One Page Talent Management- is there really such a thing?

Recently read the book with the same title, written by Marc Effron and Miriam Ort.

Their concept at the core is simple. All organizations take a process (in their case, they are analyzing talent processes), dissect the process, redesign it, place it up on a system and then build all kind of rules around the process. What the final result is, is an overly complex, unwieldy set of tools that try to anticipate every variation and hence add to the pain and headache for employees who need to comply with the new process.

So, their mantra is a simple three steps:
- start with the science of the intent
- eliminate complexity, add value
- create transparency and accountability

For each of these, they describe their methodology and thought process and how to apply these to every talent management process. For example, adding value, how do you simply do that? Adding value means making it easier to use, eliminating redundancies, obviously inferior choices, so that the process will be used the correct way and yield actionable results.

Eliminate complexity, let's look at SMART goals. They suggest that 5 steps to creating a SMART goal is wasteful, they do it in 3! Specific, important and Measurable are all that matters.

Using the science in a 360 assessment, creates accountability. Too many questions from too many people require a science degree to interpret the results. They say, why not just ask each rater to recommend what the person should do more of (positive reinforcement) and what that person should do less of (changing out of bad behaviors)...makes sense, but I never saw anyone do it that way.

Finally, I'll talk to how they look at competencies. We all know that there are 20,30,40+ competencies out there that really define 90% of the knowledge worker's universe. So if all my people are competent in 'buiness acumen' but all of my competitors are as well, so what. So if all my people are competent in 'sales execution' and all my competitors are as well, so what. You get the picture. What they say is they you need to define what behaviors in YOUR company make up the culture, make things work and provide for the competitive advantage that your competitor doesn't have and cannot replicate.

Take GE- their behavioral anchors were: imagination, expertise, inclusiveness, clear thinking and external focus. They didn't get these from a book.  They used these to build their competency model which framed the behaviors that new hires needed to be successful and that their competitors could not replicate. But it was so much simpler that the FYI 67 competency model that makes everyone the same as everyone else.

read the book, it's fun and different.

I Want to Have My Performance PRE-Review

Well it's getting to be that time of the year...you sit down, answer a bunch of sections of your performance review, provide some cogent commentary, hit the send button and DING!, your manager has a task assigned to them via email. So, they log into the portal, start their review of your performance over the past year...seeing all of your thoughts and comments, they append their own subjective comments on top of yours. And DING!, off it goes to HR.

Is this really what should be happening? I just wrote my own PRE-view and sent it to my boss. I wrote about what I would like to do next year based upon my perceived performance this year. Based upon problems I encountered this year, I proposed solutions and options that might be applicable for next year. Do I really want to review my entire past year, what was good, what was bad, where I can improve? Will I learn anything from that analysis? Maybe, I could get some developmental ideas to improve some aspects of my job or increase my competencies...but shouldn't we be talking about that during the course of the year?

I want to be able to look forward, anticipate what problems & issues I might encounter and be able to plan proactively. It's like an IDP, but it's not based upon what was done but upon what needs to be done. I don't know why people haven't thought about this. Selling performance systems, I always hear the same stories about the process, the work flow and the development plans. Everyone is looking back, I have yet to hear any company or department that is looking forward, using the PRE-review!