For over a decade, the focus of leadership and professional development has been to emphasize people’s strengths rather than concentrate on weaknesses. The concept was popularized by Gallup researchers and led to a series of StrengthsFinder books and tools. For those unfamiliar, the StrengthsFinder is an assessment that reveals dominant “themes” that help people focus on their strengths and abilities and center their work and lives on them. The premise is that it makes more sense to leverage strengths and talents versus trying to address shortcomings.
Developing potential? Focus on strengths and shortcomings
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 10/24/2013
Teacher and Student
Author: Paul Dillenburg, Date: 6/13/2012On a fairly regular basis, I facilitate mastermind groups for high potential employees. For those of you not familiar with a mastermind group, it is a monthly gathering of 5 – 8 individuals from different organizations that seek professional development through peer learning and the presentation of leadership content.
One of the key “ground rules” I like to present to the group is the idea that we are all teachers and students. Meaning, you can teach everybody you interact with something and everyone you meet can teach you something. This is an extremely powerful message and one not everyone embraces – especially as leaders. But for those of us that must lead through collaboration, if you aren’t open to others input you may find yourself without followers.
Steady Contributors – What Comes Next?
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 12/8/2011Recently, I outlined several questions to consider to further develop high potential talent. The concern is that we often go through a talent review process, identify high potentials, and then fail to take additional action. We don’t do anything differently than if we had never gone through the time and effort to complete a talent review. It is important to develop specific plans for the high potentials—so they are further developed, remain challenged and engaged, and contribute in ways that add value.
First Steps for Further Developing High Potential Talent
Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 10/19/2011One of the biggest concerns clients’ share about their talent management efforts is that “nothing happens” after the talent review. They do a good job identifying talent and are confident in the list of “high potentials” generated. The shortcoming seems to be in further developing those high potentials and ensuring that they are satisfied and engaged. We’ve put together a series of questions that are useful in determining next steps for each high potential identified during the talent review process.
For each high potential, answer the following (provide specifics, seek feedback and verify as need be):
Identify Your Top Talent – Performers and Potentials
Author: Paul Dillenburg, Date: 8/23/2011One of the key aspects of an organization’s talent review process is the identification of top talent. While organizational leaders are often adept at identifying outstanding performers, there can be difficulty identifying employees with the most potential, thus resulting in an incomplete picture of top talent. By creating organization-specific definitions of high performance and high potential, leaders have a standard to assess their talent against. These definitions will help facilitate deeper dialogue between leaders during the talent review process and will provide insight about which employees are top talent.
For clarity, we often use the following definitions:
