‘Talking Talent’ with the CEO…the litmus test

…The CEO asks for talent capability information about a critical business issue-

Charles H. Bishop, Jr., PhD

Introduction: No mystery as to why organizations need talent to win–everyone agrees to this. And obviously, a great deal is at stake at this time. This used to be the concern of HR; that has changed dramatically. Now the issue is ‘top of mind’ with Boards, the investor community, CEO’s, the senior team and HR professionals. We have to get this issue ‘right’.

Talent management, while absolutely essential by all indications…’does not seem to be working’. There are a number of voices and studies that make this point. One of the most convincing is the study by two well-respected researchers, Jay Conger and Doug Ready. In their findings:

• 92% of Executives identified having a ‘deep and ready bench’ as a key business imperative;
• 94% of ..have Succession Planning; however only
• 5% …feel ‘that it is working’

Overall, a sad state of affairs with such an important issue. Two major culprits that create that state, I believe are:

• #1: Human Resources and C-Level executives too many times are truly ‘not on the same page’,
• #2: BAD ..The input source for assessment of talent that is the base of our HR/IT Systems. Too many managers making inept assessments and judgment calls; subsequently, bad input– bad output!

In future posts I will be more specific about those two culprits that collectively create an Achilles Heel- a deadly weakness in spite of a lot of hard work and strengths. Future posts will be directed at providing an approach…tools and lessons learned that leads to a desired end state: … where HR is ‘at the table’ discussing the most important ‘people’ issue with the CEO–talent!

Information is king: ‘Talking talent’ with the CEO or C-Level executive in an informed manner is the most impactful behavior by a Human Resources professional. Nothing is close!

That, of course requires that you absolutely must have information; and, that information must be accurate, timely, focused and believable. If you can provide that you can win; if you cannot…you lose.

I am convinced that no discipline can make a larger contribution to the success of organizations than Human Resource at this critical juncture. But, changes must be made.

Throughout these posts I want to engage you to assess your present state and then provide some ‘fixes’ to assure the dialogue does occurs. I welcome comments, challenges and adds along the way.

So, let’s start at the end and see how you would respond to a CEO who needs an answer to a vexing issue. The CEO walks down the hall and asks you one or two of the following questions…not all the following, but a very pointed and specific question. Can you provide that information within ten minutes?

What you could be asked:

Overall…

• What does our total bench-strength look like across the organization?
• What does the top leadership team look like, in this specific unit or function…?
• What does our bench-strength/depth look like across the entity in key technical functions such as Engineering and Process Improvement?
• What does our diversity pool look like; and, are they given consideration for jobs when they come up?

To engage and retain our top talent:

• Are we rewarding our best talent…are they getting the largest raises, equity grants?
• Who are we vulnerable to losing…and what are we doing about those we truly have to keep?
• Are our promotions coming from our agreed upon ‘promotability list’…what is our ‘hit-miss ratio’?
• Who needs to move for their development; and, this year…are we moving them into challenging jobs?
• With our best…do we have solid development plans with our most promotable?

Our…’not so best’:

• Who are our poor performers and are we acting on the issue?
• How many have a sound performance improvement plan?
• How much is poor performance costing us and …are we tolerating poor performance?

With our ‘make or break’ positions:

• Are our pivotal positions staffed with solid leaders…what does that overall picture look like across the company?
• Where do we have open positions where we can move a high potential for development?
• For what positions are we going external for…are search firms effective and efficient in filling those positions on time?

If you cannot provide answers– around organizational issues such as these—a report handed to him/her for an important meeting within 10 minutes…you will have trouble ‘getting to the table’. You must have solid information to be a ‘player’.