Posts Tagged ‘9-box’
Employee Potential in the Eye of the Beholder – Part 1
Posted by: grandma in Leadership, Performance Management, Succession Planning, Talent Management on July 11th, 2010
One of the challenges companies face today is managing their employee turnover, specifically for key positions in the organization. A key position is defined as a critical role that would adversely affect a company’s operations if it were vacated. These positions are typically leadership or managerial and make up between eight and twelve percent of all positions (Berger, 2004). When an employee vacates a key position, via unexpected leave, retirement or promotion, an organization ideally backfills the position with a cadre of highly-qualified candidates ready to replace that person. Human Resource (HR) departments plan for succession to hedge against the risk of departure. Hence, companies cannot afford turnover of high-potential employees in line for key positions.
Like leadership, potential has as many definitions but is even more ambiguous. These definitions range from “inherent capacity for coming into being” to a “latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed.” Leaders need to start somewhere; their entrance into the realm of leadership usually begins in a front-line management position. One of the key criterion in selecting a leader is the anticipation of their success to lead their team. In essence, what is their leadership potential? Most organizations measure potential by intuition or “gut feel.” The problem with this informal measurement is that it is often wrong. Society is littered with poor managers hired by people who thought the person had leadership potential. The fallacy in their selection is based on past performance, not on their potential to be a good leader. These are generally the data points that create the ubiquitous “9-box” companies use to slot future stars. Performance is regularly measured, albeit inexactly. Potential is not something that is actively measured and companies do not utilize the proper research instruments to measure it.
A Manager Provides the Right Antecedents for Employee Success
Having the proper antecedents for leadership development will likely produce better leaders. Malcolm Gladwell (2008) extensively analyzes the conditions that make people successful in his book “Outliers.” Date of birth for junior hockey players, affinity relationships for certain professions like law, and native languages assisting math skills for Asian children are all foundations that provide better success. These antecedents are harbingers of success and set the stage to bring out the best in their subjects. Silzer and Church (2009) discovered that an employee’s potential can be stifled by his or her immediate manager by not providing the right antecedents for high performance. Hence, a good manager provides the right conditions for an employee to realize his or her potential.
In part 2 of this post we will look at ways of identifying high-potential outside of past performance based on two predictive attributes: self-efficacy and mindset.
Two Unique Measurements of Potential for Succession Planning – Part 1 – Managerial Mindset
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Leadership, Succession Planning on February 17th, 2009
One of the big issues I’ve seen with a company’s succession planning process is how to measure potential. Potential makes up the x-axis of the 9-box (or whatever flavor) versus performance on the y-axis. So how can this be determined?
Much like a focal performance review, you should also conduct a potential review. So what does determine the potential of someone? To most, it is an inate judgement call. Here are two unique measurements that you should obtain with this survey. The first is essential to the measurement because it is a gateway to potential.
1) Managerial Mindset (Growth or Fixed)
2) Level of Self-Efficacy
Today, we will look at the first measurement – Managerial Mindset. I think this is a huge determinant of potential – especially if the position they are coming into is a leadership one. Dr. Carol Dweck (Mindset-The New Psychology of Success) has done decades of research on this subject. A growth mindset is basically someone who thinks anything can be learned by anyone. A fixed mindset is someone who thinks intelligence is capped or that they can’t grow anymore. In other words, someone who adamantly believes in the Peter Principle has a fixed mindset. It is someone who would say “Leaders are born, not made.” In an interview with HR.com, Dr. Laurie Bassi (who by the way has some of the best learning research ever presented) said one of the biggest reasons training isn’t successful is because managers are not really supportive of the training. So on that premise, shouldn’t you measure someone on whether they are supportive? If you have managers that deny training to their employees or don’t encourage it, then they likely they have a fixed mindset. Fixed Mindset managers don’t provide good feedback, feel threatened by their employees growth and have an “elitist” us vs. them attitude.
The most important job at any company is the 1st level manager. They have the most influence on the individual contributor.
What is the cumulative effect of having 1,000 managers with a growth mindset? This would have a staggering effect on your organization. Make sure your measure Mindset in your Succession Reviews.
Update: This is a great article citing Scott Forstall having a Growth Mindset – he managed the team that developd the iPhone.