//Inspiring Talent

Inspiring Talent

2017-10-07T22:33:35+00:00

Quality & Process

When ‘quality’ ceases to be just lip service from one employee to another – it becomes a process for continuous improvement toward perfection.

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Books by Subir

The Power of LEO
The Ice Cream Maker
The Power of Design for Six
The Power of Six Sigma
Organization 21c

There has been a lot of media coverage about enormous salaries paid to top executives, including their mind-boggling “golden parachutes”. Primarily CEOs, these executives aren’t always paid based on their talents.

In fact, what many people fine surprising is that employee pay is often not based on what they contribute to the organization. Most companies have no idea how to calculate the contributions from individual members of the workforce.

Why should you be concerned about talent in your own workforce? It’s simple: talent produces quality. People with the talent who are also inspired perform better and possess the gifts they need to sustain the highest level of performance possible. All of my experience has shown me that talent is the key to the successful implementation of a quality revolution. They’re also people who, at the moment you need them most, unexpectedly spring into action:

  • The hotel manager and cook who quickly put together a fantastic spread for a guest whose caterer was caught up in a traffic accident.
  • The sales manager of a parts manufacturer who used her own car to drive three hours so she could personally deliver a critical component a customer needed to keep its production moving the next day.
  • The young grocery clerk who guided customers to the safety of a walk-in freezer during an especially bad hostage situation. The clerk was later hailed as a hero by the international press.

If you work for a small business, the chief talent is possibly the founder because that’s what talent often does – they go off and start their own companies. But there are other “high potential” employees who work in your business right now, today. They are the indispensable people who, through their dedication and astuteness, do their jobs extremely well.

I believe that most potential employees can be nurtured into talent roles. You can guide and train them so that they know how to maximize the positive results that only they can achieve. While they work, their learning capacity increases as their confidence expands. While you work alongside them and manage them, you can focus their trajectory and help them build toward greater excellence so their talent shines.

Elements of People Power

It’s interesting that so many companies focus on processes without input from customers or even their own employees: ‘top-down’ processes punctuated by statistical data and quality management controls. While it’s obviously important to focus on what goes on behind the scenes, what kind of quality can you possibly deliver without feedback from the people who actually create (employees) or use your products (customers)?

Activate the Revolution

In some respects, the old way of managing the quality process is part of the problem. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the old approach to management has become problematic. When we manage quality, we are addressing problems as we become aware of them. But by then we are already behind; we're reacting and not 'proacting' - we're most definitely failing to prevent anything.

Watch Your Flow, Keep Control

When I watch organizations, I am reminded of a swiftly flowing river. Starting with raw materials at the river’s source and ending with finished products or services flowing from its mouth, overlaying processes flow into and onto one another. When everything is running smoothly, it is a wonderful thing to behold.

Walking and Talking Quality

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?