What Values Does Your Talent Management System Telegraph?

By Michelle Malay Carter on October 14, 2007 

Broken Employee in Need of Fixing

Despite what the corporate values statement on your website says, your organization?s actions speak louder than your lofty words.? I have seen very few sane-making talent management systems.?

How many talent management systems reflect the following value set???

Employees are inherently broken and must be motivated, bribed, and coerced into giving their best.

Although our recruiting process forbids managers to hire anyone outside HR?s narrowly defined set of criteria for a role, after you manage to get yourself hired, we shift to the opposite philosophy that anyone can do anything with the right coaching and training.? So we will spend inordinate amounts of time and money to fix things in you that aren?t broken and shape you into something you are not, and then we expect you to be grateful and productive.

We will give you an ambiguous job description with unclear accountabilities and authorities so you will be forced to manipulate or coerce others into cooperating with you to get your job done.? And then we will send you off to team building training.

We will give you two managers, each of whom has 50 hours of technical work responsibilities each week, and no time allotted for actually exercising managerial leadership.? We expect you to keep both managers happy.? If they have competing priorities, please don?t complain, or they will make note of this in your performance evaluation.? And then they will send you off to time management training.

We will measure your output only, not your overall effectiveness, and blame you for issues outside your control.? And then we will send you off to anger management training.

Twenty percent of the time, we will under-employ you and then ask your threatened manager?s opinion about whether you are promotion material.? Your manager?s boss, who might have recognized your potential, does not care to meet you since your manager has warned him about your poor attitude.? And then we’ll send you off to read, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

We may lay you off rather arbitrarily so we can meet our quarterly goals and our executives can receive their bonuses.? And then we?ll send you off to outplacement services so you can start the cycle all over again.

I?m OK. You?re OK. Let?s fix the system.

Filed Under Corporate Values, Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Managerial Leadership, Requisite Organization

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