Your Talent Management Strategy Isn't Working. Here’s Why.
The idea of investing in the growth and development of employees (and their managers) isn’t new, but our approaches to doing so must change if we want to see results.
What Most People Do (That Doesn’t Work)
Like many things at work or in life, when a problem or opportunity arises we seek to find a “solution” which typically is something we do once. There’s a good reason for this, as it is far easier to design/plan, get resources for, execute and measure. The problem is that while it is easier to roll out, it seldom produces lasting change. A good test of the Intensity Approach is “is this a point-in-time/one-off?”
A Desire for More
In meeting rooms around the world today there’s an increasing push for things to be “embedded” “sustainable” or even “automatic.” Boards of Directors and Management Teams know that long-term value is unlocked when organizations (read: the people that power them) are both consistent and always-improving.
How Do We Form Habits?
When it comes to developing employees, improving performance, shaping cultures, driving change and aligning to strategy, much of what we desire is at its core behavior change. Behavior change is perhaps the largest industry in the world (combine education, marketing, psychology, law enforcement, etc.) and something that’s seemingly illusive.
In our personal lives we often want to change a behavior (and ideally form a habit). Just like organizations the same fork in the road exists — Consistency vs. Intensity.
The allure of Intensity is strong; go to a weekend retreat, take a course, do an assessment, meet with a guru. But if you know anyone who’s successfully changed a behavior/formed a habit it was likely the Consistency path that made the difference. People get sober, train for marathons, save to buy a house, become meditators, almost always by developing recurring, incremental, consistent habits. The WeightWatchers meeting, the Sunday run club, the HeadSpace meditation streak counter, the AA meeting, the automatic weekly savings plan…all of these are about supporting Consistent behavior.
Why Don’t We Do This With Employees?
At this point you’re (hopefully) in violent agreement that Consistency is the horse to bet on. So why does Management and HR rely on the Intensive approach to developing employees? Frankly, it is easier to do something once than continuously. And sadly much of what gets measured and rewarded in organizations is input rather than impact. “Look, we just did an employee goal setting bootcamp”, “We rolled out this new assessment to all managers”, etc. And as a former corporate HR exec and manager it is very hard to stand up and sustain consistent habits, in particular when it requires employees to own their part.
A Better Way to Be Consistent
At PILOT we have a lot of empathy for HR execs and managers, so we’ve developed an award-winning talent management approach that is all about supporting Consistency. Our program is:
Snackable - requiring just 10 minutes a week (on average) so that it can easily fit into the lifestyle of a busy high-performer
Structured - research-based and optimized around the highest impact drivers of employee empowerment, and around what employees can themselves control
Supported - offering nudges, support, or accountability to focus and stay on track
We actively transform the idea of tapping into an employee’s potential and becoming a better version of themselves from an annual conversation with a manager into a consistent, weekly habit.