Talent management is dead without managerial leadership

This provocative, insight is usually met with the managerial response we dont have enough time. The challenge is thus: where do we get more time from? We cant create time, so we have to find ways of wasting less of it. Over two decades in science and then, management consulting, have shown me three key timewastage avoidance methods: 1. Match capable individuals to the task 2. Be clear about expected results 3. Foster commitment to the desired outcomes I have since found two bodies-of-work that usefully address all three opportunities spelt out above. Not surprisingly, these two schools at first appear to contradict one another. After all, the concepts of hard and soft are oppositesI will explore Elliott Jaques Requisite Organisation (RO) theory and then Richard Barretts work on deliberate culture transformation.

Jaques: the ignored visionary

The late Jaques very long career, that effectively created management science, is still remarkable. His background includes advanced studies in science, medicine, sociology and psychoanalysis. He was perhaps more importantly a researcher of the human condition under real conditionsif you accept that adults spend most of their waking hours at work, you will be pleased to hear that he spent years answering difficult questions like: What is work, really? How do jobs get sized (with no manipulation!)?

Elliotts startling insight was directly inspired by interactions with the union reps. Bigger work is fundamentally different because of the longer time-horizons required. Jaques addressed the key issue of matching appropriately capable individuals against a hierarchy of different roles (categorized as the different levels-of-work). Some roles only require careful attention to the here-and-now; while others require wrestling with what lies out-of-sight and far into the future His 1990 Harvard Business Review article is called In Praise of Hierarchy. He clearly lifted out its key insights: Managerial hierarchy is the most natural and effective organization form that a big company can employ. As organizational tasks range from simple to complex, there are jumps in the level of responsibility. As the time span of the longest task assigned to each managerial role increases, so does the level of experience, knowledge, and mental stamina required. Jaques basic prescriptions for requisite organisation (yes, he did prescribe a better way) are straightforward, but it still takes courage and persistence to implement: 1. Get the right structure (determining the right number of levels is a crucial first step) 2. Get the right people for the right roles (ensure incumbents have the required capability for their role) 3. Teach the right managerial practices His approach requires major adjustment in thinking about organisations. For instance, employees do not report to managers; instead managers are accountable for their subordinates.

This shift in power relations means that it is in the managers best interest to invest in their subordinates success. He has been called authoritarian by Tom Peters. This misrepresentation of Jaques is a tragedy. He is in fact the opposite of the unfeeling structuralist he is painted as. He wrote: An institution or pattern of organization may thus be defined as requisite to the extent that it reinforces the expression of behaviours supportive of confidence and trust in human interactions, and reduces suspicion and mistrust. For those who want an additional, non-abusive approach to managing values lets turn to Barrett.

Barrett: the accessible visionary

Barretts value-work was launched when he wrote Liberating the Corporate Soul. His culturetransformation tools are now being used globally. What makes the tools powerful, and attractive to CEOs, is that they are a measurement methodology for managing culture change. The Barrett model shows leaders that not all values are of the same type. It is useful to think of them as occurring at different levels of needs and motivations. Using Maslow-like triangles, Barrett presents us with Seven Levels of Consciousness. The obvious similarity between this and Jaques levels-of-work is that lower levels are concerned with the short-term, while higher levels are long(er)-term in focus. Where they differ, is on how to access the higher levels. Jaques model needs the highest levels to be for individuals with the required cognitive capability. Barrett has the highest levels requiring not mental aptitude, but spiritual attunement. By gathering an organisations perceptions of what its current and desired sets of values are and then plotting this, deep insights are made. After doing this, it becomes clear what an organisations culture is and should be. The amazing result of doing such a values investigation is that desired future state and the implied journey to get there, is generated by the employees in an organization. But organisational change is preceded by personal change. For leaders ready to embrace the challenge Barretts tools are very useful. It will take courage and honesty, but as Gandhi said: We must become the change we want to see in the world.

Johan du Toit is the Managing Director of Decipher. Before founding Decipher, he worked as a strategy consultant with Braxton Associates (Deloitte) and then Bain & Company in both Johannesburg and Sydney. His decade-plus consulting career was preceded by a decade as a research scientist and lecturer at leading South African institutions, during which time he was awarded a PhD in chemistry from Wits University.