Stuck at the right level?!

 "But, you are stuck at the right level", protested the direct report to the CXO.  The direct report was having a conversation with the CXO on the career progression opportunities (or the lack of it, to be more precise). During the conversation, the CXO had claimed that he was in the same boat as he was also stuck in his role (because he had no real chance of becoming the CEO). That was when the direct report came up with the statement that we started this post with. It did prompt me to think more deeply about if there is really something like 'being stuck at the right level'.

There is indeed some merit in the argument that if one has to get stuck in one's career, it is better to get stuck at as high a level as possible, because it implies a higher salary and the associated benefits and perquisites. The problem is just that all these money and other advantages of being at a senior level might not eliminate the psychological feeling of being stuck. I guess, there is something in the human psyche that 'demands' progress! Yes, this 'progress' need not necessarily be only in terms of climbing the corporate ladder. However, if one has spent so many years climbing the corporate ladder, it is highly probable that one's (unstated) definition of 'progress' got colored by all that climbing!

Of course, one can try to become unstuck by moving to a 'bigger' role in another organization. However, narrowing of the organization pyramid when one moves to more senior levels is a reality and a lot of people will get stuck sooner or later. So, this problem can't be wished away and finding an opportunity to get stuck at the right level might not be such a bad idea!!!

We do see an increasing number of mid-career professionals taking up consulting/freelancing kind of options. The trouble is that majority of those mid-career professionals are unlikely to earn at least as much as they were earning in their regular job. Yes, there are a few who make it really big. 

There are also quite a few who use this opportunity to reinvent themselves and configure some sort of ‘portfolio life and career’ that is more aligned to their higher calling or more conducive to their self-actualization journey. Based on my interaction with a large number of people who have transitioned from corporate careers to coaching/consulting/freelancing, I can confidently say that making such transitions for the right reasons and with the right expectations is very important for personal happiness, professional effectiveness and and indeed for experiencing a sense of freedom and progress!

In domains like HR, there is an even more basic question that we need to look at – ‘’Do organizations have many HR jobs that would require a level of expertise which would take more than 20 years to develop?”. If the answer is “No”, then it creates a fundamental issue for the bulk of the HR professionals who are in the 20+ years’ experience range.  Yes, there will be many senior HR professionals who will continue to grow in their career within business organizations. But, here we are talking about career options available to bulk of the population - HR professionals with 20+ years’ of experience working in business organizations. 

In this context there are also dimensions like motivation and meaning, apart from that of just being gainfully employed (Please see ‘Truth and Beauty: Motivations and Elegance in HR’ and ‘If you hang around in HR for too long’ for more details). After all, work is as much about finding the daily meaning as it is about finding the daily bread!

Any comments/ideas?

Unorthodox concepts in HR : Career-Limiting Moves(CLMs)

In this post, let's continue our exploration of the Unorthodox concepts in People Management. We have been exploring concepts that are unlikely to be found in ‘respectable’ text books (and also not taught in ‘premier’ business schools) but are very much real in the paradoxical world of people management (See ‘The attrition principle’,  'In the valley of attrition' , 'Sublimation of vision statements', 'Computer-controlled Manager Empowerment', ‘Training the Victim’ ,‘Two plus Two personality profiling’, 'Herophobia', 'Type N and Type O organizations', ‘The plus one problem’, ‘Exporting your problems’, ‘The IR mindset’ and “Magical Transformation of Talent” for the previous posts in this series).

The most popular informal concept in the domain of people management seems to be that of a ‘career-limiting move’(CLM). In fact, it is so popular that I was not even sure if it can be included in this series featuring the unorthodox concepts in HR. However, looking at the ‘richness’ of the CLM concept and its impact, I decided to do a brief discussion on CLM here.

A Career-Limiting Move (CLM) is an act that is likely to adversely impact the career prospects of a person. This 'act' can be that of 'omission' or 'commission', though the latter is more common. Also, this 'act' might be done by the individual (whose career is getting impacted) or by others who have power over the individual (e.g. by his/her manager or the organization). The ‘richness’ of the concept comes from the various ways in which this term is used and also from the causes/motivations that lead to CLMs.

Let’s look at some of the ways in which the term CLM is used: 

• The most common use of the term CLM is as a warning to someone. We tell someone that a particular action would be a CLM for him/her, to warn the person against following a particular course of action.
• Another use of the term CLM is as a prediction. When we hear about someone moving to a particular role, we might say that it would be a CLM for him/her, implying that this move is going to adversely impact his/her career. 
• Similarly, CLM can be realization on hindsight. When we look back, we might realize that a particular action in the past turned out to be a CLM.
• Yet another use of the term is CLM is to describe a particular aspect of the culture of an organization. We might say that questioning senior leaders is a CLM in a particular organization.

Now let’s look at some of the key factors that lead to CLMs:

• Lack of alignment between the individual and the organization (as represented by the managers/leaders) on  ‘what good lookslike’. Similarly, a clash between individual and organization ‘values’ can also lead to CLMs.
• The organization failing to differentiate between a ‘stretch role’ and a ‘designed to fail’ role, moving a person to such a ‘designed to fail’ role, and, that move becoming a CLM for him/her. See ‘Of stretch roles and designed to fail roles’ for more details.
• 'Self-Destructive Intelligence Syndrome’ (SDIS): This is ‘what makes smart people do stupid things’ that turn out be career-limiting. While sometimes  this could just be a matter of misjudging the situation, sometimes this could also be a deliberate act of violating the rules/regulations. 
• Plain bad luck :Just being ‘at the wrong place/at the wrong time’ can turn out to be career-limiting! Also, unpredictable elements in the context can turn what could otherwise have been a perfectly good move into a career-limiting one. 

So, is there a ‘bright side’ to CLMs? Yes, what appears to be a CLM might not necessarily turn out to be like that. Even when there is some adverse impact because of the CLM, it might often be a temporary setback. It is even possible that what appeared to be a CLM turns out to be something that enhances one’s career (see ‘Of competencies and carbohydrates’ and ‘OD Managers as Court Jesters’ for two personal examples). This happens mainly because CLMs often involve pushing the unstated boundaries’ and sometimes it can work out very well. Also, standing up for what one believes is right is something that is too important to be let go because of CLM warnings. We must also remember that not all CLMs have a bad ending! Yes, having great managers/leaders very much enhances this possibility!

I have also come across situations where the CLM warning was based on the fears (ghosts!) in the mind of the person giving the warning and not based on reality. Similarly, sometimes a CLM warning could be an attempt to protect the interests of the person who is giving the warning (see the ‘IR mindset’ for more). So, we must do a reality check before acting on CLM warnings we get!

Any comments/ideas?

Unorthodox concepts in HR : Part 10 – Exporting your problems

In this post, we will continue our exploration of Unorthodox concepts in Human Resources/People Management. We are exploring concepts that are unlikely to be found in ‘respectable’ text books (and also not taught in ‘premier’ business schools) but are very much real in the paradoxical world of people management (See ‘The attrition principle’,  'In the valley of attrition' , 'Sublimation of vision statements' , 'Computer-controlled Manager Empowerment', ‘Training the Victim’ ,‘Two plus Two personality profiling’, 'Herophobia', 'Type N and Type O organizations' and ‘The plus one problem’ for the previous posts in this series).

'Exporting the problems' is one of the most common ‘crimes’ in the domain of Talent Management. This refers to attempts by people managers to move the 'low-performing' and/or 'difficult to manage' members in their team to other teams in the organization. Since no people manager would want to accept a low performer into his/her team, this ‘crime’ often involves some degree of ‘deception’. This could include tactics like not giving an accurate picture of the performance of the employee (e.g. if the performance ratings are yet to be assigned) or even artificially inflating the performance rating of a poor-performing employee so that he/she comes into the ‘good performance’ category for the next one year.

An effective way to prevent this ‘crime’ (apart from calibrating performance ratings to ensure accuracy and/or having the process of the new manager thoroughly evaluating the employee before accepting the transfer) is to stipulate that unless the performance of an employee is good, he/she won’t be eligible for any role changes. This would encourage the managers to focus on helping the employee to improve his/her performance before recommending any transfer to other teams, and if the performance improvement efforts fail, to initiate the exit process for that employee. An exception to this rule can be made in the case of employees who were very good performers in their previous roles in the organization. In those cases, the current low-performance is likely to be a ‘person-role’ fit issue and they can be moved to roles similar to their previous role if possible.

An extreme form of ‘exporting the problems’ involves recommending an employee for a promotion with the condition that he/she should be moved to other teams. The rationale given by the manager could include things like the next level jobs in the current team being too complex, the concerns existing team members would have if their peer becomes their manager etc. Here also, the solution could be to specify that unless the manager is willing to move the employee into a next level role within the his/her team (if and when such an opportunity comes up) the manager can’t recommend a promotion for that employee.
   

There is another interesting (but very unfortunate) possible fallout these attempts by managers to 'export their problems'. Over a period of time, managers in the organization lose trust in the recommendations of other managers when it comes to talent moves. This makes it difficult for managers to export low-performers. Since many of the managers might not want to let go of their best performers (some sort of ‘talent hugging’ behavior) and since they can’t export the low performers any more, they tend to recommend the average performers in their team as an when new opportunities come up. This can create a situation where the best talent loses out on career opportunities and the average talent gets those opportunities. This can lead to the average talent progressing faster from career development point of view (as compared to the best talent), and this in turn can lead to the exit of the best talent from the organization. So, mediocrity triumphs!  

An effective talent management system that ensures accurate visibility of the performance of employees to the key stakeholders beyond the immediate manager is the first step in preventing the kind of problems mentioned above. Of course, clearly articulating the talent philosophy, building people manager capability and having the right performance measures for people managers would be of immense help. Ideally, the talent moves should be based on detailed talent management calibration discussions (involving the other key stakeholders also, in addition to the manager) that matches the employee aspirations, strengths, performance and potential with the emerging requirements of the organization (and also provides structured feedback to the employees)! 

It is a bit funny to hear people managers speaking about their willingness (or lack of it) to 'release' talent from their team. The term 'release' is more appropriate in situations like  releasing someone from a prison or from a lunatic asylum. Yes, managers need to get the work done and they need good quality talent to accomplish that. So the people management system should ensure timely availability of high quality talent (leveraging strategic workforce planning and outcomes of talent management calibration discussions) to replace the high-performers who are moving to other teams. However, speaking about 'releasing talent' might be an indication that people managers have 'inappropriate mental models' about talent and talent mobility! 

Any comments/ideas? 

Unorthodox concepts in HR : Part 9 - The plus one problem

In this post, we will continue our exploration of Unorthodox concepts in Human Resources/People Management. We are exploring concepts that are unlikely to be found in ‘respectable’ text books (and also not taught in ‘premier’ business schools) but are very much real in the paradoxical world of people management (See ‘The attrition principle’,  'In the valley of attrition' , 'Sublimation of vision statements' , 'Computer-controlled Manager Empowerment', ‘Training the Victim’ ,‘Two plus Two personality profiling’, 'Herophobia' and 'Type N and Type O organizations' for the previous posts in this series).

"I am as competent as my boss. The only difference between the two of us is that he speaks slightly better English!", said the sales team leader during a Focus Group Discussion(FGD) based on the employee engagement survey results. I have heard statements like this quite frequently across organizations. This made me think more deeply about the 'plus one problem'!

So, what exactly is this 'plus one problem'? It is very simple. Each reporting layer in an organization tends to think that the level immediately above it is useless, or, at least highly overpaid!

There could be many reasons that lead to the 'plus one problem'. Let's look at five of the most  common ones!

1. The  unique value addition from each reporting layer is not clearly specified: For example, sales volume target might appear in the Key Result Areas (KRAs) of a Front-line Sales person, that of a Sales Team Leader and that of a Sales Manager. If the unique value addition from each level (e.g. the Sales Manager sets the sales strategy and decides on resource allocation, the Sales Team Leader creates the optimum route plan and provides coaching/problem solving support to the Front-line Sales people etc.) is not specified, it can appear that the bosses are just adding up the targets of their direct reports and taking (stealing!) the credit!
2. Too many reporting layers : This can exacerbate the problem mentioned in (1) above. It is also possible that some roles in the structure don't make logical sense (See 'Do regional and global roles always make sense?' for a detailed discussion). In a broad-banded structure the 'plus one problem' is less likely to happen. 
3. Behavior of the bosses : If the bosses take their 'right to lead' for granted and don't ask themselves the question 'What exactly is the value that I am adding to each of the team members?' and take sincere action based on that, the 'plus one problem' is highly likely to happen. Of course, if the bosses are not fully competent or if they have reached their level of incompetence (see 'Career Development and sublimation') it definitely adds to the problem.  
4. Lack of developmental feedback: Development feedback (e.g. what do I need to develop/improve to develop readiness for the next level jobs) is rare as compared to performance feedback(e.g. how well am I doing in my current job). Sometimes, this happens because managers are reluctant to get into such a discussion (on what are the skill gaps the employee has as compared to the requirements for the next level jobs) - especially in the case of high-performers - because they don't want to distract/annoy the employees. While this buys short-term peace, the employee feels cheated in the long term (as he/she is not getting promoted despite great performance and apparently no skill gaps). Sometimes, this happens because the organization doesn't have a career framework (that specifies what exactly is required to be ready for each of the roles in the organization and how to work towards that) and/or because the organization hasn't invested enough in the career development of the employees. 
5. Superiority Illusion : Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein a person overestimates his own abilities and contribution, in relation to the abilities and contributions of other people. See 'Performance ratings and the above-average effect' for a detailed discussion on this cognitive bias and how to deal with it. Lack of accurate development feedback mentioned in (4) above is often a very significant contributing factor to the unhindered existence of the superiority illusion that leads to the 'plus one problem'.

If the above actors are addressed, the 'plus one problem' can be mitigated to a large extent. Deep psychological factors (like the 'superiority illusion' mentioned above) don't completely disappear and hence a total victory over the 'plus one problem' is unlikely! By the way, there could another interesting principle operating here. As per 'tournament theory', the boss is paid much more because it would make everyone else aspire to be the boss and hence they will work harder even without additional payment (and hence overpaying the boss economically efficient)!

Any comments/ideas?

The sticky case of ‘the stickiness of potential ratings’!

In this post, we come back to one of the most amorphous areas in HR – potential assessment, its uses and its implications. As we have seen in  ‘Using assessment centres for evaluating potential – A leap of faith?’ and in ‘The paradox of potential assessment’, there are multiple perspectives on even the most fundamental issue related to potential assessment – ‘potential for what?’ For the purpose of our discussion here, let’s focus on ‘the potential for taking up higher level jobs in the organization’.

Now let’s come to the issue mentioned in the title of this post – stickiness of potential ratings (i.e. the extent to which the potential rating of an employee remains the same as he/she progresses in his/her career in the organization). This is not an ‘academic issue’  as the way define and interpret potential has very significant implications for both the employees and the organization.

In a way, the core issue comes down to the following questions

1. Can the potential of an employee change during his/her tenure in the organization?
2. What are the implications if potential is not a modifiable factor? 
3. Even if potential can’t change, can the potential rating change?

Let’s start with the first question (Can the potential of an employee change during his/her tenure in the organization?). The answer depends on how we view the alchemy of potential. If we consider potential as some sort of stable personality trait then the potential of an employee should remain the same during his/her tenure in the organization. If we consider potential to be a modifiable factor, then the potential of the employee can change if the employee works on it.

Since potential often gets linked to important decisions like promotions, development investment and compensation, this assumption (on the modifiability of potential) has important  implications. For example, if the potential of the employee corresponds to his/her current role/level, and if we assume that potential is not modifiable, the employee can’t get promoted. It also means that the organization can’t put this employee in the succession plan for a higher position. If the employee continues at the current level for a long time, it is possible that the of the employee becomes too costly a resource for the contribution possible at that level. So, in a way, both the employee and the organization are stuck. The only hope for the employee to move to a higher level position is to find another organization that measures potential differently! On the contrary, if we assume that potential is modifiable then both the employee and the organization can take steps to develop the potential and this makes promotions possible.

Now, this brings us to the most important question. Can potential change? While there are differing views on this, most of the current thinking tends to gravitate towards the position that potential is at least partially modifiable. So there is hope for both the employees and the organizations!

Now let us come to the third question (Even if potential can’t change can the potential rating change?). The short answer is that it depends on our definition of potential and the norms we agree on. For example, if we define ‘high potential’ as someone who can go two responsibility levels up in the organization (from the current level he/she is at) and the person gets promoted by one level, then the potential rating can come down by one step (e.g. to something like ‘advancement potential’) unless the person has (or has developed) more potential to still go two levels up (from the new level after promotion). However, this kind of an approach (of reducing potential ratings on promotion) can lead to inconsistent investment in  (and inconsistent engagement with) the people who were rated ‘high potential. Considering that this is usually a very small (and very valuable) population this can lead to significant negative consequences. 

Hence, my opinion is that unless we have a very good reason to do so (e.g. we have a lot of new data to show that we had made a mistake when we rated the person as ‘high-potential’), we shouldn’t down-grade the 'high-potential' ratings. Yes, it will make the high-potential ratings more sticky. Of course, since we are considering potential as a modifiable factor, an employee can work on developing his/her potential with help from the organization and hence move up from  the ‘advancement potential’ category to the ‘high-potential’ category. This can also help the organization to grow more talent internally to take up the senior positions in the organization!

Any comments/suggestions?

Of stretch roles and designed to fail roles

Stretch roles are very popular these days as a development tool especially for high-potential employees. They provide an opportunity for accelerated learning. They can also lead to significant value creation that can benefit both the organization and the (credentials of the) employee.


So what is the problem? It is just that we often tend to be too ambitious when it comes to the degree of stretch in a stretch role. Hence we end up creating a 'designed to fail role' (with an impossible degree of stretch) instead of a stretch role. When we move a top talent into that role the result is often failure to meet the role expectations. If not handled properly, this can also end up as a 'career-limiting move' with the confidence and the credentials of the top talent getting adversely affected. So its is very important to differentiate between a 'stretch role' and a 'designed to fail' role and to get the degree of stretch in the role correct. Also there must be a clear exit plan (e.g. a defined timeframe in which the top talent would be moved out of the stretch role if it doesn't work out).


There is one important exception to this. It is possible that many of the employees who are classified as 'top talent'  haven't really experienced failure in their life & careers (or have become experts in sidestepping failure). This can limit their capability for 'double-loop learning' as they haven't yet been forced (by failure) to examine their underlying values, assumptions and mental models. In such a case a 'designed to fail' role might not be a bad idea so long as sufficient support systems (like coaching to help the employee to cope with and to enable double-loop learning from the failure) and safety nets (like protecting the performance bonus, salary increases and career advancement of the top talent to some extent) have been put in place to ensure that the failure is not catastrophic for either the organization or the individual. (See 'Of leaders and battle-scars' for an unorthodox perspective on leadership and failure)


So, what should be infer? Stretch roles are indeed valuable development tools if we design them correctly. We just need to be careful that in our enthusiasm to stretch the (high-potential) employee we don't end up putting them in career-limiting roles!

A Perfect Set of Delusions in Talent Management!

Talent Management is a domain that is becoming increasingly maddening for HR professionals and Business Leaders. The career paths that we create for employees with so much love and effort become are seldom followed (See Career planning and the myth of Sisyphus). Skillsets and roles that we have invested so heavily in become redundant. Increasingly fewer number of employees look at their current organization as a career destination (See Crazy HR for crazy times). Frequent changes in strategy, reorganizations and rapid scaling up & downsizing in workforce are making talent management resemble the game of ‘Calvinball’ where you make the rules up as you go along!

When the reality doesn’t suit us we are tempted to use the bricks of delusions to create a world that affirms what we would like to believe (See HR professionals and Multiple Personality Disorder and Of Reasons, Rationalizations & Collective Delusions for more). In this post let's look at some of the fundamental delusions (assumptions) in talent management practice and also explore some of the possibilities to overcome those delusions.


Delusion 1: Talent can be managed

Most of our talent management practices indicate the underlying assumption that talent can be managed in the same manner as any other resource. The problem is that talent comes with problematic parts like head and heart (and probably, soul) in addition to hands and legs. Also, talent, at least good talent, manages the organization as much as the organization manages the talent. It is a curious feature of human nature that we are more keen to manage than to be managed. Thus, the traditional ‘plan – implement – review - control’ approach to management doesn’t work very well when it comes to talent management (See 'The power of carrot and stick' for a related discussion).
A more appropriate approach to management would be ‘understand-predict-engage-facilitate’ when it comes to talent management. This requires developing deeper understanding of the human nature and human behavior in the workplace context, of the evolving employee preferences and of the enabling structures and choice architectures that can ‘attract’ employee behavior to desirable patterns. This would help talent mangers designing initiatives like ‘mass career customization’ that enable talent to manage themselves facilitated by a clearly defined set of options and implications of those options.

Delusion 2: Talent management is an annual event


In many organizations, talent management is an annual ritual that focuses on creating career & development plans for the employees and succession plans for critical positions. After this we go through the rest of year believing that our work or at least most of it has been done. The trouble here is that these plans crash-land into everyday business reality with very limited survival rate.  

In a rapidly changing business and people context, the progress against these plans should be monitored periodically and changes to the plans should be made where required. The best practice is to have at least one formal review every quarter. This need not be an elaborate and time-consuming affair. All that is required is to do a quick check on two things: whether the action points (role changes, development actions etc.) that were scheduled for the intervening period are on track and whether there are any significant changes to the business or people.


Delusion 3: Talent management can be done in a standalone manner

Often, we tend to look at talent management as a standalone HR process. There are two basic problems with this. First, talent management is not an HR only process. Second, talent management can’t exist in a vacuum.
To be effective, talent management has to be integrated with the business planning and workforce planning processes, with the talent implications of the business strategy being the starting point for talent management. The best practice is to begin talent review meetings with a structured discussion on the immediate and long term talent implications of the business strategy and plan, the talent gaps and challenges based on the same and the talent action plan to remedy the gaps. All discussions about talent movements and talent development should be done keeping this as the base.  Another important aspect here is to closely integrate talent management to the Learning & Development and Performance Management processes.   

Delusion 4: Talent management is all about managing high-potentials 


In many organizations, almost the entire focus of talent management is on identifying and developing high-potential employees. It is true that high-potential employees can create a much higher business impact, as compared to average talent, especially when there in critical roles. However, we would be deluding ourselves if we think that the organization runs on only high-potentials.

High-potentials form only a small percentage of the overall employee population. Achieving adequate levels of validity and reliability for the high-potential identification process has been one of the perennial problems in talent management (See 'Paradox of potential assessment' and 'Using Assessment Centres for evaluating potential - A leap of faith?' for more details )and this makes an exclusive focus on those high-potentials a very risky approach. Yes, there would be some talent that needs to be managed out of the organization. For the all the other talent in the organization, talent management should offer a compelling value proposition. Yes, segmenting this population and customizing the value proposition for each of the segments is a best practice. One such segment, apart from high-potentials, that merit extra focus and investment is high-performers in critical roles.

Delusion 5: Talent can read the mind of the organization

It has often been observed that an employee realizes how valuable she was to the organization and what great plans the organization had prepared for her only after she submits his resignation. This brings us to our next delusion – that talent can read the mind of the organization, especially when it comes to good things(like being in the succession plan for a more senior role). Ironically, employees often have a more accurate idea on the possible risks for them in the organization than the possible opportunities for them in the organization!
The best practice here is not to communicate labels or titles, like high-potential or top talent, to the employees. It is to communicate how the organization looks at the employee at this point and the actions that the organization intends to take subject to the employee keeping his side of the bargain, like maintaining a certain performance level and consistently exhibiting a defined set of behaviors.  Of course, the organization should not make promises that it won’t be able to keep (See 'To name or not to name that is the question' for more details).

Delusion 6: On the job development would happen automatically 

This is a very convenient collective delusion for talent managers! The script is something like this: The organization adopts the best practices of the 70:20:10 approach to employee development which correctly assumes that less than 10% of the learning takes place through formal training ad that most of the learning takes place through on-the-job- experiences (70%) and through coaching and interactions (20%).  This finding can be used as an excuse for 'cutting training budgets’ and for ‘absolving HR managers of their responsibility in talent development’ without establishing any concrete mechanism for facilitating the learning through job experiences and interactions'.

Unfortunately, learning through job experiences and interactions does not happen automatically as it requires deliberate planning, practice and facilitating in-depth reflection to derive learning from the experience. Thus there is a need to put in place a mechanism to structure, facilitate and track this type of learning. For example, 'the way a job is structured' is a critical factor in deriving learning through on-the-job experience. This calls for an intervention at the job design level to ensure that the jobs have sufficient responsibility, authority and scope. 'Job rotation' and 'special projects' also offer high learning potential. This would require that the organization puts in place policies that encourage job rotation and assigning people systematically to special projects. Experience maps can be designed to highlight the most important experiences to develop towards a particular role. Manager capability building is essential to enable them to help the employees to plan & execute the developmental experiences and to derive more learning from the experiences through coaching.


Delusion 7: Talent Management is only about long -term employees

Often, we assume that the talent management should focus only on those employees who are likely to stay on for a long time in the organization. This has become a delusion in an environment where the average tenure of the employees in a particular organization are reducing and when the employees who stay on for a long time are often not the best talent.
So what makes more sense is to assume that the organization would be handling only a limited (often very limited) part of the career in the case of most of the employees and to design talent management strategies & processes that would enable the employees to contribute within that limited time. Of course, making a focused attempt to increase the time that certain segments of the employees (e.g. high-potentials and high-performers in critical roles) spend in the organization is definitely worthwhile.

So why do we say that these seven are a perfect set of delusions? Let me just say that the number 7 is considered to be a perfect number in many cultures and some even associate mystical qualities to it. While this could also qualify as an assumption (delusion!), overcoming the seven delusions discussed above do give us a good starting point in taking a fresh look at what we do in the domain of talent management. While perfect solutions don’t exist, by being more aware of our delusions and the approaches to overcome them, we can definitely be more effective in our craft and also be saner and happier!

To name, or not to name, that is the question...

"Do you think that I should have announced my successor?", asked the Senior HR professional. This was my third 'encounter' with this gentleman (See 'Passion for work and anasakti ' & 'Appropriate metaphors for organizational commitment '  for the outcomes of my previous interactions with him). "Well, it depends on what you were trying to achieve", I replied in a 'consultant-like' manner. Similar to what had happened during my previous encounters with him, this interaction also prompted me to think a bit more deeply about the underlying issues.

In this particular case, the situation was something like this: This gentleman had created a structure in which many of his direct reports were at the same level – handling roles of similar size. This ensured that all of them could hope for moving into his role and hence contributed to their engagement & retention. However, this also ensured that when this gentleman moved on to another role, none of his direct reports were ready to takeover from him & hence his role had to be filled with an external candidate. With their illusions broken (and considering the fact that the situation could repeat a few years later), many of the direct reports started looking for jobs outside the company.

Now, there are multiple levels of issues here. The most basic one is the need for succession planning. There should not be too much controversy here, as most of us are likely to agree that succession planning (especially for critical roles) is a worthwhile endeavor (Whether the Head of HR role qualifies as a ‘critical role’ is an interesting issue – but that is another story/blog post!). The second one is the need for a structured approach to develop people who are in the succession plan so that they become ready for the role within a specified time-frame. Here also there should not be much disagreement when it comes to the validity of the need, though the implementation is easier said than done, as it involves quite a bit of investment/focus to ensure that the requisite capability building takes place within the timelines.  

Things get more complicated when we think about whether or not to tell the people who are in the succession plan that they are part of the succession plan. The problem here is that doing this can create high expectations (and even some sort of ‘entitlement mentality’) among the people in the succession plan and also create disengagement (or even attrition) among people who are not in the succession plan. The latter becomes a significant problem if they are very valuable contributors in their current roles, though they did not make it to the succession plan for the next level role. However, not informing those in the succession plan might defeat the very purpose of succession planning.

The purpose of including an employee in the succession plan for a position is to enable him to develop readiness for the position within an accelerated time-frame. It would work much better if the employee is aware of the purpose for which the development is being undertaken. It definitely helps to tell an employee that he is part of a succession plan, so long as the communication is done in the right manner. This would also avoid the risk of developing an employee towards a position that he is not interested in. Again, this would prevent the unfortunate scenario in which such an employee leaves the organization because he thought that he was not being developed for the next level role! 

However, the communication has to be done in the right manner. The communication should mention that the company sees the potential in him to develop towards the particular position and that the company will provide accelerated learning opportunities to enable him to develop readiness for the same. It has to be made clear that no promise is being made that the employee will be moved to the target position within a specified period of time. It should also be mentioned that there could be multiple people in the succession plan for the position and that the actual move to the position will depend on business requirement, vacancy and his relative readiness as compared to other possible candidates for the position. Stretch and discomfort are inherent in accelerated development. If an employee is aware of and is committed to the purpose behind the development, he will be able in a better position to derive meaning from the stretch experience, to learn faster and even to enjoy the ride!

Let us come back to our Senior HR professional. There are no easy answers to his question. However, let me hazard a guess based on our discussion so far. It  would have been better if he had done the succession planning for his role and told the people in the succession plan that they were being developed for his role. Of course, this would require that the identification of people for the succession plan was done in manner that was rigorous and fair (and also seen to fair!). For example, all his direct reports (at least those who were interested in developing towards  his role) could have been put through a well-designed Assessment Centre (see 'Assessment Centres and Leaps of faith' for details). 

Now, let’s look at the matter of deciding the ideal number of people in the succession plan for a particular position. Announcing only one successor (like the senior HR professional was mentioning) would have been a very risky option. It would have made the organization dependent on only one person and/or it could have made the person in the succession plan a bit complacent. Putting too many people in the succession plan also would have been sub-optimal. It would have made the investment required for developing all these people too high and also reduced the chance for any particular individual to succeed in moving to the target role. Hence the best option would have been to identify  a few (say, 2-3) people who were relatively more ready at that point (say, based on the Assessment Centre results) to be on the succession plan and to tell them they were being developed for his role. This would also allow the others direct reports to either make peace with this situation (as a fair process has been followed to identify the people in the succession plan) or to exit the organization gracefully - at a time of their choice (without any hurry and possibly with a very good offer). Yes, this is not a perfect solution. But, it seems to be the best solution available!.

Do you agree?