Sonar6 - Performance Management Blog

Nice reminder from Jim Holincheck around the key to successful talent management –
http://blogerp.typepad.com/hcm_research/2007/03/who_owns_talent.html

As with most of these things, it is a fiendishly simple concept and yet one which many companies still spend millions on trying to “enable” through software and consulting.

If your culture doesn’t actively support line managers owning talent management you are wasting your money.

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 )

A big focus of the talent management space at the current time is around integration – clients supposedly driving the quest for the “ultimate package”; a complete suite of functionality across all the elements of the talent “circle” from acquisition to retention.

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Organisations as a whole just don’t seem to be getting what they need out of systems and thinking around succession management. The companies credited with growth and sustainability driven from successful succession planning (say that 10 times!) are easily identified and constantly referred to.

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Ok - I’m back - thanks for the prods from various people to get back to posting and talking with the talent management community! It’s been a huge couple of months with travel to the US and UK as well as a business taking off in our home country of New Zealand.

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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

I listen to a very cool pod-cast called Venture Voice - www.venturevoice.com . It’s a great listen for anyone who wants to hear the views of some very successful US entrepreneurs.

The most recent pod-cast is an interview with former Apple “evangelist” Guy Kawasaki - www.guykawasaki.com who was a senior executive at Apple for many years and now runs his own VC fund.

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