Clear purpose: Be clear about the reason for and benefit you want to get from the talent pool. For instance, is it to help retain good people or to help ensure a succession plan.

Real leadership and development needs: Understand the essence of ‘authentic leadership’ through formal ongoing leadership development learning, and then identify key leadership development needs and priorities versus the ‘wants’. Make sure the program focuses on increasing ‘self-awareness’ as this is a prerequisite for leading others.

Map out the whole process: Develop a practical, broad-ranging experiential learning program, including significant cross-functional business-oriented projects and unique business challenges, together with experience ‘leading’ a functional team at a senior level.

Measure progress: Evaluate both performance (what is being achieved) and competencies (how it is being achieved). In the spirit of ‘what is not measured is not managed’, the ‘hows’ are the keys to long-term success of the program. 

Setting up and implementing talent pools offers many more benefits. The key is to tailor the talent pool to the needs of the specific organisation, resource it appropriately (not too much or too little) and avoid a cookie-cutter approach.

#talent management #teamwork #high performance