3 Ways Bring Out the Best from High Potentials

Are You Doing Everything You Can to Bring Out the Best from High Potentials?
Does your organizational culture and talent management strategy bring out the best from high potentials?  If not, it should.  High potentials can make or break your performance.

Research: The Definition of High Potential Employees
According to Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Church & Waclawski, 2010), High potential employees are defined as: “A highly valuable contributor with a great deal of stretch capability within the organization. Such individuals are typically promoted to higher levels beyond their current role, and a select few can be seen as leading the organization at the senior levels.”

We consider high potential employees as the top 3% to 10% of the workforce in terms of “Results” and “Behaviors.”  Results are exemplified by consistently outperforming their expectations and their peers in varied situations.  Behaviors relate to achieving those differentiated results in a manner that consistently aligns with the cultural and team norms and associated corporate values regardless of the complexity or pressure.

Additionally, these unique employees show the attributes required to successfully take on more responsibility within the organization.  The good news is that performance, potential, and behavior can be measured using leadership simulation assessments.

Why High Potential Employees Matter
Several studies show that companies that bring out the best from high potentials (HIPOs) are well rewarded.  HIPOs drive a disproportionate amount of organizational results.  One recent study at Indiana University reported that the top 6 percent of high potentials delivers 35 percent of the organizations results and that the top 20 percent of high potentials delivers 80 percent of the organizations results

Treat Your High Performers and High Potentials Differently
All too often the employees who get noticed are the ones who bray the loudest or who are best at navigating office politics. Are these the criteria you want to define your chosen high potentials? Probably not.  When it comes to talent, the squeaky wheel approach does not deliver lasting performance.

How to Find Your High Potentials
Instead of promoting those who are most obvious, perhaps for the wrong reasons, performance management training experts recommend you assess your organizational culture and look deeper into your employee base to find the real high performance stars who deserve their chance on the big stage by using research-backed simulations that incorporate desired competencies, personality assessments, and learning aptitude metrics.  Examples include research-backed:

• Leadership simulation assessments
• Sales rep assessment simulations
• People manager assessment centers

3 Ways Bring Out the Best from High Potentials
Here is how to find the true, but perhaps hidden, talent for today and tomorrow so you can bring out the best from high potentials:

1. Be Absolutely Clear About What It Takes to Excel
   This includes behaviors, accomplishments, and whatever key performance indicators relate to the specific job role and career trajectory in both the short and long-term.  Performance ambiguity is your enemy here.  Strive for two high performance goals that carry 50 percent or more of the performance weight.

   You will know you are on the right track when high potentials know where they stand and what it takes to be successful.

2. Be Transparent with Information
   Our organizational alignment research found that workplace transparency and the timely flow of information is 13.5 times greater for high performing companies.  Actively involve high performers in where the company is headed, where they stand, and what their future holds.

   You will know you are on the right track when high potentials believe that the information flow across the company is timely.

3. Be Discriminating
   Invest a disproportionate amount of time and energy in identifying and developing the critical few people who you think will lead your organization forward.  Offer customized training programs, coaching, and career development opportunities.  Look for stretch assignments for them to forge new paths, challenge existing assumptions and push the status quo.

   You will know you are on the right track when high potentials have what they need to be successful.

The Bottom Line
High potentials are worth the investment.  Selected correctly, they make better transitions into new roles, improve performance year over year, and model what matters to help and develop those around them.

To learn more about better managing performance, download The Top 5 Performance Management Success Factors