Coach A Rising Star

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: What It Takes to Make ‘Star’ Hires Pay Off

Competency: talent management

Who benefits: managers and supervisors of high potential new hires

Consultant Usage: very useful article for employee relations and compensation consultants, good background for career counselors

What’s it about? “Many companies hire top-notch talent but then fail to reap the full benefits of those star employees. Often, the culprit is faulty managerial practices.”  So begins this highly interesting article on hiring and managing your best performers.

The article, “What It Takes to Make ‘Star’ Hires Pay Off” appears in the Winter Issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.  The article was prompted by the current recession (recovery in process) making many “stars” available in the human resource marketplace.  What the authors note as a jumping off place is that the last time this kind of market appeared, 2002, many so-called “star potentials” did not succeed.  They have done some research to assist supervisors and managers integrate high performers into the new organization.

The article is subdivided into two essential parts: (1) How to help the individual, and (2) How to build a company of stars.

The authors’ three main findings to help the individual are not what I expected to read, but upon reflection seems to make sense:

1. “Stars shine brightest when surrounded by colleagues of equally high quality.”
2. “Because the best employees are typically over-scheduled, managers should never assume that collaboration will ‘just happen.’”
3. “High-achieving professionals may be willing to accept a significant pay cut to work with other talented individuals.”

When building a company of stars, the authors suggest avoiding 5 common mistakes:

“Mistake 1: Falling for the ‘Lone-Star Myth.’”
“Mistake 2: Overestimating the Importance of Pay.”
“Mistake 3: Allowing Stars to Go Solo.”
“Mistake 4: Focusing Too Narrowly.”
“Mistake 5: Neglecting Homegrown Talent.”

I have given you the outline of the article.  There is some pretty interesting stuff in the details.  I recommend if you are in the employee development business, either as your profession or as a manager or supervisor developing your talent that you take a few minutes and give it a good read.

Catch you later.
[tags]talent management, coaching talent, coaching employees, developing employees, developing high potential employees, , bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.