TopGrading and Talent Density with Elizabeth Lynch
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A War for Great Talent
Explaining how organizations find the best talented people and how they identify they are great and how do they retain them.
Challenges while finding great talent.
Identifying great talent.
Top grading Methodology.
Topgrading Methodology
Definition of what great looks like.
The scorecard and performance indicators.
Identification of great candidates based on the foundation of a scorecard and structured interviews.
Key performance indicators.
Head of Talent
Head of talent should create a quarterly strategy and have it approved by the CEO to make sure it’s the correct strategy, therefore, execute one hundred percent to that strategy.
Performers A and C.
Talent Density (skill set of talent).
Job scorecards to find next big leader and apply successful techniques to maximize talent density.
Great manage leaders contribute in big part to employee retention.
Leadership and Management Skills
Mistakes in hiring the wrong people and promoting superstar individuals without proper management training.
Management’s proper training is fundamental. There are several resources available to help drive managers to be successful.
Structured Interview Process
Individuals will get scored based on the data collected. Based on the foundational principles that behaviors repeat themselves.
Chronological interview helps understand pieces on their career. Successes, failures, strengths and weaknesses, repeating patterns.
Behavioral interview.
Executive level interview
Reference checks to retrieve the information needed.
Talent Leader around the Leadership Table
Talent leader’s strategies how to bring, grow and help people should be built into company strategy.
Managers need to have on their scorecard talent density. Managers are accountable on growing their team, creating and engaging workforce, removing under performers.
Employee performance at every level with the help of score cards. Employee engagement,
Elizabeth’s book recommendation:
Topgrading. How to hire, coach, and keep A players by Brad & Geoff Smart.
To find more information: Engagedleadershipconsulting.com
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Mike Goldman: So, a number of years ago, one of my favorite coaches in the world, Les Rabinovich, I call him my Yoda of coaching, introduced me to someone that he knew could help my clients basically maximize their talent, hire the right people, keep the right people, develop the right people, and I have worked with Elizabeth on a number of clients since then always very successfully.
So, I wanted to introduce her to you. I know she's got a lot of value to add. Elizabeth Lynch has a bachelor’s in psychology from Miami University an executive MBA from Case Western Reserve Weatherhead School of Management. She's focused her career in leadership development and strategic planning.
Prior to creating engaged leadership consulting, she was VP of Leadership Development for one of Northeast Ohio's fastest-growing companies. Through her tenure, she helped lead company strategic planning, manager and employee development and employee engagement.
She's also a certified accountability strategy and assessment coach from Master Coach University and has been helping executives succeed for over a decade. Like I said, she's done a great job helping my clients. Today we're going to focus on her work, helping clients find, keep, and develop great talent.
Elizabeth, welcome.
Elizabeth Lynch: Thank you Mike, it's wonderful to be here.
Mike Goldman: Yeah, thanks for doing the show. Hey, I want to dive right to a phrase I hear today, and people think it's new. And I want to get your sense of it because I'm not sure how new it is, but we hear a lot for the war for talent and how hard it is today when the economy today is shifting things back little bit, but you know how hard it is to bind and keep good people and all that.
Is that war for talent, Elizabeth. Is it something new? if it is, let's talk about why it's new. If it's not, is it not new, but is it somehow different today?
[00:02:07] A War for Great Talent
Elizabeth Lynch: It's definitely not new for as long as I've been doing this which is, I hate to admit over 20 years, there's always been a war for talent no matter what's going on in the world and I think the phrase should be redefined to a war for great talent. So, there's always someone looking for a job, we want to make sure we bring the right talent and great talent into organizations and that's what's always hard to find.
I think what caused it has changed a lot over the years whether it's recessions whether it's pandemics but, the people who are phenomenal, who are going to be great leaders who are driven to succeed, they don't need a job, they have a job. And so how do companies find those great people? Identify that they're great and recruit them over to their organization. That's where the war happens.
Mike Goldman: I love that. I love that So, there's not a war for mediocre talent. But a there’s war for great talent and there's always been a war for great talent and there probably will always be a war for great talent. So, I love that. So, So, I know in the work that we've done together, it very much focuses, at least a big part of the focus has been on this top grading methodology, which I know is something you've got incredible expertise and we don't have to stick just to that methodology, but it is something I recommend to all my clients.
Tell us a little bit more about when you talk about that war for great talent and finding the right people. Give us a sense of some of the most important techniques to do that, and then we'll kind of drill in, but focus on this topgrading methodology as which I know is so important.
[00:03:40] Top Grading Methodology
Elizabeth Lynch: Absolutely. So, top grading is vital, and everything I say is grounded in the topgrading methodology, which I can talk to in a bit, but really about finding great talent, it starts with finding what good looks like and so frequently that is the step that its missed. Finding a great COO. People kind of assume what that is, they go out and look for it. They have an interview and say yeah this person seems nice, I think I can get along with them. I can have a beer with them. They hire them. They jumped a lot of steps in the process. There needs to be a lot of thought on what good looks like and in top grading we translate then scorecard. What are the key performance indicators that they're going to be measured to, to drive performance to the company? What are the core values to the organization that's the DNA that everyone has. And what are the competencies that individual needs to have to be great at their role? So that is the foundation to driving what great looks like.
And then as you leverage top grading, if you have this foundation of a scorecard and a blueprint, you can do interviews internally or externally, and score them against this blueprint foundation to actually use data to drive your hiring decisions.
Mike Goldman: So, I love that, let's drill in a little bit into this idea of the job score card because I believe that's so important and I rarely see it, I rarely see it done well, unless I bring you into work with them, I rarely see done well. Talk a little bit when people hear the job scorecard, they might say well, that I job descriptions. Talk to us little bit about how it's different.
[00:05:30] Top Grading Job Scorecard
Elizabeth Lynch: A job description is a marketing tool it is what you put out there on your website, on your job boards to attract right people. Here's the, you need a bachelor's degree in this. We need to have 10 years working with SAP whatever it might be. It's truly a marketing tool to try to get the right people in but it is not a tool to measure if they're able do it. A scorecard gets more specific. Its what exactly the KPIs, like I said, that they're going to, that they have to produce, and not only do they have to produce it, but have they done it in the past.
So, it's very specific of what are we looking for them to achieve and what behaviors they need to have and do really well at to show up? So, a scorecard is drastically different from a job description it's really diving into very detailed basis of the exact criteria. And when I say criteria, again, it's not gonna be 10 years in the typical field, that kind of stuff. It's gonna be are they an A performance, and if they are what does A looks, they've implemented strategic plans in organization, that they follow a methodology did they a high success rate of creating a BHAG, a three year plan a one year plan, quarterly priorities, and then executing with success to those priorities, you know, ninety to a hundred percent of the time. It's that type of thing.
And so, then when you're interviewing them, you can say, hey, they have done this. hey, actually, they are an A because they're hitting these criterias on strategy because they are hitting these criterias on leadership and score them to that.
Mike Goldman: I know for my clients, one of the areas of that scorecard that they struggle with the most. Are the KPIs. The key performance indicators. And my thought is that is not the only difference between a job scorecard and a job description, but to me that's such a critical difference that you never see on a job description. So, give us an example and let's pick, let's pick something that's typically not measured very well like a, sales is one that's pretty easy to measure, right? It's like, oh, are they hitting their revenue goals if you talk about like a VP of marketing or a head of talent.
Elizabeth Lynch: Yeah.
Mike Goldman: Pick one or both of those, and one, just pick one of those, whichever you want. But give an example of what an KPIs might look like and is it too really important KPIs that never change? Is it twenty-five of them that are changing every month or every quarter? give us a clear sense of that.
[00:08:01] Head of Talent
Elizabeth Lynch: So, I'm going to pick head of talent only because I could argue that marketing can get very specific measurable so you can, if you can't get to black and whites of marketing, I would challenge that. But how to challenge is always very difficult because how we measure if you're doing it well?
So, any good KPI as you know, needs to be smart, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic timeframe. KPI should be measured monthly, but the KPI should be consistent throughout the year. Scorecards are living, breathing fluid models, they're going to change as the business changes but they shouldn't be changing on a monthly basis. They should be, you should have kind of the standard KPIs so that year unless something drastic in the business changes.
For head of business or head of talent, the KPI's that we see is first of all talent is responsible for employee morale, employee engagement, we would want to have engagement data there. So, it would be something like an employee PS score, employee satisfaction score as one of the KPIs. But then that's something you're not gonna measure monthly. You might not even measure that quarterly. So then how else do you measure that? We can put successful completion to goals around it as well.
So, I would want a head of talent to create a quarterly strategy to drive employee engagement aligned with the corporate strategy. Have that strategy approved by their manager, who's likely the CEO which means it's the right strategy and then execute a hundred percent to that strategy.
So, the creation to the execution to their quarterly priority would be a metric. If we get to the next type of KPI you'd have for a head of talent it would be what skills set of talent? And I call talent density.
People define talent density in a lot of different ways, but we're going to call it percentage of A performers and percentage of C performers. You want a high percentage of A performers and really you want zero C performers and of some of the C performer, they need to be upper out in a quarter. So, the head of talent should be managing of our team. We’ve got 80% A performers15% B performers and 5% C performers that we have action plan too and they should be talking to those numbers monthly.
Those are the types KPIs, but again, it has to be specific, something they can measure something going that is going to take action that's impactful to the organization.
Mike Goldman: I love that. love that. And by the way, I've stolen that term talent density probably from you and the calculation that I have is, I actually do percent A players minus I call percent C and toxic C and you get either anywhere from negative a hundred percent to positive a hundred percent, and it's a wonderful bench mark.
Elizabeth Lynch: The one I recommend, but it can be a little overwhelming, so I always say, let's just focus on A's and C's first and get rid of them and move from there.
Mike Goldman: I love that. I love that. So, and I do want to come back to this idea of having a head of talent around, I know we're just using it as an example and talking about job scorecards, but I think that's such an important role, so, so I'm gonna put a pin in that and come back to it cause I want to talk about some more techniques so job scorecard, really important when it comes to going out, knowing what you're looking for when you are out finding your next leader or your next mid-manager or whoever it is also important in evaluating the performance of somebody already on the job so, job scorecard is great.
What's another, tool or technique that you've used successfully to find and keep, you know, to basically maximize your talent density?
Elizabeth Lynch: You have to approach tail and density in so many different ways. So, to me scorecards of foundation. Do I know what I'm supposed to do? Am I set to be an A performer; Am I being measured to that? Having the coaching conversations. But then we have to have an engaging environment with strong leaders who are retaining people, right? We got to focus on retention retentions. It doesn't matter how many great people you can find if we are going to lose them in a few months. Right? So there needs to be a lot of emphasis in focusing around retention and one size fits all doesn't work in retention anymore.
It’s no longer having the ping pong tables or guaranteeing that they can be remote. Some of the time it's about understanding what our employees need on a personal level, what motivates them, why are they there? what's their dream at the end day? And making sure you can work on that individual level to give them that fulfilling workplace. Cause that's what a lot of people are looking for now, it’s a fulfilling workplace in my life and what my fulfillment its likely different than your fulfillment so we got to be focusing on our attention. We have got to be a great company that people talk about too.
You know, Glassdoor is thein my existence in the HR roll but we want to make sure. That we have a company that people are happy and people growing, so they become marketers to the company, right? They're always, they're parties saying about how happy they are, because they are happy. It's a great place to work. their title's changing on LinkedIn from, you know, specialist to manager, to eventually a director. People take notice of that, you know, and that's attracting top talent. So, it’s really at the start in house to attract and keep your people.
Mike Goldman: So, let's talk about that retention piece a little bit from a very, with a very specific focus of, we know that yes, people work for companies, but people really work their managers and people leave when they leave. They don't leave a company, they leave their manager, when they stay. It's because they've got great manager or leader. So, let’s talk a little bit about that because you and I have both seen that organizations promote people, whether it's from a super worker to a supervisor or from a supervisor to a true leadership position, maybe around that executive table and they do that typically because they're great at the technical aspects of what they do, so they get promoted.
Talk a little bit about what causes the importance of those leadership skills. And I want to dive into this is one because this is one that is so important and so neglected.
[00:14:15] Leadership and Management Skills
Elizabeth Lynch: Absolutely. I'm glad you bring it up. So, if I think of the biggest mistakes, number one is hiring the wrong people and number two is what they do when they promote people. What is so common is you take that superstar individual contributor, you promote and say congratulations now you're a manager.
These are the people you're responsible for. See you later. And then they are left to figure it out, and they're all-out figuring by themselves. They have different management rhythms. They don't know how to be a manager, they have never been thought how to be a manager. And as a result, their team frequently suffers.
Its vitally important when anyone is promoted, they get that proper training and that proper criteria on what's expected of them to be a manager. I do a training for people that just became a manager. That' management 101and it seems so basic and yet it’s so fundamental. It's things like you're now in a fishbowl. Everything you do its seen as what an employee is supposed do to succeed.
So, if you are negative, if you're late, any of those things, you're telling your team that you can be.
And that's so foundational that you think it's common sense, but it's not. Managers need to be taught this. They're in a new world and they really need that skillset to be taught. What their expectations are They need to be taught how to have the hard conversations. They are going to be lucky if they're handed a team of A performers, but they have to keep those A performers engaged at the company.
So, how do you work with A performers, how do you create it so that you understand what their motivation is? You give them jobs and projects so they can grow, and you create growth path in front of them and advocate for them. and what do you do with those underperformers? Because that takes too much time that shouldn’t for managers. That could be a liability of the company etcetera.
There are so many new skills a manager needs to have and they are not given, and as a result, their team suffers, their retention suffers, there becomes cancer in the company or their team just by underperforming without the right accountability cause they don’t have those skills cause people assume, oh, you were great at this you're going to be good at this without that clear communication training.
Mike Goldman: So, let's drill into how you do that, because I will tell you I spent the first half of my 35 plus year career or so, you said I got 20 years. I've got 35. So, you're kid. But I spent half my career as a management consultant working for very large consulting companies and only worked billion-dollar companies and I could remember when I was at a company that's now called Accenture, but when I worked with them, they were called, still called Arthur Anderson. I made manager. It was a big deal we went away for two weeks to do management training it was wonderful! That's because that was a billion dollar plus company that has money to go do that kind of thing.
Most folks listening to this, most of my clients. Can't afford to say, you know, first off, they don't have 50 people making new manager, in a corner. So let’s all go to a beautiful place and do it. They may be, they may promote one or two people every year or every six months. So, how do we get real and say, okay, is it we got to send people away for two weeks of intense leadership training, what does it like? Because I have seen too many organizations screw it up and spend all their time planning and then they execute on a horrible program. Like, what are some options what may it look like?
Elizabeth Lynch: And you are right it really does become dependent on the size of the company, the finances of the company, if you can send them away to a university to train to be a manager, and you have that money, fantastic. But a lot of times we're not in that situation, we are running too fast to do it. Again, the foundation is gonna start with a scorecard. So what do we expect of you as a manager? And that piece is missed a lot. So, we can at least be very crystal clear, we can expect talent density, right? You've got a manager team; you've got to make the right hiring decisions.
We expect leadership; you are a role model to the organization. Everything you do is in a positive manner you are a servant leader, you are building people up. What are those expectations managers is first. Cause then then they can see for themselves, I have a gap what do I need do? Can you help me with this? I've never had a conversation with underperformers, what do I need to do?
So that’s the foundation so that they know that their life is different and that there is expectations for them. And there is phenomenal resources out there. There's people like myself who come in and help train managers and mid-level managing training something I've really worked hard on building. Because I found a deficit in the organizations. There's fantastic business books. There's fantastic trainings out there to help drive them. The key is for them to first know. That it's a new game, they're expected to be a different type of person so that we can identify where those weaknesses are and help on that individual level.
And then then as you get a larger leadership team you can bring the whole leadership team through trainings even bring an expert in or core it so it's scalable. So, every time you promote a new manager, they can watch the recording. I love doing that. Like if you're going to pay for something, you shouldn’t have to pay for it repeatedly and you don't want to do a training that if someone is sick, or you hire someone tomorrow, they missed out on everything important, right?
So, there's scalable ways at reasonable costs to start creating that foundation of what our managers need to know and capture it, so each manager is required to go kind of through those things.
Mike Goldman: Love it. And I think one of the scalable ways I've seen again, people like to spend the next 90 days planning this program and every module, and again, not that's wrong necessarily, but normally that's a whole lot of work, it doesn’t always go somewhere. So, I like making it scalable and taking a little bit more of an agile, iterative approach of let's teach people how to assess talent and coach talent and develop, okay, now let's teach them how to have difficult conversations and it doesn't have to be we are sending them away for two weeks,
Elizabeth Lynch: Exactly,
Mike Goldman: hey, this month we're giving our leaders this new technique that they could use next month we'll give them something else.
Elizabeth Lynch: Exactly, even my curriculum I do for recently promoted people. I didn't disappear in a bubble for 90 days and scope it. It's just through, oh, they need this type of training. They need this type and ad hoc, let's build this. Let's build this skill. Over the 20 years I've been doing this, and then it turns into okay, the this is the foundation that leaders need. Then you modify as the business changes, et cetera.
Mike Goldman: Coming back around to the hiring, the sourcing, evaluation, hiring of new folks. One of the things I want to make sure we cover, we talked about job scorecard, which is important both for the hiring and the retention and creating the right environment. But assuming you've got a job score card, now it's time to interview candidates.
Talk a little bit about, because this is another thing, I see people screw up way more often than not. Talk a little bit about the importance of a structured interview process and what the pieces of that process might look like.
[00:21:39] Structured Interview Process
Elizabeth Lynch: Yeah, absolutely. Structured interview process, vitally important and the thing that goes out the door and people are busy right? So structured interview process, first of all. Taking a step back so you have a scorecard, and the purpose of every interview for every single person that's involved in the interviews is to be able to take what they have learned about the individual and translate it into a score of the score card.
So, as you're doing a structured interview process, every single person who's an interview in the process is going to score the individual with data based on what they've seen the individual has done onto the score card. When I say what they've seen the individual has done, topgrading is based in a foundational principle that behaviors repeat themselves. So, behaviors that people had in their last roles, is it going to be how they show on your role?
So interviewing is not about saying, hey, what would you do if a client called you and said they were mad and said, about saying, okay, tell me a time at this position. Tell me about your most difficult client. Great, tell me what were they most mad about. Now, what were the steps you took to resolve it, and how that turn out? And getting specifics of their background, to understand exactly what they've done, not what their promise they're going to do if given the situation.
Because everyone knows the right candidate and so they can promise all day long what they should do but want to really dig into what they've done. So, that's really the top grading principle and then breaking it apart into a structured interview.
You're going to have your preliminary phone screen. I call that they are you crazy to us right? They seem like they might be a good fit. They're the salary, they're in the salary range. Then you want to do a chronological interview. This is the top grading interview where you go back high school, and you work your way forward.
Understanding every single piece of their career. What was the successes? What were their failures? What are they most proud of? Who was their boss? What's the boss going to say their strengths were? What's the boss going to say their weaknesses were?
And not only what's your boss going to say, but when I call that person, what's their name? What are they going to tell me, in top rating we call that the truth serum, right? They're going to all of a sudden get very real if you're threatening that you're going to talk to their old boss.
Why did you leave the position, how did your manager take it when you left the position? Going position to position following that type of methodology really peels back onion of an individual.
You are start finding the patterns of behavior that keeps repeating. I took on a leadership role instantly, every project I touched was successful. Continues their career. I did not get along with my coworkers, my manager had unrealistic expectations of me, he and I butt heads. So, we finally jointly agreed that I'd park. Precedes their as well. You're starting to get a real big picture of the patterns of behavior that they are going bring to a job, that you can translate into the score card. That is the chronological interview.
Then the next round is typically when you're getting into managers, technical skillset, maybe an executive level interview, and this is a behavioral interview where they're going to get really pinpointed into what is that they need to show up in that job.
Whether it's finance, whether it's operations, but again, digging into competencies and the ability to hit your KPIs on what they've done. Have they managed talent density before? If so, what was the talent density of the organization? If they had a negative talent density, if they had high sea performers, they're obviously not great at moving C performers out of the organization, right? Really getting specific into that role.
So, that is the steps they should take. I'm forgetting a vital step. Reference checks. Reference checks are the final step to make sure everything they're saying true and to fill any hole in your scorecard. And then every person that interviews scores them based on the data they see. And then we come together, and we talk about our scores because I'm going to see something different potentially than you saw at a different interview. Cause every time we meet with them, they are becoming more comfortable and they're becoming a little looser on what they are saying so, you're really starting to get truth of who they are and peeling back that onion.
Mike Goldman: What I love about this structure, is that, different interviewers, depending on whether it's the behavioral interview or the top grading, you know, details of their job history interview, or the reference check and some of my clients have a core values interview they make part of it that, so you could vary it.
But, what I love about the different types is that everybody interviewing has a different role because one, one of the things I ask and I was just doing a workshop for a group of CEOs yesterday and I said, how many of you have multiple people interviewing someone before you bring them on?
And about half the group very proudly raised their hand. We have, yes, we have multiple interviews, but I said, that's great, but. Most of you are pissing off your job candidates because all two of you, or three of you, or four of you are asking the same damn questions.
Elizabeth Lynch: Absolutely.
Mike Goldman: Do you see that as well, if it’s not structured?
Elizabeth Lynch: A hundred percent. You have to be structured and then even if you're splitting up a behavioral interview, you don’t want to be focusing on the same behaviors, right? So, with one of your clients, we would always get together ahead of time and say, these three competencies you're responsible for taking into, these three competencies you're responsible for digging into. And if we tell them it's a 30 minute get to know you with the different executives team, but really they're diving into different areas of these individual's behaviors in life so that we can come together as a full picture.
You've got to structured and you got to have that clarity ahead of time. Also, two big issues I run into on a repeated basis that is worth noting. Same interviewers every time for that position. So many times, I'm busy you do this one and then I'll do this one, and then you do this one. That's not consistently then they don't have a very clear, how do we compare people. You have to do same interviewers for that open position and you have to be willing to dedicate the time to an interview, especially as people are interviewing with senior executives.
I am seeing too many people say I only have 20 minutes, I'll get in there, I'll talk to them, I'll see how feel. How can we hire a C level person on a 20-minute interview? they need to dedicate at least an hour and if they're doing an in-depth chronological interview, it's three hours but they have to give the time to find data. This is a vital addition to their family and their organization. We can't rush it. You wouldn't. I always say to clients you're not going to get married after meeting a person for five minutes.
It's the same with hiring someone, but sometimes costs more. So, we want to take the time. Don't do a quick drive by interview you got to come in fully present ready to admit the time for an interview.
Mike Goldman: And what message does that send the job candidate?
Elizabeth Lynch: Exactly, I got 20 minutes what are you going to tell me? Right?
Mike Goldman: Yeah, exactly. And you touched on something and I want to drill little deeper on the reference check, because the reference check is one of those things that a lot of companies don’t do because it's not adding any value that, the companies that do it because know they're supposed to but of course, folks who are going to give you people that are going to say nice things. And of course, the lawyers tell people all you need, all you could do is say they worked here from these dates and this was their title, you know name rank and serial number. So, I know top grading has got this truth serum, you called idea of thread, of a reference check. Tell us a little bit more about how reference checking can be more valuable how do you change that process? So, it's truly a valuable piece of the puzzle.
[00:29:23] Reference Checking
Elizabeth Lynch: So, it's really important to recognize that every step of the reference check you are getting the information on the individual. So, it starts when you pick up the phone to call the references. I’m going to talk to your supervisors can you give me those names. A performers will say absolutely. Here's every boss I've ever had and they're standing by the phone ready to talk to you. C performers will hesitate I can't give you my last few, they're not available. The company has a policy. Let me tell you, if the company has a policy and you are top performer the manager is getting on the phone to talk about you.
So, it starts with are you able to get a good supervisor reference? It has to be supervisor and if they're a manager, you should also talk to someone that they managed because you are going to get a lot of insight there as well.
So, it starts with can you actually get the names and can you get a call back from those names because again, if they are top performer, their old manager is going to move mountains and call you back and is going to talk you ear off on how amazing they are. So that's the foundation. And then when you get on a call, you've got to know what digging into. Are there holes in their scorecards that you want to get answers to? You know, this person interviewed them and thinks they are great at leadership. This person 'interviewed them and see some flags. Let's talk to the reference about that.
You're going to do the standard was your relationship? Would you hire them again? What they great at? What weren't they great at. But that's just the foundation. This is a springboard into the secret sauce of how are they going to show up to work and you can really dig in and say, listen, I am going to going to be their manager what can you tell me about their ability to be a leader? What have they done there?
Going the next piece though HR is typically very capable and better at peeling back the onion. Sometimes there's a lot of value in the manager making the phone call, especially if it's a C level and a CEO calls another CEO If you are the CEO and you call another CEO and say, listen, I'm about to hire this person, what can you tell me, you're going to find out a lot more CEO to CEO than the HR person is ever going to find out.
So, when we get to those types of levels where the CEO's its going to be a manager, I always prepare the CEO on what dig for, but ask them to do call because that CEO's it’s going to talk to for 20, 25 minutes.
And then I always say the last question to ask is great, when I hire them, I'm going to be their manager. What advice do you have for me, what should I know to make sure they can succeed? A lot is going to come out good and bad. They really need to behand held. They excel in micromanagement, so if you can create that environment, that's great. They are autonomous, they just want to know where to go, and you can get out of their way if you got to create that structure for them. They are going to learn a lot about that individual just with that question.
Mike Goldman: I love that. And you'll learn, if you heard all great things, you'll, learn how to lead them and coach them and manage them. Or you may hear something that could be a problem. I love that! And it's funny, the first time years ago, the first time I recommended this method to a client, they came back and had done like 15 phone screens and they had talked about idea on the phone screen that, Hey, I'm going to be talking to these folks. So, we did 15 Mike, it didn't know, you told us the technique, didn't work. I said, what do you mean it didn't work? we did phone screens and all of sudden, 10 out of the 15 we never heard from them again. And I said worked.
Elizabeth Lynch: It works.
Mike Goldman: Because that scares the crap out of people. It doesn't scare A players. It scares the mediocre performers and the underperformers and yeah, why waste your time having more conversations with them? So, so I absolutely love, I love that methodology for to manage all this to most effectively increase talent density to doing all those things. I want to talk about a little bit about importance of having a talent leader around the leadership table and I know you and I have specifically worked together with some of my clients to make that happen and I'll start off with the term human resources, which I absolutely hate, and I think it's the reason why the head of talent is typically not sitting around the leadership table, because people still call it human resources, and that's benefits and payroll and, the administrative stuff. yeah, very often that reports up to the CFO or whatever. That's great. Talk a little bit about the importance of having a head of talent or whatever right name for it is. Why is it important or is it important have that around that leadership table?
[00:34:00] Head of talent at the Leadership Table
Elizabeth Lynch: Absolutely. It’s funny you talk about human resources. My, the CEO I worked for as vice of development, used to always say HR it’s a dirty word and that's how a lot of CEOs feel like. HR it’s going to tell me I am doing something wrong, that they are out of compliance. There is definitely need for that.
Mike Goldman: Here's why we can't fire somebody.
Elizabeth Lynch: Exactly. So why you need a head of talent at the strategy table, and you need a head of talent the at strategy table. People are your number one resource. There has to be a long-term vision and strategy on how to bring in people, how to grow your people and how to help your people execute. And that strategy has to be built into the company strategy and they go hand in hand.
The more you can have the person responsible for people sitting at the strategy table, they can help you create what's the right strategy with the talent pool we have today, or say, hey, this strategy doesn't match the talent pool we have today. So now I know need to create a strategy to drive us there.
For so long in organizations people have not been thought of this strategy that then you need to vision for, have objectives and have it intertwined in the company strategy. It's we going to start our strategy and then we're going to beat our people to do it and it’s a symbiotic relationship.
You have to be thinking about people. Are they equipped? We have the right people, do they know the strategy when you are creating that company’s strategy and have them all intertwined together.
Mike Goldman: I love and when we think about kind of the accountabilities head of talent versus members of the leadership team. Talk a little know, I've had members of the leadership team kind of say, oh, who don't have a head of talent, they're working on it. They're trying to find somebody.
They, sometimes they go overboard and they're oh, I don't have to worry about hiring people anymore, they're going to do it, or I don’t have to worry about coaching my people, or we don't have talk about how we're coaching our people. Let’s wait until we bring that VP of talent on board cause that person is going to coach our people I mean, talk a little bit about the interplay between the leaders and the line managers and what their accountability is versus the accountability of a head of talent and a head of talent's organization.
[00:36:28] Manager's and Head of Talent's accountabilities
Elizabeth Lynch: So, to make it really black and white every manager needs to have on their score card talent density, they are accountable to growing their team and removing underperformers, they have to have employee n p s of their team. They're accountable for creating an engaging workforce that employees are happy and satisfied and excited to show up, so they hold the accountability for their team, the head of talent help strive strategy. They teach the leaders how to do it. They set the long-term strategy. They hold people accountable to the long-term strategy. They are not gonna be the ones that come in and teach your individual how to be amazing at Excel.
But they're gonna tell you, this individual at this seat, Let’s work on what their scorecard can look like and here’s the gaps that scorecard that you need help and I can be a resource to help figure out how to tailor plan and what kind of training resources to be getting into, but the accountability falls at the manager, falls at the executives, they have to be accountable to growing their team. The head of talents is their roadmap of what is the strategy and how to get there, and their incredible resource to drive it.
Mike Goldman: And setting standards for how we're gonna hire people.
Elizabeth Lynch: These are the scorecards. This is the performance rhythm, right? It’s, in my world, it's a monthly performance rhythm, but this is the performance these are the type of trainings where people should get, here's a resource for trainings, right? Setting the standards for the team.
Mike Goldman: The last topic I want to hit before we wrap up is onboarding, which is typically, I hope you get your computer on time. It used to be, here's where you're sitting. Now you're typically sitting in your house, but you know, do you have your laptop? Do you have your employee handbook? Like it's very, it's the very tactical piece and most companies screw that up. A head of talent come into an organization and didn't have her laptop for three days. So even that tactical stuff, companies screw up. But talk a little bit about some of the important pieces of whether it's onboarding someone onto the executive team or any team. What are some of the important things people ought to think about when they're, when they've made the decision, they put the offer out, someone accepts the offer, now they're starting work.
What are some of the key things to think about on the onboarding process?
[00:38:37] Employee Onboarding
Elizabeth Lynch: Yeah. So. First of all, onboarding needs to be a part of the strategic roadmap of an employee's experience in the company, right? what’s their experience before they are hired in their first 90 days? As an employee, as a manager, and the head of talent should create a strategy. On what is the employee experience, and onboarding is not an Excel sheet check list of they've got their email, they've got their handbook, they signed their contract, they enrolled in benefits, this is where you sit. Onboarding’s about what, what is the experience they need to have on the first day, the first week, the first month? Who do they need to interact with? What DNA of our company do we need to make sure they understand so they can live our core values from day one? What is the vision they need to see?
So, a good onboarding has a great first day where they’re meeting with their manager. They're, they've done all their logistical stuff. They're meeting with their team within the first week. They learn the core values of the organization. They learn the strategic direction of the organization within the first two weeks. They see their scorecard score card and they see this is how success is measured in your role. And by the way, we are interviewing you, we saw you were phenomenal at these things. That's why we wanted an interview. That's why we wanted to hire you. Also, when we're interviewing you, we saw there's a chance that we can really coach and develop you to improve in this area.
So, let's start a 90 day plan now to help you get there, they need see here's how you're going to learn what it is you need to learn, and here are the milestones that we want you to hit. You're going to know how to use this software by the end of this week, you're going to be able to, you know, do this task by the end of that week. They need a really clear vision of what are their expectations and what being at this company looks like and feels like.
Mike Goldman: And again, that takes time.
Elizabeth Lynch: And takes time and it takes leadership, and the head of talent is the quarter, or someone on HR is the quarter back they need to be the one saying, okay, don’t forget this is everything the person needs to be involved with Let’s make sure these people are do, are here in the right place to make that happen.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. how do you help your clients? Tell us little bit about the work you do. If someone's thinking, Hey that was great stuff. You know, how can Elizabeth help me? What does it look like when you go into a client and work with them?
Elizabeth Lynch: Absolutely. So, I go into help with employee performance at every level. So, from that foundation, I help with the scorecards. I help interview people to make sure they match the scorecards externally or internally. Sometimes I brought in with, we've got this person, we want to make them , interview them to the scorecard that you made and tell us is this right person.
Again, I come from the top, I'm top grading certified. I've spent a lot of time doing those interviews to identify, you know, what's great and what's not great so that's the foundation, I help drive employee engagement. What’s your workforce look like, what are the opportunities? What can we do to set the strategy to do that? I help put performance plans into place. I help with management training.
You know, again, like I said, mid-level managers promoted, surprise, good luck. I come in and help fill those goals or fill those holes so they can achieve. I really like to work is in and create a strategic roadmap. Where’s your company today with people and where should it be to be a great workplace and then here's all the things that you should do in this order to drive to a fantastic place to work. And then I can help with elements of that. I can help hire with elements of that I can run the whole thing for them.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. And in a minute I'll ask you to share where people can find you or about you. But before I do, critical question and if I don't want to get you in trouble, if you've got relationships with the top grading folks, but two books on this top grading methodology that we should recommend people read. There is top grading third edition, and then there's Who the A Method for hiring. I know which one I always recommend, but I want to know which one you recommend.
Elizabeth Lynch: I recommend who to every manager and every executive. I recommend top grading to anyone in HR recruiting.
Mike Goldman: Why do you make that distinction?
Elizabeth Lynch: Top grading is an encyclopedia I always say to how to do it and it's an overwhelming thing to a regular manager. So, what they need to know to grow their people, to use data-driven decisions in hiring to utilize scorecards they can get from who is the Cliff Notes to top grading right? It was written by Brad Smart’s son and it's the Cliff Notes to topgrading right? so I let the managers and the executive team get away with the cliff notes, but I want HR and recruiting to focus on the full book.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. I love that. so you just helped me cause I normally just recommend Who the A Method for Hiring. And by the way, Jeffrey Smart is the author of Who And top grading is Brad's Smart’s father.
Elizabeth Lynch: Yeah.
Mike Goldman: and I'm with you top grading. I've read both. Top grading is a slog to get through and who is a great read so, I've been recommending who, but I love your idea. I think moving forward, I'm all right, everybody read Who except Head of Talent, or God forbid they call them head of HR. you know, they, they've gotta read top grading. I love that.
Elizabeth Lynch: Yep. And top grading has like templates and all these things you can use so it’s great for HR or head of talent or recruiting, this is their encyclopedia on how to succeed so they should use that.
Mike Goldman: And if folks want to go beyond just reading the book, they could certainly work with you. And I know, I think on the top grading website, at least that they have workshops and certifications.
Elizabeth Lynch: They have phenomenal workshops, phenomenal certifications. I recommend to any human resource person who wants to do more to go get that certification. A hundred percent.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. so, Elizabeth if people want to find out more about you, where should they go?
Elizabeth Lynch: Engagedleadershipconsulting.com.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. Love it. This was great. Lot of great information Elizabeth. thanks so much for doing the show.
Elizabeth Lynch: It was a pleasure. It was so much fun thank you.
Mike Goldman: Thanks.