A millennials view of talent identification
There is a lot of content circulating about asset management, whether it’s company assets, property, cash or stocks. but in my opinion they focus on the wrong asset. Sure it’s good to have a big portfolio of ‘Good’ assets but are they really working for you as well as they could? It’s my belief that the biggest asset available in the business world is people. Take a Patent for example; this could hold a value of say £50,000 but the members of your team that came up with the idea, surely they are worth more? The people are the difference makers, they come up with the ideas and the plans that add real value to your organization.
But what does this mean for you?
Well I think that the key change is the internet, this has brought about the opportunity for anyone to sell into the mass market, a right previously reserved for the Fortune 500. It means that value of an idea can outweigh the value of infrastructure, warehouses and factories, the list goes on. Take Facebook, a multi-billion-dollar company who took a pre-existing idea, ‘Social Media’, and packaged it up in a way that gave the public insights into those around them, something you didn’t get with other social media. One guy and his friends put together a simple website that went on the take the world by storm. Now what would you say is Facebook’s biggest asset? The site itself, its advertising sales or maybe Instagram? The answer is none of these, it’s the people! The one key being, Mark Zuckerberg - he knew when to introduce features, when to introduce adverts, he played a strategy that many around him didn’t understand or agree with and it worked. But what if you don’t know who the key people are for your organization, maybe you don’t hear some idea because one of your managers doesn’t like a member of their team, there’s a lot of reasons why you might not know who they are but what if you could find the ‘Zuckerbergs’ of your organization and use them to help lead and train others. Wouldn’t that be ideal? There are so many ways that information can be put to use. Whether its finding the skills your existing staff possess or looking for them in future hires or increasing the productivity of a new sales strategy, you want to have key influencers on your side.
This Graphic uses OrgMapper Influence show the difference between information flow originating from management (Left) and information flow originating from influencers (right)
So how do I find my key people?
This is where we come in, after lots of research we have found a tool that will do exactly that, OrgMapper Influence. It works by surveying your entire organization by asking them who they go to for help. Now not everyone will go to the same person for everything, it will identify the differences between ‘social hubs’ (a person that members of your team will go to for help with social issues) or ‘Role Models’ (the members of your team that get asked technical questions) and Champions who are influencers in both areas. This allows an organization to work with these people and get the most out of them and the people they influence. The other benefit to the tool is the line of communication analysis. This will tell you if any levels of your hierarchy are effecting communication though the organization as well as a node map that will show you the true way your company communicates. This allows you to work on areas of poor communication and make the most out of areas with good communication.