“Release The Kraken!”… Developing Your Talent Pool

You as a leader cannot reach your vision and goals without the help of others. Your greatest asset is people – the “right” people. People that share your company’s values, ethics, personality, culture and vision. In reaching Level4 Growth, your primary objective is to get the right people on your ship, the wrong people off, and then direct the course of the ship yourself. Therefore, recruiting, training/coaching, developing and retaining engaged employees are critical success factors for your company and some of your top responsibilities as a leader. Your focus should be to develop others and create the right conditions for their success. In short, unleash the full human potential of your organization (this thought reminds me of the catchphrase “Release The Kraken!” from the classic movie Clash of the Titans?)

What Employees Want

Here is an unscientific crash course in what employees want:

• To know where the company is headed and why

• To know their roles, responsibilities and what is expected of them

• To know how they will be evaluated and rewarded

• To utilize their talents in the best way possible

• To feel appreciated and valued – that their work and ideas matter

• To be coached – challenged, motivated and held accountable

• To have the right tools, training and authority to do their jobs

• To contribute in a meaningful way to the company and its mission

• To grow and develop – to reach their potential

• To have an emotionally connected, competent manager/leader of character support their success

Hiring/Firing Basics

A great piece of advice from early in my management career was to hire high potential talent that can grow into 2 levels of greater responsibility. Hire talent that are emotionally engaged, people with passion in their eyes, fire in the belly. Match their talent to the position – again, help them to be successful. Don’t hesitate to use personal assessment tests to better understand the aptitudes, attitudes and talents of potential employees. There are many out there but a few I have leaned on include Gallup StrengthsFinder, DiSC Assessment, and Myers-Brigs Type Indicator. Later I will provide a few references to find these assessments (“later”, cause I really do want you to read to the end here 😉)

I don’t know if this is for you, but when I ran a medical operation, I would openly inform staff that “I will rip a cancer out in a second”. What I have seen as the fastest way to damage team morale and the work ethic of strong individuals is letting them see you retain peers that are disruptive and/or not holding their weight. With that, you have essentially set the minimum bar for what it takes to maintain a job there. Unfortunately, individuals will gravitate toward the mean, or even worse, just above the low bar you have set.

Do not let emotionally disengaged people or negative people infect your company, but I’m not going to simply lean on the 80/20 rule for people management. Some may simply advocate spending your time and effort with your top performers, the top 20% that produce 80% of your company’s results. If you did a fair job initially screening the employee (and they didn’t dupe you somehow), then there is value there worth developing. Sometimes it takes coaching and engagement to rehabilitate “underperformers”.

Have you heard of the fundamental attribution error? It takes open ears, open hearts, open minds and a certain level of maturity to accept the responsibility and blame for not putting someone in a position of success. All too often the onus of low performance is put solely on the individual. Remember your most important task as a leader develop others and create the right conditions for their success.

All this being said, act quickly because your business growth is dependent on finding and developing the right people. Indecisive action is a recipe for certain doom.

Are you hiring for stagnation, or growth?

Why would you just hire “competent” people to fill a role in a company focused on Level4 Growth. Remember the advice to hire high potential talent that can grow into 2 levels of greater responsibility. I don’t know if there is an exact science to predict high potential talent, but here are a few indicators:

1. What are their stated goals?

2. Personality assessment results (references still identified “later” – we are almost done 😉)

3. Past performance: Use the S.T.A.R. method for interviewing

4. Engaged and Driven: Don’t simply disregard short employment record as disloyal. Dig in as they may be seeking a place they can be allowed to blossom in a Level4 Growth environment.

5. Self-Development Activities: What do they do on their own for personal professional growth?

You cannot control everything, the development of your system and your people are paramount. Spend time and effort hiring the right people to manage your system. Hire excellent leaders and managers. Then let your managers hire a fair mix of high potential and competent employees to work the system. It will be too much to get into here, but you need to be cognizant of your mix of competent and loyal worker bees, and passionate high potential talent looking to move and shake. In the end you have a system to develop and manage to. Do you have thoughts on the “right” mix?.

OK, we’ve reached the “later” point 😉

• Popular personality assessments at HR Daily Advisor

• 14 free online personality assessments at HubSpot