Companies are missing the boat. They are full of talent people who do not operate at their full potential. Why? Often, very talented people are stifled by the very part of the organization within which they work - their department (silo). Those silos operate to perform specific, usually well defined functions. People within them learn how to do that one function, or a part of it, and they get very good at it. They gain years of experience doing the same thing over and over. They don't grow. Their minds go numb from the sameness of it all. Creativity isn't called for nor is it nurtured. It dies. Ambition dies and progress stagnates. The entire organization goes stale doing what it does best. Without change - creative ideas, innovation and development, the organization stops thriving. It loses out to its competitors, wanes and dies.
Lack of management collaboration within organizational silos stifles the overall company. Departments compete rather than co-operate. Unrealistically short time constraints on most initiatives serve to push managers to rush decisions and action rather than seeking co-operation and collaboration. The results of sub-optimal. The lack of cross-pollination of experience and knowledge this fosters becomes a barrier to management development and growth. Potentially good leaders are constrained from really learning about the entire organization so they don't get the opportunity to grow. Worse still, their bosses recognize how good they are and keep them hidden in their own departments.
Truly good managers often stay put. Rotating through other departments rounds them out. It's a valuable leadership development practise that is often overlooked. Once in maintenance, your stuck there. Just imagine how much good a production manager who understood reliability and maintenance might be! One fear is that highly developed and versatile talent might move on to another company or worse, to a competitor. This only happens when they are unhappy where they are and the other company looks more attractive. There is no need to fear this if you nurture them, keep them happy in your own organization and help them see the opportunities that abound for them by staying put. The money invested in them up to the point where they become attractive to other companies is wasted if you fail to continue to invest. Don't let short sighted cost savings lose people for you. These days true talent is getting hard to find. It's all the worse if you can't hang onto it.
The shortage of talent in the workforce is making it difficult to recruit and hire new people. Skilled trades, experienced engineering talent, experienced and talented managers, etc. are all in short supply. As the baby-boomers retire the work force and the available talent pool outside the workforce is shrinking. The younger generations are simply smaller so competition for the few that are there is intense. The best source of talent we have available is right under our noses - inside our own companies. Keep them interested and engaged. Encourage them to take risks. To apply their knowledge and skills to new challenges. Provide them with opportunities to build and apply their skills, to develop and grow - and they will stay.
I meet a lot of younger and very talented technical people in my work. Many of them ask me about opportunities elsewhere and ask for coaching on what will help them advance their careers. Many of them confide in me just how discouraged they are. How they feel "held back". How their managers don't appreciate them, do nothing to help them develop, keep them stagnant. The future leaders of our companies don't want what we boomers wanted. We cannot motivate them the same way. That's why there's so much trouble hanging onto them. Our younger workforce is not dis-loyal, dis-interested, de-motivated; they don't have a "bad" work ethic. They are simply different. We, the current leaders, must understand this or we won't change. If we don't change, the current problems we are faced with will remain - and they'll get worse.
Employee turnover is on the rise in many companies. Ask yourself, "why"? What is your role in that? Are you part of the solution or part of the problem?
