TM - August 2008 - (Page 14)

[foundations] by Kate DCamp L L Talent Manage Your Own Career ike the fabled shoemaker’s children who have no shoes, talent management leaders often are neglected when it comes to active career management. The causes of this behavior are varied, so solutions should be tailored to barriers speciﬁc to the company culture, the HR organization and HR staff members’ biases. in my career. I loved the work. Like many others, I became protective of it, believing it was always faster and better to do work myself than to let others in. Only after I lost the opportunity for an international assignment because I was too necessary in my thencurrent role, did I realize the trap I had set for myself. manager resistance within HR, which can undermine a rotational approach. Organizing around speciﬁc organizational objectives or creating an annual auction for the work to reassign key initiatives away from their traditional functional owners can accelerate a change in thinking. At Cisco, we put together new organizations to gain fresh thinking and develop staff multiple times. Over time, it became cool to step outside a functional box and acquire breadth, and the best leaders and talent wanted to take part. Gradually, we expanded this approach to include talent rotations out of and into HR from the business, which helped to broaden the function and imbed the management perspective that a stint in HR can provide the In every company, there are one Even in a culture that does not or two organizations that are value HR beyond its transactional viewed as the key drivers of com- purpose, HR staff development pany success. HR rarely is one of is possible and has real beneﬁts. the chosen few. Given this reality, Building automated processes and HR and other supporting functions tend to allocate the majority of resources to areas considered most important in the comI am convinced it is almost pany. The data may or always worth the risk may not support this assumption; however, to push a talented person, perceived importance no matter how hard generally wins out in he or she resists. the resource sweepstakes. HR also may be seen as an operational, rather than strategic function, with the main value of the function being consistent execution of human resources processes. In this type of environment, the development of HR staff may not be seen as an organizational priority. HR tends to organize by function in traditional roles such as compensation and beneﬁts, recruiting/ stafﬁng, training, employee relations or some combination thereof. The functional HR organization promotes building depth in specialized, expert disciplines. However, it does so at the expense of breadth of perspective and career development. HR experts also can be a barrier to their own development. Not to point any ﬁngers here — I was very guilty of this career-limiting thinking for some 15 years early About the Author Kate DCamp is the senior executive adviser at Cisco. She can be reached at editor@talentmgt.com. outsourcing repeatable tasks creates space to rotate staff into and out of the business. A commitment to staff development requires teamwork among senior HR staff and a commitment to develop talent for the function as opposed to just the specialized teams. The biggest barrier will be the staff whose expertise carries a psychic or compensation-level premium. Those folks should engage in developmental rotation ﬁrst. Reduce the risk of failure early on by gaining acceptance early. Short, focused rotations or projects with a planned return to the original function are the best places to start. Organizational change can shake the experts out of their silos. This may be necessary if there is strong organization. Getting champions — including faculty, mentors and advisers — from inside the business to participate in programs also brought a real change in thinking. Ultimately, the HR leader and senior HR team can drive a career development focus within HR using the work itself as the platform. It may take dragging a few experts into an assignment more or less against their will, as was done to me by a manager who saw the limits I was placing on myself. People I have used this approach with over the years still seek out my advice as they consider their own careers. I am convinced it is almost always worth the risk to push a talented person, no matter how hard he or she resists. 14 August 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

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TM - August 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations Global Background Screening Does Global Assessment Work? Global Total Renumeration: Creat One Organization Border Insecurity: Immigration Reform and Talent Management The Global Workforce: Communication Across Cultures Around the World in How Many Days? Insight: Exelon: Performance Under Pressure Special Report: Perspectives on Managing People Application: Reinventing Sales Rewards at Motorola Dashboard: Mideast Meets West Dashboard: Mergers and Acquisitions 2008 - Don’t Leave Employees Behind Editorial Resources Advertisers' Index Full Potential

TM - August 2008

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