Focusing on the future rather than the past to develop talent

One of my challenges in my current job of contributing to the people ambition and strategy is being stuck in a headquarters environment well away from the majority of our business operations. Much of what we try to do is driven by a desire to enable a dialogue and sharing between people in the business and provide us with mechanisms to listen and adjust as necessary. When I am lucky enough to get out of my office in the Corporate HR floor at headquarters and spending time with operational managers and staff either as a trainer or workshop facilitator, taking part in transverse initiatives or just interacting socially or exchanging via our internal social networks I often hear that us HR folk use too many “consultant-like” terms in our day to day vocabulary. Words like “Talent”, “Skills”, “Potential”, and “Performance” don’t always feel very grounded, and can be perceived as theoretical HR concepts. I’d like to take this month’s newsletter to try and address that and provide my thoughts on the meaning of these terms in the context of managing and developing our talents.?

Before doing so, however, I need to premise this article on the underlying assumption that we can all improve and move forwards, and that we don’t have a predestined glass ceiling that limits our progression. I fundamentally believe we can all develop ourselves, embrace challenges, surmount obstacles, value effort as the path to betterment, learn from criticism or feedback, and be inspired by the success of others. One of my favourite development books is “Mindset”, in which leading personality, social, organisational and developmental psychology researcher at Stanford University Dr Carol Dweck introduced in 2006 the groundbreaking idea of mindset. In a nutshell her work demonstrates that it’s not just our abilities and skill that bring us success, but how we approach our goals, with either a fixed or growth mindset. Her million-copy bestselling book applies these mindsets to sport, business, relationships, parenting, teaching… It’s an accessible “must read” for anyone interesting in developing talent in my opinion.

“Experience” : The past

Often when managers express their wish list for candidates to join their teams, or when as employees we present ourselves in a work context, we talk about “experience”, which is no more, no less, than looking back historically. Sure, it’s how we are used to introducing ourselves, it is what we feel comfortable discussing and perceiving as giving us credibility. It is reassuring to know someone has handled similar things in the past. However, let’s just ask ourselves some basic common sense questions. What is the causal link between experience in the past and the ability to perform today in the here and now? Was the past experience even relevant in terms of context, constraints, level of autonomy, accountability? Or was the activity seemingly the same but actually very different when you start to dig into the details? And even if the activity was really the same, the people involved probably aren’t, so there’s a human element to take into account as well in deciding if the past is of any relevance today. Of course, people change over time too: what might have been highly motivating in the past, when learning new skills and perceiving the activity to be exciting and a new challenge, might now be perceived as very dull and discouraging because it no longer challenges, and doesn’t present the same learning and development opportunities as before. My point here is this: we place far too much focus on the past, and often jump too quickly to the conclusion that experience is good, and lack of experience is therefore bad. I believe this to be a flawed argument that places a heavy burden on those more junior in their careers, and allows people with more years in the workplace to glide by based on past successes. This is even more true today in the face of accelerated change, transformation of our businesses, new challenges and the need for agility and innovation : basing decisions on “experience” risks focusing on the way things used to be done and not on how they need to be done today.?

“Skills” and “Performance” : The present

Arguably I could have put skills in with experience, a thing of the past. Why? Only 10% of skills are acquired by formal learning and the remaining 90% comes from exposure (20%) and experience (70%). Skills are banked over time thanks to the learning experiences we have in life. So, why have I put skills and performance together in the present and not with experience in the past? Because skills have a shelf life. If you don’t use them, they can expire and will no longer be of any value today. My Spanish used to be way better than my French when I was studying for my A-levels and applying for university. Today however, some 23 years later, I’ve forgotten much of my Spanish, despite still having the theoretical notions of grammar and passive understanding of written and spoken Spanish I’ve lost my active linguistic ability. My legal skills are the same. The practical vocational skills of negotiating, drafting, researching, interviewing, fact finding, presenting arguments, are still relatively fresh as I have continued to use them. However my skills and know-how of the law itself is totally out of date. I haven’t even kept up to date on UK employment law since I’ve now been in France for 7 years. So even my past area of academic expertise is now “past its use by date” and expired, and as for all the other aspects I covered back in my undergraduate years in the late 1990s, let’s just say they’re now of absolutely no use. So, when referring to our skills it is necessary to talk about what you can use now, what is relevant today.?

And so to the second element of the present : Performance. Performance is the here and now. It is the outcome of the individual and collective efforts aligned with the organisation’s goals. An employee who is performing is putting in the right amount of effort to deliver work to the expectations of their manager, and producing value for the organisation by meeting objectives. Very often we fall into the trap of discussing performance infrequently, every six months or annually. In my opinion performance should be a topic of discussion much more regularly, on a weekly basis for instance. Regular check ins, status updates, coaching conversations, feedback all help in managing performance. A second trap we often fall into is focusing on the outcome (the “what”) rather than the means and methods that produced the outcome (the “how”). Conversations about performance must be grounded and factual. What are the day to day activities of the job as defined in the job description? What is the employee expected to produce or provide? On what frequency? By what deadline? In what quantities? How should they act with others? What behavior is expected of them? What methods or processes should they be using? What results are expected? How will they be measured? What does success look like? What resources do they have available? Do they have the skills to be able to undertake the work? If not, what support and training and development is in place to enable them to be autonomous in their work? And crucially, have the answers to all these questions been clearly communicated to them? To this point, performance is a shared responsibility between the employee and their manager. The employee is expected put in the right amount of effort and deliver the right outcomes, but if there are concerns about performance then the majority of questions should be asked not of the employee but of the manager: what they have done to set out the goals and expectations, and support and accompany the employee to enable them to succeed in their work? This is why for me performance is a notion of the present as it is the focus of the continuous relationship between manager and employee on a day to day basis to get the job done well. Sadly, in my previous more operational HR roles, many managers used to talk of performance issues with their employees without asking themselves all the above questions and thinking about their own responsibility in leading performance in their team.?As performance is a matter of today, it is never too late to work on it.

“Potential” : The future

What is key in developing talent is not the past (which you can do nothing to change), or the present (which is more about ensuring execution and having the courage to tackle the day to day issues); developing talent potential is all about the future. It is about identifying future ability, supporting the person in their advancement by improving their capability, driving their engagement, motivation and facilitating the results they will need in order to meet that future ability. In a nutshell, it is about detecting the best in each and everyone, in a given timeframe, by knowing their aspirations, nurturing them over time and enabling them to reach their future goals. The trick of course, is also knowing what the organisation will need in future, and detecting potential that is aligned to the organisation’s future needs, and helping talents to progress along the most appropriate professional trajectory to reach their potential in future aligned with the requirements of the business at that time.

When I first moved to France I was the director of a number of leadership development initiatives and wrote one of my first Linkedin articles in 2016 on?detecting leadership potential, based on ambition, learning appetite, agility, and social perceptiveness. I think the same elements stay true today when detecting and nurturing potential. Look for hunger, a drive to progress. Look for a yearning for learning, wanting to know more, do more. Look for the ability to adapt in different environments, and finally a key element in reaching potential is interpersonal sensitivity. These are the elements that will help people to progress in future, over and above the acquisition of hard skills, know-how and experience.

“Talent” : All of the above…

Finally then, when talking about developing “talent” are we talking about skill? Aptitude? This is akin to the traditional dictionary definition of the word. However as it is used today in my projects at work talent is a synonym for “people” or “employees” in the largest sense. Everyone has talent, but moreover everyone?is?a talent. Talent is really the culmination of all the elements above : experience, skills capability, know-how, performance, and future potential as embodied by each and every one of us individually.?

Our collective goal as employees, managers and HR professionals should therefore be to look to the future, and develop our talents aligning upcoming business needs with individual potential.??

Alan Lambert, Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management, is an International HR leader currently working at the Corporate HR Strategy division of a global energy major.