4 Common Flaws in Identifying and Developing High Potential Employees
Psychologists have spent more than a century researching and examining human potential. However, it is only in recent times that the identification of high potential employees (HiPos) has become one of the hottest topics in human resources, all concerning an employee’s probability to make a substantial contribution to the organization.
If only 20% of individuals are said to be responsible for 80% of the collective output (The Pareto Rule) , then any HiPo intervention is ultimately an attempt to identify, develop, and retain the “vital people” that drive an organization’s success.
In a recent report issued by the Corporate Research Forum, 73% of top global businesses stated that their main method for identifying HiPos is a single rating or nomination by the candidate’s direct report. Leaving aside the natural unreliability of supervisory ratings as a marker of employee potential. This finding suggests that the vast majority of HiPos are selected for their ability to get their boss to like them you, be politically astute, and advertise their achievements. Therefore, it is no surprise that the same report noted that 53% of organizations are dissatisfied with their HiPo programs.
Even when organizations manage to rely on more effective talent identification method (e.g., 360s, psychometric tests, objective analytics, etc.) there are still four common mistakes that prevent high potential interventions from being successful:
1. Performance is not potential. Too often, organizations focus mostly, and sometimes solely, on performance. There are two problems with this approach.
Organizations are not very good at measuring performance.
Even if an organization does measure performance well, many top performers will fail to perform at the next level.
Consider the case of a smart software developer who is great at solving complex, abstract problems but has limited EQ and people-skills: would you make them a leader? It is therefore important to distinguish between performance and potential. Performance is what you do. Potential is what you could do.
2. Emergence is not effectiveness. It is one thing to emerge as a leader. It is something entirely different to be effective as a leader.
The politically savvy self-promoter will often emerge as a leader. This is why so many leaders are confident, charismatic, and narcissistic, but not effective.
Instead, effective leaders need good judgment, self-awareness, and empathy, which are qualities rarely found in those obsessed with getting ahead and themselves – as opposed to the success of their teams and organizations.
3. Development is universal. Unfortunately, too many organizations fail in their selection efforts.
They often end up spending a great deal of time and money on the development of unsuitable candidates. However, no matter how talented HiPo’s are, they will only succeed in the long run if they are coachable and able to develop.
Thus even identify the right people, development should still be a priority. To have potential, simply gives individuals an advantage in that they will be able to develop more talent, more quickly, more easily.
4. High performing individual’s are expensive. Pareto’s 80- 20 principle applies not only to organizational outcomes (revenues, profits, etc.), but also to outputs (costs).
In order to have high performance, great output is required, and this output, at times, comes in the form of organizational cost and time.
However, not all all high performance initiatives turn out successful., failure is often a part of their success, which can at first appear as a negative investment.
Overall, it is imperative to remember managements has an important role to play in leadership development efforts. Ensuring that the management team is equip to support leadership development will help maximize the benefits of our leadership development programs.
Source: http://download.workforce.com/why-most-high-potential-programs-fail
