Not only that [cue the trumpets, release the pigeons and the balloons] Kellogg has created four “impact areas” that will overlay the actual curriculum. Forgive me for remaining underwhelmed.

Here’s what I want to know. How will graduates of Kellogg be better prepared for today’s business world, thanks to this “alternative model of general business education?” My guess is, not much, which is the usual result of changes in graduate business school organization and curriculum. Those changes can be poured into two buckets.

There are the “we must have a course in that” changes. They are driven by big stories in the business news. After Enron, we rushed to create ethics courses. After the “Sorta Crash of 2008″ schools added a course or two on the future of finance and the company as good global citizen.

Then there are the changes like Kellogg’s. These usually follow some sort of comprehensive review and strategy analysis. In Kellogg’s case they involved the faculty and outside consultants from Booz, BCG, and Deloitte. Despite the re-organization, re-thinking and re-whatever, a couple of things remain unchanged in most of these “sweeping changes.”

Faculty members are still specialists who, like all humans, care about what it all means to them. Here’s a quote from Byrne’s article.

“Blount presented the results of the review at a faculty meeting in January. The biggest question was, ‘What does this mean for me and how does it affect my research?’”

Note that the question is not about the quality of the teaching or the quality of the preparation for the students. That’s not helped by the way schools teach, either.

Most classes are chalk talks about the subjects you can master in your head. But the most important things for MBA students should be “doing” skills that are incredibly difficult to teach in the classroom.

I applaud Kellogg (and other schools) for thinking about changes to make things better. But what we need are fundamental changes that prepare students more effectively. Unless the changes result in real differences when graduates go out into the business world, all these changes are simply trying to put a new coat of polish on an old pair of sneakers.

“Have you ever referred to yourself as talent? [aside from as a descriptor on your CV/Resume - a talented ........ looking for a new opportunity etc] “

Wally’s Comment: This post is not about “talent development,” but it is about the way we use the word “talent.” It’s always important to pay attention to the language we use, how it opens up some vistas and closes off others and how it shapes our thinking.  Thanks to William Tincup for pointing me to this post.

From Jon Ingham: What is now business critical on the HR Director’s agenda?

“We’ll be following up on the issues raised in the HR Directors Business Summit unconference, and discussed in the final unpanel, at the organisers’ new community forum, HR InSights. However, I thought my summary as chair at the beginning of day two covered both days of the unconference quite well.  The three main issues for me were:

Performance. Of the business, and of the HR function too (eg in Ed Lawler’s presentation, and also demonstrated in the HR with Distinction awards).
Leadership development. In business (particularly given the passion expressed in the unpanel about ‘toxicity at the top’) and in other areas, particularly sports (eg in Sir Clive Woodward’s presentation on coaching in rugby and basketball which suggested some interesting opportunities for business coaching too).
Planning and analytics. Eg I liked the way that David Clutterbuck suggested that we need to be analytical in order to remain caring for our people.”

Wally’s Comment: I love Jon Ingham’s posts from various conferences because they’re like having a good and knowledgeable friend tell you want the presentations were like and what the key ideas were and what that friend thought of it all.

From Fortune: Executives to new grads: Shape up!

“Note to recent college grads and the Class of 2012: You may not be as ready for the working world as you think you are. At least, that’s the opinion of about 500 senior managers and C-suite executives in a study by Global Strategy Group, on behalf of worldwide architectural firm Woods Bagot.”

Wally’s Comment: OK, let me drive a couple of stakes in the ground on this one. I don’t think it’s the job of a college or university to pop out pre-formed graduates with all the relevant skills that a CEO could want. I do think it’s the job of parents and the educational system to develop young people in a way that lets them show up at their first job with reasonable communications and critical thinking skills. Now, go read what the CEOs think.

From Sean Conrad: A Lesson from RIM’s Succession Plan

“The announcement that the Blackberry maker’s co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis  and Jim Balsillie were stepping down from their shared top post was not only interesting because of what it did to the stock volume and value, or the buzz it generated, but also from the perspective of a strong, internally groomed successor being named.”

Wally’s Comment: You may not think that Thorsten Heins is a great choice or even the right choice for CEO of RIM right now. Fine. You’ll still learn a lot from Sean Conrad’s post about how Sean thinks a good succession plan should work.

From Charles Jennings: MANAGERS AND MAD HATTERS: WORK THAT STRETCHES

“In this final article I want to address the challenge with which many L&D and HR departments struggle. This is how to enroll managers in the practice of people development, how to engage with them, and how to ensure learning activities are aligned with their priorities.”

Wally’s Comment: Over the last couple of months, Charles Jennings has rolled out three thoughtful posts about how learning should work in your talent development scheme. I’ve highlighted each of those posts as Jennings published because each one was superb on its own. Now that the series is finished, I suggest you read all the posts, one after the other, to get the full impact. The other two are “Learning in Wonderland: the untapped potential of workplace learning” and “Through the 70:20:10 Looking Glass.”

Josh Bersin has done a stellar job of sketching several possibilities in his post, “The End of a Job as We Know It.” You should read this post more than once.

I want to pull out two quotes with direct talent development implications. Here’s the first one.

“Today, thanks to communications technology, people can do their “jobs” everywhere and anywhere. We collaborate across the globe just as easily as we can in the same room. People don’t necessarily progress “upward,” but often “sideways” or “deeper” in expertise.

And as a result of this shift, if you let your skills atrophy, you’re dead.  Your employer can likely find those skills elsewhere by hiring a contractor, bidding out work, or finding another internal expert.”

This means that the personal knowledge management that Harold Jarche writes about will become more important as individuals take responsibility for their own learning. It also means that the people in your company who are responsible for learning and development will shift the focus of their activity. They will do less training design and delivery and more facilitation, resource identification, and coaching.

The organization will change, too. Here’s a summary quote from Bersin.

“What this all means is that in today’s high performing companies, people now take on ‘roles’ not ‘jobs.’ They are responsible for ‘tasks’ and ‘projects’ and not simply ‘functions.’”

This means what Susan Finerty has been saying for a while. Whether you name it so or not, every organization is becoming a matrix organization. That means your talent development efforts will need to include helping people “Master the Matrix,” the title of Susan’s forthcoming book.

Don’t read this as some kind of futurist prediction. It’s not. It’s a good description of what’s already beginning to happen.

From Kate Sweetman on the HBR Blogs: One Talent Strategy Isn’t Enough for Asia

“I posed this question to a group of executives in a successful Asian-headquartered bank during a recent consulting engagement: ‘Considering for the moment only our current set of employees, where do we devote development resources to get the leadership talent we will need in the next three to five years?’ The bank operates in almost 20 Asian countries, employs tens of thousands of employees and makes very good returns on a substantial asset base. The company’s strategy is to take full advantage of being a local player in emerging Asian growth markets while deepening their leadership pool and strengthening their talent pipeline.”

Wally’s Comment: Don’t pass this up just because you’re not doing business in Asia. Kate Sweetman (named an “Emerging Guru” by the Times of London) points out that managers in different countries have differing perceptions of their talent development needs. Your company has countries, too. There may be a “marketing country” and a “manufacturing country” for example, or, perhaps, a “New York country” and a “Kansas City country.”

From Josh Bersin: The Business Case for Talent Management: Steve Ballmer Agrees

“Talent management makes money. If you are trying to build a business case for a corporate talent management program, here is some astounding data: Of the 700+ organizations we studied in 2010 and 2011, only 7% told us that they have a “strategic talent management” program.”

Wally’s Comment: Read this post to find out how big the difference is between those with a “strategic talent management program” and the others. You’ll also see how talent management plays out at Microsoft.

From Hay Group: Converting existing managers into future-ready leaders

“For future-ready leaders, there is a critical need for organizations to convert their existing managers into leaders who can leverage their team’s potential and ensure a proactive workforce. Companies need to redefine their business models, customer relationship models and workforce models to translate future business expectations into results.”

Wally’s Comment: This post is here because of the term “future-ready.” The best talent development programs prepare people to be able to succeed in whatever future shows up, not in a single, painstakingly-specific future predicted by the planning department or a high-priced consulting firm.

From Ron Thomas: Managing Talent: Why You Should Treat it Like a Marketing Portfolio

“While reading a recent issue of Advertising Age, I came across an interesting article about branding — not from a qualitative state but from an analytical and quantitative approach. The article was based on work done by Stengel (along with Millward Brown) identifying the 50 fastest growing brands in terms of value and consumer preference.”

Wally’s Comment: Portfolios have been a staple of strategic planning for a few decades now. Ron Thomas suggests they’re an effective tool for talent management, too.

From TLNT: Maximizing the ROI on Employee Training with Mobile Learning

“No executive in their right mind would argue with the fact that employee training is a basic business necessity. When organizations experience growth, change or competitive pressure, gaps emerge between what employees know and what they need to know in order for the company to remain relevant in the marketplace.”

Wally’s Comment: “Mobile learning” is one of those buzz phrases with substance. Mobile learning is also a way to summon information when you need it.

The list itself is fascinating. Six of the ten companies are more than a century old. The youngest is almost forty. That’s impressive, since the “average lifespan of a multinational-Fortune 500 company or equivalent” is forty to fifty years. You could conclude that attention to leadership development and succession planning might have something to do with that longevity.

Three of the CEO’s have been with their company for their entire career. One other, Jeff Immelt, spent a brief time at Proctor and Gamble (#1) before moving to General Electric (#3). In an era with lots of job-hopping, that’s pretty impressive and may say something about the quality of the longer-lived leadership development programs.

When you look at these “top ten” companies in depth there are three red threads that run through the profiles. These top companies give leadership development time and attention and they address leadership issues vertically and horizontally.

Give It Time and Attention

This is nothing new. We’ve said it about top companies for leadership development for years. They make it a priority. Top management gives it time. 3M CEO George Buckley, for example, “spends over a fifth of his time on talent issues and teaches strategy and leadership to executives who meet twice a year.”

Vertical Development Thinking

For many companies, succession planning is something you only pay attention to for your top executives. These companies have a more “hire to retire” approach. At IBM, for example, the company creates “Success Profiles” for all leadership roles and considers both “pipeline identification and development.”

Horizontal Development Thinking

These top ten companies seem to recognize that some leadership roles require deep technical expertise and special leadership practice. At Caterpillar, the Leadership and Technical Development Program (LTDP) includes:

• Product Development
• Manufacturing Engineering
• Metallurgical Engineering
• Welding Engineering
• Supply Chain Management
• Environment, Industrial Health and Safety

I take two thoughts away from this. First, the basics of paying attention, involving key executives, and intertwining development and succession planning are still the way top leadership development companies operate. Second, the major trend is to think more broadly and deeply about talent development than ever before.

From David Wilkins: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Talent Management Lessons from the NFL

“It is a busy time of year for fans of NFL football. An exciting regular season recently wrapped up, one which saw several records broken. Now the playoffs are underway, with some exciting games this past weekend, including yet another impressive result from Denver’s QB Tim Tebow in an upset win over Pittsburgh. But something else happened recently in the land of the NFL, which along with a few other examples from recent history, are fodders for some lessons on the importance of succession planning and broader talent management in the workplace.  I’ll proceed by reversing the standard order and tackle first the Ugly, then the Bad, before ending with the Good.”

Wally’s Comment: In the first of two posts on talent management lessons from the NFL, David Wilkins draws a set of lessons from how different pro football teams have handled talent management issues.

From Elizabeth Stuart: Monday Morning Quarterbacking: Talent Management

“Houston football fans had something to rejoice about this year.  For the first time in franchise history, the Houston Texans made the playoffs. In a league dominated by high-profile celebrity quarterbacks like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees, the most remarkable aspect of the Texans’ playoff run is that they were led by a first year quarterback, T.J. Yates. Five months ago, before the start of the season, few people in Houston, let alone the rest of the nation, were even aware Yates existed. Thankfully for Houston fans, the coaching and management staff made adequate preparations in case something happened to their starters.  When the Texan’s starting quarterback and his backup suffered injuries in the middle of the season, Yates, a 24 year old, third-string rookie had to step in to fill the most important position on the team.”

Wally’s Comment: Elizabeth Stuart concentrates on one team and extracts a set of lessons that’s different from the post above, but complementary to it.

From Derek Irvine: Retaining Employees: Is it About Better Pay or Better Culture?

“Have you ever quit a job to take less pay? Some scoff at the idea, but after the years of fear, anxiety and overwork post-recession, a good company culture in which employees feel valued, appreciated and able to contribute to meaningful work is more important than salary level. A pair of studies found just that:”

Wally’s Comment: Why do people stay? What should you pay attention to? Derek Irvine looks at culture and compensation as components of an employee value proposition.

From Bersin: Yikes. Training spending up 9.5%, highest increase in 3+ years! A renaissance.

“Wow.  After more than three years of decline in spending, corporate training budgets just jumped up 9.5% last year.  (Just released, 2012 Bersin & Associates Corporate Learning Factbook®).  Good news for corporate HR teams and business leaders in general”

Wally’s Comment: Josh Bersin shares his analysis of why training budgets are headed upward. Insightful as usual.

From Chief Executive: 40 Best Companies for Leaders 2012: How Top Companies Excel in Leadership Development

• “The best companies for leaders generate dramatically greater market value over time than the weakest companies for leadership development.
• Leading public company CEOs commit a higher priority to leadership development in spite of the added burden of more complex and “distracting” environments with added pressures for short-term financial results.
• Smaller and private company CEOs spend more of their personal time (25 percent versus 15 percent) on both developing others as well as developing themselves, but are less likely to install systematic processes for leadership development.”

Wally’s Comment: This is the most recent Chief Executive version of best companies for leadership development. For comparison read Fortune’s “25 Top Companies for Leaders” which was published in November 2011.

“Despite a new wave of uncertainty, many leading companies are pressing forward and reshaping their talent strategies. Many executives foresee leadership shortages in the year ahead and are looking at programs to accelerate leadership development within their companies. At the same time, given the stalled economy, many companies are seeking new sources of growth and are tailoring talent plans to address differing regional needs to support effective talent strategies and business operations.”

The italics are mine. “What,” I wondered, “is ‘accelerated leadership development’?” The report provided this answer.

“… the goal of accelerated leadership development is to create a deep pipeline of potential leaders with capabilities that match each organization’s particular business needs.”

Creating a deep leadership pipeline doesn’t strike me as something you can do quickly. When you do, you court serious dangers, no matter which way you try to accelerate the process.

You can bring in more leaders from outside. The upside could be fresh ideas. The downside is that there’s a longer adjustment period for a leader from outside than if you fill the position from inside. The dangers are higher failure rates and cultural damage.

You can identify more people inside your company that should be considered for promotion to high levels. That won’t happen without more developmental assignments, more coaches and mentors and a greater time investment by those who review potential leaders. You can’t do that without putting strain on the organization.

You can accelerate the development rate of those you’ve already identified as high potentials. Then you risk moving people into positions before they are prepared to handle both the transition and the position.

The development of both individuals and teams takes time. If you push that process too hard, what you wind up with is failure that’s hard to recover from.

From Steve Ford: Resolutions for Retaining Employees in an Improving Economy

“Retaining talented employees has become a higher priority in an improving job market. Currently, 87 percent of employers are worried about losing key employees, with 58 percent moderately concerned and 29 percent very concerned, according to a survey by OI Partners, a global coaching and leadership development and consulting firm. To help retain talent, four out of 10 companies are providing coaching to executives and managers to invest in their careers and ensure they are equipped to develop critical skills in their subordinates, according to the survey”

Wally’s Comment: Steve Ford gives a teaser report on some OI Partners’ research and then suggests six resolutions bosses can make to improve retention. They’re not exactly novel, but they’re a good checklist of things you should be doing to make your workplace one where the talent wants to work.

From Derek Irvine: What Scrapping the Annual Performance Review Looks Like in Practice

“Getting rid of the annual performance appraisal is only possible if replaced or supplemented with a program for informal, frequent and timely feedback and recognition from more sources than just the manager.”

Wally’s Comment: It’s pretty simple really. You can eliminate the annual performance review ritual. Then what? Top talent wants feedback and performance review is one way they establish themselves as “top.” Derek Irvine takes a look at different ways we may replace the annual performance review with something better.

From Mike Haberman: Hiring is NOT an Impulse, It Is an Investment

“If you worked for a small company and were presented with a purchase that was going to cost $5,655 how careful would you be in making your decision on that purchase? Would you shop around and see if you were getting the best value? Would you check and see if you were getting a quality product for that amount? Most purchasers would. Most people do not consider $5655 an impulse purchase. Yet companies do it all the time in their hiring, often for amounts much greater than $5655 which is one employee being paid minimum wage ($7.25) who works 15 hours a week for 52 weeks. Given those numbers you need to realize that hiring is not an impulse, it is an investment.”

Wally’s Comment: Mike Haberman gives us a good reminder of why we need to pay attention to the hiring end of the hiring-training-retaining continuum.

From Josh Bersin: We are Greater than Me: Building an Agile Organization

“It all comes down to one thing:  agility.  The word “agility” is complex:  it refers to strategy, leadership, management, and learning.  Agile organizations evolve their strategy but deepen it where they have strength. Their leaders drive execution but they also empower people. Management is thin, hands-on, and highly engaged. And people and teams are constantly learning.”

Wally’s Comment: Josh Bersin describes three characteristics of agile organizations and adds this powerful note, “HR in Agile organizations plays quite a different role than it does in more traditional hierarchical organizations.” While you’re pondering that, you may want to check out a previous Bersin post, “The Agile Model comes to Management, Learning, and Human Resources,” and “Agile Leaders Generate Greater Corporate Performance” from Erik Samdahl.

“The start of a New Year is always a great time to think about the future. Do you have a plan for recruiting, training, and developing employees? Have you defined your company culture and created a plan for implementation? If so, you are ahead of the game–and you are following a path that successful organizations like Apple, Amazon.com, and Disney have blazed.”

Just planning won’t do the trick, though. The test of any plan isn’t whether you’re high-fiving each other on the way out of the off-site. The test of a plan is whether it produces the results you want. Here are four questions to test whether your plan has any chance of being good.

Do you know what you want? Before you get to firing off “people plans,” it’s a good idea to make sure that you know overall company objectives. If you don’t do that, you could create a plan that delivers the wrong results.

Have you done your homework? It’s tempting to jump right to the planning part, after all that’s the fun. Resist that temptation. Great business plans of all kinds are based on hard-headed analysis of the market and the general business climate. Anyone can plan. Good plans demand homework.

Are you specific about responsibility? The way you get from the plan to results is through responsibility. What important things must be done for your plan to succeed? Who’s responsible for doing them?

Is there a regular system for review? Let me modify a famous von Moltke quote to say that “no plan survives contact with reality.” Parts of your plan will not work. Even more parts will not work exactly the way you thought they would. Others will not work all the time. Without a system to review results and modify the plan, all you’ve got is a forecast.

I’m with Fast Company on the need for planning. But this year, let’s do it right. Let’s create plans that deliver results.

Special thanks to Stephen Lynch at RESULTS.com for sharpening my thinking on these issues.

From Kevin Grossman via TLNT: My Wish For Talent Management and HR in 2012: Think Big, But Be Clear

“Anything can be a metaphor about the world of work. Take my elder B, the bath time scientist and two different-sized cups: my daughter Beatrice filled a big cup from a small cup with bath water. As each little cup spilled into the bigger cup, air bubbles formed in the flow and surfaced quickly.”

Wally’s Comment: Kevin’s wish for talent management and HR is actually more than that. It’s a wish that we can create a world of work that our children will thrive in.

From Dan McCarthy: The Performance and Potential Matrix (9 Box Grid) – an Update

“The performance and potential matrix (9 box grid) is one of the most widely used tools in succession planning and development. It can be a valuable tool for anyone who works in talent management, or for any manager. For some reason, however, it seems to be covered in a veil of secrecy, leaving those that want to learn how to use it with little guidance.”

Wally’s Comment: I remember the first time I saw this tool in action. It was like the heavens parted and the angel choirs sang. If you already know something about the 9 Box Grid, read this post anyway. You’ll understand more about why it works and how to make it work better for you when you’re done. If the tool is new to you, even if you’re not in HR, read the post and watch for the clouds to part.

The next two posts are both about learning on the job. They’re written by two of my favorite thinkers on this stuff. And you’ll get even more from them if you read them together.

From Harold Jarche: Informal learning, the 95% solution

“Informal learning is not better than formal training; there is just a whole lot more of it. It’s 95% of workplace learning, according to the research behind this graphic, by Gary Wise.”

Wally’s Comment: Let Harold Jarche enlighten you on why the way most companies do training [and think they facilitate learning] is a Taylorist artifact and what you can do to make things better.

From Charles Jennings: Through the 70:20:10 Looking Glass

“In this article I want to turn to the ‘how’ of change and transformation in organisational learning and look at one specific approach that many organisations are finding useful to help them adapt to meet changing requirements and demands – the 70:20:10 framework.”

Wally’s Comment: Charles Jennings comes at the same issue as Harold Jarche, but from another angle.

Carnivals, Lists, and Such

The January Leadership Development Carnival: Best of 2011 Edition at Great Leadership

International HR Forum Best of 2011

The latest Carnival of HR at LeanHR

“An article recently published by SHRM, written by Rebecca Hastings, entitled What It Takes to Break the ‘Glass Ceiling’ offers the findings of a study on what it takes for women in business to break in to upper management. It is a very interesting article and I highly recommend reading it. However, I think the points that Ms. Hastings makes for women actually work well for anyone in lower levels of Human Resources, or for that matter any job, to break into the management ranks. So I will take that approach to her points and talk about the four points on what it takes to break into the executive suite.”

I want to take this one step farther. I want to review Mike’s recommendations and ways you can help the people who work for you break into the executive suite. He makes four, specific, recommendations, based on Rebecca Hastings’ post.

“You must be intentional about building and communicating your value”

Help people identify their strengths. Help them analyze their successes in terms of value added. Help them learn from things that didn’t turn out well.

“You should identify and enlist sponsors and mentors.”

Help them identify and connect with possible sponsors and mentors. Don’t stop there, though. Help them identify role models who can demonstrate the kind of leader they can become.

“You should seek assignments and promotion to positions with profit-and-loss responsibilities.”

Ambitious people, especially less experienced ones, can push for more responsibility than they’re prepared for. Sometimes that leads to a career-derailing failure. Help your people identify the skills they’ll need for the positions they crave and then help them develop those skills. Help those who experience failure in an assignment they thought they were ready for analyze what happened and get things back on track.

“You should invest in personal and career growth initiatives.”

Many people wait for learning and development opportunities to come to them. Help them identify training and assignments that are both inside and outside your organization.

I’m convinced that talent development will be the secret weapon of successful companies in the Age of the Knowledge Worker. Determine what people want and need and help them achieve it. That will go a long way toward making you an employer of choice.

From Taleo Research: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times: Why Talent Management Matters All the Time

“During times of robust economic growth, suggesting we face a “War for Talent” and arguing for the importance of strong talent management practices and solutions are fairly uncontroversial claims. But doing so during slow-growth, or even recessionary, economic times require a bit more explanation. So with apologies to Charles Dickens, I thought now — as we transition from a volatile 2011 to an uncertain 2012 — would be a good time to dive into this subject.

”

Wally’s Comment: Analyst Thomas Stone uses references to several Taleo Research posts and reports to lead us through an analysis of the state of talent management. He also suggests some things to consider for 2012.

From Monster Thinking: How To Score With Talent Marketing

“As 2011 winds down, some of my professional colleagues and I were discussing some of the most exciting topics in the HR and recruitment industry. The hottest topics – and biggest buzz – focused primarily on social media and technology, which has emerged as one of the most exciting topics not only of this year, but pretty much this entire decade.  It seems like every other conversation we have about ideas and innovations in HR somehow involves talent communities, or mobile recruiting, talent management apps, semantic searching…you get the idea. Breaking down these trends, however, we realized that no matter what tool, these topics all revolve around talent – the talent we have, the talent we want and, perhaps most importantly, the marketing we need to attract top talent.”

Wally’s Comment: Wondering what to do to attract top talent? Here’s a good review of several ideas that make up the talent marketing mix.

From Stacia Garr at Bersin: Give the Ultimate Gift in 2012: Coaching

“This is the time of year when many of us give gifts to our family and our friends.  We search for weeks – sometimes months – to find just the right thing.  But there is probably someone – or many someones – whom you have left off your list.  Have you thought about what gift you want to give your colleagues and your organization in 2012?  What is the one thing – no, the one experience – you want to help them have in 2012 that will add the most value possible? “

Wally’s Comment: This is a great suggestion. There are people who will benefit from coaching but who won’t make the move on their own. You can help.

From Jena McGregor: Everything that’s wrong with performance reviews

“It’s performance review season, and end-of-the-year articles are awash with advice for employees on how to make the best of them in this tough economy. Don’t be confrontational. Send your boss a succinct summary of the year’s accomplishments ahead of time. Follow up on how you’re responding to the feedback.”

Wally’s Comment: Jena McGregor reviews a number of things that are wrong with the way most companies practice performance appraisal today. Even if you’ve read a lot about this subject, you’ll benefit from this article.

Carnivals, Lists, and Such

HRCarnival: Forecast Edition at HRExaminer

“This edition of the HRCarnival is focused on the coming year. It looks like 2012 will be full of opportunity. If you take some time to scan through the various forecasts, trend analyses and soapbox standupons, you should be able to develop your own set of tea leaves for gazing.”

“The New Year is an opportune time to “raise the bar” by doing something strategic in talent management. In many corporations, new plans and budgets take effect at the first of the year, so the holiday period preceding the New Year is an ideal time to review the potential strategic actions to put in front of your team.”

My memory jumped to the most strategic senior executive I’ve ever witnessed: Chief George Hart of the Oakland, CA Police Department. I met Chief Hart when I was selected to provide basic supervisory skills training to newly promoted Oakland sergeants.

When I was ushered in to the Chief’s office I thought it would be like most of those events in my career. The CEO meets you to show that he or she thinks training or leadership is important. After a bit of chit-chat and buzzword sharing, you’re on your way. This was different.

After we sat down, Chief Hart leaned forward and fixed his gaze on me. “I understand that you’ll be teaching leadership to our sergeants,” he said, “In a sentence to two, tell me what you mean by ‘leadership’.” He sat back. My heart rate shot up into the red zone. I must have choked out a satisfactory answer, because I got the engagement, but it was my first experience of George Hart’s strategic thinking.

Chief Hart identified five things that he, uniquely as chief could do to make Oakland a great department. One was representing the department to the public when things went bad. Another was keeping the politicians at bay. The other three were people things. Here they are.

Goal: recruit the best people possible to police the city. Actions: make recruiting a career-enhancing assignment, provide adequate resources, instruct recruiters that diversity targets would be met and standards would not be lowered, read every police officer hiring package.

Goal: Assure that training equipped people to do their jobs. Actions: make training a career-enhancing assignment, provide adequate resources, and interview every potential trainer.

Goal: Assure that the best qualified people were promoted. Action: become actively involved in the promotional process.

Setting goals is fine, but if you’re going to do something strategic, something that changes the organization and increases long-term success, you need to link your goals to specific actions and processes. Think about that as you read John Sullivan’s excellent article.

From Forbes: Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent

“I’ve seen the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here’s my Top Ten list of what large companies do to lose their top talent.”

Wally’s Comment: This is a great article from Eric Jackson. It should stimulate your thinking and you can use it as a reality check for your company. How many of these dreadful behaviors are you guilty of?

From Globoforce: #1 Thing Most Critical to Talent Retention: Company Culture

“Globoforce clients have time and again reported dramatic success in creating and proactively managing a culture of recognition and appreciation by taking their core values and driving them deep into the daily work of every employee. How do they do that? Simply by using those core values as the reasons for recognition and praise then encouraging employees to recognize each other any time they see a colleague demonstrating one of those behaviors in their daily work. That’s the only way to make the core values – the building blocks of your culture – real and meaningful for every employee.”

Wally’s Comment: Here’s another look at retention and another reason that talent stays or goes. It’s the culture, silly!

From Human Resources IQ: Talent on Demand: Supply Chain Management Principles Are the Future of Talent Management

“Forecasting talent demand, according to Peter Cappelli, is not dissimilar from forecasting product demand. Think about it: in supply chain management, a manufacturer will evaluate the cheapest and most expedient ways to construct the product; certain parts of the process are outsourced; and fast delivery is top of mind. Liken these principles, respectively, to cost-effective talent development; hiring talent from outside of the organization; and succession planning.”

Wally’s Comment: I realize that there are many who find these ideas exciting. I find them repellant. When you treat people as interchangeable you dehumanize them and that’s a bad thing.

From Charles Jennings: Learning in Wonderland: the untapped potential of workplace learning

“I’ve taken Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as a theme for the series. The illustrations here are Sir John Tenniel’s marvellous originals. Why ‘Alice’ you may ask? Well, the Alice story is all about growing up and developing and learning but at the same time seeing the world in very a different way. In Alice Carroll (Charles Dodgson in real life) also stretches imagination and gets the reader to think ‘out of the box’. The Alice story is also about seeing some standard practices as rather silly and arbitrary and understanding that there are always alternatives in whatever you do. “

Wally’s Comment: On the other side of the treat people like people issue is the brave new world of workplace learning. Charles Jennings shares insights with delightful reference to Alice in Wonderland.

This free exercise, and dozens of others, were created for our book Clueless! Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It. You can learn more about Clueless by visiting our site or you can buy it from amazon.com today.

Purpose of Exercise: This exercise is intended to help your clients understand how they contribute to the way other people see them.

How to Administer and Use this Exercise to Facilitate Behavior Change: This is a great tool to use during the first phase of coaching to help your clients to reflect on how they think others perceive them. It particularly helps your clients become aware of the impressions they leave on others in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. They can gain insight about how their supporters see them as well as how their critics see them. Gaining this type of awareness can clarify behavioral change initiatives on an interpersonal level.

To download “How Do Others See Me?”, please click here. To view the table of contents, preview a free chapter, and order Clueless please go to: http://www.envisialearning.com/clueless_book