Download Talent Management

Coachee and coach experiences
of talent development coaching
Alison Rose, Doctor of Coaching and Mentoring, January 2016
Session overview
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The context – talent management in the 21st Century
Why this research
The missing voice
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis - methodology
and method
 Key findings
 Implications for theory and practice
15 years on from the “War for Talent”,
talent management is still hot…
 51% of HR professionals describe themselves as undertaking
talent management activities
 35% of large organisations have a lead talent role
 The talent management software market grew at around 24% in
2014
….talent management is mainstream HR activity
But even in its own terms, it’s
problematic
 There are significant problems of definition and scope…
 “it appears that talent can mean whatever a business leader or
writer wants it to mean, since everyone has his or her own idea
of what the construct does and does not encompass” (GallardoGallardo et al, 2013)
 According to Deloitte, Only 10% of companies feel that they have
excellent talent programmes
 Only 30% of CEOs are confident that they can access the talent they
need in the next three years
 Between 5% and 20% of people designated as talent delist each year
There are many prescriptions
Elite
models
“War for
Talent”
Differentiation
is everything
Rank, yank
and spank
Exclusive
models
A small number
of people are
talent
Some
differentiation
may be
appropriate
Specialist HR
function
Inclusive
models
Everyone is
talent
Talent focus is
a “mindset” for
HR
OD rebadged
But many common features
 Typically, talent management is an annualised process, usually led by HR, in
which there is:
Identification of
critical roles/skills
Rating of
individuals
Succession
planning/gap
analysis
Calibration/mode
ration of ratings
Action planning
for target
individuals
 Coaching is a common feature of talent development programmes – coaching in
this context is one of the top three reasons why coaches are engaged by
organisations
Why this research?
Talent Director
Executive Coach
The missing voice
 Talent management literature is:
 Almost exclusively focused on the organisational perspective – and assumes that
organisational and individual goals are largely the same
 Highly normative and prescriptive
 Largely conceptual and theoretical rather than empirical
 Hugely discrepant in terms of the volumes of practitioner versus academic material
 Executive coaching literature:
 Lacks theoretical and definitional boundaries
 Employs a variety of lenses, loosely sortable into subjective, objective and relational
 Generates a wide variety of propositions on the nature and purpose of coaching
The individual perspective – experience voiced in the first person
– is almost entirely lacking from the literature
Research Question and
Methodology
 Question
 What are the experiences of participants and coaches of coaching as part of high
potential development programmes?
 Paradigm
 Interpretivist ontology and social constructionist epistemology
 Methodology
 Qualitative Research
 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
 Rooted in phenomenology, hermeneutics and idiography
 Suited to exploration, not theory development
 Explicitly interpretative – not just descriptive
Data Collection and Sample
 Semi-structured interviews, recorded and
later transcribed
 Six interviews with people designated as
“high potential” and six with coaches
who work with them (not matched pairs)
 Mid-senior level managers in large
private sector organisations
 Three women and three men, aged
between 40 and 65
 Experienced coaches, self-identifying
as having worked with high potentials
 Three women and three men, aged
between 40 and 65
Data analysis
Over 12 hours of interview data transcribed
and coded
 Initial noting, case by case
 Identification of themes
 Identification of super-ordinate themes at
a sample level
 Identification of themes at a
cross-sample level
Main findings
The individual voices of participants in high potential coaching are highly diverse. Each
actor in the process has a unique and dynamic view on the issues and responds from that
unique perspective.
Being a high potential
 Being considered to be a high potential is not
always experienced as an unmitigated good
 It can involve risks of many kinds as well as
opportunities
 Ambition can have negative connotations in
relation to personal values and sense of self
 It involves careful balancing of life choices and
possible sacrifices for self and family
“if I make this one decision
wrong I’ll be sacked or lose my
job or be selling the Big Issue”
"It’s not about the ambition, it’s
not about the grade, it‘s not
about the money”
“I am either going to go away
and do the same thing for less
money…or going to earn more
money but they are going to
want a lot more blood”
Experiencing being talent
managed
Conceptual and theoretical challenges around talent
management are reflected at the practice level
 Issues of who is talent, what it means and what
happens as a result are typically experienced as
highly unclear and sometimes unfair or
unreasonable
 That can cause personal hurt and confusion,
and ultimately lead to cynicism and gaming
 People designated as “high potential” vary
across a spectrum of passivity to selfdirectedness in relation to their organisations
“If they’re so marvellous, why
aren’t I so marvellous too?”
”It really knocked me. It
knocked me personally”
“You have to play the game,
and whether anybody likes it or
not, it is a game”
“I don’t know [if I’m talent]. My
boss hasn’t really shared that
with me”
Coaches on talent management
Coaches don’t appear to see high potential coaching as a
distinctive area of practice.
Practice appears to flex to accommodate field
conditions rather than to differ according to context
But they do see some talent development programmes as
militating against good work
Talent development programmes can confront the
coach’s desire for freedom in practice
Time pressures can be distracting and unhelpful
They are often invited to collude – and find this
uncomfortable
“It’s not so much the
classification but it’s the field
conditions”
“I’m going to be quizzed, he’s
going to be quizzed, “where’s
the action plan?””
“[Developmental changes]
don’t necessarily happen
quickly or at the pace that the
structure of the programme
might insist upon”
“[The HR Director] was
constantly saying ‘What do you
think? What do you think?
Coaches on talent management
Coaches see the impact of talent management
programmes on participants at first hand, and
worry about it
 Though ultimately, the coach is on the coachee’s
“side”
But they are pragmatic about the politics of talent
management
“There’s not quite enough
thought given to that human
element of what if we expose
these things about people to
themselves”
“Wherever the person ends up
going is where I end up going
with them”
“I feel the organisation’s failing
them a bit here. I would prefer
people to be more honest, but
I’m also pragmatic, and I can
see why they do that”
High potentials on coaching
High potentials value coaching, though not always for
the reasons you might expect
 Coaching can be a low risk factor in reputation
management for some
 For others, insight generation through
feedback is helpful
The coach is seen as having superior relationship skills
to foster a positive relationship
 Credibility and affinity seem key
“It’s not challenging in a
demanding type way”
“One of the things that
surprised me about my coach
was how much feedback she
gave me”
“Clearly he’s a professional
coach, so I’d expect him to
strike up a good relationship
with me”
“He’s been successful in his
own right doing his first
career, so that made him
credible”
High potentials on coaching
Although coaches often see coaching as
having the potential for the client’s
growth across their whole lives,
coachees don’t always see it that way….
Participant: So you’re asking how the coaching
has changed my thinking, my feeling or my
behaviour?
Me: Yes.
Participant: My feelings about how I feel about
myself?
Me: Yes.
Participant: OK.
Me: Not just how you feel about yourself but
your emotional responses to things.
Participant: I don’t think that’s changed much
because the coaching really wasn’t addressing
that.
High potentials on coaching
But for some, the experience can catalyse
transformation in every area of their lives
“I feel I blossomed, I’ve
metaphorically I've grown as a
person. I was standing taller,
and people could see it.”
“And so the great thing for me
has been realising, God what
can I do, if I have this ‘you can
do it’ attitude?”
“Did I want to be someone else’s
no.2 because I’m really good at it,
or should I put my head over the
parapet and move on. And I’ve
decided to do that.”
Coaches on coaching
 Coaches experience coaching as highly
pleasurable - it draws the best out of them
 Their sense of self and their sense of self-ascoach are indivisible. The coach is coaching.
 Their coach’s idea of coaching can extend even
to a spiritual calling
Iit really is my thing and, you
know, I’m often in flow”
“It sends me back lots of nice
signals to me that make me
feel good about myself and
that’s great”
“It’s one continuous stream”
“So I think a coach is as much
a technician of the human soul
as anything else”
Contribution to theory
This research contributes the missing first person perspective to both talent management
and executive coaching theory. It illuminates debates about:
“The dark side of contemporary careers” (Baruch & Vardi, 2015)
The nature and purpose of coaching and the condition of being a coach
The nature and purpose of talent management and its impact on those involved
Potential further areas of research
Insight from organisational stakeholders in talent management
Different organisational settings
Different career stages
Longitudinal studies to explore how views change over time
Implications for practice
In talent management
 More inclusive and dialogic practices are worth exploring
 Better appreciation of risk
 A case for more involvement of coaches in the design of talent coaching
programmes
In coach training and supervision
 Understanding of differing coach/coachee perspectives on coaching
 Approaches to managing pressures to collude
 Appreciation of the implications of identifying so closely with practice
Bibliography
Baruch Y and Vardi Y (2015) A Fresh Look at the Dark Side of Contemporary Careers:
Toward a Realistic Discourse. British Journal of Management, 1–18.
Bersin J (2015) Predictions for 2015
CIPD (2006) Talent Management: Understanding the Dimensions
CIPD (2010) The talent perspective: what does it feel like to be talent managed?
Coutu D and Kauffman C (2009) What Can Coaches Do for You? [Online] Available at:
http://hbr.org/2009/01/what-can-coaches-do-for-you/ar/1 (accessed 12/09/13).
Dongrie V, Haims J, Lamoureux K, Tauber T, van Loon R and Wang A (2015) Global
Human Capital Trends 2015.
Gallardo-Gallardo E, Dries N and González-Cruz TF (2013) What is the meaning of ‘talent’
in the world of work? Human Resource Management Review. 23 (4), 290–300.
PWC (2012) Delivering better business results through talent
Ready AD, Conger JA and Hill AL (2009) Are You a High Potential? Harvard Business
Review.