3 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL TALENT PIPELINE

From the desk of Sue Todd...

A Tough Balancing Act for Managers: Meeting Short-term Business Objectives and Developing People for Long-term Success

INSIGHT FROM THE CORPU LEADERSHIP EXECUTIVE COUNCIL: Chief Learning Officers and Talent Executives participating in a CorpU Executive Council on Leadership in late March say they are paying close attention to the conflict created for managers who must deliver short-term business results while simultaneously trying to develop future leadership talent.

The Problem

Managers who rely on their top people to deliver stellar performances are hard pressed to give these people ample time for development when their own performance results are at stake. Drs. Kaplan and Norton highlighted this type of tension in terms of short and long-term financial investments in their writings on the Balanced Scorecard. They found that some organizations were willing to slash advertising or R&D budgets to meet numbers projected to Wall Street, only to learn they’d shot themselves in the foot a year or two later when their brand suffered or the pipeline of new products dried up. Foregoing the development of high potential talent jeopardizes the company’s growth strategies and possibly, its overall long-term success.

The management tension between delivering results and developing talent is exacerbated by the fact that many managers are still trying to become good at coaching and developing team members in the first place. HR and L&D executives say this is the year they are putting significant emphasis into teaching managers to be more effective coaches and providing them with more tools to develop team members because it’s the primary way they hope to improve performance management practices.

Solutions

Executive council members described the following 3 new ways they'll ensure high potentials are being identified and properly developed. 

1. Treat high potential leadership talent as a corporate asset
   
   “Top talent belongs to the enterprise, not the business units." This refrain came through loud and clear by Council members whose organizations want to closely monitor their investments in top talent and maximize its utilization. Individual managers, unable to see how top talent should be distributed across the enterprise to achieve a maximum benefit, must relinquish their oversight role to the central Organization Development team. Business unit (BU) managers recognize that top talent is on temporary loan when it is assigned to them. BU leaders are given the opportunity to enhance the talent and reap benefits from good work, but they can’t hold on to high potentials in the pursuit of short-term goals.
2. Create talent committees to get close and personal with all organization talent
   
   A global automobile manufacturer sets up talent committees who are responsible for evaluating each employee in the organization. Review committees work with employees to create Individual Development Plans, and then take responsibility along with the employee’s supervisor to ensure those plans are completed. They follow the development year after year of employees they’re assigned until those employees move to a higher level in the organization. These talent committees also manage stretch assignments, coordinating the intentions and desired outcomes of each assignment between the employee, his supervisor and the manager sponsoring the stretch assignment.
   
   Talent committees overseeing employees at the lowest level in the organization are responsible to review up to 100 people. Moving up the hierarchy, committees review smaller talent populations. The group responsible for overseeing Executive-level talent is actually called a Review Board, and takes on more accountability for assessing each person’s executive potential.
   
   The talent committees have sent a loud message to employees that development is important at every level. The company also believes the practice dramatically streamlined a recent reorganization process. 
   
   Those benefits have outweighed the fact that current practices are time-consuming. Committee members devote about 5 to 6 hours per month in assessment and planning discussions, as well as additional time on the phone with the individuals they are developing. The firm is now working to streamline practices to reduce the time commitment.
3. Assign a talent management expert to work closely with business unit leaders
   
   Another approach to getting tighter control on the selection and development of high potential talent is to assign talent management experts to advise senior leaders. These talent experts work alongside business leaders to review high potentials and manage their development. This offloads some of the responsibility for development to the talent professional who ensures that candidates complete prescribed learning and development activities, and stretch and rotational assignments.

Prediction

I’ve wondered for some time if leaders will be able to navigate the significant complexities of today’s business landscape while taking on new and equally challenging responsibilities to improve the organization’s most critical resource – it’s people. But will amending leadership competencies and creating rewards and incentives to encourage leaders to develop people adequately address the dichotomy between delivering business results and building future leadership talent? Leaders may feel continually conflicted by the tug and pull of these short and long term objectives.

I also wonder if we’re missing something important by thinking that all leadership attributes can, and should, be embodied in a single individual. In fact, we know that the division of labor drives higher productivity. Our current knowledge about the division of labor is constrained to production environments and areas where we can study time and motion. We should consider how these concepts might apply to leadership principles. Might we find a good argument for a new co-leadership model?

I can envision a future when teams work under the guidance of two capable leaders – one responsible to adjust and communicate strategy and drive crisp execution against key objectives, and a second to shadow people and to impart wisdom, insights and experience. In helping teams tackle tough problems, the second leader would get a close-up view of performance gaps, thereby recognizing development needs.

Yes, a co-leadership model would be more costly, although a larger span of control for dual leaders could offset some expense. It seems worth studying how a division of leadership responsibilities – particularly to oversee work that is highly dependent on sophisticated knowledge – could deliver significantly more value than the cost of a second salary.

It’s easy for senior executives to trace the root cause of a poor product pipeline to an under investment in R&D. It will be far less easy to determine that a lack of “action learning” and stretch assignments lies at the bottom of other serious business maladies. Talent and Learning executives must continue to monitor this tension on leadership development and be ready to devise alternatives that will prevent the organization from damaging its leadership pipeline. The three suggestions above provide a start and the notion of co-leadership may spur research into new management models that may be required in a knowledge and information economy.

Learn more about CorpU’s Leadership Executive Council, or visit CorpU.com for more research on leadership practices.

Sue Todd, CorpU President and CEO