As the new year continues to chug along, there’s been a noticeable amount of discussion going on in trying to decipher or anticipate what businesses can expect over the course of the next 12 months. In what’s sure to be music to the ears of many leaders and their employees, most business pundits are putting forth predictions of a turnaround year, with the focus shifting from recovery back to growth.
Whether these predictions turn out to be true or not, one thing that there’s little doubt about is that an organization’s chances for growth and prosperity is tied to their ability to attract and retain employees who can help them to achieve their goals.
Of course, in light of the need for quicker responses to market changes and more innovative thinking, leaders need to look beyond the familiar, tried-and-true selection variables used both to locate new talent, as well as gauge leadership potentials within their ranks.
As I’ve discussed several times here on my blog, it’s becoming clear that a narrow focus on specific skill-sets will not be enough to ensure an organization’s success against its competitors. Instead, what’s required now is a whole-person approach to deciding who we bring into our teams; that we look not only for those who have the right stuff, but who get what the organization is all about.
This is especially true when organizations decide which employees should be groomed for future leadership roles. Indeed, a look at some of the organizations that are thriving today demonstrates just how important it is to ensure that those who given the responsibility to lead others have a deep and clear understanding of the organization’s culture and shared purpose.
Naturally, the first step in this process is to ensure you have the right people on board who can help your organization fulfill its objectives. In the article “How to Uncover Exceptional Talent”, you’ll learn about three approaches that will help leaders move past the traditional approaches of the previous decades in order to find the kinds of employees you need to help your organization succeed and thrive in today’s challenging market.
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Tanveer, something that has always puzzled me when it comes for searching for the right talent is how people tend to search for people within their own industry vs. taking some risk, finding someone with experience from another industry that can come in and contribute a fresh perspective. Like today I saw that an aerospace company took someone from senior management from General Motors. Maybe it is just my industry, food. Well, we are into recycling.
Hi Jim,
I find part of the problem is that we define these roles in terms of what we'd do or need if we were to perform that task ourselves. As such, it's only natural that we'd fall into the habit of looking within our field and/or identifying standard skill-sets as what's required to help the organization grow.
Of course, if we approach the situation from the vantage point of asking what's holding us back from getting to where we need to go and what would would help us overcome it, it becomes easier to look elsewhere because the solution is no longer framed in terms of your experiences/past.
We've seen it many times where people argue that someone would not be a good fit for leading an organization because they have little to no experience in that industry. Unfortunately, it's a rare circumstance where we evaluate the individual's understanding and ability to address the problems the organization is struggling with, irrespective of where they gained that insight.
Thanks Jim for sharing your thoughts on this piece.