who is your talent dr gavin symanowitz
DESCRIPTION
Who is your talent ? A radical new approach to talent identification in organisationsTRANSCRIPT
Case Study: Who is Your Talent? A Radical New Approach to
Talent Identification in Organizations
DR. GAVIN SYMANOWITZ10 JUNE 2009
QUESTION: WHAT DO THESE HAVE IN COMMON?
A new look at TALENT IDENTIFICATION …A new look at TALENT IDENTIFICATION …
HOW DOES GOOGLE WORK?
• Principle 1: Website Content
HOW DOES GOOGLE WORK?
• Principle 2: Website Links– Citing references in academic papers
WATSON, J. D., CRICK, F. H. C. (1953), A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.
Nature, 171 (4356): 737–738.
WATSON, J. D., CRICK, F. H. C. (1953), A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.
Nature, 171 (4356): 737–738.
HOW DOES GOOGLE WORK?
• Principle 3: Number of Links
HOW DOES GOOGLE WORK?
• Principle 4: Quality of Links
HOW DOES GOOGLE WORK?
• Principle 5: Reciprocal Links
WHY COMPANIES STRUGGLE TO IDENTIFY THEIR TALENT
• No clear definition of what talent is– Original definition by McKinsey (1998)
• “smart, sophisticated business people who are technologically literate, globally astute and operationally agile”
• No performance assessments• Poorly done performance assessments• No performance management• Focus on weaknesses, not skills• Rely on biased view point of managers
– No training, favouritism, no performance management
SELECTING A SOCCER TEAM
Arklow Town junior football club
BASIS OF OUR PHILOSOPHY
• Want to know who your talent is?
ask your employees!
• Peer-selected talent vs Manager-selected talent
WHY TALENT IDENTIFICATION SHOULD BE LIKE A GOOGLE SEARCH
CHALLENGE = Identify the highest quality resources from a pool of similar-looking ones
GOOGLE methodology = most successful search engine in the world
Why not apply the same principles in identifying your talent?
TALENT IDENTIFICATION VS GOOGLE SEARCH
• Principle 1: Website Content– Define the universe of pages ~ employees in the organization
TALENT IDENTIFICATION VS GOOGLE SEARCH
• Principle 2: Website Links– Importance of peer selections
– Highly nominated employees– Same principle as soccer team
selection
Definition of ‘Talent’: has excellent experience in his or her field displays a high level of skills is highly knowledgeable about the business and his or her role is highly productive
This would include people who would leave a difficult hole to fill if they were to leave (ie. they would be difficult to replace).
TALENT IDENTIFICATION VS GOOGLE SEARCH
• Principle 3: Number of Links– Number of peer selections– Allow for number of contributions to be weighted
inversely
TALENT IDENTIFICATION VS GOOGLE SEARCH
• Principle 4: Quality of Links– Quality of peer selections– Weight their contributions higher
TALENT IDENTIFICATION VS GOOGLE SEARCH
• Principle 5: Reciprocal Links– Reciprocal peer selections– Allow for reciprocal links and possibly penalise
RESULT OF TALENT IDENTIFICATION EXERCISE
• Nominations based on:
• TOP 10% OF TALENT• TOP 10% OF TALENT
• TOP 10-30% OF TALENT• TOP 10-30% OF TALENT
• OTHER EMPLOYEES• OTHER EMPLOYEES
TIER 1
TIER 2
TIER 3
MANAGERMANAGER
COLLEAGUESCOLLEAGUES
DIRECT REPORTSDIRECT REPORTS
GENERAL TALENTGENERAL TALENT
CUSTOMER TALENTCUSTOMER TALENT
FUNCTIONAL CONNECTORFUNCTIONAL CONNECTOR
SOCIAL CONNECTORSOCIAL CONNECTOR
KEY DEPENDENCIESKEY DEPENDENCIES
WHO ARE THE RIGHT PEOPLE?
Let’s play JENGA!
CASE STUDY
• Property Management Consultancy
• Local affiliate of global company• Based in Sandton• 189 professional employees • No performance management / assessment• Survey participation rate:
– 80% accessed survey– 72% completed every question
TALENT RANKINGS
• [SHOW LIST]
Ranking Tier Name Total By Tier 1 Talent By Tier 2 Talent By Tier 31 Top 10% Donaldson, Ian 24 9 7 82 Top 10% Calder, Gus 18 5 6 73 Top 10% Nolan, Dennis 16 7 4 54 Top 10% McCann, Soraya 17 4 4 95 Top 10% Ridge, Andy 19 4 7 86 Top 10% Dunkerley, Ross 20 4 10 67 Top 10% Alexander, Al 19 5 5 98 Top 10% Chunnett, Wanda 15 3 4 89 Top 10% Botha, Lorna 17 4 4 910 Top 10% O Brien, Stephen 15 4 3 811 Top 10% Bayley, Craig 16 2 6 812 Top 10% Snyman, Coenraad 12 4 4 413 Top 10% Haselau, Mark 11 4 2 514 Top 10% Bayley, Gillian 11 3 3 515 Top 10% Liss, Graeme 11 2 5 416 Top 10% Steuber, Jochen 11 3 4 417 Top 10% Kallan, Sogan 12 3 4 518 Top 10% Blundell, David 12 2 4 619 Top 10% van Zantwijk, Candace 7 3 2 220 Top 10-30% McCrindle, Derek 8 3 1 421 Top 10-30% Chalwa, Simon 8 3 2 322 Top 10-30% Van der Merwe, Willem 10 1 4 523 Top 10-30% Cloete, Eugene 8 2 2 424 Top 10-30% Buwalda, Stephen 9 2 3 425 Top 10-30% Chatturgoon, Shivani 9 2 2 526 Top 10-30% Clarke, Bruce 9 3 0 627 Top 10-30% Weitz, Louis 7 2 1 428 Top 10-30% Jackson, Michelle 5 3 1 1
Nominations by other Employees
Please select an option from the list below:
OKGeneral Talent
TALENT AND CONNECTOR RANKINGS
RETURN TO MAIN MENU
NA
ME
S C
ON
CE
ALE
DN
AM
ES
CO
NC
EA
LED
TALENT RANKINGS
• Look out for surprises: – Talent blind-spots people you are surprised to see highly
rated by their peers– people you are surprised are not highly rated by their peers– Identify surprises based on demographics and company-
related variables (eg. age, length of service, etc.)• Identify individuals who need to be developed, fast-tracked, etc. • Identify individuals who need special attention with respect to
retention• Identify candidates for performance management training • Look for correlations with business outcomes:
– Eg. Managers who had requested higher budget vs those who don’t (since money only thing to keep people)
TALENT PROFILES
Social Connector
Productive Connector
Key Dependencies onthis Employee
Customer Talent
General Talent
EMPLOYEE PROFILES HOME
Please select an employee from the list below:
Donaldson, Ian
OK
KEY
TOP 10% TOP 10-30% NOT IN TOP 30%
9 7 8 24
7 9 8 24
2 3 1 6
7 7 4 18
3 1 1 5
NUMBER OF NOMINATIONS BY OTHER EMPLOYEES
TALENT PROFILES
Social Connector
Productive Connector
Key Dependencies onthis Employee
Customer Talent
General Talent
EMPLOYEE PROFILES HOME
Please select an employee from the list below:
Croukamp, Annette
OK
KEY
TOP 10% TOP 10-30% NOT IN TOP 30%
1 2 4 7
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 3 3
2 6 2 10
NUMBER OF NOMINATIONS BY OTHER EMPLOYEES
TALENT & KEY DEPENDENCIES
11.6%
36.8%
27.0%
52.6%
61.4%
10.5%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
Top 10% Top 10-30% Not in Top 30%
TOTAL SAMPLE (n = 189)
YOUR SELECTION (n = 19)
KEY DEPENDENCIES ON OTHERS: TierWhich Key Dependency Tier do you belong to?
CHANGE
FILTER 1 = GENERAL TALENT: Talent Tier (Top 10%)FILTER 2 = ALL (NO FILTER)
CHANGE FILTERS
REMOVE FILTERS HOMEHOMERETURN TO
MAIN MENU
DEPEND ON OTHERS?
37.2%
44.4%
62.8%
55.6%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
Yes No
TOTAL SAMPLE (n = 137)
YOUR SELECTION (n = 15)
HOME
KEY DEPENDENCIES ON OTHERS: Do I critically depend on others?Are there any people in Turner & Townsend that you critically depend on in order to do your own job properly? In other words, if these people were to go on leave for an extended period or to leave the
FILTER 1 = GENERAL TALENT: Talent Tier (Top 10%)FILTER 2 = ALL (NO FILTER)
CHANGE FILTERS
REMOVE FILTERS HOMERETURN TO
MAIN MENU
CHANGEcompanycompany
37.2%
44.4%
62.8%
55.6%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
Yes No
TOTAL SAMPLE (n = 137)
YOUR SELECTION (n = 15)
HOME
KEY DEPENDENCIES ON OTHERS: Do I critically depend on others?Are there any people in Turner & Townsend that you critically depend on in order to do your own job properly? In other words, if these people were to go on leave for an extended period or to leave the
FILTER 1 = GENERAL TALENT: Talent Tier (Top 10%)FILTER 2 = ALL (NO FILTER)
CHANGE FILTERS
REMOVE FILTERS HOMERETURN TO
MAIN MENU
CHANGEcompanycompany
KEY DEPENDENCY SCORES
Show people with low talent scores but high key dependency scores
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140
TALENT CORRELATIONS HOME
OK
Vertical Axis: Key Dependency: Ranking Horizontal Axis: General Talent: Ranking
General Talent: Ranking
Ke
y D
ep
en
de
nc
y:
Ra
nk
ing
H: 2 V: 1
Name
OK
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140
TALENT CORRELATIONS HOME
OK
Vertical Axis: Key Dependency: Ranking Horizontal Axis: General Talent: Ranking
General Talent: Ranking
Ke
y D
ep
en
de
nc
y:
Ra
nk
ing
H: 2 V: 1
Name
OK
DO TALENTED PEOPLE KNOW THEY’RE TALENTED?
57.2%55.6%
35.5%33.3%
6.5% 5.6%
0.0% 0.0% 0.7%
5.6%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
Yes, definitely Yes, I think so I don't know No, I don't think so No, definitely not
TOTAL SAMPLE (n = 138)
YOUR SELECTION (n = 18)
GENERAL TALENT: Am I talented?Do you believe that you display two or more of the following characteristics? 1) excellent experience in
your field 2) a high level of skills 3) highly knowledgeable about the business and your role 4) highly
CHANGE
FILTER 1 = GENERAL TALENT: Talent Tier (Top 10%)FILTER 2 = ALL (NO FILTER)
CHANGE FILTERS
REMOVE FILTERS HOMEHOMERETURN TO
MAIN MENU
HOW GOOD ARE MANAGERS AT IDENTIFYING TALENT?
MANAGER SKILL IN IDENTIFYING TALENTRESULTS PRESENTATION
( n = 34 )
RETURN TO MAIN MENU
TALENT: TOP 30%
TALENT: NOT IN TOP 30%
NOT NOMINATED BY MANAGER NOMINATED BY MANAGER
47%53%
NOT NOMINATED BY MANAGER NOMINATED BY MANAGER
87%13%
( n = 79 )
USEFUL APPLICATIONS
• “A different view of the mountain” complements other views– Consistency / Differences
• Laying off / Retrenchment exercise – Key dependencies, key talent, key productivity and social
enablers
• New Managers– Quickly up to speed
• Who is living the values?
REVISTING OUR RIDDLE: WHAT DO THESE HAVE IN COMMON?