Talking up Your Team’s Talent
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How often do you consistently promote and talk up the talented individuals within your team to your boss? Is it something that your team would like you to do? And what are the consequences of NOT doing this?
The last time I found that I had a manager who rarely mentioned my name in senior circles, or gave me credit for ideas, or mentioned the times when I’d gone over and above what was expected in order to deliver a business-critical project on time – it was one of the reasons that I left the organisation. I realised that without a manager who cared enough to help me raise my visibility and pursue my career, my progress would be slower and less certain. And like others, I thought “Why should I bust a gut to make the department and my manager look good, if I get no credit for it?”
You can significantly help or hinder the careers of the people you are working with by taking this one action alone.
When you talk up the talents of your team members, they will inevitably get a greater breadth of projects and activities to work on, which will in turn create a greater level of exposure. This is also important from a succession perspective, for your role – as well as for other roles in the department. Sometimes managers fear “But I might lose them all”. The reality is that you will lose your talented people at some point anyway – and it’s much better to be seen to be helping to fill the future talent pipelines in the business rather than being the person that always loses talented people to the competition.
There is another self-interest point here however. I’ve argued this before, but I think that if your boss believes that you have no successor in your team – and a great project or role comes up for which you would be perfect – they might not give it to you because replacing you will be a headache. If there’s no obvious successor in your team, people might not offer you the roles you’d like to move into – “Being indispensable means being unpromotable.”
So how can you talk up your talent to your boss?
- Using a nine-box development grid
If you’ve been on our Talent Manager workshop, taking time to share the grid that you created with your manager is a fantastic way to engage them in conversation about your team. It will also help them to give you feedback on anything they’ve gleaned from their interactions with your team. - Make sure you make good work visible to senior management.
Where team members do something good, spread the good news and give them the credit for it. In one department that I led as a senior manager, managers would forward me information about their team’s successes and achievements – and asked me to email the individual directly to show that their efforts had been noticed. And it doesn’t always have to be internal – I see one of our clients, who is heavily into Twitter, commenting on team members’ good work all the time on social media. - Use all opportunities for awards and recognition
If there are internal or external awards you could use to recognise your team, do it. It’s a great way to build viability to your boss in a slightly indirect way. And if there aren’t any awards that they could go for – have you thought about creating some?
Your team will be hugely impressed, and probably give you discretionary effort, when they know that you’re taking the time to praise them to your manager. Others will hear about this, and see you as a good manager – meaning that you’ll find it easy to attract talented people. And senior managers will see you as a positive person who is a nursery of talent for the business. It’s a quick action, but the ripple effect is immense!