Talent management is more likely to fail if we continue to practice it in the current way

One of the surveys of corporate directors found that directors today are less worried about competitive threats, rising costs,  innovation, risk management, technology, debt, or the regulatory environment. They are more worried about talent management as their single greatest strategic challenge. Please see the statistic of this report in the above hyperlink. 

In a way, this statistics is not surprising. My humble opinion is that the companies are barking at the wrong tree. And the cause to me is very obvious. We just cannot see it perhaps because it is right infront of us: talent management in a company today is 'company-centric'. 

Company-centric talent management

Companies are naturally interested in identifying and nurturing talent that 'suits' its strategic position, current organisation structure, and its business mix. But while doing this they inevitably face a conflict of interest with the status and aspirations of a professional.

For instance, in the organisation where i was consulting, we found that we were more interested in fulfilling leadership pipeline instead of offering time to let the candidate grow at his/her pace. We were keen to identify the 'ideal package' of star performer ( and slot them in pockets) that company needed , instead of finding the 'package' that he is coming with. Instead of altering our talent management practices to align with the aspirations of the professionals, we were more interested in 're-channelising' the aspirations of the professionals. 

Professional-centric talent management 

Talent management, at the core, is individual-centric. An individual has to manage his talent. We can only help or hinder him. Talent management therefore works only when we can see a problem of a professional from the 'lens of professional', not from the lens of 'HR professional'.

Sometimes, it may be appropriate to let the performer develop his 'doing' qualities instead of 'managing' qualities, because that is his source of strength. Sometimes, it is better to find a position where his 'weakness' is compensated by a subordinate, instead of forcing him to 'correct his weakness'. Sometimes, it is better to create a position that will suit him, instead of 'fitting him into an existing position'. And sometimes, it may be useful to let the professional work with a 'diametrically opposite boss' to increase his capacity of 'dissension', instead of helping him move away from a difficult boss. 

On the other hand, the talent decisions can also be drastic. Sometimes, it may be smart to let the 'talent go away' because the company does not 'suit' his growth path.  That at least enables the company to 're-hire' him when he is more ready. This is smart way because it enables us to use other companies to 'develop our talent'. Or help the professional use his 'family' challenges to help him grow, even though it may distract his attention from his work-life. 

Like Peter Drucker used to say, we must find out 'what should be done', before deciding 'what can be done'. It is of course important to keep the organisation's interest in mind, but it should be always be after the professional's perspective is understood and addressed. It is true that professional-centric talent management will bring far more tough decisions on the table, but i am sure that companies are equipped to tackle them.  

Summary

Companies are worried that, if they take professional's interest into the forefront, they will compromise the organisation's interest all the time. But in my coaching, i have found that professional's and company's interest are often aligned; someone simply has to show that alignment objectively. 

Talent management also fails, because the professional not only should get right advice, but the professional should also perceive that he is getting the right advice. Until professionals 'trust' the advice, talent management is going to fail. And to make the advice  seem objective and fair, the companies will have to do something extra. Here are some thoughts on it.

Until companies learn to tackle this inherent conflict of interest between the professional's growth path and the company's desired path, their attempts to bell the cat of talent management will not succeed. 

Let us explore in the next few blogs the challenges that the company is likely to face in practicing professional-centric talent management. 

How social skill is developed in a child below 5 years (in Montessori)

It is surprising to observe that even a complex social skill can be imparted to a child of less than 5 years in Montessori. And, considering the surprisingly naive manner in which training is conducted in companies, I thought it would be useful for training professionals to understand how it is done in a Montessori school. 

Social skill is not sitting with someone else and listening others talk, joke, blabber, or patting each other’s back. Social skill is sitting with others to solve social problems and pursuing aims acceptable to all. Therefore social skill requires a skill to harmonise individual activities. If the latter is social development, then fostering social development requires developing five traits: 1) Acquiring self discipline to speak what is necessary, 2) respecting others time and presence, 3) taking care of common resources that belong to all, 4) listening to others with patience, and 5) utilizing each others to ask for help or give help, when necessary.

Let us see how these traits are developed indirectly in a Montessori School. No scholastic material is prepared to develop social skills of a child; instead, in Montessori,  an environment is created, which invokes specific experiences in a child, so that it enables the development of child’s social skills. Let us see how it is done. 

For instance, in a Montessori school, as many of the Montessori apparatus are found in only single sets, the child, who does not find what he wants to work with, needs to wait for it to come back to the shelf. This fosters patience and tolerance towards other children in the environment. The child learns to control the urge to grab the material from others and has to instead learn to live with others.

The child in a Montessori school has the freedom to move and work wherever he wants to. However, he quickly finds out that his freedom is not limitless. Like others can disturb him, he also realizes that he can be a source of disturbance to others. He has to therefore learn to inhibit his impulse to disturb others if he has to enjoy his own freedom of working himself. Unknowingly he learns to respect others. A child is not taught to respect others, instead he learns this through experience in a Montessori.

In a Montessori, a child has to take care of the material himself. Because everyone shares one set of material, the child understands that the materials are common resources used by everyone. He not only has to take care of the material, but also keep it back in the same state of preparedness and completeness that he got the material, after he finishes his activity. This itself promotes self-discipline and acute awareness of other’s needs, an important trait for social development

In a Montessori, children with diverse and mixed age group work together. Infact, the diversity in a Montessori enables child to experience different type of children: active, bubbly, silent, demanding, whining, talkative etc. Older children become heroes and teachers of the younger children, as younger children intuitively understand that when they will become older they will be able to do what older children can do. As a five year old child can communicate with a three year old far more easily than adult, a junior child often ‘ seeks help’ from the senior child about his activity instead of adult. This social experience of helping each other in a Montessori strongly promotes social skill development.

In other words, careful preparation of environment in a Montessori promotes social development better than any traditional classrooms. It is not done through specific actions, but through creating an environment, where a child learns through ‘experiencing’ instead of intellectual reasoning. As Paula Lillard mentions "Unlike traditional classrooms the children speak to each other and initiate activities together whenever they like. They are not forced, subtly or otherwise to share themselves with others when they are not ready or interested".


Amen !

Lesson 4 from Montessori for Corporate HR ( L&D)

Lesson 4 is perhaps the most fundamental principle. It states that 'When child is provided content, he develops when he self-constructs the given content to resolve real-life situations'. To comprehend this principle, you will need to understand alternative principle of learning that is in vogue. This alternative principle states 'Children are empty vessels, and we just have to pour content into them for them to develop'. As practiced in traditional schools, teachers therefore 'tell' the lesson to the class as verbal instructions, and a child will fill his 'empty vessel' diligently. Development is supposed to occur automatically once the content is filled!

To enable child to ‘self construct’ knowledge from the content, content in Montessori school therefore is introduced to child in a structured lessons, and that too in a specific sequence. For instance, in Montessori, a child develops his knowledge of 'numbers' 1 to 10 through a sequence of structured lessons. In the first lesson, child is introduced to 9 number rods, each increasing in constant increment, that is second rod is double the size of first. At this stage, no concept of 1 or 2 is introduced. This lesson enables child to learn about numbers only through visual discrimination. In the next lesson, child uses tactile discrimination while tracing numbers through sandpaper numbers. In the next lesson, number 1 is linked to each number rod in the child's mind through 'Card lesson'. This is when '1' is linked conceptually to 'one number rod'.

To further consolidate the linkage of '1' to 'one number rod', spindle box lesson is offered later to the child. In this lesson, 1 to 9 numbers are linked to 1-9 spindles. Next, concept of zero is introduced sensorially, by asking child to 'Jump 3 times, jump 5 times, and jump zero times'. At the end of sequence, card and counter game is introduced to consolidate each number to a unit in child’s mind. Only after numbers are understood through these successive lessons, child is introduced to the more complex lessons of 'additions'.

How does the child self-construct content of every lesson? In Montessori, after teacher introduces a lesson by showing every step, child performs the lesson all by himself. Control of error (mentioned in principle 2) enables the child to self-correct his mistakes. Child repeats the lesson ( as long as he chooses to)until he can do it without mistake. A child therefore does not move to the next lesson until he masters earlier lesson. This mastery ensures self-construction of content. Therefore, unlike a child in traditional school who may learn to repeat 'numbers' by rote, a child in Montessori understands the meaning of number in real life situation through 'self construction' of his knowledge.

Lessons for companies

As you would have realised, practicising this principle is very difficult than preaching it. The rigor required for designing each lesson and then sequencing it is very high. Case study method uses similar principle of learning. Although case study is commonly used to train students in management colleges, it is not as commonly employed in companies to train executives.

I have however observed it in few instances. I know of a company, which depended on agriculture inputs, wanted to develop its Farmer representatives to increase the quality and quantity of agricultural inputs from the farmers. Company designed a case study based on real-situation a representative faces, used local language to impart the case study, sequenced the 'sessions' rigidly to move from one level of complexity to another. While imparting the session in free flowing format, it allowed each representative to learn at its pace so that the learner slowly self constructed the content into useful knowledge. This enabled the company to develop their farmer representatives far more consistently than the alternative method of class-room training.

Lesson 3 from Montessori for HR ( L&D)

Before writing third principle of Montessori, i would like to respond to one of my friend's response to this blog. He felt that these are pretty basic elements of learning. Isn't it surprising that companies do not follow them, he asked. I think Montessori method is really built on pretty basic principles. Montessori method is unique because it has tied together these basic principles tightly in actual practice, not just design. And i think the same is true with companies. A company may follow one principle completely, but do not practice the rigor to integrate all the principles tightly.

Third principle of Montessori learning is ' Learning happens when you offer choice to the child'. At the outset, it should be mentioned that Principle 2 of ' Give lessons to child only when interested' and this principle go hand-in-hand. Psychologists today agree that having choice is critical for learning/development to occur. Many studies can be cited to substantiate this.

It is amazing to watch how Montessori follows this principle rigorously. Traditional schools and Montessori schools offer choice to the child at two different levels. Traditional schools offer no choice at macro level ( you have to sit in the Language lesson at 10 am?) but offer lot of choice at micro level ( you can learn the language lesson the way you wish, because every teacher teaches the lesson in her/his style!).

Montessori method reverses this principle. It offers lot of choice at macro level ( you can engage in a lesson at the time you wish. As there are no group lessons in Montessori,a child can actually exercise this choice!) but very little choice at micro level ( you can engage in a lesson only in a specific steps and sequence. Every Montessori teacher is thoroughly grilled to impart lessons in a structured sequence)

This unique configuration of macro and micro choice in Montessori makes the environment of a child very conducive to learning. Macro choice enables child to engage in a lesson when he is sufficiently interested ( part of principle 2). It is often observed in Montessori that some children will immediately engage in lessons after they are introduced to a lesson, while some take a very very long time. A child is never pushed into learning the lesson. Further, as every lesson in Montessori is individualistic ( unlike blackboard method in Montessori), a child in Montessori can work at it's own pace. This not only ensures that child engages when he or she is ready, but also engages in the lesson at it's speed. A child is not pressurised to learn at the speed of class.

On the other hand, restricted micro choice ensures that every child engages in a lesson in a fixed and structured manner. Structured lessons compels child to engage with the lesson in specific steps only. Although Montessori method is often criticised for its rigid structure, the effort taken in designing lessons ( and even to sequence them appropriately) is indeed commendable. Montessori uses a unique innovation - control of error - which is similar to TQM method. Every lesson has an inbuilt design of error-control. Due to this 'control of error', a child understands that it is making a mistake in completing a lesson and self-corrects. This self-correcting structure of lesson therefore goes a long way in ensuring deep learning! (Another unintended consequence of this method: Unlike traditional school, Montessori method is less dependent on the soft qualities of a teacher.)

How can companies gain from this principle? Generally, end purpose of training program is not fully shared with employees. As employee knows very little about the benefit of a training program, he/she cannot exercise his/her macro choice deliberately. On the other hand, like traditional schools, companies offer too much of micro choice to the employees. A training session is typically structured in a very loose manner. Loose structure causes unpredictable delivery which in turn leads to uncertain outcome in learning. Quality of learning heavily depends on the quality, style and mood of trainer ( or facilitator).

Good companies do a lot in offering macro choice to their employees. However, as far as micro choice is concerned, I have seen very few companies exert rigour and discipline in structuring a session. Although benefits of structuring are numerous, due to the huge effort required in structuring a training program, very few companies walk the extra mile. If companies visit Montessori school to watch the benefit of structuring, they may change their minds, i guess.

Lesson for HR ( L&D) from Montessori - Lesson 2

The second principle of Montessori learning looks pretty logical and straightforward to a layman, but which surprisingly is ignored by experts.

According to Montessori, learning happens only if the child has interest. In Montessori, therefore, care is taken to use 'sensitive period' to ensure interest. For instance, as child is interested in using and exploring 'senses' at the age of 3, 'sensorial lessons' are imparted at the age of 3. At a later age, child loses interest in sensorial lessons.

This method in Montessori is followed even to introduce cognitive subject like language. For instance, language is introduced to child through 'sensorial means'. For instance, words are introduced to a child phonetically ( which is natural to him) instead of introducing them through 'alphabets, as is done in traditional school. For instance, even before teaching alphabets, a child is taught simple phonetically 'right' words such as mat or rat.

This serves two purpose. Due to focus on 'sound' ( one of the sensorial means), child quickly takes interest in learning more words. No compulsion is needed. Extreme care is taken to ensure that a child is not blocked in this method of learning. For instance, when child pronounces cat as 'kat', a child is not corrected, because Kat is phonetically right. Secondly, this initial learning of words invokes child's interest to a sufficient level and automatically pulls him to know more about alphabets. Using this simple method of interest generation ( and subsequent resolution), the child n a Montessori understand figures of speech by the age of 5!!!

Contrast this with learning principles practiced in corporate world. An employee is 'instructed' to attend a training program or is 'pushed' to attend a training program to comply with norms. For instance, employees are instructed to attend a training program to ensure that a batch of 20 is completed, or are pushed to attend 'six sigma' training program because the company is keen on getting a certificate of Six sigma! In such a situation, the employee attends training programs for the sake of 'recording his attendance'. Millions are wasted in training.

If Montessori principles are applied smartly by companies, they will at least get adequate return from their huge investment. For instance, if trainings are done just at the sensitive period, it will ensure high interest and assimilation. For instance, employees need to learn the skills of 'Project management' when they are asked to lead a project. Or when employees are promoted from sales officer to Sales Manager, they would be far more interested in attending a training program on 'Managerial development'.

Companies can also 'seed' interest in employees smartly. For instance, companies can use 'individual level coaching' to suggest need of specific skill, say the skill of 'team alignment' , 'communication' or 'delegation'. Once an employee accepts the need of skill, he or she is more likely to assimilate learning from a relevant training program. Apart from coaching, companies have various other non-intrusive ways of 'seeding' and 'developing' interest. One of the way is use of intranet web.

Is Ego necessary for managers?

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, in a recent interview, said when he visited Poona for a music concert, ” This is a creative field. One must have a huge ego to stick to their kind of music.”

Ego is a state of mind which claims " I am alone right". This state is needed when you are engaged in areas which work on subjective evaluation. Artists in music, painting and entertainment are evaluated subjectively. Therefore, in order to stick to one's type of music, it is necessary to have this ego so that one can continue on its path despite other's adverse opinions and even market 'feedback'. The ego is necessary for these artists because evaluation is based on sensorial discrimination, and therefore subjective. That is why you will find popular music as varied as Michael Jackson and Ravi Shankar. Infact, having ego is dire need of artists.

Ego is also needed when one is moving into unventured territory. For instance, cutting edge entrepreneurs also need Ego as they venture in unknown territory. Imagine the conviction that Larry Page or Sergie Brin of Google needed to work on the idea of search engine, when the market of search engine was dominated by Portal kings like Yahoo. This conviction has to be supported by "EGO". Without ego, these entrepreneurs may quickly change their direction when they face the first gust of wind!

In corporate world though, the dynamics is different. 'I am right' is often a wrong receipe because 'collaboration' among different specialists is more important to get the work done. As 'ends' are more important than 'means', management is often guided by what is more appropriate in a given situation than what is right in a situation. Due to the corporate dynamics, Ego is likely to result into grandiose and unrealistic actions. Confidence may also border towards arrogance causing reportees to shut of their mouth resulting into lack of critical inputs on the table. State of ego is therefore generally more harmful in corporate world. One can however think of some situations in corporate world, where it may be a necessity, although such situations could be very small in number.

Leadership at Infosys

I read a book 'Leadership at Infosys' which has recently arrived in the market. I expected usual mix of homilies, grandiose intentions and pat on the back claims. I was surprised.

The book talks about the different dimensions of leadership that is followed at Infosys to develop internal leaders. Process followed to identify and develop leaders is naturally not elaborated in any specific details, but the book scores high on the quality of take-away that emerges from the different dimensions such as content leadership ( which is thought leadership), entrepreneurial leadership, Talent leadership and others.

In every conceivable domain of leadership, there is a lot of material written in books, papers and research directions. Everything looks right from a particular angle; it requires rigorous thought and courage to arrive at meaningful actionable conclusions. Thought is needed to separate good intentions from useful one's, nice looking ideas from practical ideas to arrive at a specific 'stand'. Courage is to take that 'stand' and use it to commit to Action. This is where most falter. Infosys has managed to cross both these hurdles.

For instance, its view on Empowerment is both practical and insightful. It's stand on Employee engagement is bold. Its practice of content leadership is different and thoughtful. Irrespective of whether the view is agreeable or not ( for instance, content leadership is not well defined), authors have not flinched from taking a firm view. That is very refreshing and surprising.

Being a student of leadership process development, i have just one objection, so to say. It has not defined leadership clearly. One is therefore not clear what it means by leadership behaviour versus managership behaviour, just to take an example. Either this is a purposeful omission , or this could be a oversight that has emerged because of nature of ownership. For a company ( not a researcher), it is safer to avoid controversy that will invite too much of attention.