We couldn’t help but notice just before Christmas news items at both Personneltoday.com and HRMagazine.co.uk announcing the launch of Virgin Media’s new leadership development scheme, aimed at turning its business into ‘a talent academy’. This struck as simultaneously a very encouraging development and an audacious, brave – and potentially foolhardy – one.
We’re optimists, so we’ll start with the good news. Virgin Media’s leadership development scheme will be based in personal and (reading between what are currently a few brief lines) psychometric profiling, judging by the Personnel Today news item:
The telecommunications giant will assess employees using a character-strength method, where qualities such as courage, energy, a sense of responsibility, drive and ‘being true to yourself’ are identified.
Individuals will then have a 2,000-word report produced about them, to help them link their personality traits to structured development plans, coaching and mentoring.”
We might not have a welter of detail here, but a (restrained) round of applause seems to be in order. ASK sees leadership not as a formal position, but rather as a complex set of behaviours that anyone can demonstrate: our preferred definition of it is as ‘a relationship in which a person accepts responsibility for their own fate and for that of others in relation to achievement of the task’. Furthermore, we strongly value approaches – such as the skilled use and feedback of psychometric instruments – that can enhance not only self-awareness but also awareness of our impact on others, and of other’s needs and preferred learning, communicating and working styles.
To develop into the leader that each of us can become, we must each start from where – and who – we are. Likewise, the leader that we become is not a ‘one size fits all’ model that can b applied straight from a shelf: it is essentially an adaptation of ourselves, with our conscious role in the adaptation process being critical to the outcome. (It pays, however, to recognise that ‘being true to yourself’ is only entirely desirable if the undesirable elements of ‘yourself’ are identified and acted on. It’s not the authenticity of a monster that is usually the factor that attracts the most attention.)
Naturally, we hope that Virgin Media’s new scheme recognises and integrates these factors: we shouldn’t – and wouldn’t – expect them to supply chapter and verse in what is effectively a press release. We also hope, as part of a Group that prides itself on quality, that’s it development programme doesn’t lose sight of the importance of linking development outcomes with business outcomes – sorry to mention the authentic monster again, but ‘character’ alone is not enough – or of ensuring that the programme is integrated with a comprehensive and robust transfer and application process, with all that entails. On the evidence available, however, that ‘link their personality traits to’ bodes well.
All this wasn’t, however, what sat us back in our seats a little. (And not in a ‘relax and enjoy your flight; sort of way.) We’re used to the Virgin brand being fun, audacious, challenging of convention and a little “rock’n’roll” (a phrase that turned up a few times when Marketing Magazine profiled Group brand director, Catherine Salway, in 2006, even if the article was titled “Rebel grown up”). Growing up comes to all of us in time, and even Richard Branson – although Virgin owns only a minority share in Virgin Media at the time of writing – is now 56. Maybe 56 really is the new 30, but even so we wondered how the following quote from Elisa Nardi, chief people officer, sat with that (newly and gradually) mature outlook and branding in a quote to HR Magazine:
We are confident that investing in our people will not only strengthen them as leaders and grow our business, but will result in our competitors looking to Virgin Media as the place to poach talent. We’re happy if others naturally look to us to provide that pipeline – not that we think people will want to leave.”
We’re familiar (if not necessarily in full agreement) with the concept of attack being the best form of defence, but this struck as setting out more to be attacked than to be doing the attacking. Virgin Media operates, as Personnel Today pointed out, ‘in a fiercely competitive market’, and Elisa’s words are hard to see as anything other than ‘fighting talk’. But it does seem a little odd – especially in a media industry where many of us remember the BBC’s former (and perhaps on-going) plight as the trainer/developer of choice, but not necessarily the employer.
Katherine Thomas, BT’s group recruitment, talent and leadership director (whose own earlier column in Grapevine we’ve previously commented on), was invited to comment on Virgin Media’s development scheme announcement in Personnel Today. We can only assume that’d she’d not read Elisa’s comments to HR Magazine when she said:
We expect that our talent will be attractive externally and anticipate some churn in the population – again though, we share with Virgin Media a strong focus around retention. In this regard, our ongoing attention to engagement levels within our talent pool gives us strong insight into the issues that could start to put us at risk and need to be addressed.”
Maybe those lines we read between were too close together to let the full story through: it is entirely possible that Virgin Media’s approach of ‘nurturing and cherishing their individuality, whilst clearly aligning them strategically to where we want to go as a business’ will also address talent management. Maybe that personal profiling activity will unearth the individual motivations and aspirations of their key emerging talents, and be able to strategically align them well enough that they will want to continue to go where Virgin Media is heading at any given point in time. It might also ensure the company is clear about what its key talents value that its employee value proposition (a topic we’ve recently covered here, here and here) will be as widely recognised as what is one of the world’s most recognised brands.
But we’d also imagine that a media company would deem some things as ‘not for broadcast’ – for most companies, “our staff are more worth nicking than anyone else’s” would probably be one of those messages. Still, if it comes down to cat fight over human capital, Virgin Media presumably get first dibs on the broadcast rights – and they already have a charismatic white-bearded referee to front the programme. Till then, may the best approach to investing in people win.
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29 January 2010 at 8:40 pm
Two things particularly drew my attention in your blog, Naysan, which I enjoyed. Thank you.
There seems to be a notion generally abroad today that some people are particularly gifted with talent and that there is must be a war to find these ‘gifted’ people and then prevent them being ‘poached’. Talent is seen as a possession.
How much evidence do we need to prove to people that in the nature/nurture debate, nurture is by far the the greatest influence of performance. Talent is not so much a gift as the outcome of consistent deep practice. Not everyone can be the world champion, because all world class performers do practice constantly, but nearly everyone can improve their performance many times over through learning and assiduous practice, but that takes time and hard work. It is easier and less demanding to wish you possessed the “gift” and thus exonerate yourself from the effort of developing real talent. So we rest in mediocrity, going on courses at companies’ talent academies, but never really trying to implement the learning we gain. It is a paradox of incompetence that people do not recognise their own lack of skill, genuinely believing that it not possible to achieve a standard. When they do see another succeed, they attribute their success to good luck or a ‘gift’. I could go on, but there is a separate point.
Even the most talented people can only perform in context. That context influences their behaviour, so a high performer poached from one employer may not perform so well in their role, but it is very rare that the leaders of the new organisation recognise their own contribution to the new hire’s disappointing performance.
Thus nurturing talent is the best work of every employer. It engages the people and leads directly to improved performance, but it should be based on the recognition that everyone possesses talent and the trick is for management and staff to all work together to develop everyone’s individual talents. Just as people once hoped to turn swords into plough-shares, so managers need to turn from a supposed “war for talent” to growing a real talent culture. Talent academies in companies may be set up with the best of intentions, but they cannot sustain them if they divide employees into the ‘talented’ and the less talented and they miss the point that talent is most and best developed day by day in the workplace, supported by enlightened leaders with good coaching.
Just as leadership is not a possession, but a complex set of behaviour that anyone can demonstrate, so talent is not a gift, but a choice and constant process with which any and all can choose to engage.
30 January 2010 at 11:09 am
[...] Like a Virgin? Or just innocents abroad? [...]
9 February 2010 at 5:00 pm
Jonathan, you raise some extremely interesting points – not least of which is the potentially simplistic and somewhat view of ‘talent’ that many organisations appear to hold. While it would easier for everyone if people were like software – one quick painless installation and everything is magically enhanced – reality is, of course, messier, more complicated and more time consuming than that. It is well documented that it requires at least a thousand repetitions for new habits to be created and expert at something and as I’m sure you’ll agree that the opportunity for those repetitions to take place within the workplace (or even the recognition of the importance of allowing this opportunity) is often very limited, especially when it comes to practicing ‘soft skills’. The reality is that the process of mastery can, in many cases, take months or years.
Another interesting point you raise is the validity of, to paraphrase your point, ‘transferable skills’ (or might we invent the phrase ‘transferable talent’?) The role of context has a huge impact on perceived ability/capability. I say perceived because much also depends on the expectations set down within the organisation. Changing organisations (which relates just as much to internal changes) often means changes of expectations, making fit or mismatch become more apparent. Similarly, your point about a lack of awareness from the point of view of the employer – and indeed the ‘leader’ – impacts greatly upon an individual’s performance: indeed, it is often a lack of skill (and even awareness of the need) of both senior and line managers in effectively supporting, encouraging or engaging their staff that leads to a fall in the performance of those previously – and possibly arbitrarily – labelled as ‘high fliers’.
From my own work with a broad range of organizations, I’ve found that ‘Talent’ means very different things to different people. Many organisations espouse a ‘culture of talent’, although the interpretation – and the depth of conviction and commitment – can be highly variable. Some clearly do see ‘Talent’ as a nurturing, mentoring development process, where – as we concluded when we read Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’ – the key to developing the talents of others lies in providing opportunities and support. (The breadth and depth of their staff population that might receive these opportunities, however, can be highly variable. To hint at a related topic, employee engagement is surely a relevant related factor: how much potential talent is lost as it receives only the message that ‘you’re not worth developing or investing in’, I wonder?) Others take an approach built more on rigorous evaluation and selection, seeing this as the key to identifying and promoting talent. This is not to say that one is better than the other: most organisations would claim that they mix both approaches – although I’m not always convinced that they do. Perhaps it’s just me – although your comments suggest that there are others who would agree?
Naysan
18 February 2010 at 5:05 pm
[...] I was also left thinking about a comment made by Jonathan Wilson in response to an earlier post here – talent isn’t just a ‘gift’ that we have or don’t have. To quote one section of his [...]