How do you talk talent with your people (that does not set you up for a tough conversation)?

Talent conversations come in many shapes and sizes.  Talent is more than just how good you are today; it also encompasses how well you fit into the plans for tomorrow.  Your plans, the organisation’s plans, and their plans….   

What could possibly go wrong?

Ricky and Paul tackle the conversations that leaders need to have to help the people around them understand where they are right now, what is expected of them and where they need to develop.   Talent conversations may not be easy, but with a bit of structure and thought, they can be positive and constructive interactions that help people grow.

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Posted On April 19, 2023 By Paul Hutchinson In Culture, Leadership, Podcasts, The question is /  

How do you work out who your talented people are?

Working out who the talented people are sounds easy, but it turns out to be quite complex for many leaders. Loyalty and liking get in the way of tough decisions, and potentially get confused with performance. We also ignore issues when they are small, making them really difficult to deal with once they become a problem.

In this podcast, Paul and Ricky explore a model used by a lot of organisations to help them think about talent, and the different ways that people need to be managed to get the best out of them. The model, affectionately known as the nine-box talent grid, explores two distinct factors: current performance and future potential. Performance is all about what they are doing today, whereas Potential considers what the organisation needs from them tomorrow. How can we use this model to get the right people in the right place, and manage our people effectively?

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Posted On April 5, 2023 By Paul Hutchinson In Leadership, Podcasts, The question is /  

What is the leader’s role in talent management?

Developing the skills and growing the people around us is, all too often, perceived as something that HR or L&D own.  The perception is that this has very little to do with day-to-day activities, maybe even getting in the way of doing the work.  Yet, without building the skills to do what is needed now and what will be needed next, it is impossible to achieve our goals.

In this episode, Ricky and Paul propose that talent management is a leadership issue.  From setting the expectation of what skills are going to be needed to encouraging people as they grow, only leaders can create the environment and define a culture of growth. If you can attract the right people and remove the wrong ones, you have a much better chance of achieving your vision. 

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Posted On March 23, 2023 By Paul Hutchinson In Leadership, The question is /  

Who owns your career?

Who is responsible for developing you so that your career progresses?

It used to be something that employers took responsible for; however, that may not be the case anymore.

In this podcast, Paul and Ricky explore the way that career development changes over your career and how modern careers may have to have quite different expectations around learning and development.

So, ask yourself, who owns developing your career? Is it you, or is it your boss?

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Posted On March 8, 2023 By Paul Hutchinson In Leadership, Podcasts, The question is /  

What five things should leaders be focused on in 2023?

So what are the important things that leaders need to focus on to ensure that they are leading for success?  Does that change in a year like 2023, when, yet again, everything is up in the air?

In this podcast Paul and Ricky consider what would be the five most important areas that a leader should focus on when leading in such uncertain in times.  They consider how this might be different from other years (hint, it isn’t, it is just that this level of uncertainty is much less forgiving than normal), and offer some practical tips on where you can start.

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Posted On February 22, 2023 By Paul Hutchinson In Leadership, Podcasts, The question is /  

What is the best piece of advice you would give?

In this special edition, one-hundredth episode of the podcast we explore the four key topics, Productivity, Change, Culture and Leadership to see if we can get each of them down to one piece of wisdom, well one piece each from Ricky, Rob, Rich and Paul.

Without creating any spoilers, you may have guessed that we did not get it down to one, or one per topic! However, we did come up with some real nuggets for each of the areas, so listen in for a quick grounding in how to get things done in your organisation, department or team.

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Posted On December 1, 2022 By Paul Hutchinson In Change, Culture, Leadership, Podcasts, Productivity, The question is /  

How can you create questions to unlock your creative mind?

Another short podcast in our mini-series on questions, this time Rob and Ricky look at the role of questions in making us think creatively.  

Questions have the magical property of making you think, even when you don’t want to, so with small shifts in the structure of the question, you can use questions to make anyone think more creatively.  

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Posted On October 21, 2022 By Paul Hutchinson In Coaching, Podcasts, The question is /  

How you can create questions to achieve laser-like clarity?

Continuing our short series on the power of questions, in this podcast, Rob and Ricky explore the role of questions in creating clarity.

Questions are one of the easiest ways of engaging our minds. In fact, they are sneaky, as it is almost impossible not to think about a question when asked, even if you don’t want to answer it. Questions can help us sort through the noise to discover exactly what we want, when we want it, and how we will know when we get there.

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Posted On October 5, 2022 By Paul Hutchinson In Coaching, Podcasts, Productivity, The question is /