only being promoted upwards. The challenge then is to support them, train them and develop them to reach their true potential.

“To build something truly different you need to work in a truly different way.”
Apple Website

So…
What if you asked your people what they wanted?
When was the last time you gave them the ability to create their own role?
What if you’re people were empowered to promote themselves?
What if you’re people chose their managers?
What if you’re people chose your leadership team?

On the face of it these seem like pretty big questions but your company will only become ‘outrageously good’ as a result of doing things differently. If you engage your people and align them to your organisational journey you’ll set their talent free. Make your people part of the decision making process and you won’t be constantly faced with the dilemma of do we or don’t we play the promotion card!

Cris Beswick
www.crisbeswick.com