Sonar6 - Performance Management Blog

Interesting few days with prospective clients in Australia. The focus on workforce planning and talent management in general is very clear, with several of the initiatives we are involved in having CEO and or Board sponsorship and involvement.

There is also more interest from traditionally “talent averse” sectors of the market such as manufacturing, where cost reduction and revenue growth have been the dominant elements of business / value creation strategies.

Definitely a market we will spend more time in during 07.

Thanks to those of you subscribed to Gartner for the heads up – we were pretty chuffed to be one of the four “Cool Vendors” in their recent Finance and HCM research:

http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=502272&ref=g_fromdoc

Apologies to those who don’t subscribe to Gartner – we will have a release out shortly once it has been approved.

It’s also interesting to see that the others listed all have some potential synergy with the talent management field, especially when you take into account the Talent Science approach we have been proposing (Talent_Science.pdf )

Talent is the new king asset, yet most established business disciplines are designed to manage capital, rather than human, assets. In this whitepaper Mike Carden discusses how a new decision science is rising up to help businesses make better decisions about their people. The Sonar6 term for it? Talent Science…

Talent Science Whitepaper 

Read more Talent Science articles from Sonar6.

A fantastic book in my reading tray at the moment – “How Leaders Build Value” – Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood http://www.amazon.com/How-Leaders-Build-Value-Organization/dp/047176079X.

Having skimmed it a couple of times now, it’s worth the time to read in full.
The authors provide an incredibly simple yet powerful build up of the link between skills / competencies and business outcomes.

In the work we have done to date with sonar6 (www.sonar6.com) it is clear that the key drivers of developing a competency framework have become lost translation.

The more of Ulrich’s work I read the more I understand why he and his colleagues are held up in such high regard around the transformation of HR’s role in organisations.

A great summary of some of Dave’s key thinking and the drivers to get HR delivering business value. Thanks again to Jim Holincheck for linking me to yet another thinker in this space!
http://theotherthomasotter.wordpress.com/2006/11/17/dave-ulrich-intangibles-zrich-and-borris-bottomline/

The demand for HR people who can foot it around business issues and, more importantly, add business value is really increasing. Ulrich is certainly leading the charge on what is needed for HR to get on an even footing with Finance, Marketing etc. Interesting stuff…

Eric Jackson has a great blog that examines in more details some of the leadership challenges and issues that are faced by organisations all over the world.

One of his most popular pieces is featured on the Human Capital Institute site and is now entitled Top 10 Keys to building a firewall around your top talent .

It’s a very good summary of key steps to enhance the process of building a more robust talent pipeline and a stronger company through investing in and recognising stars. It’s also a good view of ALL the steps you need to take to make these initiatives stick and become an integral part of the culture.

For years Jack Welch has stood at as a tough and charismatic leader who spent a huge proportion of his time nurturing and growing talent within General Electric.

He’s not at GE anymore but his pod-cast at Business-week is a fantastic way to get some deeper insight into his thinking on a wide range of management practice. One which he is most frequently associated with is the process of differential management.

Placing the entire company into bands (20% as “A” players - showered with recognition, rewards and development, 70% as “B” players - nurtured and developed to identify those with A potential and 10% as “C”players - to be managed up or our of the organisation).

All the episodes in his pod-cast series (co-hosted by his wife and former Harvard Business Review Executive Suzy) are well worth listening to but in respect to talent and performance management there are some standouts which I will highlight in this blog.

Have a listen to Jack’s responses around some reader questions related to applying 20 70 10 and differential management in general - interesting stuff!

http://www.businessweek.com/mediacenter/podcasts/welchway/welchway_09_25_06.htm

Harvard Business Review has a free bi-weekly pod-cast which is very good.

It’s a great way to get a better guide on the vast amounts of information available with HBR and the associated publications.
Read the rest of this entry »

I am halfway through my regular tour of Europe and the
US – talking with clients, selling and trying to understand the nuances of each country and geography as they relate to HR and Talent Management.

Read the rest of this entry »

A very interesting study recently published : http://www.ddiworld.com/pdf/eiu_ddi_talentmanagement_fullreport.pdf by DDI and The Economist provides some interesting insight to an interesting issue - where does the buck stop for talent management and identification in an organisation?

Read the rest of this entry »