Selecting Talent: Spotting Internal Talent
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If you’ve been through our Talent Manager programme, you will have found out how to spot internal talent (if you’d like to know more about this workshop, take a look here). Yet it is often only the best managers who truly focus on talent spotting as a core part of their job – so if you want to stand out as a manager, this is one way to do so.
Spotting potential is vital for the organisation, since organisations that often look outside to fill vacancies quickly demotivate their best people. How can you help ensure that talent is consistently found from inside the organisation?
First, you have to be really clear why you’re looking for talent. Commercially speaking, your key objective is to help people to contribute more to your organisation.
Talent Management thus becomes about finding out what people love or enjoy or are good at so that you can help them to increase their performance, contribution and reputation. Individuals feel valued and supported in their career development, and the business benefits from using their potential more fully.
With that in mind, when you’re spotting talent and trying to understand whether a team member or mentee can contribute more, what questions should you be asking?
- Can they cope with the intellectual jump to take on the new challenge? Are they bright enough to cope with a ‘step change’ in responsibilities? Do they pick up new ideas and run with them quickly? Do they quickly develop good judgment?
- Are they good at gaining support from other people, and in particular from experts? If they’re relying solely on their own resources they can run into difficulties if they take on a stretching challenge. But those that know where to go and who to speak to can often find a way around any difficult situation.
- How resilient are they? When you put them into the deep end do they swim or do they sink? Do they run scared or do they stand up to the challenge? When they make mistakes, are they good at picking themselves up, learning from the experience, and getting back on track?
- Do they actually want the challenge you’re offering them? Find out how much stretch they want right now. Sometimes the talented person you have spotted knows they are able to do a bigger job – but have other things going on in their life, which mean that they don’t want to be stretched at work right now. Others may be perfectly happy at their current level – but happy to work on being a source of excellence, and getting some recognition for this.
Spotting internal talent is key to the success of your organisation. The research we’ve done into the area is one of the reasons clients choose to work with us. From the viewpoint of that research, success starts with cutting through the noise and focusing on what matters – helping your people to contribute more. Keep that in mind when making decisions about the talent in your business.
And for your own career – think about what your manager or senior managers might think about you, if they asked those 4 questions. Have you made it easy to see your own potential?
If you’re interested in Talent Manager workshops for your organisation, take a minute now to find out more about it.