Aligning Talent Management with the Innovation AgendaTwo deceptively simple questions to lead the way

By: Marc Wachtfogel, Ph.D.

As an HR executive, you can take comfort, albeit briefly, that your competitor next door is also reeling from the pace of change. This is a unique and defining moment full of challenge and opportunity. The demand for high quality, yet low-cost, products and services, customer demand, integration of global assets and optimization of technology are some of the powerful forces now driving strategic innovation practices in corporate America and around the world.

As your leadership team reformulates the corporate agenda and redefines strategic requirements, the role of HR is to determine whether the team has the capability to manage the changes envisioned. How you bridge the gap between anticipated market change and the organization’s capability to manage that change will be the key. What I put forward here is a back-to-basics approach for realigning corporate culture and resetting the foundation for bridging the innovation gap. In order to lead change at the top, one needs tangible details of how the employee culture actually operates on the ground. It’s time to gather some intelligence.

We have been inundated with management concepts, surveys, studies, best practices and the like designed for bringing about innovative change. When we envision an innovative culture we have a tendency to believe that there is a formula for success out there, somewhere. However, off-the-shelf formulaic processes intended to right-shift employee attitudes and behaviors have a tendency to fall short. The essential ingredients for an innovative culture, a strong identity and purpose, cannot be reduced to a formula, but must be lived from the inside out, through the vision.

During a particularly difficult case, when the evidence was suspiciously absent, Sherlock Holmes turned to his trusted friend Watson, and said “it is the obvious that eludes us”, and they tried again with new purpose to solve the case. This same principle of not seeing the forest for the trees applies to fostering an innovative culture in your organization.

The corporate vision identifies who you are as an organization. It delineates your core values and purpose in business. It is the emotional glue that instills organizational identity, motivates the employees and binds them in common culture. The quality of decisions and the ability to implement strategy is a by-product of the culture, which is naturally shaped by the vision. Interestingly, the organizational vision is usually a simple statement, yet it serves as an extremely powerful reference point and guide for driving everything in the organization. It is very difficult for any significant change to take place without clarity of vision. Vision provides a sense of purpose and instills the team spirit to make it a reality. As Jack Welch so aptly put it, “use the vision to create your reality and get people who can ignite that passion in your company”. Quite simply, if you don’t have clear vision, you stumble along. How the vision is operating on the ground provides valuable insight into the employee mindset and can serve as an excellent starting point for a constructive conversation with the leadership team.

So, when you take your next walk around the company, here are two deceptively simple “bread-n-butter” questions that you should ask your employees.

What is the newcomer experience like?

How your new employees are introduced to the company provides a clear reflection of the health of your organization and its potential for the future. It is a mirror image of who you are and the people you currently have

in place. If the newcomer message and experience is mediocre then chances are you will find that same mediocrity throughout the employee development life-cycle. An effective talent management program begins when a prospective employee comes in contact with the organizational brand. If the organization fails to provide the right tools, information and resources for a productive transition into the organization and job unit, then this will lead to less than optimal performance and efficiencies of scale that are not being fully capitalized. In this type of environment it becomes increasingly difficult to attract and retain top talent. Like minds attract like people and the cycle takes on a life of its own.

“You had me at hello” was the famous line in the Jerry Maguire movie and is apropos for your organization. The new employee is similar to a new customer. First impressions have a lasting impact. Hearts and minds are won, or lost, very early on in the employment relationship. The new employee arrives at your doorstep with a unique newcomer spirit, marked by an eagerness to learn and a desire to emotionally connect with the brand and commit to its goals. We all want to drink the Kool-Aid when we walk in the door. It’s the organization’s responsibility to offer a tall glass with refills. If you are not leveraging this unique opportunity to deliver clear communication at the beginning of the relationship, chances are, there are issues relating to corporate culture, leadership, HR and internal communications throughout the relationship. We either live the brand message or we don’t. An innovative culture begins at “Hello”.

So, ask them. Approach several newcomers and ask them about their experience joining the company. The short answer is the long answer.

What are we selling?

Let me share a personal experience to illustrate the power of this question most effectively. It was my third day on the job as the Director of Human Resources for a materials technology company and I was attending a sales conference with the team in Chicago. The global president asked me what my impression of the company was and how it was doing. Luckily, he paused, recognized my newbie status, and said we would revisit the question during his next trip to New York. Over the next several weeks, I met with the divisions to identify what their needs and objectives were, how they envisioned their role in relation to other departments and the business strategy, and what the general feel among the employees were. My work was cut out for me. But one question, in particular, cut to the heart of how we were doing as a company, “what are we selling?”

The answers ran the gamut. How is it possible that everyone had a different answer? Yes, it’s true that sales team A was selling different products than sales team B. But, it’s not just what they said, but also how they answered. A blank look speaks volumes. A number of weeks went by and the global president rounded the corner to my office. As promised, he asked how we are doing. I answered his question by saying, “we don’t know what we’re selling” and relayed my experience to him. The vision of the company was to “change lives” through innovative solutions and the responses didn’t indicate that. After a detailed discussion of this problem, he felt that we now had a solid starting point to begin a constructive dialog with the leadership team.

At a fundamental level, this question reflects how connected the organization is to the vision, how the customer is serviced and the degree to which collaboration is an established mind-set. Building an innovative culture, positioned for the challenges of tomorrow, depends on rallying around the vision and value proposition that defines who we are today. Essentially, the question, “what are we “really” selling?” brings us back to the issue of identity, the sense for who we are as a team. If our vision was to “change lives”, the question was, how?

At the next company-wide meeting the president presented the range of answers that the employees came up with to the “what are we selling” question. We had a good laugh at ourselves, a healthy sign. He explained that it was up to us to define who we are and proceeded to play a video that demonstrated what our company was all about. In it, the young girl, recently in an accident that seriously damaged her front teeth,

nervously lay in the dentist’s chair. We could see the before images and the dentist leaning over her applying our restorative products for the reconstruction. When the work was complete, he rolled back in his chair and returned with a mirror. We could sense the anticipation in the patient’s face. She opened her mouth, looked at her new beautiful smile, and a tear of relief and happiness rolled down her cheek. He closed the video, and said…that’s what we are selling!

It is the emotional experience, the results that our products and services create. In our case, we are selling a smile! The message was powerful and moving. Nothing more needed to be said. No “change announcement” needed to be made. A sense of pride, cohesion and connection with the corporate vision was evident. We found something we could all rally around. We found our corporate spirit, rhythm and stride. In short, we tapped into our identity as a group. The employees recognized that a shift in our thinking and in our culture needed to occur. The point of acknowledgment is where “change management” begins. It was our job to build on this message and keep it at the forefront through consistent communications, visual branding, organizational development tools and learning solutions. In the following weeks, the employees, jokingly asked, what are we selling? I just smiled.

It is a rare case when employees don’t want to march behind the organizational banner, commit to its goals and bring the vision to life. Most often, employees have difficulty connecting with the vision because of discrepancies between what is communicated at the top and what is actually perceived or taking place, on the ground. During a leadership workshop, an executive couldn’t have stated it more accurately, “We say one thing but do another. It’s inauthentic and it shows”. The goal of the HR leader is to close this gap and unify the vision throughout the organizational system through strategy, creativity, vision and leadership. When connecting the dots, sometime the small ones illuminate the big picture.

When organizational members identify with the vision they will actively engage in collective change efforts. In fact, they will proactively lead it. This is the point of differentiation between a good company and a great one. These two questions provide a point of entry for gauging how the vision actually operates within the organizational system. With this information, you can determine where the attitudes and behaviors need to change and can take action to realign them. You begin to know where you stand.

Bridging the gap between anticipated market change and your organization’s capability to manage change begins by looking at the basic building blocks. Many organizations overcomplicate their approach by looking outside for the next great fix, when what is needed most is an internal measure of simplicity. As Leonardo da Vinci once said, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. Deceptively simple? Maybe not.

Marc Wachtfogel recently received his Ph.D.in Business Education from New York University with a focus on adult learning, development and leadership. His background includes HR, talent management, learning & development. His passion is championing a dynamic corporate culture that positions human assets to leverage market and innovation opportunities. Comments are welcome and may be directed to marc.wachtfogel@gmail