Connecting Key Strategies to Promote Talent Management

BY RUSS FOSTER, SHEILA STEPHENS, AND FAITH SAPORSANTOS, MSN, MHA, RN, CRRN

Talent management is a key organizational strategy and one that is currently at the forefront for organizational leaders. This is not a fad strategy—rather, it is rooted in the knowledge that acquiring exceptional talent can significantly contribute to the organization and effectively assist in achieving successful outcomes.

While acquiring new and excellent talent is essential, it is also critical to recognize the importance of managing existing talent. Talent management, new and existing, begins with connecting talent management strategy to other key strategies within the organization. Connecting key strategies promotes synergy and helps maximize strategic impact—especially at ground-level management of new or existing talent.

It takes work to connect the dots between strategies and ensure successful execution on all fronts and at all levels. However, the first step is to understand the strategies. For example, the recent focus on talent management challenges us to understand what it is—and what it is not.

THREE STRATEGIES IN CONCERT

Writing for The Complete Leader, Ranjit Nair, PhD, explains, “A talent strategy isn’t about musical chairs and who sits in what seat and when. It’s about building an authentic culture around all people.” This means honoring them, enabling them to unleash the best they have to offer, and then capitalizing on their individual strengths. Given the opportunity, everybody brings something to the table.1

This is why you need an inclusive strategy that is built on recognition, development, and nurturing of internal talent, as well as recruitment of new talent.

Similarly, most organizations have adopted communication strategies. The successful ones understand that an effective communication strategy is not a one-time event; it is ongoing and multidirectional.

Another key organization strategy is ongoing performance improvement and related staff development. Successful organizations understand that performance is not just the responsibility of the individual team member, but it is also the responsibility of leadership. This includes implementing key measures, developing a performance road map to achieving results, and providing the guidance and constructive feedback necessary for success.

All three of these strategies—talent management, communications, and performance improvement—are inseparable, complementary, interconnected, and interdependent. Each contributes to the overall success as well as to each other. Therefore, these three strategies in concert, like the triple aim, are a winning combination.

However, as with any enterprise-wide of the bigger strategy, sometimes the basics of good leadership and strategy implementation can get lost in the grind of everyday operations.

For example, an organization that prides itself on excellent leadership and quality communication can sometimes forget to ensure that everyone understands the big picture and how each individual contributes to the project at hand and to the organization’s mission and vision. This is increasingly important as more and more jobs are now dependent on teamwork and collaboration, and a remote environment makes this challenge even greater.

Promoting and facilitating effective teamwork by stimulating synergy allows each individual to contribute to the whole and allows the team to achieve more. Synergy can be summarized by the physics concept of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”2 It is the combined effort of a group of individuals who work together to achieve a common goal, and it most often includes sharing of talent, knowledge, expertise, and experience.

Synergy can be magnified by effective talent management, quality communications, and performance improvement that considers the achievements of the team as well as the individuals. Synergy can be further enhanced by ensuring that each team member has an understanding of the bigger picture.

WHY THE BIG PICTURE MATTERS

Awareness of the bigger picture is rooted in all three strategies. Without having a clear vision of the larger picture and its related parts, an individual is unnecessarily placed at a disadvantage—a bit like being asked to design a building without understanding its function or purpose. We have all seen projects adversely impacted by team members dragging down the overall effort due to a lack of information about the larger context. Interdependency and efficiency are just two of the many reasons why understanding the big picture is important.

A friendly reminder: Do not assume that everyone on the team has a clear vision of the bigger picture. This assumption is a common pitfall when managing projects that on the surface appear to be similar to previous projects. Keep in mind that no two projects are exactly the same. The desired outcome may be the same, such as obtaining licensing or completing an acquisition. However, several dynamics can change the big picture, including finances, players, and timing. The larger picture must consider all dynamics to achieve the desired outcome in an efficient manner.

Every project has a unique context. The scope, setting, phase, decision processes, and stakeholders affect the opportunities on any project. Understanding this context is critical to achieving the project goals. Context should be viewed as both a constraint and an opportunity.3

Failure to ensure that all team members are properly informed—not only about the end goal, but also about the context, variables, and dynamics that make up the big picture—is a guarantee for rework, wasted time, team frustration, and inefficiency. On the other hand, recognizing the interdependency of team members and how each person’s work contributes to the whole generates synergy and efficiency and contributes to a quality end product.

TIPS AND REALITIES

Here are some basic tips to ensure everyone on the team understands a project’s big picture:

• Ensure that everyone receives an overview of the project or work to be done, including key background information and project scope.

• Provide all team members with a clear description of the overall project, including how each piece interrelates and contributes to the whole.

• Keep communication open and frequent.

• Establish processes for quick “sanity checks.” This allows individuals to quickly ask “does this makes sense” or reinforce their understanding before wasting time going down the wrong path or pursuing erroneous information.

• Ensure processes are in place for individual team members to receive additional information and guidance, and provide mentoring as needed. This is especially important for less-experienced team members.

Engaging employees is critical. When leaders take the time to translate their complex language of strategy into a common language of execution, individuals can make better decisions and take ownership. The results include better outcomes, improved productivity, and increased job satisfaction.4

As organizations set out to connect their strategies, it is important to keep three realities in mind:

1. All team members are customers of organizational strategy. This is a key understanding to ensure that all members of the team are included. Remember: Organizational learning and execution speed is not determined by the speed of the brightest individuals, but by the average speed of the entire organization.

2. People will tolerate the directives of leadership, but they will ultimately act on their own. Empowering team members with knowledge and understanding of the organizational strategies enables them to invest their time and talent as “owners” and allows for quality decisions and work. This is a key reality of change and a basic tenant of successful leadership. As former President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.”

This is an ongoing management decision: push versus pull. In terms of leadership, “push” is top-down command and control, while “pull” is motivating and teaching to create alignment of purpose. The “pull” leadership approach is clearly more aligned with today’s organizational strategies and supports inclusion, knowledge sharing, talent development, high performance, and efficiency. These are all key to a successful organization.

3. Everyone must see and understand the big picture. This does not negate the need for detail. Rather, you need to analyze, interpret, and report the detail within the framework of the larger picture. When individuals understand the greater context of their work, their improved performance results in a better product that benefits the entire organization.

Connecting strategies to achieve efficient work performance and project management is an everyday effort that starts at the top. However, both upper and middle management must do their part to ensure that individuals are aware of the big picture and all key context elements.

EVERYDAY EXAMPLES

The following are two common examples of how leadership can adversely impact a project by not fully employing the three winning organizational strategies.

Example 1: John

John, a top-performing data analyst in a large healthcare organization, is asked to collect and analyze a snapshot of claims data for accuracy of claims payment and to develop a report summarizing findings and recommendations. The information that John receives is minimal, and guidance is lacking.

No one tells John that his analysis will be part of a larger organizational response to regulatory audit findings. Additional details integral to the assessment—such as inaccurate interest payment on late paid claims, use of inaccurate fee schedules, and noncompliance with provider contracts—are also not shared. This creates a limited and narrow view for John.

Because he does not understand how his puzzle piece contributes to the bigger picture—including the context and key information—his analysis will likely not add value and will result in considerable rework and missed opportunities to focus on key issues. This will inevitably lead to frustration for all team members involved and the potential for wavering commitment to the project objectives and organization.

Example 2: Mary

Mary, a top-performing financial analyst in a midsized provider organization, is assigned to prepare financial projections required for state licensing of her organization. The information Mary receives is limited to projections of revenue, expenses, and enrollment. She is not provided guidance on the overall big picture of the licensing application or any information related to provider contracts—many of which are capitated agreements impacting projected expense calculations.

Further, no one tells Mary that the organization also plans to submit a Medicare Advantage application to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This significantly impacts the financial forecasting. The lack of information regarding the big picture and context will likely prevent Mary from delivering a comprehensive, quality product to meet both state and federal requirements. Her projections will not meet expectations and will require considerable rework to ensure compliance with the big picture and project objectives.

Unfortunately, these and similar scenarios occur on a daily basis and contribute to inefficiencies and rework, leading to lost hours and higher organizational costs. Moreover, the information gaps cause perceived productivity issues, impacting morale and leading to job dissatisfaction and frustration at all levels.

The real tragedy is that the adverse impacts could have been avoided. All would have benefited from simple information sharing, including the key details that make up the big picture to ensure proper context. The results would have likely been a “one and done” with no additional rework and improved performance and job satisfaction.

By managing talent and maximizing individual strengths, ensuring two-way effective communication and continual performance improvement—including guidance and constructive feedback—your organization can create project synergy, efficiency, and effectiveness. o

Russell Foster and Sheila Stephens are Senior Advisors for Mazars USA LLP. They can be reached at Russ.Foster@MazarsUSA.com and Sheila.Stephens@ MazarsUSA.com. Faith Saporsantos, MSN, MHA, RN, CRRN, is Director of Health Care Consulting at Mazars USA.

References:

1 Nair, Ranjit, PhD. Look Carefully, Dig Deeper, Connect The Dots: Fixing Talent Management Blind Spots. The Complete Leader. Retrieved December 27, 2020, from https://thecompleteleader.org/blog/lookcarefully-dig-deeper-connect-dots. 2 Federer, Denise (2013, December 6). How to build team synergy. Businessobserverfl.com. Retrieved January 4, 2021, from https://www. businessobserverfl.com/section/detail/how-to-build-team-synergy/. 3 Understanding the Context of a Project, United States Department of Transportation, INVEST. https://www.sustainablehighways. org/1089/understanding-the-context-of-a-project. html#:~:text=Understanding%20the%20context%20of%20a%20 project%20is%20important%20to%20evaluating,incorporate%20 sustainability%20on%20any%20project. 4 Haudan, Jim. 3 Key Tips to Engage Your Employees in the Big Picture. Root, Inc. October 22, 2020, https://www.rootinc.com/blog/engagingemployees-big-picture/.

Sheila Stephens

Russell Foster

Faith Saporsantos, MSN, MHA, RN, CRRN