Integrated Talent Management – Phase III

Phase III: Build and Implement Your Integrated Talent Management Strategy

You are nearing the finish line, but as they say, the devil is in the details. In Phase III you need to finalize your processes and build the tools you will need. You need to validate that both will support the decisions you need to make in the way you want and need them to, and you need to pilot them to ensure that what you are asking managers to do is clear, simple and compelling enough for them to adopt and follow. As with the first two phases, there are four critical steps:

1. Establish Data Capture: Determine source and protocol for data collection and analysis. Assess the quality and ease of use of your in-house capabilities and existing data. Determine where and how that data needs to be augmented. The client described above realized the need to engage an outside party for its structured simulations and 360^o interviews because the organization lacked the internal capability to design and deliver the simulations and required that 360^o interviews be conducted in an open and safe environment to ensure complete candor and positive intent.
2. Validate Approach: Secure buy-in internally and begin to develop the adoption strategy. A great talent strategy and system is only as good as the degree to which people use it. Securing the support and advocacy of key stakeholders is critical. Building and communicating a business case linked to the achievement of business results is the first step. Making sure your proposed approaches and processes are sound, as simple as possible to use, and well understood is the next step. Engage your most important users – your business leaders – along the way and actively solicit and incorporate their input. At each step ask yourself if the design makes sense and use the design criteria to evaluate whether or not what you have put in place will have direct and material impact on your ability to achieve business objectives.
3. Build Processes and Tools: Develop specific processes and tools for each life cycle event. This is where the real heavy lifting begins. For each key decision point along the talent life cycle you need to build out the integrated set of processes and then design and embed the right tools. A lot of pre-packaged materials exist, but as is true for defining the right standards of competence, selecting, customizing, or creating the right tools for your integrated talent management system is a matter of fit. Pick your spots. Determine where the greatest improvement is needed or where the greatest impact can be achieved.  Start there, but don’t overdo it. Many organizations, eager to instill talent discipline, take it too far in the early days and create tools and processes that burden the system rather than support it. Keep pace and the organization’s ability to absorb in mind, and strive to strike the right balance between enabling sound talent decisions and overwhelming your users.
4. Pilot, Measure, Refine, Implement: Selectively test your processes and tools, measure their impact and effectiveness, refine as necessary, implement and measure again. A big-bang go-live is generally not the right approach when implementing your new or refined integrated talent management discipline. Frankly, there is just too much at stake, and failed launches will do more damage than having the wrong process or no processes in place. Part of what you are testing for is whether your talent strategy is sound and whether the processes and tools you intend to implement actually support improved decision making and performance. Equally important, though, is gathering information during the pilot phase to inform your roll-out strategy. Test whether your messages clearly and simply convey how the new system will help your business to be successful. Do they resonate with intended audiences? Are your tools easy to use? What support or preparation do managers require to use the new tools properly? What mechanisms do you need to put in place to ensure adoption? What consequences are in place to reinforce for leaders the need to take talent decisions seriously?

Conduct your pilot in a part of the organization where you can control – at least to some extent – the quality of, and the learning from the experience. Pressure-test tools and processes, but not to such an extent that you thwart the opportunity to help the organization move forward. Carefully measuring the specific impact will help to inform any necessary refinements. When in doubt, ask. Make sure leaders in the pilot understand that part of their role is to improve the process for everyone else in the organization. When launching the succession assessment process for one of our clients, we were intentional with participants about the need to learn from their experience to continue to improve the process. Along with soliciting feedback on each succession candidate’s strengths, opportunities for growth, and future potential, we made a point of asking about their experience with the process. We leveraged their feedback to refine it, and they have gone from several competing assessment processes to just one consistent approach. They now have a common lens for assessing their executive talent and making decisions.

In our next and final blog in this series we will tackle the topic of “big data” and how even minor steps toward Integrated Talent Management can reap big returns in ensuring you are helping your people reach their full potential.