10 Ways to Improve Talent Density
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“Don’t wait for an exit interview to find out why they left. Have a stay interview now. What are you doing to retain your best people proactively?”
— Mike Goldman
Talent density - TDI (The Talent Density Indicator)
It is a measure, a KPI, a measure of the strength of the talent within your organization.
It is the percentage of superstars, the percent of high performers within your organization minus the percent of underperformers in your organization.
Hiring Practices
Improving hiring practices is the number one way to enhance talent density within an organization.
Effective hiring involves sourcing, evaluating, and assessing talent consistently across the organization.
Onboarding plays a crucial role in ensuring that new hires align with the company's culture and quickly become productive team members.
Coaching
Coaching involves helping individuals by asking questions and fostering a growth mindset, rather than just giving advice or holding them accountable.
Effective coaching includes having a structured process for one-on-one coaching meetings where the agenda is set by the person being coached.
Continuous coaching is essential for helping team members develop and reach their potential, and resources like "The Coaching Habit" by Michael Bungay Stanier can provide valuable insights into coaching practices.
Feedback
Providing timely, direct, and honest feedback is crucial for improving talent density.
Effective feedback is specific, highlighting particular actions or behaviors that deserve recognition or improvement.
Regular one-on-one meetings dedicated to giving feedback can ensure consistency and help individuals understand their strengths and areas for growth.
Accountability
Accountability improves talent density within an organization.
Effective accountability involves shining a bright light on commitments made by team members, holding them to their word, and acknowledging their achievements.
Accountability should be practiced both in team meetings, where it sets an example for the entire team, and in one-on-one meetings, providing a structured approach to follow up on priorities and commitments.
Retention
Proactively retaining A players involves actions such as coaching, development, challenges, increased responsibilities, exposure, and recognition.
Conducting stay interviews can provide valuable insights and help retain valuable team members by addressing their needs and aspirations.
Cutting The Cord
"Cutting the cord" on underperformers is a critical aspect of improving talent density.
Addressing underperformers promptly and decisively is essential for maintaining a high-performance culture.
Procrastinating or making excuses about retaining underperformers can negatively impact both productivity and the morale of top performers.
Improve Your Vulnerability
Creating a culture where people can discuss difficult topics without fear of reprisal and give and receive feedback openly is essential for improving talent density.
Higher vulnerability within an organization can lead to greater talent retention and productivity
Vision & Values
Having a crystal-clear vision for the organization, communicated effectively, is a key element to enhance talent density.
A clear and inspiring vision empowers employees to make decisions aligned with the organization's goals and reduces the need for micromanagement.
Values, defined as non-negotiable behaviors, anchor the organizational culture and provide a framework for confident decision-making among team members.
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If you have great impact on your people, your people will have great impact on your clients. Another way to say that is profit growth is a direct result of people growth. And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode is we're going to talk about talent density, which I've talked about before, but in case you haven't heard those episodes, I'll redefine it.
We'll talk about talent density and specifically we're going to talk about 10 ways to improve the talent density of your organization. So what the heck is talent density, talent density, or more specifically something I call the TDI, The Talent Density Indicator is a measure, a KPI, a measure of the strength of the talent within your organization.
And I have a whole process that I go through, which you could listen to in a podcast episode called the quarterly talent assessment. But basically it is the percent of superstars, the percent of high performers within your organization minus the percent of underperformers in your organization.
And if you do that calculation, you come up with again, what I call the talent density indicator, which is a number that can go anywhere from negative 100% percent, to positive 100% percent. I believe this is the most critical leading indicator of success within your organization. So if you want to know how to, how to actually calculate that and how the talent assessment works. Listen to the quarterly talent assessment episode. But what I want to talk about here again are 10 ways that you can improve the talent density of your organization.
How do you find and keep more people performing at an A level your superstars? How do you coach those underperformers up or in some cases cut the cord on those underperformers? Send them off somewhere else where they can go be A players because they may never be A players within your organization.
So let's go through all 10 and for each one, I'm going to ask you to score on a scale of one to seven, one being, man, we kind of stink in that area and seven being, man, I'm not sure how we could improve.
We're so wonderful. I want you to score these 10 on a scale of one to seven, because what I'm going to come back and ask you at the end of this episode is what are the most important two or three areas that you need to focus on with your organization now and having those scores for each of the 10 it's going to help you do that.
So if you're somewhere where you could write this down, great if you're driving, if you're taking a walk, don't stop listening. Listen but do the scale of one to seven anyway. And you know, hopefully when you get back somewhere you could write and take notes, you can try to remember your scores or relisten to parts of this anyway, enough of the upfront stuff.
Let's get to the 10. So the number one, and these are not in priority order. The number one way to improve your talent density. The first thing is your hiring practices. Of course, if you do a better job of hiring people that are right for the job, people that can do the things that you want them to do, people that have a potential to be highly, highly productive, people who are already living your core values, they're going to be a great fit for your culture.
If you hire the right people, of course, you're going to improve your talent density. So think about your processes, your frameworks. for your consistency across the organization as to how you source your talent. Where do you find the best talent? How do you evaluate and assess that talent? How good are you once you find the right people at making the offer, bringing them on board?
And then how good are you at the onboarding process to take that great new hire and make sure that they are just from day one learning what they need to do, taking the actions they need to take, you know, living the culture, learning the culture, what are you doing to onboard them? So in the area of hiring and onboarding, give yourself a score from one to seven.
Again, one is we kind of suck. Seven is we're not sure we can do any better. So number one way to improve talent density is improve your hiring or your hiring and onboarding.
Number two is coaching. And when I say coaching, I don't mean telling people what to do. I don't mean holding them accountable.
I mean, coaching people. I mean, doing a good job of helping people when they're asking for your help, doing a good job of asking questions versus just giving people advice. Do you have a growth mindset as it relates to yourself and your people? In other words, do you feel like people have the ability to grow or do you feel like, well, we are who we are and we're just not going to change that.
Do you have a coaching process. Do you have a set of one on one meetings with your direct reports for the direct reason of just coaching them, not holding them accountable, not giving them feedback. But to me, a one on one coaching meeting is one where the agenda is the agenda of the person that reports to you, they're coming to you and say, I think I need help with this.
There's something I need to get better at. There's a challenge that I have. So do you have that growth mindset? Do you have a process? Do you have a framework for continuously coaching your people? If you want a great book on what it means to coach versus feedback versus accountability, goal setting, any of that, read The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier.
So number one was hiring. Number two is coaching for coaching for you and the leadership team. If you're a member of the leadership team or whatever team you're on, give yourself a score in coaching from one through seven, the better you're able to coach your people, the more they're going to be able to develop and reach their potential.
Number three way to improve talent density is feedback. Again, separate from coaching. What are you doing to make sure your folks are getting the feedback they need? Feedback in the moment, number one, and most importantly, how direct, how honest, how timely is the feedback? Feedback both good and bad that you're giving your people.
How specific is your feedback? Are you saying, Hey, great job in that meeting? Or are you saying, I really loved in that meeting how you were really persistent with that idea you had and you know, you just communicated it very specifically. Or I really loved what you did in that meeting, jumping in and helping everybody else on the team.
So what are you doing to give feedback in the moment and what are you doing to give periodic feedback, just like you have one on one meetings that are purely about coaching. There ought to be one on one meetings for the purpose of giving people feedback. So how would you score yourself and your team on a scale of one to seven in your ability to, your timeliness, your specificity, your consistency in giving feedback.
That's number three. Number four is accountability. Your best folks love it when you shine that bright light of accountability on them. When you say, Hey, this is what you committed to do. Show me what you've done. This is what you've committed to do. I haven't seen it. What's going on? This is what you committed to do.
You did exactly what you said. Man, I got to tell you, you've done a great job. Your underperformers, your mediocre performers, when you shine that bright light of accountability down on them, they scatter. Your superstars love it. If you don't hold them accountable, they think, why am I working so hard? I did all this stuff and they never really checked in on it.
So, what are you doing to hold people accountable? And I think there are two audiences in holding people accountable. One audience is hold people accountable in your team meetings. Hopefully you're having weekly accountability meetings with your team to follow up on the priorities, on the KPIs.
Part of when you want to hold people accountable is in that team meeting. So the audience is the team. And you holding people accountable is setting a great example for others. Then the other audience is more of a one on one audience. So just like I said, you ought to have one on one coaching meetings.
There's one on one feedback. The way I typically suggest my clients do it is there is a one on one coaching meeting probably every other week or at very least once a month. And then there is a one on one feedback and accountability meeting that happens on alternate weeks, either once a month or twice a month, depending on whether you're doing your one on ones weekly or bi weekly.
So from an accountability standpoint, where are you? Where is your team? Again, on a scale of one to ten.
Number five is retention. What are you doing to retain your best people? It's too easy. If you have a superstar, you have someone performing in an A player, it's too easy to say, Thank God for Joe. He's just an A player.
I can go focus on my problem children. I don't have to focus on Joe. I know he's getting things done. I know he's going to be great. That's the worst thing you can do for your A players, there's a whole bunch of actions you need to be taking for your superstars around, you know, to make sure you're retaining them.
And part of that is coaching them, developing them, challenging them, giving them more responsibility, giving them more exposure, rewarding them. Don't wait for an exit interview to find out why they left. Have a stay interview now. What are you doing to retain your best people proactively, not just, man, I hope they stay.
What are you doing to proactively retain your best people? Score that on a scale of one to seven. That's number five. So, so far we've been through half. Number one was hiring, number two was coaching, number three was feedback, number four was accountability, number five was retention.
Let's go to number six. And number six is a problem area for so many companies. Number six I just call cutting the cord. What are you doing to cut the cord on your under performers? I have seen too many organizations have underperformers, what I call C players or toxic C players. Folks that are not able to hit their productivity goals, not even getting close.
Folks that are not living the core values, folks that are hurting your culture rather than helping your culture. I've seen too many of those folks. In an organization for 6, 10, 12, 18, you know, years they're around because people just don't have the courage to make the hard decision. What are you doing to cut the cord on your under performers?
I truly believe that everybody has the ability to be an A player somewhere. If they can't be an a player for you, you're not just hurting yourself. You're not just hurting your organization. You're not just hurting your clients. You're hurting them. Stop making excuses out of misplaced loyalty or more than anything
it's about not having the courage to have the tough discussion. Sometimes it's, Oh, I'm afraid of being short staffed. Well, what I have found is your superstars are at least 3x more productive than your mediocre performers. So you're hurting productivity. And you know who you're hurting the most?
You're hurting your A players. You're hurting your superstars by keeping those underperformers around. So number six is cutting the cord. Where would you score yourself and your team in the ability to do that in the right way, with the right timing, for the right people?
Number seven is improve your vulnerability, greater vulnerability is going to result in greater talent density.
What do I mean by vulnerability? You know, having an open, honest culture where people have the ability to talk about the difficult things without fear of reprisal, of retribution, where people have the ability to give and receive feedback openly. People have the ability to say the difficult thing that's a little scary.
If you improve your vulnerability as an organization, your talent density will skyrocket. So where would you score yourself and your team on a scale of one to seven on vulnerability? That's number seven.
Number eight is about vision. How crystal clear is your vision? How often and how well are you communicating your vision to the organization?
The clearer you are at your vision three years out and further, what's that vision? What do you want to build? What do you want to become? The clearer you are with that vision, The more able your folks are to make decisions that are consistent with that vision, the more trust you'll have in your folks not to make a left or a right turn.
If you're a point A and they know where point B is, your best people are automatically going to make better decisions and you can stop micromanaging them. There's a great book by Cameron Herold called Vivid Vision, which I suggest you read. It's a quick book that just talks about how to create this clear vision.
That's not just, we want to be a 50 million dollar company or a 5 billion dollar company. It's not just about the numbers. It's about what you want your organization to look like and feel like and sound like and smell like, and what do you want others to say about it? It's a more three dimensional view. So how clear are you in communicating your vision to the organization on a scale of one to seven? That's number eight.
Number nine is values. How clear are you on the non negotiable behaviors for your organization, those behaviors that lift each other up, those behaviors that make you and others better, those behaviors that anchor your culture. If you want a great little tutorial on core values, look back at a fairly early episode that I had in the Better Leadership Team show just called Core Values.
Listen to that if you want a better idea of what core values are, how to go about creating those core values, how to live those core values. Your values are not just nice aspirational things. There are specific non negotiable behaviors. And again, kind of like the vision, the more clear you are, the better you communicate and live your core values, the less micromanaging you need to do, because you can be a lot more confident if your folks are living the core values, man.
They're doing something right and you don't have to micromanage them. They're clear on values if they're clear on vision. Man, set your superstars out to conquer the world and they're gonna go do it. So, number nine is values. Where are you? On a scale of one to seven on communicating, living your core values.
You do that. Your talent density is going to skyrocket and last number 10. And again, I said, I did a whole other episode on this. Are you assessing your talent quarterly? Number 10, I call the quarterly talent assessment. Are you assessing talent so you can actually calculate your talent density? You're superstars, percent superstars minus your percent underperformers, or in my model it's percent of your people performing at an A level minus the percent of your people that are performing at either a C or a toxic C level.
If you're not quarterly, as a team, assessing talent, challenging team members on that talent, taking action on that talent, calculating your TDI, your Talent Density Indicator, so you know whether you're trending up or trending down, right? You can't manage what you can't measure. So number 10 way to improve talent density is to assess that talent density.
Do the quarterly talent assessment. Again where are you on a scale of one to seven on doing that? Are you doing it, but you're not doing it quarterly? You're doing it quarterly, but you're not really holding people accountable for taking action to coach and develop their people. Are you not doing it at all?
Where are you on a scale of one to seven? So quickly, I'll summarize the ten and ask the question, which ones are you gonna focus on? So number one, again, no prioritization to this. Number one was hiring. Number two was coaching. Number three was feedback. Number four was accountability. Number five was retention.
Number six is cutting the cord. Number seven is vulnerability. Number eight is vision. Number nine is values. And the tenth is doing that quarterly talent assessment.
You are probably not going to take action on all ten of those over the next week, two weeks, month. So I want you to figure out of all those ten, which are the most important two or three areas that you want to focus on now. Maybe you're not doing a quarterly talent assessment, so you want to go back and listen to my quarterly talent assessment episode, because maybe you feel like that's got to be the first step.
If I'm not measuring this, how do I know whether I need to do all those other things? Maybe you're doing a lot of this stuff, but... man, your people need to learn how to be better coaches. Maybe you feel like, wow, you know, I communicated a vision three years ago. And I assume people know it, but A, the vision has changed.
B, a lot of folks in the organization have changed. I gotta find a way to communicate that vision or communicate values. I gotta get better at holding people accountable. Whatever it is, what are the most important two or three areas that you're going to focus on now. Work with your team, get it done.
I promise you if you improve your talent density, your profit growth, your impact, your fulfillment will go up along with it. So go make it happen and I'll talk to you on the next episode.