Paper and people are not the same thing. Obvious, right? Now, here’s another one.
To make the best talent development decisions, you need to know the people. Can you sense where I’m going with this?
There’s another important truth here. If you depend on paper, you’re stuck with the judgment of the people who prepared the paper. That’s just not good enough if you want your company to do a great talent development job.
I’ve been spending some time this summer reading up on what top talent developers do that’s different from everybody else. I’ve been looking at well known talent development companies like GE or Proctor and Gamble, and Pepsico. I’ve also looked at some that are not as well known for their talent development, but still do an excellent job, like Agilent and Novartis and Hindustan Unilever. What do they do differently?
It seems to me that they do many of the same things that their peers do. They have databases and files and evaluation systems. But they go beyond that. In the great talent development companies, senior managers spend a lot of time with potential candidates for promotion, so they don’t have to depend on the databases and the paper.
To ferret out the great people or pick up on the person who’s not as good as he or she tests, you need to do three things. You need to see a lot of possible promotion candidates. You need to see them several times. And you need to hang around long enough that any masks slip off.
You can’t do that if you’re crouched behind your desk. You need to get out and spend time with the people who might be important to the future of your company.
Visit them in their natural habitat, but don’t make it a state visit. Drop in. Chat with people. Observe. As Yogi Berra reminded us, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”
Get involved in training so you can observe several candidates in the same environment. Watch how they interact with each other and with you.
Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) works because very little important happens in your office. Talent Management by Wandering Around works for the same reason and because good people judgment doesn’t come from reading alone.
