Over the last few years ‘Talent Management‘ has become a buzzword on the lips of HR professionals in large organizations – but how is it relevant to the individual? And what happens if your organization doesn’t have a talent management program (some times known as a ‘Fast-Stream’), or if you can’t get into it? How can you manage your own talent to ensure your career success?

Let’s start with the what and the why.

What Is A Talent Management Program?

In an article on how it feels to be talent-managed, the UK’s CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) describes talent management as follows:

‘Talent management is the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement, retention and deployment of those individuals who are of particular value to an organization, either in view of their ‘high potential’ for the future or because they are fulfilling business/operation-critical roles.’

Phew!  Generally a talent management program is something that larger organizations create to develop their high performers, or people who they have identified as having ‘high potential’. They are designed to fast-track career progression, and they use a mixture of training courses, coaching programs, action learning sets or mastermind groups, mentoring programs, job shadowing, secondments and other ‘learning interventions’ (to use the HR jargon) to move the individual swiftly forward in the organization.

If the organization is being clever, it ties its talent management program into long term succession-planning, so it can groom the senior managers and directors of the future. These days, however, people are mobile, and may not stick around long enough to make it to Director level, so talent management programs offer a mutually beneficial way of encouraging them to stay.

Why Is Talent Management Relevant To You?

Of course, talent management is relevant to the organizations that offer it. They wouldn’t bother unless they could make a clear business case for the benefits, because talent management programs don’t come cheap. Consequently, most of the literature on Talent Management looks at it from the employers’ point of view.

However, it’s also important from an individual’s point of view. Firstly, follow-up interviews of people in talent management programs have shown that the activities they find most valuable are personal development activities, like coaching and mentoring, rather than formal study. So if you are looking to develop your personal talent without the benefit of a formal talent management program, those are probably the activities that are going to give you most leverage, notwithstanding your preferred learning style.

Secondly, if you’re not in a Talent Management program – either because your organization doesn’t have one, or because you can’t get into the program your employers run – how are you going to complete with people who are benefiting from the membership of a Talent Management program? I have worked with clients who applied unsuccessfully to join their employers’ program. Some of them felt excluded, because such programs often include some form of network, forum or mastermind group. Some felt that they somehow fell short, or had no future with their employer, because their employer didn’t consider them ‘good enough’ to join the program. And others figured out ways of developing themselves anyway.

How Can You Create Your Own Talent Management Program

Without the support of your employer, there are some options that are more difficult to put in place, but there is still plenty that you could do on your own.

The first step is to identify your own career aspirations. Assuming you want a career in the industry you are in, then how high do you want to rise? When I work with a Talent Management group, almost the first question I ask is, ‘how much do you want promotion, and how far do you want to be promoted?’ I have worked with many clients who realized they wanted to rise to the top. Equally I have worked with others who have realized, through coaching, that they weren’t interested in taking on more responsibility, or that their values where not in total alignment with those of the organization, or that self-employment was a better option for them.

Typically, people will focus on senior managers and directors in their own organization to see how they need to develop. This is fine as a tactic, but it’s not very strategic. Industries and organizations change over time. The skills, knowledge and experience that are essential now may be redundant in five or ten years time. For example, in the early ’90s, companies were still focusing on IQ, or intellectual, mental intelligence, based on logical reasoning and similar skills. By the late ’90s, Emotional Intelligence had come into play. While intellect was still important, the world had woken up to the fact that the best leaders can relate to other people, not just ideas.

So what new skills and attitudes will you need to develop to stay ahead of the game?

It’s also important to consider how the wider business environment might change, both in your industry and beyond. The UK telecoms company, BT, used to have a team of people whose job was to read science fiction to help them identify the sorts of technology they needed to develop in the future. They may still have such a team. While I’m not suggesting you work you way through Amazon’s Sci-Fi and games section, how can you become a futurologist in your sphere?

How Do You Learn Best?

We all learn in different ways. Some people are more hands on, and learn by doing. A business-mentor friend of mine told me she hates instructional videos, because they move too slowly for her, but she loves learning through reading. She loves audio-learning, which I hate because there’s nothing to look at, and I am easily distracted.

Research with children has shown they learn better when they work in pairs or small groups, rather than on their own. Hence the success of Action Learning Sets and Mastermind Groups for adults.

So how do you learn best, and how much time and money are you willing to invest in your learning? Or, to put it another way, what is your learning worth to you?

What Other Ways Can You Develop Your Talent?

One of the tricks to developing your own personal Talent Management program is to find more unusual learning opportunities. One client I coached realized that she needed to develop her financial knowledge and budgeting skills in order to progress in her organization. Unfortunately, she could only get a job or secondment in the finance department if she had the financial skills, so she found herself in a chicken and egg situation. We looked at what she could bring from her life outside work. As it happened, she was heavily involved with her local church, and the Treasurer was always complaining that he was over-burdened with mundane financial activities.

She spotted the opportunity, and offered to take on some of the data-juggling activities in return for the chance to work alongside him on the more strategic aspects of his role.

Take Control With Your Own Talent Management Strategy

If you don’t take control, then either you will drift along, or someone else will take control. The business guru, Rich Schefren, talks about the difference between business opportunity seekers and strategic entrepreneurs. Business opportunity seekers are never as successful as they would like to be, while strategic entrepreneurs are far more likely to exceed their own expectations.

The same analogy applies when planning for your career success. You can be an opportunity seeker, drifting along, catching opportunities as they come up. Alternatively, you can take a strategic view, identifying your talents and aspirations and the career path which will honor both, planning out the steps along that path, and selecting only the opportunities that take you in the direction of your choice.

Creating your own talent management strategy is the road to career success.