Are we missing the magnificent middle?

The way that we take talent development into the future is something that I have to consider every day in my job. There are numerous opinions and endless debate on what the best methods are to get the most out of your workforce and how to identify those that have the interest, ability and desire to become leaders. More and more though, I find myself asking a couple of difficult questions. Are the methods of workforce training and leadership development that we employ throughout the West fundamentally flawed? And if so, what do we have to do to correct them?

Over recent years, many organizations have developed or adopted models that create and utilize ‘fast-track’ programs to prepare supposedly high potential individuals for the rigors of corporate leadership. The logic goes that, if people are a company’s most valuable asset, then surely developing the most valuable of those assets so that they achieve their full potential makes sense. On a number of levels, this approach seems to work well; the chosen few feel good because their talent has been rewarded and are therefore motivated to continue achieving. And from the organization’s point of view a clear line of succession has been established that will help the business to move into the future. But does this process not run the risk of alienating and de-motivating the rest of the workforce? If one group of employees are identified as ‘talent’, could this not make the rest of the workforce feel as though they have been labelled ‘untalented’?

Rene Tissen, a professor of business management at Nyenrode business school in the Netherlands has written extensively on the subject and says that the current model of workforce development stems largely from the era of ‘corporatism’ - what I would call ‘Large company thinking’. He says “We have mistakenly developed a mind-set towards talent as something which always needs to be separated, groomed and nurtured. Many falsely believed that talent would only ever come to fruition over time and by providing the right conditions. This is not necessarily true. We need to recognize that either someone has got talent and the inner drive to put it to use, or little can be done. Truly talented people usually find a way to superior performance if they are given the tools and environment in which to do it.”

And he goes to on to say that the idea of separating the ‘talent’ from the ‘rest’ is fundamentally flawed. “Too often programs designed to help develop talent - even to manage talent - are fundamentally wrong and only achieve the opposite. There are many specialist programs that not only add costs without benefits, but also raise counterproductive expectations within the organization. Training and development plans should, as a matter of principal, not distinguish between ‘talented’ and ‘non-talented’ workers. The emphasis should lie on helping all workers to turn their efforts into results. We should turn away from ‘corporatism’ towards more flexible ways of working, similar to the model employed by many small and medium sized Asian companies where all employees are highly educated, empowered and technology-focused. This would be a good first step towards making our economies much more agile and competitive again.”

Another outspoken proponent of this theory is Arvinder Dhesi, group talent management director at Aviva, the global financial services provider. According to him, letting employees know that they are all valued is an important first step, “You need to make it clear that they would not be on your payroll if you didn’t think they had the talent necessary”.

He also says that a program designed to recognize the ‘elite’ can risk creating the ‘Pygmalion effect’ where people tend to perform up (or down) to the expectations placed upon them – tell someone they’re great and they will be great, let them believe that they are not, and risk them not bothering to try. To this end, Dhesi has worked with his team to avoid these pitfalls and making sure they spread their workforce development initiatives across all of, rather than just part of, the company’s global workforce.

So, what is the cost to an organization of implying that most of the workforce is not considered talent? “Employers are often guilty of over-investing in a few individuals, rather than investing in the development of the organization as a whole”, says Dhesi. “At Aviva we are now heavily structuring employee development towards our belief that a bigger proportion of our people will emerge with the ability to lead. We view talent management as the process of creating fertile fields for our employees so that talent can cultivate itself.”

To add to this, more than 500 employees currently engaged in leadership development recently undertook a survey conducted by ESMT European School of Management and Technology in Germany. The results suggested that a talent model based upon the identification and development of leaders may be particularly weak in drawing best value from one key set of professionals; the middle management group.

Digging deeper in to the results of the research, it is clear that a fairly large proportion of respondents were there because they had been sent by their employers, rather than because they had identified the course themselves as important to their own development. On top of this, the poll clearly showed that many middle managers didn’t actually want a leadership role in the first place. Many even stated that the increased managerial responsibility that leadership entailed could lead to a loss of the specialised professional identity they had spent years building. Konstatin Korotov, a professor at ESMT associated with the research says, “Many have no desire to become a leader because of the high level of responsibility the role carries and because it can take them away from the core technical aspects of their job that they have spent years mastering.”

So has this research, as well as various other opinions, highlighted an inherent fault in the many conventional talent management frameworks where leadership has become synonymous with career progression? Korotov says, “The main problem is that there’s often too much talk of leadership being heroic and exciting. It can actually be a very difficult and draining role, but if an employee is prepared for its negative aspects, it can also be highly rewarding.” This suggests that every employee should be made aware of what, exactly, a leadership role will entail and therefore be able to make a clear choice about whether the leadership route is one for them. But as Chris Robuck from the Cass Business School points out, too often it seems that employees are not sure what is required of them when it comes to training and development. “As many as 50% of middle managers feel that they are not being developed properly. But often there is confusion in the mind of the individual about what it is their organization wants them to do. It’s often left to HR to sort this out but it is actually the responsibility of the senior management team. HR are there to provide the tools to implement the development plan, but not to actually define it.”

So what do we need to do to make sure that leadership development is inclusive and engaging without spending time nurturing those for leadership who have no interest in fulfilling the role? First, it’s clear to me that we need to foster an environment where all of the workforce and particularly the ‘magnificent middle’ is fully engaged and each person’s potential developed to the fullest extent.

Kate Rider, the former HR Director for Hewlett Packard in the UK, says that this was key at HP. “We had a ‘top talent’ grouping where high performing employees who were keen on an internal move were put to help develop their aspirations. But employees only migrated into this group when they were due for an internal move or promotion and not on a permanent basis. Everybody in the company was developed all the time.”

And the second is to create a pipeline of realistic rather than heroic leaders whilst developing those in the ‘magnificent middle’ who decide that front-line leadership is not for them. I agree wholeheartedly with Ian Ruddy, a director at the telecoms giant Telefonica when he says, “My whole focus is making sure that all employees get a great experience out of working for us, no matter what their ultimate aspirations.” And I think that has to be the goal for talent managers world-wide. Not an inconsiderable challenge perhaps, but one that I feel we can’t afford to ignore.
 

Paul Daley - Director, HR Consulting & Services at global talent management company Ochre House

Paul is a highly qualified consultant with broad experience in solution design, project management, HR consulting and Recruitment Process Outsourcing.

He started his career in Hewlett Packard working as a Staffing Programme Manager. In this role Paul was responsible for defining and delivering key staffing interventions such as emerging talent and contingent worker programmes. He was instrumental in the outsourcing of core recruitment services across EMEA and personally led the client side transition and service implementation.

Since then, Paul has worked for a number of consulting businesses where he managed major transition and transformation projects in RPO and Talent Management for leading clients such as Lloyds TSB, Citi and Johnson and Johnson. Paul joined Ochre House in 2007 and now leads the HR Consulting and Services business where he’s delivered work for clients including O2, GE, Bupa and Williams Lea.

Source: Journal of Corporate Recruitment Leadership

Posted by Paul Daley