Talent-Driven Growth

By Chip Valutis

Are you ready to go from random results to predictable profits?

 

Organizational psychologist Chip Valutis has over three decades' experience helping Fortune 500 companies as well as privately held enterprises go from stalled to success through talent-driven strategies. He knows how frustrating it is to continuously succumb to "flavor of the month" ideas or silver-bullet solutions with little to show for it beyond a line item in the expense report. He excels at unpacking challenges, properly re-focusing resources, and implementing an approach to reinvigorate growth.

 

In this revelatory book, Chip distills his expertise in a way that promises to unlock the secrets of predictable growth for businesses and leaders.

 

You will discover:

 

★ A framework for integrating your growth and talent agendas in order to match the needs of your business with the capabilities of your people.

 

★ How to create and sustain predictable growth by learning to efficiently facilitate movement of people, processes, infrastructure, and leadership.

 

★ The crucial difference between people and talent that will make or break your business, and how to ensure you have the right talent in the right position.

No more guessing, hoping, or praying your way to success. Talent-Driven Growth provides you with a proven roadmap to create and maintain a thriving organization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Finn-Phyllis Press
• Release date: May 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798990535909

Book preview

Part One

It Takes Three To Tango

Chapter 1

Growth, People, And Leadership

Growth, people, leadership. Anyone leading an organization knows these three topics consume significant time, energy, and attention. Frankly, their importance is hard to argue. I’d go so far as to say I don’t know a successful business that doesn’t spend substantial time, energy, and resources on them. Given their criticality, it isn’t surprising that many have tried to figure them out. In fact, there is a massive market for learning how to grow one’s business—just consider the many (many) books, theories, and consultants ready to tell you exactly how!

For as many resources as there are on business growth, there are as many (or more) available detailing how people are a business’s greatest asset. Again, throw a rock and you’ll hit a plethora of experts telling you how to make people your greatest asset (the most overused expression in mission statements hanging in company lobbies).

And finally, we have the most saturated topic, by far: leadership. There’s an immeasurable number of gurus spouting tips, techniques, and philosophies on how to be a great leader (whatever that means).

What’s my point? It’s simple: If so many people have spent decades trying to figure out these three constructs, there must be a perceived benefit to doing so. It’s an organizational gold rush. Go find the nuggets in them there factories. I get it; I read the books as they come out too. Each makes sense when studied on its own, but none (so far) gives me what I need to construct a logical direction forward on a scalable, sustainable path to success. Unfortunately, you may have spent your career up until now reading, attending workshops, listening to podcasts, or hiring consultants du jour, but in the end, where did you end up? I bet you’re still confused and frustrated about how to do what you want to do with your business.

Without an integrated plan, most experience a few steps forward and then a few backward. They have mini breakthroughs but then stall or retreat. As much as they try to be proactive and get ahead of the curve, they often slip back into firefighting and using brute force to muscle results. Screw our plan; we have to get shit out the door and hit our numbers this month.

The problem, as I see it, is one of integration, not content.

As I mentioned, there is a vast amount of content available on growth, people, and leadership. Metaphorically, this content represents puzzle pieces. The problem is, you have the right puzzle pieces on the table (e.g., growth, people, leadership), but you don’t know how to connect them to create the picture on the cover of the puzzle box. Because you don’t know how to integrate the three types of puzzle pieces into one united picture, you waste time and energy trying to assemble three separate (complicated) puzzles. They never look right at the end of the day, and you can’t integrate the three into a single compelling and aligned picture. In large part, that clarifies why you are reading this book. You are tired of half-steps or false steps on the people, leadership, growth effort. You want something that works.

Having worked on the front lines of organizational change and transformation for decades, I’m able to connect the puzzle pieces into a single, dynamic picture. What I found on the eventual puzzle box front (after integrating growth, people, and leadership into one picture) was a simple but powerful image: a three-legged stool.

Think about it: The three-legged stool pays homage to the three unique legs (growth, people, leadership), but it connects them to something more powerful than each leg on its own. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When our focus moves from an individual leg to the entire stool, the interdependency instantly becomes clear. Each leg needs the others for the stool to work properly. The key, therefore, isn’t to treat them individually, but instead to work with what you get when they are put together. The strength and condition of one leg has a direct impact on the others. Only by connecting and managing the stool as a whole can you get consistent, predictable results. Only by having one puzzle box picture in mind can you begin to move in a deliberate and focused manner.

Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to reimagine growth, people, and your role as a leader.

To do so, you must evolve your approach. You must begin to focus on integrating the people you have onto a path that propels your business forward, leaving behind what’s always felt like a random or opportunity-driven growth strategy and replacing it with a predictable, fluid model of growth. You create a map. Then, with the map showing you where you are, where you’re going, and what is required for each phase of your journey, you will match the needs of the journey with the talent on your team. I call this Talent-Driven Growth. It is scalable and sustainable, and even better, it removes confusion and guesswork while providing you with a roadmap for achieving both your and your organization’s full potential.

Before we jump in and do the work, let me elaborate a bit more on how the three-legged stool works.

Chapter 2

The Growth Leg

The first leg of the stool is growth. The word growth has many definitions. So many, in fact, that it often implies different things to different people. I most commonly hear the most simplistic interpretation of growth: to get bigger. This version is neither complicated nor dynamic. Listen to how a leader describes his growth agenda, and you’ll hear the emphasis on getting more—more sales, more money, more factories, more products/services, more, more, more. While there are nuggets of truth in this definition, it’s missing a critical aspect of growth. Growth can also be construed as general improvement or change.

The universal element in all definitions of growth is movement. Regardless of why, how, where, or when growth is discussed, you’ll hear indication of a desire to move from where you are to a different place. The inference is, we move toward a place perceived to be more desirable. Read these common expressions and tasks, and watch for the movement perspective:

Coach the sales team.

Launch our product.

Acquire new territories.

Increase our operating income.

Build a robust supply chain.

Buy that company.

Get more help.

Upgrade our ERP system.

Do you hear movement in each of these growth goals? There is a beginning (current state), the messy middle (how to get where we need to be), and the arrival (goal accomplished). These define a journey (beginning, middle, and end). You can’t start purposefully moving without having the first and knowing the last steps in the journey. The endpoint can be well-defined: Get me to Salt Lake City by next week. Conversely, it can be directional but less defined: Head west. In both cases, the destination, however specific, provides a vector or direction to use. We know where we are and have a sense (clear or conceptual) for where we want to end up. That is enough information to start the journey.

Companies spend millions of dollars trying to identify a destination and a corresponding path to get there. Most commonly, I see efforts involving strategic planning, technology roadmaps, forecasting, economic indicators, etc. The list goes on and on. Every one of the efforts attempts to identify a location deemed desirable and/or a path to get there. This makes sense; you need something to help you get unstuck and moving. Without it, you’ll spend months or years in the organizational version of making the donuts. You’ll show up every morning, make the donuts, sell the donuts, and go home. You’ll be busy (in effort) but stay stagnant (in growth). You’ll be on a treadmill, burning energy but not getting anywhere.

When you take a deeper dive into growth, you learn that the map needed to direct that growth is already in place, and you can therefore start to move without much new effort. The map is far more organic and predictable than you know. In fact, all businesses traverse the same path (albeit at different speeds). Knowing this foundational growth path empowers you to easily get on a vector and move forward. While I won’t unpack the details now, I’ll tip my hand to let you know that the universal movement map (read: path for growth) is called the Sigmoid Curve. More to come after we finish this fly-over of the three-legged stool.

So that’s the first leg of the stool: growth. Growth is movement. You move your organization forward on a desired path toward an envisioned future. The destination toward which you direct your efforts can be crisp, clear, and data-driven (e.g., robust strategic planning). The destination can also be vague, conceptual and/or simplistic (e.g., owner’s vision, need for more, etc.). Regardless of how you create and define your desired future, the roadmap is there. With the desired future pinned onto your map, you need to move toward it. But how do you move? What provides the energy, effort, and progress? In a word, people.

Chapter 3

The People Leg

Ihad a poster many years ago that I found funny (and a bit scary). It said:

The organization of the future has two employees: a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog and the dog is there to keep the man from touching the machines!

—Warren G. Bennis

People comprise the second leg of my model. While we are moving faster toward the organizational paradigm described by Warren Bennis than some prefer, we aren’t there yet. As such, unless you are a one-person operation, people are still your primary resource for movement. You use people (e.g., employees) to do the work needed to move toward your identified destination. This isn’t a secret. Read the mission statements hanging on many lobby walls and you’re all but guaranteed to see something like People are our greatest asset. Endless books and resources talk about the importance of getting the right people on the bus (and ensuring they are in the right seat on the bus.) The impact people have on an organization’s health, success, and growth is obvious, and we’re all too familiar with the negative consequence of having the wrong people on the bus.

Here’s my twist: I don’t use the term people. Instead, I use the term talent. For me (here comes the old cynical psychologist), people are a dime a dozen. I don’t care about people, at least not in the generic sense. For me, it’s about talent. Talent is a construct you can manage, mold, and craft. Therefore, talent is what you should focus on, not people. Begin to ask, What talent do I need to take the journey I identified in my growth agenda?

Let’s first be simplistic. If I’m moving over water, I need talent who can swim, sail, and navigate in open water. If my journey includes tall, dangerous mountains, I need talent who can climb, are physically strong, and aren’t afraid of heights. If I have a hard-working person certified in SCUBA, she isn’t going to help me traverse an overpass 3,000 feet above sea level.

You don’t need people, you need talent

Let’s bring it closer to home. If you have a wicked toothache, do you seek out a psychologist to talk about the pain and how it makes you feel? Of course not! You look for a dentist with the talent and experience to remove the tooth!

I understand this may sound blatantly obvious, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen companies promote their best salesperson to be the sales manager, not recognizing that these positions employ two different skill sets. I have also seen companies take their favorite hard-working employee and move him into a supply chain role (even though he’s a manufacturing engineer) because there was an opening and they needed someone they trusted. The person is loyal, hard-working, and willing. But the talent for what is needed isn’t there. Without talent, movement stalls or slows. Without talent, movement will always stop short of the desired destination (regardless of how hard the person tries).

So forget the generic, nondescript concept of people, and adopt the manageable, usable, and scalable concept of talent. That’s when the breakthroughs begin!

Let’s Integrate What You Know So Far

First, growth is another word for movement. The challenge is to move your organization from where it is (current state) to a more desirable location (growth state).

Second, once movement is mapped out, you must clarify and understand the type of talent needed for that particular journey.

Third, the better you understand the unique attributes of your journey, the clearer you’ll see the type of talent needed. Matching talent to movement needs creates the breakthroughs desired. The better you match talent with movement/growth needs, the more velocity you’ll achieve, and the more predictable your path will become. As a leader I once worked with succinctly said, I can try as hard as I want to strap a leash on my fish and take him for a walk, or I can realize I need to go get a dog.

These three learnings make your agenda for growth doable and manageable. You’ll no longer feel like you’re searching for the Holy Grail. You’ve removed the guesswork and endless starts, stops, and stalls. You’ve made growth knowable and identifiable. You’ve gotten yourself on a Deliberate Journey.

Chapter 4

The Leadership Leg

The final leg of my integrated model is leadership. I’m not referring to leadership as a concept but instead as a person. In other words, you. When I say leadership, I’m speaking to who you are, what you do, and how you do it. Alluding to the way I described the first two legs of the stool, you might be able to foreshadow the role a leader must take during this journey.

Here is a partial look at what we need from you, the leader:

Integrate the growth and talent objectives and desires.

Clarify the type of talent needed to support growth.

Match talent needed with movement desired.

Establish predictable paths toward your destination.

Facilitate movement; remove bottlenecks; expose vulnerabilities.

Understand where you are on the growth cycle (and the implications of that location).

From just this short list, you see that the concept of leadership is a bit more focused in my model than you may be used to. You, the leader, have specific tasks and responsibilities to accomplish. At the highest level, you facilitate movement toward a desired (and predictable) destination. Knowing how organizations evolve (or devolve), you can predict the needs of your business with increased confidence. When you know where you are and where you want to go, the tasks, expectations, needs, and wants are obvious. You are aware of the vectors, parameters, and challenges, which represent the context needed to match talent to your efforts.

This description of a leader’s role is action-based. Leaders are integrators. They link the needs of the business with growth and, eventually, the talent needed in an employee. These responsibilities require a different type of leader. For a Talent-Driven Growth leader, we need attributes such as:

Strong situational awareness: ability to see above the fray and understand what is happening holistically and systemically

Strong self-awareness: ability to know yourself candidly, objectively, and humbly as well as how you help/hurt what the business needs

Ability to connect the dots: capable of linking multiple data points to create a compelling picture. You integrate puzzle pieces into an understandable final product

Curiosity: humble enough to listen and learn; resist the urge to know and allow learning and alternatives to enter the mix

Courage: fortitude to push through worry, stress, and vulnerability; willingness to try new approaches

Leaders deploying the Talent-Driven Growth model resist the urge to do it all themselves. They don’t ignore or work around gaps in talent/performance. They resist the urge to fight fires all day long. Instead, they search for (and then rectify) gaps between what the organization needs and what the available talent offers. They don’t drive home at night wondering where the day went. Instead, they have a feeling of progress and movement. They know they moved the chains and are closer to the end-zone than they were.

Will every day feel like progress, movement, and harmony? Hell no. However, when chaos, confusion, and fatigue are not the norm, setbacks are easier to handle. When leaders have a fresh way to look at a situation, they don’t fall onto the Groundhog Day movie set. They decipher what isn’t working and do something about it. Less guessing and more problem solving becomes the norm.

Leading Talent-Driven Growth takes not only effort but also a different kind of wisdom. You don’t need as much subject matter expertise as you would leading in other circumstances, but you need more courage, curiosity, and awareness. There will be phases of the journey where your natural leadership style will fit like a glove, and you’ll do what the organization needs with little effort. Conversely, there will be phases where you’ll feel uncomfortable, out of your element, and awkward. This is when what is perhaps your default style isn’t a good fit. It's when you must modify your defaults with deliberate effort. If you can’t (or won’t) do that, you’ll need to rely on other talent to help. You’ll step back and trust a different way of getting things done. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all leadership approach. As a leader, you must adjust and adapt in order to find a way to facilitate the current phase of evolution. Agility creates leadership