The Talent War Room

One of the highlights from Day 1 of The Conference Board's Talent Managment Strategies Conference was a session lead by Ed Colbert, Global Director of Organizational Effectiveness for Dow Corning Corporation.

Ed framed the entire session by sharing a story about how shortly after he was given his role as the Director of Organizational Effectiveness, with responsibility for Talent Acquisition, Learning and Development, Succession Planning, and Workforce Planning, he read an article about how the Director of Player Personnel for a major league baseball team went about his talent management duties.

The Pro Personnel Director's office had one wall covered with pictures of all his team's current starting players, with additional sections describing each players strengths and weaknesses, and some statistics indicating trends in the player's most recent performance. An adjacent area on the wall contained the same information for all the team's substitute players on the current active roster.

The next wall of the office contained pictures and player profiles of the organization's top prospects in the various affiliated minor league teams. These pictures and profiles were organized by role (pitchers, catchers, etc), readiness (players closest to be ready to contribute to the major league club higher on the wall), and color coded by overall 'potential' rating.

Finally the back wall of the office had pictures and profile information of players on other teams (both major league and their affiliated minor league teams) that this Director of Player Personnel was monitoring or tracking for as potential acquisitions for his team in the future. These players represented or had demonstrated both potential targets for filling current needs on his team's active roster, as well as more long-term prospects that seemed to match the team's philosophy or style of play.

As Ed from Corning read the article he came to the conclusion that this Director of Player Personnel had the very same job as he did. The goal of both roles was 'To put the best team on the playing field today, and ensure continued success in the future'.

Assessing the current players was performance management, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the players was talent profiling and development, examining the capability in the minor league teams was succession planning, and evaluating the external markets for players was talent acquisition and workforce planning.

In fact, Dow Corning has taken the sports metaphor so far as to title the internal communications leader their 'Sports Information Director' and some of their corporate recruiters as 'Talent Scouts'. The Talent Scouts are not just handed open Job Reqs to fill, but rather they are assigned an organization, department, or capability (similar to how the Director of Player Personnel manages the team's talent), and asked to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the current people on their 'team', assess the likely pools of internal successors, and understand and engage the external community of potential talent to further develop Dow Corning's capability to put the best team on the field. It is sort of a 'mini' Player Personnel role, a more active and proactive approach, rather than simply reacting in classic 'search' mode when a position comes open and needs to be filled.

Finally, Ed made the point that while managing the player personnel for a 25-person baseball team is quite a bit more manageable than what most organizations have to grapple with, that the fundamental concepts are really the same. Keeping the process simple, even to the point of using the walls of an office, or even a 'Talent War Room', to keep abreast of the organization's key talent, and most critical roles are keys to a successful talent management strategy and the execution of that strategy.

I knew all that time I spend watching, thinking, and talking about sports would pay off.

The Talent Management Strategies Conference

Today and tomorrow I will be attending The Conference Board's latest Talent Management Strategies Conference in New York City as a guest of the Conference Board.

The event's subtitle - 'Leveraging Your Talent to Drive Business Outcomes' is meant to describe the overall focus of the event, trying to share information from some of the world's leading organizations on some innovative and effective strategies for leveraging talent to drive results.

Some of the sessions that I am most looking forward to attending are:

'Talent Management Leader: Head of Player Personnel', obvious since I am an easy mark for Talent Management and sports metaphors. This session looks to emphasize the importance of understanding the talent on your own team as well as the talent of your competition as they do in professional sports in order to find ways to maximize your advantage. I hope to ask some pithy question about drafting, whether coaches are important at all on top teams, and who will win the NBA championship.

'Creating an Employer Brand to Attract and Retain the Right Talent', a look at how Children's Healthcare of Atlanta used employee perspectives, blogging, and other strategies in their branding efforts.

and finally - 'How Social Networks Boost Collaboration, Productivity and Engagement', a look at how enhancing collaboration, enabling better understanding of employee interaction, and facilitating relationship building have led to important benefits for Google, Inc.

I am glad to be joined at the event by fellow blogger and an all-around superstar Jennifer McClure, the Cincy Recruiter.

Be sure to follow Jennifer's and my Tweets about the event on the hashtag #tcbtalent.

Disclaimer - The Conference Board is providing transport and lodging for me to attend the event, but all tweets, posts, comments etc. about the event are entirely my own, and The Conference Board has not asked for any special consideration.

Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap!

If I heard that once, I heard it a hundred times this week and weekend in London at the trulondon Unconference. Flickr- Marcin Wichary

The event was, I think, a tremendous success, and I could review the same list of usual reasons for that success (making real-world connections with online friends, exchanging ideas with about 100 experts and thought leaders, and the good feeling you get when surrounded with what are for the most part like-minded people). But I am sure by now many posts have been done covering that territory and I likely can't do much to add to them, save agree whole-heartedly.

Those reasons for success were certainly all present, and I expect to some extent they will continue to be present for the next batch of similar events, (truUSA, RecruitCamp, HRevolution2, etc.).  I do think at some point, probably later this year, that these events will have to move past this 'Boy it was so great to meet so-and-so' stage, as pretty soon everyone will have met so-and-so already.

But perhaps that is a point for another post.

I thought that trulondon, coming from my American perspective was really valuable for learning about and trying to understand what could be gained from thinking about differences and disagreements.  Some of these differences are more historical and process based, like how in the UK a typical organization will still utilize a third-party recruiter (or 'agency') when a vacancy needs to be filled, while their equivalent in the USA might likely turn to a national job board like Monster or Careerbuilder. Keith Robinson shared a great scenario he uses to describe this process in the UK, ask him to share it with you sometime.

But for me, some of the most interesting conversations at trulondon touched more around why the US and UK cultures and approaches to some of these workforce management and recruitment issues are divergent.  With few exceptions, the UK contingent felt that their US counterparts were much more advanced in many of the technical skills of sourcing and in the implementation and utilization of 'social recruiting' in the enterprise.  And many of us from the US, (well at least me) appreciated the way the UK experts seemed to present a series of excellent and detailed arguments, positions, and ideas. 

In some ways the UK felt the US was for lack of a better word 'smarter' while simultaneously the US folks felt the same about the UK people (admittedly for different reasons).

And I think they are both right.  And I think the fact that with an event like trulondon, that was able to some extent to be truly global, that some really significant and meaningful learning can happen.  With events that are local, regional, or even national there is going to be quite a bit of self-congratulation, perhaps less meaningful discourse, and the re-iteration of many of the same themes that many of us are perhaps tired of hearing and guilty of continually talking about.

Where we are different, where we are coming to the table with alternative perspectives is where we can learn and benefit the most.  I suppose, where there is a 'gap' in our experience and worldview there is much opportunity.

Mind the gap indeed.  And try to learn from it.

Technology Shopping List

Later this week at the trulondon Unconference in London  Sarah White, Shane McCusker , and I will be moderating a session titled 'Technology Shopping List'. Flickr - deepfruit

The session is described as:

Whatever the future holds, technology will play a major part in it. Today’s technology is already old and a day doesn’t go by when we don’t wish for something new. Join these technology experts in agreeing what you think the technology will need to do in the future, how applications will develop, the impact of cloud and what you want to see in the future.

There are really two kinds of shopping lists I think.  The one's that adults make when they go to the grocery store (milk, eggs, bread, etc.) and the ones kid's make for their Birthday or send to Santa Claus at Christmas, full of the latest toys, games, and other desires that (mostly) are not really needed, but will make them overjoyed with delight come the big day.

Aside - with all the recent major snow storms in the USA you have to notice the phenomenon of everyone rushing to the store to stock up on milk, eggs, and bread. Has French Toast been declared the staple food for when you get snowed in?

Back to the point. 

What will workforce technologies need to do in the future to support the organization, empower and engage employees, and most importantly drive increased business value? That is a big question, and I am glad that I will have Sarah and Shane along to help guide the discussion.

Here are some of the things I'll offer as part of the session:

Get simpler

Whether it is the iPad with its clean interface and tight feature set, Google Buzz (on the surface a much more basic and accessible version of Google Wave), or the push and demand for more mobile, smart-phone based capability, workforce technology has to get simpler to use.  Your employees and front-line managers are the essential keys to any Talent Management technology success.  Your candidates are the essential customers of your Recruiting systems.  Does anyone think that any of those groups are clamoring for more complex systems?  Simpler does not always have to mean less functional, but better design, more intuitive process, and 'smarter' technology that can anticipate and even recommend actions I think will be a large part of the future of workforce technology.

Get flexible

Rigid, process-oriented enterprise technology solutions of the last 25 years will have to become more flexible and adaptable if we accept the common assumption that business itself has to become more adaptable. I get that processes are how most business still gets done in many fields, and that for many organizations tight, precise replication of existing processes are essential for success and profits.  But with more and more work becoming 'creative', 'innovative', 'knowledge-based', or whatever you want to call it, the need for workforce tech to change, morph, and adapt to support whatever new directions the business needs to take I have to believe will be significantly more important in the future.  We are seeing some of this already, with more flexible SaaS-based solutions starting to dominate wide sectors of the workforce technology landscape.

Get social

Ok, not exactly a breakthrough idea at this point. But it does still seem that while there is significant discussion and realization that organizations can realize important benefits from the introduction and implementation of more 'social' or collaborative technology, many have only taken limited steps in this area.  The technologies that have long dominated the mid to large enterprise space (ERP, MS Office, corporate E-mail) have all been slow to adapt to the ideas around social.  Ironically, the forces that seem likely to spur the adoption of more social technologies, or the addition of social capability into existing technologies are more likely to be the employee's themselves, and not the corporate leaders or decision makers.

So those are some of the ideas I will offer for the Technology Shopping List - what else would you say needs to be included?

After all, it is more of a kid's Christmas list than an 'snow emergency I need to make French Toast' list.

Trulondon Track Preview - The Endangered Species List

Next week I have the great pleasure of heading over to trulondon, the dynamic Bill Boorman's true 'global mashup' that will bring together Human Resources, Recruiting, and Technology pros for two days of discussions, explorations, and certainly a bit of fun.

The event, as is becoming more and more popular, is framed as an 'Unconference', meaning no formal presentations, no Powerpoint slides, and with discussion topics finding their own way to the forefront.  Good ideas and concepts get promoted, while others that are not so interesting or compelling simply Flickr - katmeredrift off.

This week I want to highlight the sessions I have the honor of co-facilitating, as a way of providing and introduction of sorts to the session, and perhaps as a way for the co-facilitators and attendees to tell me I am way off track (or perhaps not).

First up a track called 'Endangered Species' with track Leaders: Peter Gold, Jon Ingham, Steve Boese

Track Description:

From H.R. to recruiters, we seem to hear of the imminent passing of all the trades we recognise are facing extinction from a changing world. Who is next to start pushing up the daisies? This track promises to be lively and global looking at who is on the endangered species list, why and what they need to do in the future to ensure a brighter future.

It is very easy and provocative at times to declare some traditional concept, or field of endeavor 'dead' and those that continue to cling to those old customs, behaviors, attitudes etc. as a kind of dinosaur of sorts.  In 2009, on several blogs and on a really lively edition of the HR Happy Hour show itself we even talked about all of HR being dead.

Certainly business strategies, management philosophies, and approaches to managing and engaging candidates and employees have to evolve over time.  The words is changing faster than ever (although we were saying the same thing back in the 70's and 80's), and organizations and professionals that foolishly cling to increasingly antiquated strategies and behaviors will certainly be at a competitive disadvantage in the 'new' world.

But the trick of course is deciphering which tried and true practices are truly enduring, and while perhaps needing a few tweaks here and there are still relevant and important today, and dropping the practices and ideas that are really the talent management equivalent of the dinosaurs. 

Not so easy to do I think, because unlike that massive meteorite that smashed into the Earth and wiped out all the dinosaurs (I am not sure that is really how it happened, but just go with for the argument), the changes in business and the game of Talent Management and Talent Acquisition are more subtle, more complex, and certainly not universally accepted as important and/or necessary for success. 

But since I am a track co-facilitator I figured I better have some suggestions for the endangered species list and rather than wait until trulondon to find out that I am way off base, I'll list a few of the ideas here to see if you think I am on the right track:

Endangered Species #1 - The 'Not Invented Here' attitude

How many R&D staff does your organization employ?  How many marketers, IT, or HR pros? No matter how many, they represent a tiny fraction of all the available talent in those fields.  Leveraging all possible resources for product development, engineering, and research is a concept that has begun to take hold in many large organizations (see what P&G Corporation is doing for example). But I think that HR, Recruiting, and Talent Management has been lacking a bit in this area.  When times are tight, we see stories of training and development cuts, reduction in professional conference attendance, and even at times a reactionary 'circle the wagons' attitude.  I would think that the longer and more stridently organizations continue to only look inwards, and cling to the 'not invented here' approach, that in some ways they will be sealing their fates as marginal players in the future.

Endangered Species #2 - The Company Man

Unless the title after your name reads 'CEO' or 'Owner', there is a high probability that the job your are in, and the company you work for will not be your last.  Downsizing, bankruptcies, and a relentless push by organizations to wring increased cost savings (often via outsourcing or use of temporary workers) all conspire to make the traditional long tenures many professionals used to enjoy more and more unlikely.

I know, this is not exactly breakthrough analysis. But while most individuals have come (hopefully) to this realization, I am not sure most organizations have.  Nor have they adequately prepared for the effects on the morale, engagement, and capability of the staff that remain after any downsizing or outsourcing.  Finally, I don't think many have really thought how they might strategically leverage those ex-employees in the future.

Endangered Species #3 - The Specialist (aka the 'That's Not My Job' guy)

Much like the likely career trajectory or story that most employees will undergo will likely be more fluid and dynamic, so too are the skills and capabilities that people will need to see continued success.  Unless you manage to hit on the one great idea that you can leverage for years and years, you almost certainly will need to work harder, smarter, and yes maybe even longer to stay on top of your field. Even in the interview process, smart employers are going to want to know what you do to make yourself better, and in an environment of 10% unemployment in the US, the chances are high that the organization can find someone else who won't play the 'That's not my job' card.

So what do you think?  What else is on the endangered species list? 

Besides long-winded bloggers (how did this post end up at almost 1,000 words anyway?).