Talent Management in the Downturn

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For organisations to be fit for the future they need to be fit for human beings according to Gary Hamel. We agree with his statement and in this article we consider some of the most pressing talent management challenges facing senior leaders and HR professionals as we emerge from the downturn.

Key points include:

  • The down turn is not just economic its psychological and emotional. Employees are tired and need help to reignite their passion, productivity and creativity.
  • Talent management approaches must help employees to find meaning at work. Leaders need to be able to convey the true spirit of their organisation and how its purpose goes beyond making money to also making a difference.
  • Translating external customer expectations into internal behaviours attunes the workforce to the needs of the market and leads to an informed employee voice.
  • To future proof their organisation leaders need to embrace what it means to be human and balance this with the needs of the business.

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Leadership Coaching: How CEOs & Senior Leaders Build Resilience and Capacity for Change

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Where do you turn when you want to improve leadership effectiveness, resilience and capacity for change? Leadership coaching is a proven approach, so we invited Ann Scoular, founder of  Meyler Campbell and author of the Financial Times Guide to Business Coaching  to join a Triumpha network event group of CEOs and HR Leaders to share her views.

We transcribed the event so if you would like a copy of the transcript, please use the download link below.

Key Discussion Points

  • How to think clearly and effectively using the ’Big 5’ approach.
  • Key insights from neuroscience about behavioural change and how to sustain performance over time.
  • The hallmarks of effective leadership coaches.
  • 10 tough questions to ask a leadership coach.
  • An explanation for teenage behavior and why education is worth the effort.

Compared with only one generation ago, the amount of incoming data leaders need to process has multiplied hugely, and our processor (the brain) isn’t keeping pace. So where do we turn for that extra edge? Leadership coaching is often the answer.

Anne’s view is that working with a great leadership coach is “the equivalent of plugging in some extra processing capacity. With a great coach its like plugging into the National Grid – a surge of energy and clear focus that recharges the batteries and hauls us back to peak form.”

To download a copy of the transcript from this exclusive networking event, please enter your details below.

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Mapping a Strategic Approach to HR Leadership

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The quality of HR Leadership in organisations is mixed. When we talk to HR professionals about working strategically, we typically find that ‘common sense is not common practice’. Sometimes people don’t understand what to do, or more usually they understand what to do, but they don’t do it, what we call the ‘knowing-doing’ gap.

Building the strategic capability of Human Resources leaders and their teams is essential. Strategic Human Resources has the potential to modernise management practice, bringing it into line with the needs of the 21st century organisation. HR leadership must strike the balance between business demands and the needs of the organisation and its workforce to adapt to change. This delivers sustainable value for all of the organisation’s stakeholders.

In this paper we cover:

  • How we have closed the HR leadership ‘knowing-doing’ gap in a leading retailer.
  • Five crucial conversations that strategic human resources leaders must catalyse within their organisations.
  • How Human Resources Leaders can build their confidence and strategic capability by working through a planned change process.
  • How to build appetite and expectation for a strategic Human Resources contribution among line colleagues.
  • A staged approach for developing and embedding strategic Human Resources capability in an HR team.

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How to Lead in the New Normal

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The business environment will never be the same again. As the new decade unfolds, more and more business leaders and managers who have survived the recession and are rebuilding their organisations are coming to realise that their business models must be overhauled and that the old ways of improving performance and managing change will no longer work. Enter: leading in the new normal.

Leading in the New Normal Key points:

  • We need to steer away from the practice of employing people from the ‘shoulders down’. Today’s knowledge economy demands that we capitalise on individual’s from the neck up, releasing them from command and control management and liberating them to contribute more meaningfully.
  • Leaders must ‘future proof’ their organisations by building the strategic and cultural capabilities which enable them to win in their market place, adapt to change and produce the conditions where people can thrive.
  • Only by looking strategically at the people side of the business can organisations have any chance of delivering sustainable performance.
  • The importance of strategic clarity and having a compelling purpose that goes beyond making money to also making a difference.
  • The power of using pictures and creating the space for conversation in helping make change happen.

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Value of Organisation Development from the CEO’s Perspective

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Organisation Development (OD) has had a bad wrap, often accused of being a ‘fluffy’ discipline with some practitioners demonstrating an unhealthy bias towards a people agenda disconnected from business goals.

However given the scale and complexity of the challenges facing today’s organisations, the contribution that organisation development can make to the success of organisations is vital. There is a need to design and develop organisations that are more adaptable, innovative, collaborative, inspiring and ultimately accountable. As such the natural place for the leadership of system-wide organisational change is the CEO.

CEOs need high quality Organisation Development support to help them lead essential business transformation. 
Key points in this article include:

  • The four most significant changes to the CEO role in the last five years.
  • The Leadership challenges that must be addressed are not new. We have been wrestling with them for a while. Today’s ‘stretch’ comes from the amplification of these existing challenges.
  • The one factor that differentiates the most successful CEOs.
  • Organisations that strike a balance between shorter term performance goals and longer term organisational resilience perform two and three times as well as those which only focus on health or performance respectively.
  • Creating and leading organisations that are adaptable, innovative, collaborative, inspiring and accountable used to be the concern of the few. It is now the concern of the many.

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The Changing Role of HR

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The role of HR has changed. The industrial age practice of employing people ‘from the shoulders down’ is outdated. In today’s knowledge economy HR must capitalise on individuals ‘from the neck up’ to create a culture in which every employee is liberated and contributes meaningfully.

This article the Changing Role of HR was featured in HR Magazine’s Vision section, a series of in-magazine articles and web content exploring key themes of increasing importance in the future of work. Triumpha’s Andrea Adams was invited to close the series.

Key points in the Changing Role of HR include:

  • To be fit for the future an organisation must have a compelling purpose which goes beyond making money. It’s about doing well (making a profit) and doing good (making a difference).
  • Meeting human needs in the workplace is essential. Human Resources professionals need to design systems and approaches that provide meaning and shape how business is done.
  • People commit to what they help to create:
    •  Goals and change will most likely be accomplished when people are involved in co-constructing the goal, assessing the current state of affairs and defining the route map to move from the desired state to the desired goal.
    • Creating the space for conversations and dialogue which unifies effort and team spirit and supports employees to make the wider agenda relevant to their day to day work is essential leadership work.
  • Developing leaders who have the competence and character necessary to lead the web of complex institutions that have become so vital to the health of modern societies is essential.

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