Do Not Neglect to Nurture and Grow Top Talent

The Number One Excuse Why Leaders Do Not Nurture and Grow Your Top Talent
There are lots of excuses for neglecting to identify, nurture and grow your top talent. The most persuasive is that the company is moving so fast you have little time to think forward…you can only hope to keep up with demands and pressure for the present.

Why You Need To Invest In Your Next Group of Leaders
Leaders who do not nurture and grow your top talent can be making a big, and potentially, disastrous mistake. Why? Because, to perform over the long-haul, you need the best talent.

Where are you going to find your next crop of leaders if you don’t keep your talent pipeline filled with both internal and external candidates?

Three Steps to Nurture and Grow Top Talent
Here’s what you need to do to nurture and grow top talent:

1. Map Your Talent Strategy To The Business Strategy
   Your talent management strategy should not be created or implemented in a vacuum. For a talent strategy to have a chance to succeed, it must be fully aligned with your overall business strategy, 100% supported by the leadership team., and fully aligned with the current (not desired) organizational culture.

   The goal? Build the talent you need to implement your business strategy in a way that aligns with and strengthens the way people think, work and behave.

2. Establish Key Talent Metrics
   Know what talent matters most and ensure that the ways in which you measure talent success are transparent in terms of roles and responsibilities, performance, potential, and impact. Your goal is to ensure that each employee knows how their job fits into the overall company strategy, what is expected of them, how their success will be measured, and how they will be compensated.
3. Attract and Retain The Talent You Want
   Once you identify the critical skills and behaviors required to implement your talent strategy, you can better focus on attracting with an appealing employer value proposition and retaining talent that fits.  Use annual employee engagement surveys to keep tuned into your most critical employees.  Create retention action plans for those that matter most.

The Bottom Line
Talent accounts for 29% of the difference between high and low performing companies.  How you nurture and grow talent can set you apart from your competition.  If you want to grow gracefully, invest the time and resources to get talent management right.

For more information on how to nurture and grow your top talent, download The Top 5 Training Strategy Mistakes to Avoid

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.