Managing Talent-1-Talent Pipeline-First Things First

Managing Talent
The talent pipeline

First things first
a) 01.01 - Welcome and Introduction to
the Talent Pipeline
Welcome to the recruiting, selection and
onboarding portion of our leading people and teams course.
It is my absolute pleasure to work with you
on your journey on the talent pipeline.
I wanna share with you what I have learned in a very long career
in managing human capital, and what I have learned and
taught since starting our career at our university.
My name is Cheri Alexander, and I am currently the chief innovation officer for
executive education, as well as part of our faculty, and an executive coach.
It is my hope for you that you will begin to understand what it takes to create,
to build, and to foster a cadre of talented people to work on your team,
or perhaps a region in your company, in your department, or in the company itself.
It is my hope that you are able to

execute in the future the work that you have at hand.
Now I have a question for you.

Of course I do, I'm a teacher.
What keeps CEOs up at night?
According to the corporate leadership council,

a survey that they have worked on and repeated over the last few years,
they were able to probe deeply into the minds of an elite group of CEOs,
and find out what keeps them up, truly keeps them up at night.
Now I would guess that you are all guessing correctly,

because you know the course is about people.
So you're guessing, well, it must be about the people. :

In today's world, globally, leaders are worried about the human capital
that it will take to fuel their organizations in a positive future.
The war for talent, words that were coined a pretty long time ago, is still going on.
Where will they find the talent?

How will they attract them to their companies?
And how will they keep them?
In some cultures today, people are opting in and
out of jobs faster than ever before.
How will they grow talent to lead their companies?
We hope to inspire you with a few very important concepts that can be applied to
your teams, your departments, your regions, for your entire companies.
Now this is what I call the talent pipeline.

I want to travel with you.
So let's travel together on the pipeline.
But where do we begin?
I want you to note that the talent pipeline is very circuitous.

Sometimes we start in the same place.
In fact always we start in the same place.
But the journey may take us to several different places
at several different times.
It all depends on one thing.
It depends on strategy.
Where do we start on the talent pipeline?

What I said was we start at strategy.
We always start at strategy.
But it may take us in many different places.
There's no reason to hire one person, or place one person on your team,
or in a job or a position, unless we know what value we want to create.
The strategic choice of Nordstrom's is customer intimacy.
They have determined that the role, the niche, the way that they will make
money in the world is to retain their customers through customer intimacy.
They want to get so
close to their customers that the customers only will shop at Nordstrom's.
Now I heard about Nordstrom's in the 1980s.
I was sitting outside the office of my boss, and
he was the president of a portion of the company that I worked for.
It was a division of about 35,000 people, and I was his HR leader at that time.
But he was never late for a meeting.
And there I sat, ten minutes past the time that we were supposed to have started.
Now, I looked at a secretary and I said, Joanne, where's Don?

And she looked at me and she said, well, he's with his Nordstrom's lady.
nd I crinkled up my face, I'm sure and I said, Nordstrom's Lady,
what's a Nordstrom's Lady?
She told me the story that on Saturday he had gone to Nordstrom's,
this new retail store, and he had been looking for some shirts.
And they didn't have his precise size, or fit, or whatever it was.
And there she was,
the woman who waited on him on Saturday in his office with his shirts.
And they were even monogrammed with his initials.
Now I'm sure some of you have heard stories like this
about a person who went to Nordstroms to return tires.
Nordstrom's doesn't sell tires, but they took them back.
For me, my Nordstrom's shoe person

knows the trouble that I go through in finding navy blue high heels.
Yes, this is a first world problem, I know.
But every time there is a pair of navy blue heels that shows up at Nordstrom's,
I get a text.
And yes, I usually buy them.
I'm hooked.
So, what positions will drive customer intimacy?
It's that salesperson.
What capabilities does that salesperson need?

They need high levels of interpersonal skills,
they need connectivity to their customers, the desire to connect with people.
They need insight into what customers want, and
the ability to form true relationships and partnerships with their clients.
First you identify the strategies that will grow and

sustain your company or your team.
Then it's critically important that you identify the positions

that will create value in the company.
You select the positions before you select the people.
So, what types of positions will add value and
drive the strategy in your team, or your department, or your company right now?
What skills and abilities do the people who fill those positions need to have
to add value, and help your team meet its strategic priority?
Now is the time for you to do some analyzing and

posting in the discussion forums.
If I were to do this assignment, if I were to answer these questions,
I would be thinking about a team that I lead quite a long time ago.
I was charged with moving people.
7,000 people out of 17 different buildings,
moving them to the new headquarters of my company.
Our team was to create a new culture of collaboration and

openness, one where everyone could work together in a new lean environment.
A lean office environment that was fun, where everybody wanted to be.
I had to find an architect who understood people well,
who understood that the environment you set as to support people,
can support people in driving value and strategy.

I had to find a person that could see the vision I had for
collaboration and affect an amazing space.
Create a space that attracted people,
not scare people from going to the new headquarters.
I really look forward to seeing what your posts look like,

what strategies you are working on, what kinds of positions that
will drive your strategy forward, as well as what capabilities
your team members need to have to fill those positions.
So strategy, it always comes first.

First you identify the strategies that will grow and sustain your team or
your company.
Then it's critically important to identify the positions that create the value
in your company.
So selecting positions always before you select the people.
Now once you have your strategy nailed down, you have a plan for your process.
HR planning is complex process that starts with strategy, of course.
Play video starting at ::45 and follow transcript0:45
It informs the people strategy that you now have to design.
It informs the functions that you will need and the kind of positions
that you will identify so that you can begin the attraction phase.
And get the people in the right places at the right time to effect your strategy.
We could spend an entire course on this section of the pipeline.
But suffice it to say, excellent HR resources
are skilled at detailing the positions that will move your strategy forward.
Play video starting at :1:20 and follow transcript1:20
If you're leading a team, you now know what kind of person you need.
As I mentioned in our last segment, I had to find designers
of office environments for my new headquarters building.
So on my team I needed to have that architect, or an interior designer,
who understood that the environment had to support a new culture for
the new headquarters.
We also wanted these designers that could be inclusive in their processes.
They couldn't dictate.
They had to do research as to the customer needs,
putting the customer at the center of what they were going to design.
Finding the people and putting them in a new environment that
would inspire them to want to come to the new building,
not to be fearful of staying and never changing.
We wanted them to come to a new beautiful environment that inspired change,
collaboration, and growth of the strategy.
As you can see, here is our pipeline again.
So we have to focus on planning for
the talent that we need, this HR planning function.
In order to find the right people, we need to look in the right places.
And sometimes what we need is in short supply.
In other words there may be large demand for
certain kinds of positions at the time that you're looking.
And we have to find the best.
You have to find the best for you.
The world changes very fast, so sometimes we have to weigh all of our options and
decide in the short term.
Or perhaps we need to experiment before we get the right person for the long term.
As I said, the world is changing very fast, technological changes,
environmental changes, legal and governmental changes
in regulated industries, lots of social changes going on,
and lots of globalization changes, political changes.
Your plans must be flexible and
also change as quickly as the world is changing in order for you to keep up.
In the HR planning process, we have to analyze the data.
Play video starting at :4: and follow transcript4:00
Attrition is an important thing to be able to keep track of and understand.
What level of turnover is good?
What level of turnover is bad?
That's industry-specific.
You have to determine that for yourself.
What about production schedules or team project plans?
What about a project that is going on in the company and you know what
the deadline is and you don't have the right people to make that deadline?
HR planning is going to be your friend.
But we have to work on, what's the supply?
What's the demand?
We have to work on finding the gap and making a plan.
Demand forecasting is based on your strategy needs and
strategy changes, that may be occurring due to all the factors I just mentioned.
It could be a management gut feel.
Sometimes people feel that something's going on in the industry,
that they need to work very fast to get in front of the curve.
It's kind of like using a sixth sense to determine what you need and
when you need it.
Some people are better at that than others.
Technological changes may be the inspiration that inspire
you to add talent, to manage new technology, and
to integrate into your execution of your strategy.
Supply forecasting is understanding
your internal supply as well as your external supply.
Your internal supply is what's really known to you if you use analytical tools
or if you are able to talk to your team members regularly,
which is critically important.
And I totally recommend this.
Professor Kim Cameron, one of the fathers of positive leadership on our
faculty suggests that as leaders, leaders of teams, departments,
leaders of corporations, all leaders, and we're all leaders.
We must spend at least an hour a month talking to our team members
about what it is that they wanna talk about.
He calls this the PMI, the Personal Management Interview.
It works.
You get to know your people very well, and you get to know what they want,
what their dreams are.
And maybe you find out that the talent you need maybe right in front of your face.
Never let your internal supply go unknown.
External experienced people may be needed of course.
External people who are not experienced perhaps,
but have the talent or the education, maybe they have the skills.
But maybe it's most appropriate that you get somebody in and mold them, that you
inculcate them with the culture and the values of your team or your company.
Again, filling the gap is matching supply to demand.
How many of these types do you need to effect your plan?
So in my example of the interior designer needed to put on my team,
I determined that I needed one great one, just one that had experience
in utilizing place, the environment around people to support a culture change.
They needed to have some experience with this or
at least have been trained In psychology a bit, and have a passion for
their art that would link with cultural change initiatives.
Well, here's the square peg in the round hole.
We don't want that, do we?
I couldn't just hire an interior designer because that's what it said on
their resume.
I have to probe deeper for passion, for understanding of the environment,
and its connection to people and the people's strategies.
Very special requirements, indeed, in this case.
Once you have identified the position, you have to articulate the skills,
the knowledge, the capabilities that this person must have to add the kind
of value that you will need in your team.
There also may be other factors that need to be assessed and
considered when filling a job.
Once I was interviewing for
leaders to go to China to build the first plant in China for my company.
I knew what kind of talent I had to have.
I knew the skills and the abilities.
But moving to China with a family had other requirements.
Such requirements were that they were able to move and
able to move his or her family.
But wait, what about dual career issues?
What about special schools?
Was there a school for a child with special needs?
If not, a family with a child that had special needs couldn't go.
There are many ancillary but
critically important factors that must be assessed for certain positions.
What about language skills?
The example I talked about happened in the 90s, when English was hardly
spoken in the area where the family would need to live, to shop, and to thrive.
What about the job on an oil rig?
Can you be away from your family for that long a time?
You can't bring a spouse to an oil rig.
HR planning is a very important part of the talent pipeline.
And now, with the technology of today,
human capital management systems can help you.
You have a great support in the data to help you find and
place the right talent in the right place at the right time.
For many years,
I have referred to where we get our talent as the talent supply chain.
And recently, while meeting with a leader in Kelly Services,
she confirmed the word talent supply chain, also.
It's nice to find congruence in thinking, in whatever you're doing.
We need to be creative about finding talent, our talent supply solution.
For instance, these two sisters worked on a family farm.
This was a long, long time ago, before even I was born.
But during World War II, when this picture was taken in 1942,
they were also working in a factory.
They shared a job.
In addition to working on the farm, they worked in the factory together,
catalyzed by a big change in the world, and
in this case a World War, Evelyn and Lillian shared a job.
The talent and skills needed for
this job were hidden before this time, but they came to life.
I tell you this because I want you to know that resources are all around you.
Be creative and find those that may be able to grow and
develop inside your company.
The person you need may already work inside your company.
And they want to try something new.
They may have a passion for what you're trying to do,
for the strategy you're trying to effect on your team.
You'll only know this if you ask, or if you have
a sophisticated human capital management system that details the skills and
abilities that exist in your company already.
Years ago, we had a rudimentary system of HR records in my company.
I'm going all the way back to the 70s.
Because when I hired in, I was asked, what languages did I speak?
Now, I never thought it would ever get used, but I told them.
The company was able to search the files, and
find at a certain point in my life, and in the company's life,
they were looking for a person at a specific level who spoke French.
Now, I happened to be at that time, in that rudimentary human capital
management system the only person who had the right level,
the right skills, and who spoke French.
After talking with me, they were lucky to find out that I was mobile and
ready to move my French-speaking child to France.
Also, they found out that my husband was adventurous and
supportive with my career in that he was portable.
Today's systems can keep track of a multitude of data and
facts that support HR planning.
Can your positions be filled with a temp, a consultant, a part timer?
Could people be sharing the position that you have?
Since things are changing so fast,
do we wanna hire somebody full time today, with today's skills?
Or, do we want to wait to fill something for tomorrow?
These are important questions that we always have to ask ourselves.
This HR planning stuff requires us to be quite creative.
It's time again for
you to think about your work and the positions that you may need to fill.
Tell me about this in the forum.
I'm looking forward to hearing about your detective work in finding out
what you need to add value to your team or your company.
What type of person can do the job to drive your strategy forward?
Where can you find them?
Think of a position that you want to fill right now.
Does it have to be a new person?
Do you already have that person, somebody in the company who needs to be developed,
that has a passion to work with you, or for
you, on your team to create value?
Does this position really need to be a full time person?
How could it be handled?
B) 01.02 - Strategy First and HR Planning

So strategy, it always comes first.
First you identify the strategies that will grow and sustain your team or
your company.
Then it's critically important to identify the positions that create the value
in your company.
So selecting positions always before you select the people.
Now once you have your strategy nailed down, you have a plan for your process.
HR planning is complex process that starts with strategy, of course.
It informs the people strategy that you now have to design.
It informs the functions that you will need and the kind of positions
that you will identify so that you can begin the attraction phase.
And get the people in the right places at the right time to effect your strategy.
We could spend an entire course on this section of the pipeline.
But suffice it to say, excellent HR resources
are skilled at detailing the positions that will move your strategy forward.
If you're leading a team, you now know what kind of person you need.
As I mentioned in our last segment, I had to find designers
of office environments for my new headquarters building.
So on my team I needed to have that architect, or an interior designer,
who understood that the environment had to support a new culture for
the new headquarters.
We also wanted these designers that could be inclusive in their processes.
They couldn't dictate.
They had to do research as to the customer needs,
putting the customer at the center of what they were going to design.
Finding the people and putting them in a new environment that
would inspire them to want to come to the new building,
not to be fearful of staying and never changing.
We wanted them to come to a new beautiful environment that inspired change,
collaboration, and growth of the strategy.
As you can see, here is our pipeline again.
So we have to focus on planning for
the talent that we need, this HR planning function.
In order to find the right people, we need to look in the right places.
And sometimes what we need is in short supply.
In other words there may be large demand for
certain kinds of positions at the time that you're looking.
And we have to find the best.
You have to find the best for you.
The world changes very fast, so sometimes we have to weigh all of our options and
decide in the short term.
Or perhaps we need to experiment before we get the right person for the long term.
As I said, the world is changing very fast, technological changes,
environmental changes, legal and governmental changes
in regulated industries, lots of social changes going on,
and lots of globalization changes, political changes.
Your plans must be flexible and
also change as quickly as the world is changing in order for you to keep up.
In the HR planning process, we have to analyze the data.
Play video starting at :4: and follow transcript4:00
Attrition is an important thing to be able to keep track of and understand.
What level of turnover is good?
What level of turnover is bad?
That's industry-specific.
You have to determine that for yourself.
What about production schedules or team project plans?
What about a project that is going on in the company and you know what
the deadline is and you don't have the right people to make that deadline?
HR planning is going to be your friend.
But we have to work on, what's the supply?
What's the demand?
We have to work on finding the gap and making a plan.
Demand forecasting is based on your strategy needs and
strategy changes, that may be occurring due to all the factors I just mentioned.
It could be a management gut feel.
Sometimes people feel that something's going on in the industry,
that they need to work very fast to get in front of the curve.
It's kind of like using a sixth sense to determine what you need and
when you need it.
Some people are better at that than others.
Technological changes may be the inspiration that inspire
you to add talent, to manage new technology, and
to integrate into your execution of your strategy.
Supply forecasting is understanding
your internal supply as well as your external supply.
Your internal supply is what's really known to you if you use analytical tools
or if you are able to talk to your team members regularly,
which is critically important.
And I totally recommend this.
Professor Kim Cameron, one of the fathers of positive leadership on our
faculty suggests that as leaders, leaders of teams, departments,
leaders of corporations, all leaders, and we're all leaders.
We must spend at least an hour a month talking to our team members
about what it is that they wanna talk about.
He calls this the PMI, the Personal Management Interview.
It works.
You get to know your people very well, and you get to know what they want,
what their dreams are.
And maybe you find out that the talent you need maybe right in front of your face.
Never let your internal supply go unknown.
External experienced people may be needed of course.
External people who are not experienced perhaps,
but have the talent or the education, maybe they have the skills.
But maybe it's most appropriate that you get somebody in and mold them, that you
inculcate them with the culture and the values of your team or your company.
Again, filling the gap is matching supply to demand.
How many of these types do you need to effect your plan?
So in my example of the interior designer needed to put on my team,
I determined that I needed one great one, just one that had experience
in utilizing place, the environment around people to support a culture change.
They needed to have some experience with this or
at least have been trained In psychology a bit, and have a passion for
their art that would link with cultural change initiatives.
Well, here's the square peg in the round hole.
We don't want that, do we?
I couldn't just hire an interior designer because that's what it said on
their resume.
I have to probe deeper for passion, for understanding of the environment,
and its connection to people and the people's strategies.
Very special requirements, indeed, in this case.
Once you have identified the position, you have to articulate the skills,
the knowledge, the capabilities that this person must have to add the kind
of value that you will need in your team.
There also may be other factors that need to be assessed and
considered when filling a job.
Once I was interviewing for
leaders to go to China to build the first plant in China for my company.
I knew what kind of talent I had to have.
I knew the skills and the abilities.
But moving to China with a family had other requirements.
Such requirements were that they were able to move and
able to move his or her family.
But wait, what about dual career issues?
What about special schools?
Was there a school for a child with special needs?
If not, a family with a child that had special needs couldn't go.
There are many ancillary but
critically important factors that must be assessed for certain positions.
What about language skills?
The example I talked about happened in the 90s, when English was hardly
spoken in the area where the family would need to live, to shop, and to thrive.
What about the job on an oil rig?
Can you be away from your family for that long a time?
You can't bring a spouse to an oil rig.
HR planning is a very important part of the talent pipeline.
And now, with the technology of today,
human capital management systems can help you.
You have a great support in the data to help you find and
place the right talent in the right place at the right time.
For many years,
I have referred to where we get our talent as the talent supply chain.
And recently, while meeting with a leader in Kelly Services,
she confirmed the word talent supply chain, also.
It's nice to find congruence in thinking, in whatever you're doing.
We need to be creative about finding talent, our talent supply solution.
For instance, these two sisters worked on a family farm.
This was a long, long time ago, before even I was born.
But during World War II, when this picture was taken in 1942,
they were also working in a factory.
They shared a job.
In addition to working on the farm, they worked in the factory together,
catalyzed by a big change in the world, and
in this case a World War, Evelyn and Lillian shared a job.
The talent and skills needed for
this job were hidden before this time, but they came to life.
I tell you this because I want you to know that resources are all around you.
Be creative and find those that may be able to grow and
develop inside your company.
The person you need may already work inside your company.
And they want to try something new.
They may have a passion for what you're trying to do,
for the strategy you're trying to effect on your team.
You'll only know this if you ask, or if you have
a sophisticated human capital management system that details the skills and
abilities that exist in your company already.
Years ago, we had a rudimentary system of HR records in my company.
I'm going all the way back to the 70s.
Because when I hired in, I was asked, what languages did I speak?
Now, I never thought it would ever get used, but I told them.
The company was able to search the files, and
find at a certain point in my life, and in the company's life,
they were looking for a person at a specific level who spoke French.
Now, I happened to be at that time, in that rudimentary human capital
management system the only person who had the right level,
the right skills, and who spoke French.
After talking with me, they were lucky to find out that I was mobile and
ready to move my French-speaking child to France.
Also, they found out that my husband was adventurous and
supportive with my career in that he was portable.
Today's systems can keep track of a multitude of data and
facts that support HR planning.
Can your positions be filled with a temp, a consultant, a part timer?
Could people be sharing the position that you have?
Since things are changing so fast,
do we wanna hire somebody full time today, with today's skills?
Or, do we want to wait to fill something for tomorrow?
These are important questions that we always have to ask ourselves.
This HR planning stuff requires us to be quite creative.
It's time again for
you to think about your work and the positions that you may need to fill.
Tell me about this in the forum.
I'm looking forward to hearing about your detective work in finding out
what you need to add value to your team or your company.
What type of person can do the job to drive your strategy forward?
Where can you find them?
Think of a position that you want to fill right now.
Does it have to be a new person?
Do you already have that person, somebody in the company who needs to be developed,
that has a passion to work with you, or for
you, on your team to create value?
Does this position really need to be a full time person?
How could it be handled?

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Managing Talent

The talent pipeline

or perhaps a region in your company, in your department, or in the company itself.

It is my hope that you are able to

Now I have a question for you.

What keeps CEOs up at night?

According to the corporate leadership council,

Now I would guess that you are all guessing correctly,

So you're guessing, well, it must be about the people. :

Where will they find the talent?

Now this is what I call the talent pipeline.

But where do we begin?

I want you to note that the talent pipeline is very circuitous.

Where do we start on the talent pipeline?

Now, I looked at a secretary and I said, Joanne, where's Don?

For me, my Nordstrom's shoe person

It's that salesperson.

What capabilities does that salesperson need?

First you identify the strategies that will grow and

Then it's critically important that you identify the positions

Now is the time for you to do some analyzing and

Our team was to create a new culture of collaboration and

who understood that the environment you set as to support people,

can support people in driving value and strategy.

I really look forward to seeing what your posts look like,

So strategy, it always comes first.

B) 01.02 - Strategy First and HR Planning

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