Charles H. Bishop, Jr., PhD

   The questions that are most important…but…

Introduction

The word ‘information’ is ubiquitous; it’s often written about, speeches are made about it, careers are launched based on it and by adding the word ‘technology’ with it, in some settings, it is alleged that ‘information’…’will remove the pesky and unreliable human element from the equation.’ Furthermore, who hasn’t heard of the fact that it has made multi-billionaires of the kids who used to run the high school audiovisual lab?

Have you ever stopped to think about what the word ‘information’ means?

What would you say ‘information’ means? What would the head of IT say? What would the CEO say? I would encourage you to pose the question and see what you find out!

That question was posed to me by Fred Smith, the CEO of FedEx, a number of years ago. I could not come up with a good answer…I said something to the effect of “it is … ‘in a form to inform,’” however, the question threw me at that time. Those were the days of the ‘Gong Show’ and in that instance; I believe that I surely would have won.

Here is how Fred described it to me: “I believe that information is ‘differences that make a difference‘”…and, he added “But, the key is asking the right questions!”

I have found that particular wisdom about questions and the power of inquiry to be a powerful anchor in my professional career. My contention–borrowing from Fred–is that if you can ask the right questions, the answers will be there.

The same holds true in talent management, whether at the C-Level or in Human Resources. If you think about it, all statements are implicit answers to questions…but, this is virtually never recognized. So the questions are never asked, or if asked have minimal impact to advance an issue.

A very important distinction in talent management: (Unfortunately, in Human Resources too many times we do not make that distinction…but we should.)

• Leadership development—being able to talk at an organizational level around capabilities; conversely,
• Leader development…being able to discuss an individual’s capability.

C-Level executives are interested in both; however, the overriding concern is looking at the organizational issues and secondarily, looking at individuals.

I am not diminishing starting out with assessment or capability of leaders, which is so important; however, it is not where you need to end up. To end up being able to talk about individuals is noble; but, you have to be conversant and have solid information that answers questions about the larger organizational capability issues. To be able to talk talent at the senior level requires that you are bilingual-speaking about individuals, but also able to assist in answering questions about driving the business agenda.

What is the central anchoring question that the CEO and his/her team must address? Plain and simple: Do we have the talent to successfully implement our strategic agenda?

The following is provided as an example of key organizational questions that the senior level team should be asking themselves. If, in HR, we want to be a player–we have to have information that helps the senior team obtain this information.

Example of organization capability issues…where answers should be readily available!