observing the waves…
As I hope you have noticed, the “talent” that gave us Surf music came from all over. By the early 60’s, globally the availability of relatively inexpensive amps and guitars, along with the popularity of radio and TV created a tidal wave of kids trying to figure out how to put that all together into something that would Surf them into fame. Today’s come from the heart of real Surf Country – Orange County California, and the classic line up of “friends from Santa Ana High School”. And like many groups, this one will make a huge impact, but not Surf the wave for very long…
.. meanwhile, in Detroit, there was a different approach to talent management. Hitsville USA became what the business world would call a ‘vertical integrated’s business – with Motown having studios with the best musicians, songwriters with the best songs, recruiters constantly bringing in the best talent, and then people assigned to groom all of that together into hits that kept the wave constantly cresting for most of the ’60s. Their virtual lock on Soul Music through the ’60s and into the ’70s was only challenged when they attempted to move to the growing center of recording in Los Angeles, slowly losing the recipe of their Hit making machine.
… where does talent Surf?
When I work with leaders and teams, it is one of the first questions I ask them – What is your talent strategy? Those that have a puzzled look think that they simply hire the best they can find when they have an opening… and that they provide “good feedback” for their current team – once or twice a year. In fact the team I took over had that stance… until I arrived. If you are not looking for the best and brightest (the Motown model), you will likely at BEST have a one-hit-wonder that you see throughout the ’60s… a “random” gathering that worked once, and then is repeated… never.
When we started to look at our talent management differently, it was because of a “mistake”. When a marginal player finally got some “good” feedback, they quit. We had a consultant and filled the position – in ZERO days. Our “time to hire” at the time was 87 days… which meant we were constantly delivering “value” with 75% of the talent we were supposed to be using. No wonder our estimates were missed, our deliveries hurried, and our people harried. Diving into that statistic, we started to find big places to cut out, eventually getting it down to less than 20 days. In one case, our senior manager of recruiting through his network found a local Cisco office was closing – with 60 talented engineers. We set up an “invitation” Talent Fair for the 60 engineers to catch that “wave” and hired nearly 30 on the spot. Most are still there after nearly 15 years…. one now running most of the organization I led..
Make waves your platform!
But even that could be enhanced. One of the Directors found a way to “ladder promote” employees. Starting at the top you would promote someone to Senior, creating an opening for a Senior Associate, etc…. In most cases he was able to promote 4 to 5 people for every “one” budgeted. By the time finance figured it out, we had an agreement to be over headcount, were never actually over budget, and were a talent magnet. People were reaching out to great friends who wanted to be a part of this team… to join Motown. The band for today’s – The Chantay’s – still very significant (here on Lawrence Welk), but not a name that rolls off your tongue easily… yet their song, has been performed by 100’s of great groups (Dick Dale and SRV for one) , and you know it. It is what happens when you observe talent management for your team…. you establish a Pipeline.
