One Page Talent Management: Eliminating Complexity, Adding Value

Think it's too good to be true? Some readers might be skeptical. But we were pleasantly surprised by just how easy talent management can be, using the authors? methods. They've done a skillful job simplifying the entire process. Their advice is backed up with scientific research, and thanks to their proven background in talent management, they appear to really know what they're doing.

The book is incredibly practical and can be used by any manager or HR professional to update and streamline their talent management plans. By the time you're finished with this book, you'll be able to create a plan that does, indeed, fit on a single page. That's the ultimate goal, anyway.

Even if you don't work directly in talent management, you'll still get some value out of this book. It's a great primer on the nuts and bolts, and importance, of managing talent well. So, you won't feel out of the loop here. And thanks to examples the authors include from some of the world's biggest companies – such as Avon, IBM, American Express and General Mills – we get a convincing look at how some of the these methods can play out in real life.

Marc Effron is president of the Talent Strategy Group. He's the author of two previous books on human resources and leadership, and is a sought-after business speaker.

Miriam Ort is Senior Manager, Human Resources, for PepsiCo. She's authored several articles on this topic for leading business publications.

So, keep listening to find out how average performers can block the rise of top talent, how you can simplify your performance review forms, and why closed questions are better than open ones, when it comes to employee engagement.

"One Page Talent Management" is broken down into seven chapters. In chapter one, we get an overview of what's to come. At its heart, the book focuses on exactly what the subtitle says: a good talent management plan must eliminate complexity, and add value.

The authors lay out their three-step process for designing a one-page talent management plan.

First, leaders must start with the science. This means we need to understand our business objectives, and how behavioral and organizational science can help us achieve them.

That may sound like a lot to take in, but the authors simplify it for us. Imagine your business objective is to increase sales in China. So, ask yourself which levers you need to pull to make that happen. They give us a short series of questions that help us boil down our objectives to the root level.

The next step is to eliminate complexity and add value, and the last step is to create transparency and accountability.

The authors use this three-step formula throughout the book when designing their plans, so it's useful to understand each step in detail. We get some fascinating, in-depth examples of each one, and why they're each so important.

In this first chapter we also get a useful list of the common objections we might hear when trying to implement our one-page talent management plan. The authors give us suggestions for overcoming these common objections, so this section will be especially useful for managers when they come to take action on their plans.

Chapter two is where the real meat of the book begins. Here's where we learn about proven talent management practices that are simple, and really work – starting with performance management.

The authors begin by laying out their three-step process. The first is to look at the science of goal setting. The authors say we need to set hard goals that align with people's self-interests. Our goals need to be specific, and we can't set too many at once.

The authors quote proven studies that explain the science behind these requirements, which gives weight to their advice.

Next, we need to simplify and add value. And this starts with our performance management forms.

The authors say many managers have to suffer through multiple pages of forms when dealing with performance management. But really, performance management comes down to three essential items: a simple description of the goal, a metric for determining if the goal was achieved, and a space to write down the results.

Really, we don't need anything else. Later on in the chapter the authors go into why all the other bells and whistles that many managers include on their forms aren't necessary. This is an enlightening section, because we get to see how unnecessarily complicated we can make things.

We also need to just focus on a few, vital goals. Too many goals can cause our teams to spread themselves too thin. So what's the ideal number of goals?

Well, the authors say three. The reason is that if the goals are truly important and challenging, it's not likely that people can achieve more than three or four in a year. So setting more than three or four will only cause stress for everyone.

If you have to create your own performance management process in the future, this is a chapter you won't want to miss.

The next chapter looks at feedback. Specifically, 360 degree feedback. Although 360s are fairly common in large organizations, the authors don't offer any definition on what 360s are. So readers who don't know about this type of feedback may find themselves a bit lost at this point. We felt the authors should have included an explanation here, instead of just assuming everyone knows what a 360 is. To clarify, 360s are performance appraisals where you get feedback from your boss, as well as feedback from several of your colleagues, customers, and vendors. It's a full-circle performance appraisal.

The authors strongly support 360s, and feel they can be incredibly useful tools for building talent and offering feedback. But, they say few people actually see the benefits of 360s. Why?

Because 360s work best with self-motivated team members, who accept the feedback, commit to self improvement, and create a plan to move forward and grow.

Do you have team members who would willingly go through the work that entails? Maybe. Chances are, though, that most of us would rather not, which is why so many 360s have little impact on developing talent.

So what do we do about it? Well, that's what we learn in this chapter.

The authors say we need to simplify our 360s, and they give us plenty of suggestions here. One of our favorites is that we need to identify the most critical behaviors each team member needs in order to change.

The problem with regular 360s is that they're long. Every behavior is gone over in detail, which leaves the person being reviewed feeling overwhelmed. They don't know what to change first.

We can support them better by identifying a few of the most important things they need to change, and focusing on those behaviors.

One suggestion we thought was really interesting was to look at the personality of the person receiving the feedback. The authors say that personalities play a role in how people respond to feedback. For example, extroverts usually respond well. And people who are more self-disciplined are more likely to get involved with developmental activities in order to grow.

The downside to this part of the book is that the authors don't give us any kind of list that details personality types, and how they might respond to feedback. We felt this would have been a very helpful addition for managers. But sadly, it's missing here.

But there are plenty of other useful tips in this chapter. You'll learn why graphics are so important in your 360s, why you shouldn't talk about strengths during the 360, and why you should toss the self-assessment section of your organization's 360.

One of the chapters we liked best was chapter four, which focuses on talent reviews and succession planning. We thought this was one of the most valuable chapters in the book because it teaches us how to understand the talent we have, identify the talent we're missing, and create a plan to handle both. Essentially, this is a talent review process, and it's one that any manager can use in their organization to streamline and improve their team.

So how can we do this in the simplest, easiest way possible?

The authors give us a useful tool called the Performance and Potential Grid. This handy tool enables us to differentiate our team members by charting their performance versus their potential over time. It's simple, and it could be an incredibly valuable tool for managers.

There are several ways we can use this tool, and the authors spend quite a bit of time showing how beneficial it can be. One of the tips we liked best was that team leaders need to aggressively manage the Average Performance, Average Potential box in the grid.

This box can be a major impediment to talent if it's not watched carefully. The reason is that the people in this box can block succession to other jobs. For instance, imagine your company has two marketing manager roles. These roles provide invaluable experience on the path up to brand manager. If you have an employee in that role who's only doing average work, then he's blocking the way for key talent who could really use that valuable experience as they work their way up.

We thought this was an excellent point that many managers might overlook. Sometimes "good enough" just isn't, over the long term.

The authors also advise us to have talent reviews twice a year. Most companies only look at their talent once a year, but since most industries are very fast-paced, it's worth looking at your talent investments regularly, to make sure they're paying off.

Chapter five looks at engagement. We've all heard how much organizations can grow and profit when teams are engaged in what they're doing. But like everything else, measuring and engaging employees can easily become complicated.

One thing we need to do to simplify the process is to ask the fewest number of questions we can. Yes, we need to know if our employees are engaged. But what, exactly, do we ask them?

According to the authors, we need to know if they believe their leaders will do the right things. We need to ask them if their work excites them. And we need to find out if they feel they're making a difference in the company.

These, along with several other questions, can deliver vital information any manager needs to know. They get to the heart of employee engagement in a minimal amount of time.

Another useful tip is to ask questions you can take action on. According to the authors, engagement questions should lead managers to action. So asking your employees if they have friends at work is a useless, time-wasting question – yet it's one that often gets asked by managers.

You can also improve your employee engagement forms by tossing out the open-ended questions. We know, that's a bit shocking. We've all been told that open-ended questions are vital to get employees to talk. But the authors say that open-ended questions suffer from several flaws.

First, they distract managers from the quantitative facts. And managers can become incredibly worried by personal comments. So although these comments can be colorful, managers should stick to hard data. That is, the "yes and no" questions.

As you may have guessed, we can't cover a fraction of what's in "One Page Talent Management" here. There's a lot of information in the book, and we're happy to say that it's all relevant and really useful. The authors? tips and strategies make sense, and we feel their ideas can be easily implemented by managers and leaders in any industry, at almost any level.

This book is very well organized, and the authors do a great job keeping the pace moving. Although we can't say it was a thrilling page-turner, it definitely wasn't dry. The authors keep to the point, which means you'll get one great tool or tip after another. If you're a manger without a lot of reading time at your disposal, you'll appreciate that they get to the point so quickly.

All in all, this is a very practical, useful book on simplifying and implementing talent management strategies. And we have no problem giving it a thumbs up.

"One Page Talent Management," by Marc Effron and Miriam Ort, is published by Harvard Business Press.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Click here to buy the book from Amazon. Thanks for listening.