This document provides advice on retaining top talent. It discusses what top talent wants, which includes an empowering relationship with their manager, a winning culture, growth opportunities, and competitive compensation. The document also addresses how to identify and change undesirable employee competencies. It provides models for firing underperforming employees, redeploying employees to new roles, and using management offsites to evaluate talent retention. Overall, the document offers practical guidance for organizations seeking to attract and retain top performers.

1. RETAINING TALENT
Presented by: Fred Lange

2. Paying Top Talent
Work with Us
Winning Strategies for Finding, Developing & Maintaining Top Talent
RETAINING TOP
TALENT
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

3. Retaining Top Talent
WHAT DOES TOP TALENT WANT?
The world! First, they want a challenge
and to have fun coming to work. So they
want the resources and opportunity to
make things happen. Second, top talent
wants an informal culture with very little
bureaucracy. Third, they want
compensation that's tied to performance
Source: RADFORD CONSULTING
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

4. Retaining Top Talent
WHAT THEY WANT?
 Empowering relationship with their manager
 A winning, high-performance culture
 The fun and excitement of working with a team of top talent
 The opportunity to grow, to meet challenges, to rise in
stature and title
 Competitive pay, bonus and benefits
 [Proactive increases in pay and compensation. Do not wait until the
threat of quitting to pay people appropriately]
Source: B.Smart, Ph.D.
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

5. Retaining Top Talent
AMENABILITY OF COMPETENCIES TO CHANGE
Relatively Easy Very Difficult
to Change Harder But Doable to Change
Risk Taking Judgment Intelligence
Leading Edge Strategic Skills Analysis Skills
Education Pragmatism Creativity
Experience “Track Record” Conceptual Ability
Organization/Planning Initiative Integrity
Self-Awareness Conflict Management Inspiring “Followership”
Communications – oral Independence Assertiveness
Communications – written Stress Management Energy
First Impression Adaptability Enthusiasm
Customer Focus Likeability Ambition
Political Savvy Listening Tenacity
Selecting Talent (A-players) Team Player
Removing Marginal Talent (C-players)
Negotiation Skills
Coaching/Training
Persuasiveness
Goal Setting
Change Leadership
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

6. Retaining Top Talent
THE LIKELIHOOD OF CHANGE
frequent
How frequent is the behavior?
Very difficulty to
change
“character-driven behaviors are
like crabgrass: deeply rooted and
difficult to weed out.”
Manager’s
willingness to
change
Very easy to
change
infrequent
response to a expression of character
particular situation
How deeply entrenched is the behavior?
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

7. Retaining Top Talent
FIRING MODEL
 Ease of making the decision. Do you conscientiously take your
marginal play (C Player) through the appropriate steps of coaching,
training, and looking for alternative jobs internally, and if all those steps
have failed to produce an A player, do you then easily conclude, “He has
to go?” Or, do you waver, procrastinate, avoid confronting the issues
with the C player or perhaps even ignore the fact that you have an
under-performer?
 Ease of implementing the decision. Once the decision to fire the
C- player is made and will be implemented shortly, how easy or hard is it
for you to fire the person? Are you a cold (“Hey, this is business,
nothing personal”) sort, pulling the trigger on the C player without
empathy? Or, do you sympathize and show human concern as you say,
“Sorry, Charlie, but you have to go?”
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

8. Retaining Top Talent
FIRING MODEL
Ease of Making the
Firing Decision
Easy Hard
Hatchet
Easy Ostrich
Ease of Implementing Person
the Firing Decision
Hard Top Grader Wimp
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

9. Retaining Top Talent
REDEPLOYING
 Thorough & accurate assessment
 Reasonable performance goals
 Ongoing feedback
 Role modeling
 Comprehensive coaching
 No hard feelings
 Increase self-awareness by marginal c-player
 Increasing skills by c-player
 Opportunities for ego protection
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

10. Retaining Top Talent
REDEPLOYING EXAMPLE
REDEPLOYMENT: We transferred her to newly
created Member Liaison position with no supervisory
responsibilities, hired P/T Controller to run financials
and manage office/accounting personnel.
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

11. Retaining Top Talent
REDEPLOYING
“Having interviewed more than 100
presidents and CEO’s who attributed
their failure to “carrying C players” The
vast majority of cases, they said, “I
should have moved quicker to get rid of
C-players”
B. Smart, Topgrading
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

12. Retaining Top Talent
MANAGEMENT OFFSITE (RE: TALENT)
 Do we have the talent to meet our goals? Will we have it?
 How successful are we in recruiting people, internally and externally?
What is our hiring batting average?
 Where are we strong and weak in management?
 Which A players should be promoted, and to what jobs, in order to retain
and develop them, but not put them over their head?
 How many external searches should we do, for what jobs?
 Have we made progress in culling the chronic C-players? Why not?
Who’s responsible?
 Are we all in a full-court press for recruitment by developing and using
our networks to generate candidates? Can we bypass search firms?
 How are we progressing on developing an internal “bench,” so we can
have an optimal blend of promoting people from within and enriching
the mix with talent from outside
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

13. Retaining Top Talent
LIFE BALANCE SCORECARD
Good Not Good
Enough Enough Critical Life Dimension
1. □ □ Career success
2. □ □ Wellness
3. □ □ Relationships (family, friends)
4. □ □ Giving something back
5. □ □ Financial health/independence
6. □ □ Spiritual grounding
7. □ □ Recreation (pleasure, hobbies)
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

14. Retaining Top Talent
SUPER MANAGER//COACH
 A Partner. “Hey, you’ve got a problem, let’s work on it together.”
Interested, engaged, respected.
 Promotes autonomy. Helps coachee to independently diagnose
problems, consider solutions; makes informed choices regarding
development.
 Positive. Supportive, builds confidence, an enthusiastic motivator.
Uses praise and recognition for progress and accomplishment. Never
ridicules. Passionate. Has a sense of humor. Invariably respectful.
 Trustworthy. Honest. Maintains confidences. Open. Admits when
wrong. Doesn’t over promise.
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

15. Retaining Top Talent
SUPER MANAGER//COACH
 Caring. Compassionate and empathetic. Sincere.
 Patient. Understands how hard it is to change. Tolerant. Reasonable.
 Results-oriented. Focuses only on important issues. Proactive.
Infectiously committed to helping coachee perform. Follows through on
promises.
 Perceptive. Understands coachee’s strengths, shortcomings, goals,
needs.
 Authoritative. Knowledgeable. Wise. Clear and specific in feedback. Has
common sense. Generates valid measures of improvement.
 Active listener. Plays back content and underlying feelings. Summarizes,
clarifies.
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

16. Retaining Top Talent
GM – TIP TO GIVE TO YOUR DIRECT REPORTS
Pretend I'm in the room.
When I was doing mergers and acquisitions
for Honeywell, I once asked Ed [Spencer,
CEO Honeywell] how he could trust me not to
make mistakes in judgment with such big
transactions. He said, "Just assume I'm in the
room with you. If a deal doesn't feel right-if
you wouldn't do it with me sitting next to you-
walk away." Source: Mannie Jackson , Globtrotters
Direct, Practical Advice that Works
Direct, Practical Advice that Works

17. Direct, Practical Advice that Works

18. Direct, Practical Advice that Works