The TLVP continues to higher levels of business outcomes as well, such as individual and team excellence. All are directed toward driving business outcomes in a positive fashion. Regardless of the exact words used to capture a given organization’s TLVP, one thing is sure, the elements identified above need to be well thought out, believed in, communicated, executed, and measured—continuously.
At its core, a great TLVP encompasses everything employees experience and receive as they are employed by the organization—including satisfaction from the work they do, their comfort and “fit” within the culture, the quality of leadership, co-workers, compensation, etc.
A great TLVP always encompasses the ways an organization fulfills the needs, expectations, and dreams of both incumbents and applicants and should provide the reason—everyday—for why a leader or individual contributor should recommit to giving their absolute best. More than anything, a great TLVP clearly connects winning talent leadership practices to business and operating metrics.
As was discussed earlier, there exists no better way to create the belief in the value of the human capital asset, than by demonstrating the connectedness between winning talent leadership practices and operational success. What a great TLVP is not, is fancy words in a brochure, motivational posters hung around the workplace, or a loose connection of HR programs and initiatives.
At AlignMark, we believe an organization’s ability to combat such challenges as the aging workforce, turnover, engagement issues, etc., exists in direct proportion to the strength and vibrancy of their talent acquisition and deployment practices, their talent development and engagement practices, their talent benchmarking practices, and how well they truly differentiate and affirm employee performance across the board.
The most successful organizations develop creative recruiting strategies and tactics (e.g., career portals where the CEO or Senior VP of Operations delivers an engaging message to candidates); they screen and select only those candidates who demonstrate they have the highest probability of being successful, of staying (being retained), and of remaining committed; they provide a rich, engaging, dynamic, and compelling learning and performance support environment in which leaders and individual contributors are continually motivated and excited to become the best they can be; they provide benchmarking and certification opportunities for employees to prove—on a continuous basis—that they possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for success; and they reward and recognize those who truly execute. These are the foundational steps required for combating all external and internal challenges. In fact, great organizations, while mindful of these challenges, are never consumed by them.
A strong TLVP foundation leads to: (1) Capability, (2) Commitment, and (3) Alignment. Great organizations excel in creating the belief that their people “can do” (i.e., possess the capability), “will do” (i.e., maintain their commitment), and “must do” (i.e., have the right alignment) that is required for success, now and into the future. To put it in different words, when talented people are trained and “nourished” to excel in their work, when they are provided a rich, engaging environment in which there is passion and excitement about doing great work and truly making a difference, and when they perceive a connection and alignment between their work and the realization of organizational goals and metrics—great things happen (i.e., individual and team excellence). At AlignMark, we call this “Pull Magic”—where employees are passionate about being “pulled” in a direction of individual and organizational greatness.
Many organizations, because they haven’t created this type of environment, achieve the opposite. In the absence of pull strategies, they resort to “Push” strategies, where people perceive being “pushed” in a direction most likely to benefit the organization − not the individual. Individual contributors lose sight of the relationship between their efforts and the organization’s success. Push strategies facilitate the growth of organizational climates characterized by a division between management and individual contributors. Individual contributors feel disconnected. They increasingly disengage. A kind of “outcome myopia” emerges where decisions about discretionary effort and levels of engagement are based on what individuals perceive as good for themselves personally, effectively disregarding what is good for organizational success overall.
Push strategies can encourage individual contributors to perceive management as a primary obstacle to the successful execution of their jobs, and they foster the belief that their interests are in direct conflict with management’s. They view their work environment as “Us v. Them”, with “us” being the individual contributors, and “them” being management (most often expressed as “senior” management due to the fact that responsibility for managerial decisions largely bypasses first-line supervisors, as those supervisors develop working rapport with their teams by “siding” with their teams on unpleasant or unpopular management decisions). The greater the push, the more visible the distinction becomes. And it doesn’t stop there.
Push strategies quickly become self-perpetuating cycles. Because push strategies create employee resistance, management finds itself in the unpleasant position of having to “push” harder and harder to drive organizational results. And of course that leads to more resistance, which leads to more “push,” etc. Ultimately, that cycle has to be broken, and it can only be broken by the kind of intense commitment to improving talent leadership which will result in “pull” rather than “push.”
There are hundreds of consultative sales assessments out there. Perhaps you use one of them. If not, you should as we know that better decision-making (i.e., improved selection and targeted development planning) will result from the use of an assessment that provides more accurate information both for candidates and incumbents.
