Avoid the Talent Blind Spots

 Approximate reading time: 1.4 mins

Are you blind to talent? Heaven forbid that you should be, but it could just be happening.

Let’s start with some places where talent really comes and goes at a fast pace, the BRIC Markets (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

Feedback from these forcing grounds shows that many companies suffer from talent blindness. Their talent management process is often short-sighted and geared too much to the organisation and not enough to the individual.

If this trend was confined to the BRIC nations those responsible for managing talent elsewhere might feels assured. But a recent survey of global high potentials showed that over a third of them had left an organisation because the talent development programme did not meet their needs.

In fact many organisations actually have a bias against the very individuals they want to retain and develop.

As Karen Ward, Head of Ashridge’s Consulting Strategic HR and Talent Management Practice puts it: “insights from the high potentials themselves indicates that there are lots of missed opportunities that could easily be spotted and too many organisations are still allowing high potentials to walk out their doors to create future competitors.

So how do you make sure your talent management approach really does more than pay lip service to caring for talent and nurturing it? Here are seven basics to watch for:

1)    When people talk about talent in your organisation do any of the words like bigheaded, arrogant, know-it-all, think they’re superior, pop up in conversation? For the full list go to: Are Biases Killing Your TM Program?

2)    Does your organisation tend to pigeon hole talent?

3)    How secure are those managing your most talented people, do they seem threatened and get in the way?

4)    Do you assume your top talent is motivated in much the same way as everyone else?

5)    Do you always expect you high potentials to work in standard team structures?

6)    Do existing development programmes provide a differentiated approach that works for those with the most talent?

7)    Are those at the top of the organisations fully committed to the talent development programme?

www.maynardleigh.co.uk