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  • Writer's pictureStacy Feiner
    • Mar 1, 2019
    • 3 min read

Getting Into the Talent Mindset

Updated: Jul 24, 2019


Want more information on the Talent Mindset?

Download the full book chapter of the book on this topic.

 

Business owners feel stuck in an exhausting cycle of wanting a strong bench of talent but not being able to build one. Despite their best efforts, leaders are burdened by a constant onslaught of people problems that seem unresponsive to common-sense fixes. The good news is that this painful cycle can be turned around by developing a talent mindset and a new way of thinking.


The root cause for wanting a strong bench but failing to build one is simple: Business owners are detached from their talent management process. The detachment is subtle and hard for leaders to see, but results are profoundly detrimental. Detachment often starts with the opinion that workforces issues are an expense. A cost. A necessary evil. This very prevalent view sets in motion a series of decisions that contribute to a broken system and lead to perpetual disappointment: Here

a few symptoms:

  • Finance neglects to include talent management activities in the annual budget

  • Managers call on the Human Resources department to solve all people problems

  • Human Resources is using tools and processes that are unrelated to a workforce strategy; addressing people problems "case-by-case" with a wait-and-see attitude.

This is a broken, demoralizing, and wasteful system. Everyone and everything suffers.


Too often, business owners recruit and develop leaders without realizing that their hiring and development choices are random, impulsive, disjointed and disconnected to their objectives and strategies. You need a new approach.



How Strategic Talent Management Works

With Strategic Talent Management, you start where you are and address your greatest “people pain.” Many owners begin this journey by identifying a single problem (such as recruiting), then a trend is spotted: Perhaps the business repeatedly recruits and hires people who fail the organization after six months.


Working through the nine Centers of Excellence, you’ll prioritize what competencies require the greatest attention immediately. Then, you’ll work through the Strategic Talent Management continuum. The framework is fundamental, while the processes are designed to suit your company’s human capital needs; and you’ll draw from the framework to support a new way of thinking about Strategic Talent Management in your company.


There might be pieces-parts of the talent management continuum already in place at your organization you can rely on. But there will be holes. Those gaps are where errors in hiring and the way we deal with people altogether can occur.


Here is how the Strategic Talent Management framework is organized:


Strategy and culture

These bookend Strategic Talent Management so that your people are intrinsically connected to your drivers for success.


Corridors

These are the three key components for creating a talent infrastructure for your company. You can think of the Corridors as “levels” of the process, and they align with the lifecycle of your talent. The Strategic Talent Management Corridors are: Talent Acquisition, Talent Development and Talent Deployment.


Centers of Excellence

The nine centers are steps that connect the Corridors. To successfully establish each Corridor, you will work through three Centers of Excellence that help you fully develop an aspect of your talent management. The Nine Centers of Excellence are: Recruiting, Selection, Onboarding, Training, Performance Management, Leadership Development, Talent Inventory, Succession and Employee Engagement.


The three Strategic Talent Management Corridors form a basis for who you hire (Acquisition), how you develop them (Development), and why you advance them (Deployment).


 

Want more information on the Talent Mindset?

Download the full chapter of the book on this topic.


Other book chapters also available for download


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