I’ve been thinking a lot about this article from Harvard Business Publishing on talent management titled Stop Worrying about Your Weaknesses. Here’s a quote:
“We have a report card problem in our companies and it’s costing us a tremendous amount of time, money, potential, and happiness. It’s costing us talent.
Traditional management systems encourage mediocrity in everything and excellence in nothing. Most performance review systems set an ideal picture of how we want everyone to act (standards, competencies, etc.) and then assesses how closely people match that ideal, nudging them to improve their weaknesses so they “meet or exceed expectations” in every area.”
The idea is that managers touch on the areas at which an employee excels, and then works with/on them to improve their areas of weakness. The result of this is that employees and manager spend their time on areas employees are weakest at (and probably enjoy the least), while neglecting to improve their areas of strength (which they probably enjoy the most).
This idea that there are fixed job descriptions into which employees must be jammed seems awfully 20th century and rather similar to our failed educational model which seems awfully 19th century. We need a more fluid managment model where strengths are reward and enhanced, while weaknesses are minimized and intelligently managed. In practice I find most companies work this way on a day to day basis, but then revert to some GM circa 1967 model at performance review time.
Mitchel Ahern
Director of Marketing Communication, One to One Interactive
http://www.onetooneinteractive.com.com
Tags: Managing people, Motivation, Talent management
