Inclusive Talent Management

How Business can Thrive in an Age of Diversity

Stephen Frost, Danny Kalman

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780749475888
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

SHORTLISTED: CMI Management Book of the Year 2017 - Practical Manager CategoryOrganizations traditionally have had a clear distinction between their policies on diversity and inclusion and their talent management. The main driving force behind diversity and inclusion has been being seen to be a good employer, to be able to make claims in the annual report and to feel as though a positive contribution is being made to society. On the other hand, talent management activities have been driven by a real business need to ensure that the organization has the right people with the right skills in the right place to drive operational success. Inclusive Talent Management aligns talent management and diversity and inclusion, offering a fresh perspective on why the current distinction between them needs to disappear.Featuring case studies from internationally recognised brands such as Goldman Sachs, Unilever, KPMG, Hitachi, Oxfam and the NHS, Inclusive Talent Management shows that to achieve business objectives and gain the competitive advantage, it is imperative that organizations take an inclusive approach to talent management. It puts forward a compelling and innovative case, raising questions not only for the HR community but also to those in senior management positions, providing the practical steps, global examples and models for incorporating diversity and inclusion activities into talent management strategy.

Part one

The fierce urgency of now

The words of Martin Luther King Jr are as relevant today as they were when he said them in 1968. ‘We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.’

This book highlights a simple contradiction in the way we manage our people and run our organisations that is too often overlooked – we are addicted to sameness in an age of diversity. That is fundamentally an unsustainable position to be in.

At one extreme, terrorists kill difference in the most unspeakable ways. At the other end of the spectrum, we all have our own prejudices and biases that orientate us towards people we like and agree with. Therein lies danger too.

Have you ever wondered why certain decisions were made? Have you ever been frustrated at the promotion of someone who is less able or diligent but performs better in a ‘hands-up’ culture? Have you ever been exasperated at the intransigence of the organisation and decided to vote with your feet, rather than take on the status quo?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then this book is for you.

Moreover, if you have colleagues who would answer no, or who would not even recognise the legitimacy of the questions in the first place, then this book is for them too. Because this is a book for people who believe that the only way to make our organisations work better, and therefore serve society better, is for the people within them to be organised according to their talent and skills.

Why isn’t this the case already?

We’ll answer this question during the course of the subsequent chapters, but here are seven potential answers to be pondering right now:

Because even though we claim to understand the business case for it, diversity is still seen as a ‘nice to have’, rather than a core component of strategic advantage.

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Because vested interests get in the way.

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Because we have an idealised view of what talent is and if people don’t fit that image we reject them, even though they may add more value.

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Because we make emotionally based decisions, then post-rationalise them as logical.

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Because we dislike change.

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Because we are afraid to challenge the norm.

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And most of all, because we are fundamentally dishonest about our so-called like of diversity. The truth is, we prefer people similar to ourselves. An emotional connection, likeness and comfort, trump meritocratic diversity every time.

We undertook a number of interviews with organisations from different sectors that revealed how a handful of courageous and dedicated professionals are attempting to tackle these issues. We will share real insights, rather than proclamations of intent, throughout the book.

Read the chapters that follow as a series of observations, rather than accusations – we will be challenging, and give you the opportunity to get out of your comfort zone.

In Chapter 1 we assess the current situation in organisations, and how they have unconsciously adopted homogeneous talent management (talent management that fails to account for or benefit from difference) as their default way of managing people. We define diversity and talent at the end of the chapter.

In Chapter 2 we analyse how this situation arose with reference to history and bias. This is important context for the pages that follow. Chapter 3 looks at demographic and technological megatrends that are shaping our future world, before exploring aspects of diversity world wide. Chapter 4 proposes an alternative way to manage our people and run our organisations. We call it inclusive talent management.

1

Homogeneous talent management

THE SEARCH FOR THE SAME PEOPLE

All over the world, chief executive officers (CEOs), human resources directors (HRDs), talent directors and other professionals are obsessing about talent. Talent consistently ranks in the top three priorities for CEOs, worldwide. They are rightly concerned with finding the people who will be able to best contribute to their business and so help their business grow and compete. It’s about three main variables – whom can we recruit? Whom can we promote into the right positions? And whom can we keep?

The problem is that most of them are obsessing about the same people. At most, they are focused on a small group of similar people. They are all busily, and often unconsciously, engaged in homogeneous talent management (HTM).

Homogeneous talent management is talent management that fails to account for or benefit from difference. Ever since the publication of The War for Talent in 1997,1 HTM has prevailed. As a strategic business challenge, and a critical driver of corporate performance, the prevailing logic has been to compete for the best talent in a limited pool. The assumption is that demand will outstrip supply.

Michael Porter, of Harvard Business School, said that strategy was ‘about deliberately choosing to be different’.2 Yet in an edition of Harvard Business Review in 2015 there was a flyer for the bestselling business strategy book Clear Blue Ocean.3 It proclaimed how over 3.5 million copies had been sold and it had been translated into 43 languages.

There is something deeply ironic about offering an insight to the mass market – the credentials the book was using to further its sales are precisely those that will diminish its impact. If 3.5 million people all pursue the same strategy then any competitive advantage will be quickly eroded.

There is also a deep irony in the analysis of the average CEO, HRD or talent director. If differentiation is the key to competitive advantage then why are they all looking for the same people?

In 2015 a total of 477 of the top Fortune 500 global companies were run by male CEOs.4 Malcolm Gladwell also found that 58 per cent of Fortune 500 company CEOs were over 6 feet tall, compared with 14.5 per cent of the United States (US) population. Furthermore, 3.9 per cent of the general US population of adult men are 6 feet 2 inches or taller, but among Gladwell’s CEO sample a whopping 30 per cent were 6 feet 2 inches or taller.5

The lack of diversity at senior levels with regard to women, disabled people, gay people or ethnic minorities can be somewhat explained with reference to history, discrimination and cultural patterns. But how do we explain the exclusion of short people? How do we explain the relative absence of white men who happen to be below 6 foot?

In a US study researchers followed thousands of people from birth to adulthood. Holding all other variables constant (such as gender, age and weight) they concluded that an inch of height is worth $789 a year in salary.6 That means that a person who is 6 feet 2 inches tall, but who is otherwise identical to someone who is 5 foot 5 inches, will make on average $7,101 more per year.

COMPETING IN A SELF-LIMITED POOL

Porter’s Five Forces of competition are instructive here.7 At the heart of the so-called ‘war for talent’ is competition between rival groups (organisations) for the ‘best’ talent. An obvious example would be the ‘Big 4’ professional services firms, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC. Should one partner leave one firm for a rival, he or she is put ‘on gardening leave’ for up to a year in order to neutralise their competitive risk to the firm they are leaving. So intense is the competition between them for their star performers that anyone leaving is often immediately ostracised by their current colleagues before being welcomed into their new firm. Yet all four firms fish in the same, relatively small pool.

Similarly, in Olympic Games organising committees, a standard job description required ‘previous Games experience’. The amount of highly talented people without ‘previous Games experience’ was substantial. This means that the ‘Big 4’ firms and the biggest event organisation on the planet all deliberately limit the size of the talent pool they are competing in.

In addition to competition for talent between existing rivals, there also exists the threat of new entrants. Obelisk is a legal services provider started in 2010 by Dana Denis-Smith, an ex-City lawyer. It was founded to answer the challenges faced by businesses due to an increased volume in legal work and the cost pressures that resulted from the financial crisis. Denis-Smith built the business around home-based ex-City lawyers, mainly women, who left the profession to care for th...