Written by Sebastián Uriarte, Managing Partner
AIMS International Chile and the AIMS International Marketing Team
It has become significantly more difficult to attract, manage and retain talent. So many factors in the contemporary world of business complicate organisational and human capital management. Nowadays, organisations must be at the forefront of the changing economic context, where a majority of managers and leaders coming from the "Baby Boomers” generation must motivate and manage the “Y” generation.
In this context of complexity, we would like to share a few keys that may be useful for your company:
- Key nr. 1: Unlocking leadership excellence and understanding what inspires leaders and their teams
- Key nr. 2: Plan for increasingly higher mobility of current and future leaders
- Key nr. 3: Identify talent suitable for YOUR environment and performance manage against strategic objectives
The first key is the importance of leadership excellence and understanding what inspires companies and their teams. In this context, AIMS International Chile conducted a study to identify the principal skills that leaders must have. During this study, 30 generic management competencies were presented, and the managers’ task was to prioritise these competencies.
The top 3 competencies were:
Ethical sense (90%), Strategic thinking (83%) and Commitment and Responsibility (82%). These three competencies show the leaders’ expectations regarding their roles and the importance of having good corporate governance.
The second key is to understand the increasingly higher mobility of current and future leaders. Before the 90’s the average Executive’s tenure with one company was in the region of 30 years. Today that figure has fallen to an average of 10 years and that average decreases to 5 when the Executive is younger than 35. This information leads companies to focus on becoming flexible, innovative and cultivating a propensity for change. The importance of positive
employer branding and succession planning becomes essential in this environment.
This finding leads us to key number 3: the importance of attracting the right talent for your environment and robustly managing your talent against strategic objectives: Firstly, we should change our focus during our selection process; instead of focusing only on seeking the best candidates for the job, we must know our organisations first. We should intimately understand their objectives and challenges in order to attract the right people to be successful in this environment. Then, with
the right team, you must discover their hidden talents, as well as the keys which will unlock and motivate them. In order to do this, we need to increase interaction and therewith engagement of all the members of the organisation, as managing only is no longer enough
. Having managers with closed minds who do not engage with the organisational strategy will decrease participation and will surely lead to failure.
Once your team’s integration is adjusted, and they are participating in the actions to execute the strategy of the company, managers should clearly define challenges and provide a safe context for their team members to cope with ambiguity. This will give them the confidence to develop their hidden talents which is the source of a true competitive advantage of an excellence team.
Finally, there is one last consideration that we cannot forget when managing talent and that is knowing how to identify and manage those who do not contribute to the achievements of the organisation. We must always continue training and developing people; however, it should not be confused with stubbornness. Just like in sport, when a coach has to replace or change a player’s position who does not contribute positively to the team and everyone praises his character and leadership, when we have an employee who does not contribute, we have to
decisively performance manage this, otherwise it weakens the team and dilutes objectives.
In today’s complex world, companies cannot afford to lose sight of their strategic objectives and the behaviours that lead to successful execution of those goals.
Written by Sebastián Uriarte, Managing Partner
AIMS International Chile and the AIMS International Marketing Team
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