observing the waves…
Hopefully, you notice that the “talent” that gave us Surf music came from all over. By the early 60s, relatively inexpensive amps and guitars were available globally. The popularity of radio and TV created a tidal wave of kids trying to figure out how to Surf into fame. Today’s kids come from the heart of real Surf Country – Orange County, California, and the classic lineup of “friends from Santa Ana High School.” And like many groups, they 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. Motown had 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. And that produced hits that kept the wave continually 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? Many look puzzled – “We hire the best we can find when we have an opening. We provide “good feedback” for our team – once or twice a year.” A team I took over had that stance… until I arrived. Honestly, we started to look at our talent management differently because of a “mistake.” A marginal player finally got some “good” feedback.. and they quit. We had a consultant already on board and filled the position – in ZERO days…
… our “time to hire” at the time was 87 days… delivering “value” with 75% of the talent we “needed:” No wonder our estimates were missed, our deliveries hurried, and our people harried. Diving into that statistic, we started to find prominent places to cut out, eventually getting it down to less than 20 days. In one case, our senior recruiting manager, through his network, found a local Cisco office was closing – with 60 talented engineers. We set up an “invitation-only” Talent Fair for the 60 engineers to catch that “wave” and hired nearly 30 in a single day. Most are still there after almost 15 years…. one is now running most of the organization I led.
Make waves your platform!
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 Surf movement – a “random” gathering that worked once and repeated… never. One Director 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 promotion. 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. Today’s band, The Chantay’s, are significant (here on Lawrence Welk), but not a name that you know. 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.
