The trouble with Leadership Forecasting

On 25th Sept, I presented at the BIP conference in Milan  (http://www.biponline.it/index2.php3?sezione=358&lang=en) on the challenges of Managing Talent in Asia. It was  enriching stuff with loads of learning & even more dollops of fun ( more on the fun bit later ...)

One of the key aspects of my  discussion centered around one of the central principles of Talent Mangement processes .It goes something like this -

• Get a sense of talent needs based on the needs of business, say in the next 2 years
• Identify successors for critical roles to be ready in 2 years, all kinds of 9-Boxes & other assessment tools appear out of the toolbox
• Then development plans get underway, on a hope that the plans work & a prayer that the leader will still be around, post development, & would not have moved on

Of these, the biggest challenge lies in accepting the notion that we can predict the business needs (or even the sahpe & size of the business, in 2 years) - Wall street is surely smarting over this assumption.

So if we cannot predict the needs of business, it does severely handicap any ability to predict the Talent needs.

Short point - Talent Forecasting is dead !!

That is certainly bad news for all users & professionals around the Talent Space, including me ...

The answer, I guess, lies in seeking more versatile Leaders who have adaptability as certainly a key strength.

By the way, this is the first plunge I have made in the blogging space - the inspiration for this goes to an unlikely pair - who have probably never met each other.

First being Abhijit Bhaduri (http://abhijitbhaduri.com/) - prolific author,  blogger, HR leader & a great friend. I was simply amazed by his passion. The other being Kevin Wheeler - Guru, Visionary & someone is way ahead of the tech curve. Kevin - Thank you my friend for the insipiration ... This blog is dedicated to you. Check out Kevin at http://kwheeler.blogs.com/.

Comments

[Gautam]

Hi Sanjay, we haven't yet met - but welcome to the blogosphere!

Have heard about you - and read your interviews.

Looking forward to meeting you soon, since I recently moved to Delhi :-)

warm regards
Gautam

[Gagan Adlakha]

hi! Sanjay,
good to see you here.
Couldn't agree with you more in terms of forecasting. The identification of leaders and assessing their competency gaps etc. etc. needs to give way to the 'Forever Emergent Forever Learning' Leader.
A Learning Quotient may be more useful check at the time of hiring than the stuff we roll out currently :-)
Cheers and welcome to the blogging.
gagan

[Subroto Baul]

Welcome to the blogosphere Big B !

[Judy]

Hi, Big Boss....

I love this photo of yourself...you look very handsome...

haha

[Madhukar]

welcome!
good to see you on the blogosphere :0)