Leveraging Talent Management to Accelerate Organizational Growth
March 24, 2017 | Written by Sree Ravela
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
Organizational leaders working toward achieving accelerated growth formulate numerous strategies to achieve their goals. However, Talent Management tends to be an afterthought. In my experience, this is not enough to reach stretch goals when organic growth isn’t an option.
For example, in the corporate world, leaders constantly face the challenge of accomplishing “more with less,” but the key to success lies in unlocking the full potential of limited available resources, as well as bringing the right amount of focus while dealing with daily whirlwinds. I dove deeper into leadership insights to enhance my skills in this area and highly recommend three books I came across that inspired me more than any others I’ve read on this topic.
I considered one or two concepts from each of these titles and started putting together a mental model that could help achieve accelerated growth with great focus. Here’s a brief overview of my takeaways.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Instead of trying to chase six or more goals in a year, Stephen R. Covey challenges us to identify only two to three Wildly Important Goals (WIGs) in his book, ”The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals,” alongside the individual measures required to achieve all of them. Start by keeping track of the progress using weekly scorecards. The emphasis here is on focus.
Wildly Important Goals (WIGs)
You can’t have more than 1-3 WIGs per person/team at a time.
Sub WIGs must ensure the success of parent WIGs.
A WIG must have a gap (from X to Y by when) in order to get to the finish line.
Constant Engagement and Tracking Goals in the 12-Week Year
When identified, goals that are executed in an annualized mode can lead to procrastination. Some functional departments like Sales & Marketing operate in a quarterly business cycle, and they do an excellent job of keeping track of their numbers. In the book, ”The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months” by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, the authors shared some great ideas that can be applied to achieve goals more effectively. They recommend executing goals in a 12-week duration and to track them using the scorecards. This model not only increases the success rate but also lowers stress and improves confidence in the execution.
The “Feedforward” Approach
Renowned executive leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith encourages leaders to use the “Feedforward” approach instead of just offering feedback in his book, ”Feedforward.” I liked this for two reasons:
This approach takes away anxiety in the minds of the employees and helps them be more open minded.
While we cannot change the past, we can influence future behaviors.
If you equate the feedback process to what you see in a rearview mirror in your car, think of Feedforward as a forward-looking or windshield view. To successfully reach our destination, wouldn’t both aspects be important? So why settle for a narrow, singular vision?
My takeaway from the Feedforward approach was to think of two to three WIGs that can be achieved in blocks of one quarter (12 weeks), and keep track of their progress on a weekly basis using scorecards. That said, while discussing weekly progress, emphasis should be on both feedback, as well as Feedforward. When you operate in this manner, WIGs will always be on top of your mind during your day-to-day activities, thereby directly contributing to better results. Improved results will be accelerated and, in turn, lead to breakthrough growth without all of the unwanted stress during execution.