systematicHR

— How do you measure talent?
— How do you determine who to develop?
— How does that impact who gets developed and who gets money spent on them?

We’ve talked about soccer moms and helicopter parenting on this blog. But we’ve never talked about how some of those kids participate in selection activities within their sports, music programs and anything else. Looking at how children are selected into prestigious programs, college athletic scholarships, or even into pro tour inclusion for some sports actually shines a very interesting light into our own talent management programs.

As we look at how elite child athletes have to compete, they have the realization that their performance actually down selects them investment dollars. College and new days even pro scouts go to high schools looking for the best athletes in the country. The best of them get to go to elite schools with full scholarships and even other benefits. Even before that, promising athletes can be identified and junior sports programs sponsored by national sports governing bodies provide investments into camps, training and coaching. Ultimately however, it’s really only the cream of the crop that gets development dollars. The rest are left to their own means to grow and mature.

Talent management is not so different. We have succession plans for the top tier of our companies to figure out who is going to be ready for executive positions and how we will grow them into those jobs. We identify high potential contributors and throw training dollars at them and include them into development programs globally. We broaden their experiences hoping that their potential manifests itself. Our identification and distribution of talent into a variety of buckets has serious implications on who gets the money and who does not. It also effects people’s lives in the long term as we determine who gets opportunities in the future and who does not.

Going back to the junior athletics view of the world, we can see how it is entirely possible that athletes could develop at different rates. Someone who is the shortest person in their class might not pursue basketball as a sport, choosing swimming instead. 5 years later, the person has not only the physical stature to have been a great basketball player, but also the coordination as well. By choosing too early, and based on early conclusions of down selection, we may have allocated and determined what “buckets” people fall into too early and missed other opportunities. On the other hand, some child athletes are ignored early on and might fester in mediocrity when some investment might have made them bloom as athletes, but these kids will never have the opportunity to find out.

Here are my concerns: how do we know that we have not missed the boat? And how do we know that we’re not making these decisions that cause us to miss exceptional talent opportunities in the future? Is it ok that our talent decisions have serious impacts on the lives of real people in lifetime earnings and achievement?