Focus: Talent and performance management: key methods of tracking results
By Jonathan Hill (March 2005 Issue)
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Ask your managerial colleagues the following question: ‘Do you invest most of your time and energy with the stars in your team or with those people who struggle to perform?’ Most managers ruefully admit that their under-performing colleagues attract most of their attention. What’s more, a clearly visible gap between current performance and desired performance may act as a magnet for trainers and coaches. After all, the analysis of performance gaps is the conventional starting point for much of our work in training design and delivery. But let us also consider how these natural tendencies to rescue and remedy can be counter-balanced by a sharper focus on our high performers.
Research such as that summarised by Mark Cook, a leading authority on psychometric selection techniques, indicates that in many occupations the best performers accomplish at least double the output and productivity of their less effective colleagues.1 It may even be the case that a further large leap in results is more realistically within the grasp of exceptional achievers than of their colleagues with lower potential. Yet both our compassion and our professional support tend to be drawn to the latter group. The achievement of significant performance growth requires new styles of management and development. This will involve increased capability and confidence to improve the results of the workplace equivalents of athlete Kelly Holmes and footballer Wayne Rooney. To handle this challenge our first task is to understand more about talent and how to identify, develop and retain it.
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