What? or How?

Companies struggle to find, develop, and retain talents which is the essential role of any leader. In my working experience, I have found that seeking high talent has been getting difficult over the past years since I started my career in Human Resources. I clearly remember that for the position of accountant in 2010, after 5 interviews we managed to find the final candidate. In 2020, despite the increase in the number of highly-educated people, hiring a qualified talent has become dramatically more difficult. One of the reasons is lack of soft skills, in particular communication and teamworking, in the young generation. I have heard the same stories from HR professionals in my network.

On the other hand, there is no clear definition for a talent in many companies, which is why many disputes happen between managers in talent review sessions or panel interviews. Even in companies where there is a criteria list for “who is a talent”, reaching the same conclusion for a promotable employee or a talent for a vacant position is not easy as written in talent books. Therefore, determining the definition and levels of competency for any position is the fundamental job of a person in HR. Without that, we are not able to evaluate a potential candidate for a promotion or even his/her performance record when we are in a job interview.

In a nutshell, talent management involves:

1.   Definition of competency for every position;

2.   Level of competency for a job holder; and

3.   Competency-based interview which determines level of competency

To go into further detail, the evaluation of performance is different from potential assessment. In performance review, we look at the employee’s experience and how they delivered KPIs or handled a particular situation in the past. But in the process of assessment center, by addressing a hypothetical situation or a scenario, the potential of the employee is to be evaluated for a position. Given a clear definition of competency and evidence of each level, we can evaluate whether a person is talented or not.

There is one crucial item which is above all the three aforementioned, which is the employee’s attitude. Developing a person who does not have a growth mindset or no passion for learning takes too long time, especially if we believe that a development plan comes from a person’s will. We may send a person with an aggressive attitude to an emotional intelligence course, but what is the success rate of this course when they don’t accept their failings and have always been used to blaming others for failures. Aggressiveness or rigid mindset will lead to lack of communication, active listening and definitely teamwork.

Another question is, which one is more important: reaching KPI targets or competency in soft skills?

In HR terminology, particularly in performance management, we distinguish between two things; one is what business target is delivered, and the other is how it is delivered. Consider a manager who pushed a team to work on weekends or even talked in a harsh manner. If he/she is a top performer but ruined happiness in a team and nobody likes the character of this manager, in tough business situations, the team will not support the manager and will leave him/her alone. Or vice versus, imagine a top-performing employee with vast technical knowledge who has resistance to change and cannot control his/her anger when working under pressure.

Now to answer that question, top business leaders believe that attitude comes prior to know-how and if someone has a passion to learn and honest attitude, then the company can invest in that employee for promotion or job rotation.

Biographies of top business influencers prove that persistence, growth mindset, and resiliency are the top three skills that help them to make a difference in their profession. What is always emphasized is their positive attitude in their network or even in society.