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Talent Management Conference 2009

As you may know already, I make a point of attending this conference every year because it’s not only a good insight into the latest thinking from many of the corporate organisations; it’s also an excellent source of sound-bites and good stories. If I were to mention every speaker this would be a very long update, so will just highlight some of the most interesting.

Conference Chair David Fairhurst Vice President of HR EMEA – McDonalds (whom this month was voted HR's most influential practitioner) set the scene with his concept of ‘Power shaping’ – the power of people shaping the organisation. He also stressed the importance of employee engagement in a recession, which was a theme that ran throughout the day and one with which we heartily agree. (To this end we recently launched our own ‘Purple Revolution’ which offers, amongst other goodies, a free employee engagement survey.)

I like the structure of this fast-paced event with three key topics, each with a number of speakers and then and upbeat Q & A at the end of each section.

First Section – Leadership:

This kicked off with a preamble by Baroness Virginia Bottomley (Chair of Board Practice at Odgers) who then introduced the first speaker of the day, Richard Baker – Non-Executive Chairman of Virgin Active and former Asda COO and Boots CEO. He told three good stories and key points were:

• Importance of clarity of vision. Archie Norman’s vision at Asda was ‘Be the UK’s best retailer’ and he set out just six points from which everything flowed
• In a crisis you don’t have the luxury of being subtle
• On his first day at Asda, Archie had berated Richard about ordering too many bird tables – even though he’d only just arrived and it hadn’t been a decision taken by him. This taught Richard that people should be made responsible from day one
• First impressions – so important in setting the scene; causing a stir; getting people talking and knowing you mean business; creating a sense of urgency
• People change means changing people. People who get you into a mess won’t get you out
• If required, deploy shock tactics - makes people ‘up their game’
• In his first 4 weeks at Asda interviewed 50 top people and asked questions like ‘If you were in my shoes what would you do? What are you afraid I might do?'
• Then removed the ‘dead wood’ and got things moving
• On first day as CEO of Boots went round the stores, identified 18 key changes that were needed and told the top team they had to get them all fixed by Friday

Next came Greg Dyke – ex Director General of the BBC who was also liberal with his stories. His pearls of wisdom included:
• Leaders should ask ‘Would my staff do that for me?’
• Leadership is about the stories they tell about you
• Stick close to your people - his predecessor used to book the lift in advance to ensure no people in it!
• Get people on side - you are always being judged so be sure it’s positive
• Publicise the unsung heroes
• Make people proud – engage emotions not intellect
• Single biggest message from staff at the BBC was that they wanted better leadership
• Be honest and authentic – admit mistakes
• When people get promoted they forget who they are and become their boss so stay real and true to yourself
• Employ positive people
• Steer away from ‘sad, pale, male’ syndrome – old-fashioned and reactionary
• Create great stories that will be told forever

Greg Dyke on recession:
• Fairness is key – ‘the new austerity’ – we are ‘on a diet for our own good’
• Average person in UK has overspent by £7K pa for the past 5 years
• Govern wisely
• Churchill: “You make a living by what you earn, you make a life by what you give”

Second section - Organisational development:

Some key points here were:
• Analyse
• Prepare to change
• Design and plan responses
• Communications
• Delivery
• Evaluation

Therese Proctor – Tesco HRD explained their philosophy:
• Tesco leaders have a balance of ‘head, heart, guts’
- Head – clarity, confidence
- Heart – Passion, commitment
- Guts – Alignment, consistency
• How they measure leadership performance:
- People – treated with respect, my manager helps me, interesting job, opportunity to progress
- Customer – aisles are clear, I get what I want, prices are good, good quality, staff are great, no one tries harder
• Chain of trust eg Bob Eckhart of Mattel recalled 24m products pre-Xmas rather than have one problem.

Diane Tomlinson – HRD Cadbury:
• Challenges: leveraging the love, increasing pace, improve decision making > culture transformation
• ‘Go mad’ campaign – make a decision

Carol Spicer – HRD Luxottica:
• It’s not ‘business as usual’
• Access and attractiveness is key when it comes to working here
• Create ‘loyalty beyond reason’ form all your associates
• Tell people your story – don’t keep it to yourself

Donna Catley – Head of talent management BP:
• People get, on average, one thank you per year at work
• ‘Purple Heart’ letters worked well for individual recognition
• About people – ask yourself how would you react if you got their resignation letter?
• Jack Welch said even a dog could run a company in the last decade
• The employee journey is key to engagement
• Engagement should be a business KPI

Third section – Employee Engagement:

Tom Crawford – Head of internal communications and engagement E-on:
• The people not the buildings make the brand
• Engagement is the new internal communications
• We need advocates throughout the business
• The credit crunch is a personal trainer asking us whether we are as good as we can be
• Grey is the new black and white ie things are less sharp and clear

Lou Manzi– GSK VP Talent solutions:
• Recession is an opportunity to do what we should be doing anyway
• Leaders – safe is no good – need to be:
- Bold
- Authentic
- Pragmatic
- Break the mould
• Engagement is about:
- Transparency / consistency
- Communications – do as you say
- The shadow of a leader is cast far
- Consider all parts of the employee lifecycle
- You are not the centre of their universe – they are the centre of yours
- Employees join brands and leave managers
- Empathy – give back to those who create your fortune
• Be responsible to help those who are less lucky
• If you think you communicated it, do it again
• Be grateful
• Don’t wait for someone else – ‘carpe diem’
• Ask for help
• You don’t get second chances
• If you tell people what to do they become resentful and dependant

Dr. John Mahoney-Phillips - Global head of human capital UBS:
• Engagement is measured by advocacy, intent to stay, satisfaction, discretionary effort
• Engagement correlates with retention
• Line managers are VIP – clarity is key
• The bond of trust is local
• The psychological contract has changed: more flexible, self development VIP, career development, opportunities
• Communications is not a department – it’s a skill
• Bullying management style gives good performance but poor engagement – therefore not sustainable
• There must be meaningful career dialogue with manager
• Look at engagement, absenteeism and other stats
• Measure the ROI on engagement

There were many more interesting viewpoints and it was a day well spent. If you’d like to discuss any of this please email me at jane@learnpurple.com.

If you’d like to attend next year see www.executive-grapevine.co.uk though we’ll summarise again for you.

23 June 2009