Topsy turvy management, active dis-engagement and the return of the supervisor in this week's Three To See.
My first pick is Put Your Employees First, an interview with Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies Ltd, for Harvard Business Review in which he talks about engaging employees by 'inverting the management pyramid.'
The paper explores how top-performing organisations have adopted the systematic improvement of employee engagement as a core strategy to achieving critical business outcomes and suggests that the Engaged/Actively Dis-engaged Ratio has a significant bearing on this.
There is some interesting content here, including a comparison of the distribution of engaged employees in average and world class organisations:
Engaged: 33% in average organisations compared to 67% in those considered to be world class
Not Engaged: 49% in average organisations compared to 26% in those considered to be world class
Actively Dis-engaged: 18% in average organisations compared to 7% in those considered to be world class
Paul Hebert posted my final pick to the Fistful of Talent blog: More Supervision, Less Management is a wry reminder of the difference in emphasis of the two in which Hebert urges us to "Quit Managing".
You'll need to zoom in (Ctrl+) to see the details but the colour coding helps to give an at-a-glance overview of 10 of the most well known brands.
My second pick appeared on Malaysia Tomorrow and was authored by Sara LaForest and Tony Kubica. In Succession Planning: How to Meet Future Talent Needs the authors provide 3 reasons "why you need to immediately implement a succession planning strategy":
Three To See this week features posts on differentiated talent management, overcoming inertia and cultivating candidates.
My first pick is Workforce of One, an interview with David Smith of Accenture which was posted to the Harvard Business Review blog:
In the interview Smith proposes 4 differentiated talent management practices to engaging, retaining and maximising the contribution of employees:
Segmentation
Modular Choices
Broad & Simple Rules
Fostering Employee Defined Personalisation
Smith's proposition hugely challenges the prevailing culture in many a workplace - something that is not lost on Oscar Berg in his post to Content Management Connection: There's no shortcut to the future workplace.
Berg writes about the importance of culture in the successful implementation and adoption of Enterprise 2.0 practices stating;
"there must always be a spark somewhere - a culture or subculture (a social group that shares certain values and behaviors) - that initiates this change."
"A social network helps you gather potential candidates together and it provides a way to deliver and receive information. But typical social networks tend to be weak at getting candidates excited and engaged about working for you. Part of this is because we have not yet embraced the idea of creating communities rather than talent pools."
Before going on to observe that;
"A community is entirely different. First of all it is two-way: both you and the candidate exchange information and both of you give and get. But a community also has several other distinguishing features:
Collaboration and Sharing
Feeling Included
Similar Values
Openess
Engagement"
I think its helpful post that makes a clear distinction between the two approaches and the different resourcing considerations of each at a time when some practitioners are under pressure to build sustainable talent pipelines for future roles.
Roesler describes a common, problematic approach to talent management making three points that illustrate the ideas of Pink:
"Frequently there are numerous--I've seen as many as thirty --competencies attached to a position. If God decided to offer up only ten commandments to successfully live a lifetime, thirty seems a bit much for a supply chain manager.
Assessment centers, 360 feedback, and other tools are used to find out who has what competencies and to what degree. That's fine and they can be very accurate. Just tell me when you find someone who is competent at thirty of anything.
The actual ideas of genuine "talent" and related passion and excitement often don't show up on the radar screen in discussions. It takes relationships, discernment, and deep conversation to get at the heart of a person's real talents and how best to use them organizationally. "
"Those who succeed at creating meaning — either on their own or with the help of their boss — tend to work harder, more creatively, and with more tenacity, giving the companies that employ them a leg up in the marketplace. What's more, study after study suggests that when employees experience meaning, their employers enjoy higher rates of customer commitment and investor interest."
This ties-in with another Pinkism: Transcendent Purpose. The Ulrichs then go on to identify seven drivers of "meaning" that can be leveraged by employers:
"Help employees identify and creatively use the strengths, traits, and values (like integrity, leadership, love of learning, kindness, etc.) with which they most identify
Match the purposes (insight, achievement, connection, or empowerment) that motivate employees to the jobs they do.
Foster friendships and key relationship-building skills — like making and receiving bids and apologizing effectively — to create high-performing, high-relating teams.
Promote positive work environments through attention to characteristics like humility, selflessness, order, and openness.
Help people identify and work at the types of challenges that line up with their personal experience of engagement or flow.
Build in time for both individual and corporate-level self-reflection to help people discover lessons from setbacks and develop the resilience to get in front of the pace of change.
Encourage civility and delight from little things that personalize and civilize the world of work
What do you think of the wisdom of the talent crowd?
This is an inspirational video in which McGonigal talks about how gaming skills can be harnessed and applied to resolve real-world problems and create "Epic Wins".
McGonigal reports that in the US the average gamer will have spent 10,000 hours playing games by the age of 21 (the same amount of time that they will have been in full-time education) and in that time they will have become used to being entrusted with important missions appropriate to their level of ability, collaborating with others and using constant feedback to achieve those missions and develop to the next level. She goes on to describe games such as "World Without Oil", "SuperStruct" and "Evoke" produced to take people through world changing scenarios that then enable the gamer to apply what they have learned in real-life.
I think that there are many ideas in McGonigal's thesis that transfer into the workplace, for example;
Hiring - Who do you hire? What skills really make a difference?
Working - How do your people create value together? Is there a fundamentally different way of working that could create more value?
Engaging, motivating and rewarding - Does your organisation cultivate a sense of the "urgent optimism, social fabric, blissful productivity and epic meaning" amongst employees?
Developing employees - What can be learned from the "Levelling-up" and "Bonus-pack" approach of game-play? How can scenario based games be used to coach staff?
