Talent Management

Whatever happened to the concept of “placement?” I can remember, in the not too distant past, talking with client organizations about “selection and placement.” They still talk about selection, but placement is now largely ignored.

Placement is critically important to both organizational and individual effectiveness. Placement is related to selection, but placement should be considered as a separate and distinct function in its own right.

Selection, as it is now practiced is the process of selecting a particular person for a particular vacancy in the organization. That sounds fine until we consider the negative consequences of such narrow thinking. Consider the following example:

I recently had lunch with a young professional who was hired by a large financial services company. He liked the company, but he quickly realized the particular job did not play to his strengths. As time went by, he became more and more frustrated because his unique talents were not being tapped. His energy level (as well as his motivational and productivity levels, I suspect) dropped steadily as his job called upon his weaknesses, instead of his strengths.

Eventually, the talented young professional updated his resume and prepared to leave the organization. The day he was going to resign, he heard about an opening in the IT department. He was perfect for the position. He knew the technology, as well as the culture and processes of the organization. He put his resignation letter back into his briefcase and applied for the job.

The following week, he was told that he could not be considered for the position. He could not even be granted an interview. He could not be considered for the job because of company policy. Company policy stated that “an employee cannot be considered for any different position in the organization until he/she has completed at least one year in the position for which he/she was hired.” Ridiculous? Obliviously! Read the rest of this entry »

Feedback — the #1 talent management skill, is the Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner of Champions

* Super Zoomers, like Art Cowie, MCIP, 74-year-old landscape architect, urban planner and developer in the City of Vancouver uses the power of feedback to keep themselves alert, relevant and creative. Art has designed and is in the middle building an award winning fourplex on Vancouver’s latest Translink route.
* Zoomer, Jan Dickson, 54, an accomplished business professional, is widening her horizons by learning how to express herself in her art works.

Wise Zoomers and Super Zoomers, threatened by the events of this Great Disruption, stop, look, listen. We then assess the feedback we are getting from this evolving world, then act to increase our sense of power, joy, health and abundance. The most powerful way of talent managing oneself and others to improve, is by giving and receiving feedback.

We have grown up in a society in which criticism has been freely given with the intent to diminish the person. We associate feedback with negative, bad, scary or hurtful.

Feedback, (a) when given competently, (b) with the intention to help and (c) with an attitude of respect is one of the most powerful tools people can develop. If you’re not giving and receiving feedback, then acting on it, you are falling behind. You are becoming more vulnerable to becoming irrelevant and de-valued.

A Self-Assessment – how am I doing?
Here is a little survey with which I can gain some awareness about my approach toward feedback. The intention is for me to become more skilled in this most influential, people-connecting tool. When going through this survey think about “dicey” situations in which I am about to give and/or receive feedback. Read the rest of this entry »