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Talent Planning in Uncertain Times
16 December 2011:
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The challenge
As a group of senior HR professionals and other business leaders gathered in London for CorporateLeaders’ recent Executive Briefing, the future of the Euro was in doubt, global markets were in freefall and the world’s financial system was – for the second time in three years – in danger of collapse. Against such an unpromising backdrop, strategic talent planning becomes a challenge, to say the least. As one participant from the financial services industry put it: “There’s strategic talent planning when you know you are in a fairly stable environment and there’s strategic planning when you don’t know what’s going to happen next.” What is clear, he added, is that companies, especially in his own sector, will not be able to operate in the future in the same way as they have in the past.
Reframing leadership capabilities
Even participants from those sectors still experiencing growth agreed that in these uncertain times companies have to reframe the capabilities they are likely to need in the future. That goes especially for their leadership capabilities. There was broad agreement around the table that tomorrow’s leaders will have to be different from today’s. They will need political and negotiation skills of the highest order both to navigate rapidly changing regulatory environments and to persuade governments that their companies can contribute to national economic development. Several participants described how their organisations were trying to grow political capabilities internally through long-term development programmes. Raytheon Professional Services, on the other hand, is currently more focused on developing commercial capability. “We are part of a big defence company which employs many ex-generals and former diplomats, so we are very used to working at that extremely high political level,” said Paul Swinscoe, the company’s Director of Business Development. “But Raytheon is moving much more into the commercial world, so we are now also looking for people with a commercial mindset.”
Whatever capabilities companies identify as critical to their future success and however they seek to develop those capabilities, the choices they make now are likely to haunt them for many years to come. As one HR professional taking part in the discussion put it: “It’s those choices that will make the difference between tomorrow’s winners and losers.”
Required reading
In his just published book, Great by Choice, business guru Jim Collins, author of such best sellers as Built to Last and Good to Great, asks why some companies thrive in uncertainty – even chaos. The answers, based on nine years of research by Collins and his co-author Morten Hansen, suggest that the leaders of these companies are highly disciplined when focusing on their objectives; they rely on direct observation and practical experimentation and are able to channel fear and anxiety into action and contingency planning. Even in chaotic circumstances that they cannot control, great leaders make the right choices. Great by choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck Why Some Thrive Despite Them All is published by HarperCollins
