Every modern company has talent development as one of its HR functions. Some companies also have a specific position of talent development on their rolls. If you delve deeper in the role, however, you will observe that this role has got converted into a compliance role in many companies.
For instance, the talent management role in such companies is typically evaluated on following metrics: How many employees were met for developing new competencies? How many employees were retained after they had submitted their resignation ? ( Very often retention is a desired purpose of this role!)How many positions were planned and developed for succession?
If so many companies have fallen into this trap of compliance then one has to assume that some systemic causes are in operation. Let us discover them.
On the one hand, talent management necessitates 'individual' attention to employees. Companies find it difficult to justify the effort and time required to spend time on unraveling individual dynamics. If the companies have more knowledge workers, present in plenty in software companies or call centres, time/effort required is even more for these companies.
When some brave companies venture into talent management for their top rater associates, to reduce their effort/time on talent management, they land up in another trap. They find it difficult to manage the 'wild' aspirations of their employees.
Even if HR is objective with its suggestions, their well-meaning suggestions are perceived as biased and subjective by top raters. These brave companies, despite their vision and intentions, are therefore unable to sustain their talent management efforts, because their efforts do not bear any fruits. Infact, many HR managers feel that these interactions with top raters opens up pandora's box that is better kept closed!
Once this dynamic is understood, the solution is also apparent for companies willing to deploy talent management.
These companies should adopt a 'career-building framework' that is perceived to be objective by employees. The framework should be transparent ( and understandable) enough to be 'questioned' by employees. If the framework is deployed by an 'unbiased' senior HR member, this will further reduce questions and strengthen the perception of objectivity. This will ensure positive feedback effect. Further, to reduce the cost of deploying talent management, companies could also use the same objective framework to construct an 'interactive social web' that can resolve many of the standard queries of employees.
The million dollar question to be answered is : is an objective framework of career building available? Fortunately, the answer is yes today. I was lucky enough to develop this framework.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
A new and practical definition to develop leadership
I have been struggling to articulate the right definition of 'leadership'. If you have been reading this blog, you would have observed my journey in teasing out the 'exact' definition of leadership.
At the risk of repeating, i am going to quickly recap the journey. Technical definition of 'leadership' (leadership is managing the open system) hit the right button. But because the concept of 'open system' requires extensive elaboration, the definition lacked clarity and precision. My second attempt at defining leadership as Part I ( of developing the strategy) and Part II ( and executing it), although captured the concept from a different window, simplified the concept too much without capturing the requisite complexity.
Last week, i suddenly got the right articulation of leadership. ( This is the third and final attempt, i guess!)
Leadership is managing the dilemma of balancing short term benefits with long term benefits constantly, while 'managership' is resolving the same dilemma always in favour of short term benefits.
William Tate's new book, The Search for leadership, defines leading as 'protecting the future' while managing as 'maintaining the present'. I thanked him for bringing clarity to my definition by using the above distinction. The book acted like a last straw on the camel's shoulder for me.
I have used his definition to clarify leadership. Leadership is balancing short term benefits ( instead of maintaining the present) with long term benefits ( protecting the future). The critical world is 'balancing'. It also means that sometimes, with deliberate intention, leaders chose to prioritise short term benefits, such as when they are trying to save a bleeding organisation. And it also means that Leaders choose to create an alternative for a beneficial long term plan when the long term plan is risky.
Based on this, there are alternative definitions of leadership. Leading is doing the right thing while managing is always doing politically-appropriate thing. Leading is therefore about behaving 'ethically', while managing is about behaving 'legally'. Leading is about constantly managing the dilemma of what should be done versus what can be done. Leading is about managing the dilemma of important versus urgent.
Surprisingly, every job in an organisation can have a component of short term and long term benefits in it. For instance, even a junior programmer can 'hard code' ( which delivers immediate returns at less cost and time) or code with 'configurable parameters' (which deliver long term returns). Either forcibly or willingly, each of us resolves this dilemma one way or another. But most of us resolves the dilemma in a narrower boundary of job. But leaders almost always resolve this dilemma on a much wider scale - in terms of time, people, and resources. That requires a wider set of skills, maturity and knowledge.
Four important characteristics of leadership
I wish to highlight four distinctions at this point. Firstly, by their very defintion, leading and managing are individual-driven processes, not organisational-driven. These processes can be helped or hindered by organisation, not generated by the organisation. For the first time, because of this clear definition of leadership, we can now design policies and checks that will help leadership to flourish in an organisation.
Secondly, leading can happen only after managing. Managing can however be done without leading. Because managing is short term, present-maintaining and legal oriented, most of the stakeholders in the organisation ( with backing from shareholders) always support it. Because leading is long term, future-protecting and ethical, organisation's support is not guaranteed. Leadership is unknowingly discouraged.
Thirdly, as the tasks of leading are more context-dependent than the tasks of managing, an executive can learn the skill of managing and apply it in different organisations with lesser effort. On the other hand , as leading-tasks are context-dependent, the skills of leading are less transferable from one organisation to another. As managing is more easier than leading, you will always find more managers than leaders in an organisation. Managership again wins.
Fourthly, as a job position has both component of leading and managing within it, leading can be practiced at different levels in a restricted manner to an organisation. Unlike the practice of managing, leading practice can also be exercised without positional power. This is a boon in disguise as it enables some executives, despite all the constraints, learn the practice of leading and be ready to demonstrate leadership, when the right organisational situation & time arise. Management practitioners like us get confused and profess different theories to explain this phenomenon.
Having understood the underpinnings of leadership, I believe we are now ready to develop leadership 'practice' in an organisation by practicing complementary policies at the individual level and the organisational level. If we do this properly, we can actually make leadership 'work' in an organisation, and not just pronounce bombastic intentions and wishful claims.
Welcome to the practical world of becoming a leader !
At the risk of repeating, i am going to quickly recap the journey. Technical definition of 'leadership' (leadership is managing the open system) hit the right button. But because the concept of 'open system' requires extensive elaboration, the definition lacked clarity and precision. My second attempt at defining leadership as Part I ( of developing the strategy) and Part II ( and executing it), although captured the concept from a different window, simplified the concept too much without capturing the requisite complexity.
Last week, i suddenly got the right articulation of leadership. ( This is the third and final attempt, i guess!)
Leadership is managing the dilemma of balancing short term benefits with long term benefits constantly, while 'managership' is resolving the same dilemma always in favour of short term benefits.
William Tate's new book, The Search for leadership, defines leading as 'protecting the future' while managing as 'maintaining the present'. I thanked him for bringing clarity to my definition by using the above distinction. The book acted like a last straw on the camel's shoulder for me.
I have used his definition to clarify leadership. Leadership is balancing short term benefits ( instead of maintaining the present) with long term benefits ( protecting the future). The critical world is 'balancing'. It also means that sometimes, with deliberate intention, leaders chose to prioritise short term benefits, such as when they are trying to save a bleeding organisation. And it also means that Leaders choose to create an alternative for a beneficial long term plan when the long term plan is risky.
Based on this, there are alternative definitions of leadership. Leading is doing the right thing while managing is always doing politically-appropriate thing. Leading is therefore about behaving 'ethically', while managing is about behaving 'legally'. Leading is about constantly managing the dilemma of what should be done versus what can be done. Leading is about managing the dilemma of important versus urgent.
Surprisingly, every job in an organisation can have a component of short term and long term benefits in it. For instance, even a junior programmer can 'hard code' ( which delivers immediate returns at less cost and time) or code with 'configurable parameters' (which deliver long term returns). Either forcibly or willingly, each of us resolves this dilemma one way or another. But most of us resolves the dilemma in a narrower boundary of job. But leaders almost always resolve this dilemma on a much wider scale - in terms of time, people, and resources. That requires a wider set of skills, maturity and knowledge.
Four important characteristics of leadership
I wish to highlight four distinctions at this point. Firstly, by their very defintion, leading and managing are individual-driven processes, not organisational-driven. These processes can be helped or hindered by organisation, not generated by the organisation. For the first time, because of this clear definition of leadership, we can now design policies and checks that will help leadership to flourish in an organisation.
Secondly, leading can happen only after managing. Managing can however be done without leading. Because managing is short term, present-maintaining and legal oriented, most of the stakeholders in the organisation ( with backing from shareholders) always support it. Because leading is long term, future-protecting and ethical, organisation's support is not guaranteed. Leadership is unknowingly discouraged.
Thirdly, as the tasks of leading are more context-dependent than the tasks of managing, an executive can learn the skill of managing and apply it in different organisations with lesser effort. On the other hand , as leading-tasks are context-dependent, the skills of leading are less transferable from one organisation to another. As managing is more easier than leading, you will always find more managers than leaders in an organisation. Managership again wins.
Fourthly, as a job position has both component of leading and managing within it, leading can be practiced at different levels in a restricted manner to an organisation. Unlike the practice of managing, leading practice can also be exercised without positional power. This is a boon in disguise as it enables some executives, despite all the constraints, learn the practice of leading and be ready to demonstrate leadership, when the right organisational situation & time arise. Management practitioners like us get confused and profess different theories to explain this phenomenon.
Having understood the underpinnings of leadership, I believe we are now ready to develop leadership 'practice' in an organisation by practicing complementary policies at the individual level and the organisational level. If we do this properly, we can actually make leadership 'work' in an organisation, and not just pronounce bombastic intentions and wishful claims.
Welcome to the practical world of becoming a leader !
Friday, September 25, 2009
Networks are changing our lives more than we think
This is an excellent book which will answer many of your questions ( even those that you think had no answers). Contrary to its name, it is not just about internet and networks. It infact covers wide variety of subjects, ranging from open source, copyright to company strategies.
It is a dense book. It therefore demands certain patience and a little bit of willpower to go through. But it is worth at the end of it. It is filled with references from research, but the research is condensed in such a way that it does not divert the flow of the topic.
If you have any of these questions, then you must read this book:
1. Why does IBM follow the dual strategy of 'patents' as well as funding 'open source' Linux?
2. What is the real benefit of 'open source' initiative, both for the world and for companies? Is it just saving money or something more than that?
3. Why & how has the meaning of 'copyright' undergone change in the last decade? And more important how is it going to affect us in the future?
4. How is the fight of software industry being fought by proprietary market players at the physical, logical and content layer? And which layer is likely to impact the most?
5. How is the 'social exchange' facilitated by digital network environment impacting the 'management' of organisations of the proprietary goods like ours?
6. Why we, normal people, contribute our efforts, time and even money to many of these 'social non-funded initiatives'? ( I promise you that you will be shocked by the extent of projects that are emanating from this world.....which is so alien to us)
and many more...
It is a dense book. It therefore demands certain patience and a little bit of willpower to go through. But it is worth at the end of it. It is filled with references from research, but the research is condensed in such a way that it does not divert the flow of the topic.
If you have any of these questions, then you must read this book:
1. Why does IBM follow the dual strategy of 'patents' as well as funding 'open source' Linux?
2. What is the real benefit of 'open source' initiative, both for the world and for companies? Is it just saving money or something more than that?
3. Why & how has the meaning of 'copyright' undergone change in the last decade? And more important how is it going to affect us in the future?
4. How is the fight of software industry being fought by proprietary market players at the physical, logical and content layer? And which layer is likely to impact the most?
5. How is the 'social exchange' facilitated by digital network environment impacting the 'management' of organisations of the proprietary goods like ours?
6. Why we, normal people, contribute our efforts, time and even money to many of these 'social non-funded initiatives'? ( I promise you that you will be shocked by the extent of projects that are emanating from this world.....which is so alien to us)
and many more...
Friday, July 31, 2009
Not using Communities innovatively is a professional wastage
After reading this Jeff Howe's book on "CrowdSourcing', i felt that 'community' is a 'resource' that i have wasted. Being in Learning and development, i could find multiple ways of using communities for fulfilling many needs of learning and development. Practically every functional expert can use it for some use.
Communities can be used for multiple purpose. Here are some of the uses the author has listed in his book:
1. Use communities for problem solving: Example of Innocentive is a wonderful example. Companies use external community to 'solve' their tough problems by offering monetary incentive. It could be very useful to visit this website, both as a user as well as 'provider'.
2. Use communities to do your work: Example of TopCoder is a very disturbing example, because this innovator has created a community of about 50,000 programmers to get the 'programming work' done for a client, AT&T. This example shows a how the nature of 'firm' is changing. US patent office is planning to use 'crowd' evaluate 'patents', a very radical idea.
3. Use communities to predict events like elections. A company known as 'marketocracy' is using it beat 'stock market'. Companies are using it even to predict next quarterly results. This is the most innovative use one can think of. Like a stock market, there is a 'trading' market for help you do this. For more details of how this works, you may like to read James Surowiecki's Wisdom of crowds.
4. Use communities to rate each other's work or each other's performance. This is called as 'crowd voting'. This is a common use of community and is a very useful proposition for companies, say for example, to evaluate their best talent. It rests on the presumption that 'A Dot net coder can evaluate another dot net coder better than any one'.
5. Use communities to generate ideas. This is similar to 'suggestion box', but is more useful when done with people outside companies, especially the customers. Dell Idea storm is the quoted example.
6. Use communities to 'fund' ideas: Examples of Kiva.org ( donors lend money for small entreprenuers) is an eye-opener.One wonders how people actually 'contribute' money for good causes and how this can be channelised for better use.
7. Use communities to fund ideas as well as create market: Sellaband ( fans lend money to have their bands create music albums) is a classic example of creating market for music album as well as funding it. Threadless is infact a better idea of creating 'market' within the community.
If you know of any other use, i would be glad to know.
Communities can be used for multiple purpose. Here are some of the uses the author has listed in his book:
1. Use communities for problem solving: Example of Innocentive is a wonderful example. Companies use external community to 'solve' their tough problems by offering monetary incentive. It could be very useful to visit this website, both as a user as well as 'provider'.
2. Use communities to do your work: Example of TopCoder is a very disturbing example, because this innovator has created a community of about 50,000 programmers to get the 'programming work' done for a client, AT&T. This example shows a how the nature of 'firm' is changing. US patent office is planning to use 'crowd' evaluate 'patents', a very radical idea.
3. Use communities to predict events like elections. A company known as 'marketocracy' is using it beat 'stock market'. Companies are using it even to predict next quarterly results. This is the most innovative use one can think of. Like a stock market, there is a 'trading' market for help you do this. For more details of how this works, you may like to read James Surowiecki's Wisdom of crowds.
4. Use communities to rate each other's work or each other's performance. This is called as 'crowd voting'. This is a common use of community and is a very useful proposition for companies, say for example, to evaluate their best talent. It rests on the presumption that 'A Dot net coder can evaluate another dot net coder better than any one'.
5. Use communities to generate ideas. This is similar to 'suggestion box', but is more useful when done with people outside companies, especially the customers. Dell Idea storm is the quoted example.
6. Use communities to 'fund' ideas: Examples of Kiva.org ( donors lend money for small entreprenuers) is an eye-opener.One wonders how people actually 'contribute' money for good causes and how this can be channelised for better use.
7. Use communities to fund ideas as well as create market: Sellaband ( fans lend money to have their bands create music albums) is a classic example of creating market for music album as well as funding it. Threadless is infact a better idea of creating 'market' within the community.
If you know of any other use, i would be glad to know.
Friday, May 29, 2009
IPL-2
It has been one year since i wrote my last blog. I have been occupied fully in many activities: writing a book for students of 10th standard for choosing their careers, developing a leadership architecture for an organisation, and above all, coaching.
IPL-2 ended with a bang. Due to the twists and turns of the security issues, IPL this time got hosted in a country, that i am fascinated with. I have stayed in Johannesburg for 10 months, and have seen their cricket craze from very close. South Africans are as religious about cricket as Indians.
More than IPL-1, this IPL proved that IPL has been a best training ground for training our budding cricketers. Because of the four-foreigners restriction, this has helped many youngsters to experience the rivalry and test their skills in the international cricket conditions from close. The tougher wickets of RSA further have further increase the bar and know where they stand in the pecking order.
If you have read the posts of Adam Gilchrist or Lehman, you will realise that even they consider their highest personal satisfaction as ' grooming raw Indian talent'. I was more surprised to read Adam Gilchrist observations that 20-20 cricket is more testing than Test cricket, because it forces one to focus on the game 100% as it leaves little chance of recovering from a lapse. In other words, every brand of cricket tests different skill sets. Although purists may disagree, it is obvious that this '100% focus' will also help test cricketer.
I hope our training manager, Lalit Modi, does not heed to the cry of some of the team franchisees of relaxing the four-foreigner rule. Although ILP-2 happened in RSA due to chance, he could use this serendiptious event to plan the next IPLs in different countries and conditions.
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