Top Talent Speaks Out

Karen Ward, Associate Consultant, Bath Consultancy Group

Mary Elaine Jacobsen, Director, Leadership Gifted International

"There's no way I would work for a global organisation - I don't want to be a cog in a machine, I want to be making a difference. If I cannot find a role with a charity, my friends and I are going to set up our own consultancy"

Top Science Student, age 24, major university

In conversation with a FTSE CEO:

"No, I would not choose to work for you - why would I sell my soul to a major bureaucracy when I can start my own business and stay true to what is important to me?"  

Head Girl, age 18, top independent education academy  

Organisations must think long-term about the future and sustainability of their organisations. We might be in the midst of a credit crunch but there is another crisis that is happening right now - the talent crunch. Top talent will be the most important organisational resource for the next 20 years yet as the demand for talent goes up, the supply will continue to dwindle.  

Worse yet:

•  As few as 29% selected for talent development in global organisations turn out to be high potentials [1]
• Approximately 50% of individuals currently identified as high potential do not wish to take up senior posts in their current  organisation [2]
• High Potentials have very specific reasons for leaving organisations or avoiding certain of them altogether - yet most  organisations have no insight into these reasonsWhen high potentials leave, more talent follows them out the door straight to the competitors [3]
• Less than a third of managers are confident that their performance management systems are capable of identifying leadership potential [4]

There could be a question around whether the talent war is one worth fighting. In response, exceptional people deliver enormous value. They can produce as much as 10 times more than the average worker, and tend to generate most of the innovation and new ideas in an organisation. The research by McKinsey also found that high performers raise the level of performance of those around them by modelling excellence and mentoring others.

High performers also contribute directly to the bottom line. They are responsible for shareholder returns as much as 10% higher than competitors found McKinsey and will provide an average additional $25 million in value to their organisations during their term.
Remarkably, these realities have not prompted a fundamentally different approach to talent attraction or development.  For many global organisations this means millions of dollars spent on programs on par with the "Emperor's New Clothes".  

Three questions that must be asked of organisations:

"Do organisations . . .
1.      really know talent when they see it?"
2.      have a clear understanding of why they struggle to attract, develop, and retain high potentials?"
3.      have the right kind of development offering that fit high potentials?"

Our extensive research and experience with the brightest and the best in organisations around the world results in an alarming "No!"

So who are these high potentials, or the top talent, that we desperately need to lead our organisations successfully into the future?  They are individuals who perform at their best in today's fast-moving global atmosphere because they are intelligent, strategic, future-oriented, inspiring, resourceful, adaptable, who thrive on complexity and change.  These are the people we term "leadership gifted", and we know them well.

Yet we also know that:

• Existing managers and HR professionals are often seriously prejudiced against high-ability people and unwittingly sabotage their own efforts
• Organisational development leaders have effectively had no training in talent psychology, and consequently have a meagre understanding of high potential people
• Talent managers fail to provide differentiated approaches that appropriately align organisational needs with those of high potentials

Successful development of high potential and how organisations destroy it.

Case Example 1:  

Chief Technology Officer, Global Entertainment Firm

Jeff Saunders was a brilliant and highly innovative techie in a small broadband organisation in the entertainment industry when a savvy head-hunter scouted him.  She sent him for an interview to AZ Studios and Entertainment, one of the world's largest and most prestigious movie and television production companies.  Arnold Anders, VP of R & D for AZ chose to interview Jeff individually after his screening team had told him Jeff was "great, but far too young and inexperienced". What Arnold discovered when he met with Jeff was a powerhouse of energy, ideas, and sophistication he had rarely seen in employees with far greater experience.  Moreover, Jeff's resume was already glowing with star performances in both creative production and successful team coordination of high potentials.  Arnold had no hesitation in hiring 26-year-old Jeff on the spot.  What's more, given the futuristic nature of the development project at hand, Arnold took a creative leap and told Jeff he could recruit his own team of five with a fairly free hand, so long as at least two of them were internals.  

The upshot was a genuine dream team.  Jeff pulled together a group of highly autonomous brain-trust individuals who could work very well together because they respected each other, weren't held back by silly policies, and could operate in a manner that suited them and their work.  There was virtually no micro managing, just regular "how's it going?" discussions.  Jeff and his line-up were on fire with enthusiasm.  They relished the long-range plan to create something totally new - a system that would link together four key technology domains - which had only been a fantasy until now.  Because the project was highly secret, few in the organisation knew anything about it. But of those who did, only Arnold thought anything would come of their efforts. He was delighted to discover that after only 18 months, Jeff's team was on the verge of putting it all together in prototype form. He was so impressed by Jeff that he suggested his name be put on the top of the list of possible successors for CTO.  

Within two weeks, Jeff and his dream team were no longer with the company.  An acquisition that had secretly been in the works for months was finalized on a Friday, and by the end of business on the following Monday the new management had fired Arnold and nearly his entire fellow department heads. They sent someone from HR to talk to Jeff and his cohort:  "You are all really something!  Wow!  You have done the impossible and are five years ahead of schedule.  Unfortunately we currently have no work for you, since the other departments are so far behind.  So we just wouldn't know what to do with all of you.  I am sorry to say that means we have to terminate you. We at the new company thank you for your service and wish you all the best."

Shocked and betrayed, Jeff and three of his colleagues quickly tried to form their own company to keep their super team together. But without venture capital and no lead time they weren't able to pull it off.  Had they been able to do so, the newly reorganised company may have found themselves outdone by the very people they fired.  Even so, each of them was snapped up by the competition within weeks, and dazzled their new employers and as star employees who markedly improved the bottom line. Furthermore, each of the four stars pulled in top talent from outside to form their new teams, while at the same time the word on the street was that AZ was poison for tech wizards who steered clear of the company for years to come.

Case Example 2:

Marketing VP, European Global Technology Company

"I recently attended one of our promotion Executive Assessment Centres and scored above the line on all competencies that were being tested. Before becoming Marketing VP, I had successfully held senior leadership positions in our Supply Chain, Sales and Product Development functions. I was feeling very positive about my career prospects within the organisation, until I had my follow up mentoring conversation with an Executive Team member and the HR Director.

They wanted to know when I was going to make a decision about my career and get focused. They were concerned that I was not sticking at any one thing - despite the evidence that I had performed well in all of them. I had also thought that my broad experience would be valuable when I became a more senior leader in the organisation.

When I asked them how I should make my choice, their first response was ‘do what you are good at' - but my experience to date has been that I have been successful at all the roles I have been asked to do. They then changed tack and said ‘well then focus on what you are interested in', but how can I tell them I am fascinated by it all?

It seems to me that because their career paths only encompassed one or two functional disciplines that they are judging me against some arbitrary criteria of what makes success in senior roles in our company. When I asked them what the criteria for measuring potential were in our talent process, the answer was very vague.

I am now not sure if this is an organisation where I want to invest my time and energy...."

Case Example 3:

Senior scientist, US Pharmaceutical Company

"I love the work I do, I believe passionately about preventing and curing disease and my track record of delivery is strong. Yet, so much of what inspires me is being slowly eroded. Each time there is another merger or re-organisation, we seem to get further from our core purpose of making the world a healthier place. It is all about ROI, EBITDA, shareholder value - well that is hardly going to have me leaping out of bed in the morning.

There are some fantastic people here doing amazing work, but we have to hide the really interesting work from management, as it is not in the business plan. Of course, if we do have a breakthrough in one of our ‘out of hours experiments', it is claimed as their idea all along and the business plan is forgotten. How do you think that makes me feel?"

Case Example 4:

Former Chief Operating Officer, European Government Agency

"I was headhunted from the private sector to bring commercial insight and delivery focus to this operation. Within six months of arriving I was nominated and chosen to join the Executive High Potential Development Scheme, which implied fast track progression to senior roles. I found the action learning aspects of the Scheme very rewarding, as I developed a network of like-minded peers across the sector and we worked on real business issues that we were facing. There are some incredible talents here and I loved that buzz.

However, three years later I am leaving to go back to the private sector as my role has not moved on and I am bored. I thrive on challenge and making things happen and I am not being given the space I need to make the changes this business so desperately needs. I have been a top performer every year and have received a top performance pay award to match, the feedback from my 360 surveys have also been overwhelmingly positive, so it is not that I have not delivered.

The most frustrating thing is the lack of genuine commitment at the most senior levels to do things differently - they say they want new ideas and fresh insight, but I am not so sure anymore. The scope of their ambition and their passion for making a difference is much less than mine and I am looking forward to working somewhere I can bring all of me to play and create something together that is incredible. I think that quite scares many of my senior colleagues here - they like to play safe."

Our combined years of global experience with organisational development and talent psychology have consistently shown that the problem faced by most high potentials in organisations stem from two key primary misguided assumptions:

•  A fundamental misunderstanding of high potential individuals
• Failure to provide differentiated approaches that meet the needs of individual and organisation

We know that the current approaches to talent management are not delivering the shift in sustainable organisational performance that stakeholders expect. Who will be the first to recognize that the emperor is naked and that it is time to look at this issue from a different perspective?

Leadership Gifted International: When you learn how to truly understand high potential, you have the keys to unlocking it

[1] The McKinsey Quarterly, McKinsey & Co. 2006, The people problem in TM

[2] Ward, K. (2006) unpublished global consortium research

[3] DeVries & Kaiser, 2003, Going sour in the suite: what you can do about executive derailment

[4] Blass, 2007 Talent Management: Maximising Talent for Business