The early days of leading an organization through extraordinary change require tremendous effort to shift the organization’s existing mindset, course, and culture. But once those initial transformative steps have taken hold, the momentum of the energy and excitement they create.
I call this the “flywheel effect,” which will propel you and your team into the next stage of transformation, and the next, and the next.
Talent is a significant component of an organization’s continual transformation. Your team may meet the organization’s current needs, but will that still be true six, 12, or 24 months later? Transformational leaders must commit to continually and intentionally upgrading their organization’s talent to meet their changing needs. This is especially true in fields like technology, where innovation is constant.
Here are three best practices that can help you keep that commitment.
1. Quarterly Individual Assessments
Every leader must rank their employees’ individual skills and behaviors required for their position based on a numerical rating of one through N, with 1 being the highest possible rating and “N” being the lowest.
This is a challenging task. Leaders who are connected to and care about their people don’t want to let anyone go. Care and connection are important, but they must not cloud a leader’s objective view of an individual’s ability to keep moving the organization forward.
2. Quarterly Review With Leadership
This is a gathering of extended leadership. At the quarterly review, each leader must bring their assessment data and identify their ranked list for the group.
Here’s where the dynamic is highly effective: We balance the rankings across the organization. Any leader who disagrees with a ranking can challenge it with a clear reason. An employee’s rankings may be adjusted based on the following discussion.
3. Quarterly Assessment of Organizational Needs
With practices one and two completed, the leadership team is now prepared to address natural attrition in a transformational organization. Every quarter, the team assesses the organization’s current gaps, redundancies, single points of failure, and future talent demands against the rankings of the individual employees. This process enables leadership to make the right talent changes for the organization.
Making personnel decisions is never easy, but there are practices you can put in place to assure you are moving the organization forward based on objective, factual data. In doing so, you and your team will be ready for anything.