Company Growth
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15 Ways To Generate Better Results By Developing Internal Talent
When looking for the best talent to fill a role, many business leaders are too quick to turn to recruitment. To build the most effective teams, it can often be most beneficial to retain and develop internal talent before seeking outside candidates. If you find a good fit externally to take on a plum position, what are the chances that the A-players you currently count on to keep things running smoothly will jump ship, perceiving a lack of growth potential for their careers if they stay?
Incubating top talent from within the company’s ranks can be challenging, but it’s in your best interest as a business owner or senior executive to do so. In many cases, this kind of development initiative will require some reorganization and strategic planning. Here, 15 professionals from Forbes Coaches Council share their top pieces of advice for leaders who are trying to generate better results by making the most of their company’s internal talent.
1. Place The Path To Growth In Employees’ Hands
To keep your best people engaged without micromanaging the whole process, create a culture where everyone can spot a challenge/opportunity for the business, propose a solution and gather resources to go work on it. When your people know that their path to growth is in their own hands, they will be finding ways to provide more value to the business and sticking around for the exciting ride. - Steve Haase, Hypergrowth Coaching, Inc.
2. Identify Entry Or Midlevel Staff With Potential
Identifying entry or midlevel employees with potential is key, and in my experience, providing these employees with opportunities to “prove” themselves will help you figure out where their hidden talents and strengths lie. Through these opportunities, employees should enhance their performance on the job because they see their own potential for growth within the company. - Kim Neeson, Kim Neeson Coaching | Consultant | Mentor
3. Understand What Inspires Your Team
Understand what inspires the humans on your team—what really ignites their hearts, minds and souls. Sometimes finding them the right assignments is about something other than just developing the next skills for the next role. Sometimes it’s about finding the assignments that let them do what they do best, serving what they care about most—even when the task is a little sideways from their usual job. - Ronica Roth, Elevate.to
4. Find Out What’s Most Important To Each Team Member
Pose this simple question to every team member: “What is most important to you at this point in your career?” Then, do whatever you can to give that to them. Unless you know what’s important to your talent, you can’t be sure you’re giving it to them. When you give them what’s important to them, they will give you what’s important to you: higher levels of dedication, ownership, effort and results. - Joseph Zito, (X)form Coaching & Consulting
5. Ask What Their Interests Are
To build effective teams, always ask people what they’re interested in doing more of, less of or never again, if possible. Also ask what gives them energy and what drains them, based on their life experiences. For example, some may have participated in volunteer activities outside of work that inspired them. They can bring that energy to a work team and professionally and personally develop. - Liz Guthridge, Connect Consulting Group
6. Create A Great Employee Experience
Today’s employees expect a workplace experience that allows them to bring their whole self to the workplace. Executives need to ask key questions that lead to insight and understanding of employees’ desires. Your goal here should be to create experiences that will make employees want to stay and grow your business with you. A great employee experience equals a strong employment brand. - Ed Krow, Ed Krow, LLC
7. Create A Culture Of Mobility First
Often, managers like to hoard top talent; even if the employee has expressed an interest in a different role, no one wants to lose their best and brightest. The sooner organizational leaders learn that an employee’s value is more important to the company as a whole than it is to the team on which they work, the better their retention rate will be. - Caroline Vernon, Intoo, USA
8. Turn The Workplace Into A Learning Lab
Turn the workplace into a learning laboratory one project at a time. Work with a current talented employee who has a big challenge. Support them through the issues by mentoring them, training them and collaboratively mining the experience for learning along the way. As a leader, “show your growth” by sharing your own development journey. Improve performance in real time by learning together in the community. - Jessica Hartung, Treelight Leadership
9. Be Willing To Invest In Employees’ Development
A leader who wants to keep good talent needs to show employees that they are willing to invest in their professional development. The most important piece of advice I would give a leader is to focus on employee engagement. If your employees are happy and feel appreciated, they will go far above and beyond to perform. Create a company where people work because they want to, not because they need to. - Michelle Perchuk, MTV Coaching
10. Find The Right Place For Each Talent
Have open conversations about what people like to do, what they are good at and what they would like to learn. Don’t forget to talk about which environment they thrive in. “Talent” does not come in a vacuum! It is always easier to develop people’s strengths than repair their weaknesses. A growth mindset will go a long way. - Kirsten Dierolf, SolutionsAcademy - Speaking! GmbH
11. Pass On Your Expertise To Your Top Talent
To get results while developing talent, leaders must actively pass on their experience and expertise to the best people to develop their leadership habits. They must delegate tasks and expose them to meetings and projects to develop their management skills. When people see their manager invested in and caring about their growth, they will be motivated to perform better and develop those skills under them too. - Shane Green, SGEi
12. Redefine How You Discuss Top Talent
Expand the conversation beyond those who can be grown or stretched vertically to include talent that you can expand or stretch horizontally. Who can take on projects or another temporary assignment? This gives you a much larger “top talent” pool and, ultimately, stronger bench strength. - Kristy Busija, Next Conversation Coaching, LLC
13. Create A Culture Of Continuous Feedback
To be at our individual and collective best, we need to know whether our intentions are matching our impact. Encourage everyone to give and receive feedback from each other. Make sure people understand the purpose of providing feedback is to build others up, not tear them down. This type of environment motivates us to excel and inspires us to stay and grow. - Craig Dowden, Craig Dowden & Associates
14. Ask Them To Write Their Own Evaluations
Ask them to write their own evaluations in a one-page summary. You can give them parameters, but ask them to assess their performance, strengths, weaknesses and changes they want to make to become better. Do this yourself and share the results with each person, but don’t ask employees to share their assignment with anyone other than you. Doing this will show vulnerability and build trust if you handle it right. - John M. O’Connor, Career Pro Inc.
15. Rotate Talent Through Other Parts Of The Organization
Nurturing and encouraging internal talent is a great way to build a strong organization. One of the best ways is to rotate talent through other parts of the organization. They learn new skills and get to experience another part of the organization so that they can become a more robust future leader. Importantly, they build relationships that they can leverage for collaboration when they come back to you! - Kevin Kan, Break Out Consulting Asia
As seen in Forbes.com
Stay The Course or Pursue Innovation?
First, ask yourself why you want to pursue innovation. Is your market changing? Asking yourself, “If I stay the course, what will happen in one year/three years/five years?” may help inform your decision.
Sometimes taking your eye off what is working to focus on something new can actually hurt your current performance and your ability to keep growing what you’ve already built.
~As seen in Forbes.com
Remember, Thoughts Aren't Facts
Remember, thoughts are just sentences in your mind—they aren't facts. A thought is an observation or opinion you create about a circumstance. Remind yourself of the facts of a situation (“We will sell less this month,” for example) and take out the emotion (“I'm a failure!”).
If you focus on the fact versus the emotion, the circumstance becomes neutral and measurable, not out of control.
~As seen in Forbes.com