Talent cannot be managed


Most people can and should be managed in an organization – but not talent . And talent is not a word that should be used in a light hearted and generalist way . That is how it loses relevance .

Interestingly, I did not learn this originally from corporate world or business school – I learned this from training and working with dogs . My intention is not to compare dogs to humans – just that I learned something from my hobby that empirically seem to also apply in my real career .

Most novice trainers go around looking for smart and intelligent dogs . What they don’t realize is that you can’t train smart dogs with novice training skills . It is one of those things that people won’t learn without making their own mistakes . Been there done that and learned , I think I learned at least . The dog for novice trainers is the one that is highly motivated by food , and an over eagerness to please the owner . That is – a pretty dumb dog , the opposite of an intelligent dog . Once they are trained – the dumb dogs will perform spectacularly to please their handler – but they usually can’t think for themselves to save their lives .

That is pretty much the case with management too . If you really want to work with smart people – you cannot manage them . They don’t thrive under management . They need collaboration and leadership . Set them in a direction , and get out of their way . Check in periodically and let them know you can be approached for help whenever they need . And then don’t let them down when they come to you .

“Talent” is not scalable – there is no such thing as a talented team of 100 people . I wish there was but I have never seen or heard of it . So be prepared to run smaller teams if you want to work with real talent .

“Talent” doesn’t mix with non talent – the moment they mix with people less smart than them , they lose interest . That is when turf wars and politics and all start – and they will out wit everyone else , even if the result is that the team will not deliver on goals . So if you decide that talent is what you are after – you need to be super careful as a leader to not lower your hiring standards .

“Talent” is fiercely loyal to their own ideas – and this is why they cannot be managed . It is a test of character for the leader to see if you can gain their agreement on a team goal . Or at least get them to disagree , but commit . And you will be the biggest idiot if you don’t consider their ideas carefully – because “I said so” is not what they consider as rational criteria . If you dismiss their idea – you need to beat them to the punch at an intellectual level they are at . Very very hard to do .

“Talent thrives on loyalty” – they value integrity in their leaders . If you fight for them when they needed , they will usually lay down on the tracks for you. Conversely – screw them over and they will screw you over harder than your worst nightmare . Don’t make promises you can’t keep and don’t give them standard company lines as excuses . They know exceptions can be made almost in every case . If they suspect you are not doing everything for them – that loyalty goes away in a hurry .

“Talent” will challenge you every step of the way. Don’t hire them if you can’t deal with it constantly . They will make you think when you would rather sleep or have a beer . It is not easy – you are either in the game with them , or you are in the cheap stands . No bench in this game. Always on !

“Talent” doesn’t tolerate breach of trust – they know that they won’t always get managers who are as smart as them . But as long as they trust the leader – this is not an issue . The issue is that they won’t usually give you a second chance if you break their trust . Be open and fair as a leader . And be consistent in being open and fair.

“Talent” needs direction – especially because they are quite capable of thinking about many ways to do things . And they will get bored if there is not enough challenge in their jobs . They will also be pissed off if you set unrealistic goals . It is a fine balance to strike .

“Talent” needs money , but money won’t keep them there for long – these folks don’t come cheap and most of them know their value quite well . But that is the easier part . The harder part is retaining them and keeping them positive without turning them into bitter employees .

“Talent” will walk away – but they probably will give you some time to get your act together . They might even politely remind you that they are losing patience . But they won’t sit around for ever to bitch and moan . They know that they are in demand irrespective of the economy or general market conditions . So they will walk away . And they won’t usually come back if you do counter offers – because they would have computed that in their decision making process before they chose to walk . So if they are leaving , allow them to leave on pleasant terms . You never know when you need each other . It is a small world .

Nothing but problems in general – so why bother with talent at all then ? Because these are the few people who will take the big swings and hit home runs . And that is what separates you at the end from competitors . If you are happy with status quo – don’t worry about talent

But here is the thing – you need the rest of the organization to work at peak efficiency so that the “talent” can be given the freedom to make big swings . If the rest of the organization is not disciplined – it is reckless to just depend on big swings to change your fortunes . That is hope – hope is not a strategy . There is a management concept called “policy by lapse” – that is not an admirable strategy , to say the least .

This is where rubber meets the road for companies with big innovation agendas . They tend to over do it by trying to light as many fires as they can – hoping that something will catch on . In this process – they forget that “talent” can easily deal with it , but others probably cannot do it to the same degree . And when “talent” sees the lack of differentiation in what got assigned to them – their passion will evaporate. And pure recklessness results – with no goals being met . The smarter companies know what part of the team needs to be industrialized and what is the portion of the team that can be allowed to make those big swings .

And in the process of (mis)managing “talent” – the real hard job is to take adequate care of everyone else . Today’s bills are paid by everyone else . “Talent” can only pay tomorrows bills . And every leader needs to keep that in mind .

Now , which part of the team would you like to lead ? All “talent” , All “everyone else”, or a mix ?

Big data – You can start small, but start today !


I am back at Houston Airport after an excellent customer event where I did a key note on big data . One of the side conversations that happened today was on where to start big data programs . Jon Reed had nudged me couple of days ago on the same topic . So here are a few things that come to mind .

I am a big fan of starting small but starting soon . Technology lets you scale as you go . So don’t wait for the most amazing earth shattering use case . You will need some time to get a first hand feel of how things work in big data land .

There are many ways to skin the animal that big data is – but if you want the easiest way to do it , my suggestion is to start with corporate data and work your way into bringing real world entities into the mix to see how they work together usefully .

My favorite way of finding a big data problem – which allegedly is influenced by an interest in corporate finance in b school back in the day – is to start with your financial data reported to the street . This is a summary representation of what is happening in your company and if you compare it across periods – you can spot what needs most attention .

Lets say Accounts Receivable is the one you spotted , and of course verified with other sources of data to make sure it is worth exploring . Now – what makes AR ? It is all those customers who bought your wares who haven’t paid you yet . What do you know about those customers ? Have they paid you in time before ? How is their credit rating ? Did collections department make a hundred calls before they paid last invoice ? This needs more data – granular data that you probably need to load from somewhere else .

What is happening with those customers in social media ? Not just twitter and FB – what do financial analysts think of them ?

Can you combine the AR and collections info with social media input to assess the chance of you getting paid ? How about seeing if the customer is holding payments because of poor service ? Have you tried to analyze the trouble tickets and service documents and see any trends ?

You could keep narrowing down till you find something you didn’t know before . Once you figured out what influences other data have on the AR info you start with – you can map it to the transaction processing . Should you discount more ? Should you put a billing block on the customer ? Can you have an API that can make there decisions while a transaction is in process ?

That is a full closed loop – moving from a small set of data to a bigger set data , only to find what tiny insights you can find in the context of a given transaction . And once you have solved that – cast the net wider , and keep going after all the opportunities you can find .

The trick here is to not waste time chasing every fork in the road . You will get a lot mod false signals that you need to smartly move past . Fail fast and move on . And if everything looks ok on AR , try another part of your financial statement trend that stand out.

Another way I attempt this is to talk to the person in charge and the persons who are at the farthest end of the business process . Ignore the layers in the middle . Like the VP of Sales and the shipping clerk / Store manager / sales person etc . More often than not – their perspectives will be different . Start from summary data and see of you can relate the source data from each of the others to see impact . As you add more and more sources – you probably will run into interesting trends , either with the impact on summary or between sources themselves . Stop and analyze and ask the business users on possible explanations . If you smell a rat , don’t assume something is wrong . But if the actual business users smell a rat – you have enough validation usually to dig deeper.

There are many caveats here . Organizational and Political motivations can easily derail you if you are dealing with data from multiple sources . Constantly verify data with multiple sources – systems and people . It is as much an art as it is a science .

Also keep in mind that data can be interpreted in many ways to suit someone’s needs . And just because you see correlation doesn’t mean you can assume something is good or bad . This is why I repeat myself all the time that data interpretation needs to be verified by people in the business who understand the context .

And always remember to close the loop – end of the day , data is good only if you can act on it . So make sure that what the data tells you is factored into your business process – maybe you need to enhance a transaction , maybe you need to empower a call
Center agent way more than today , may be you need less approvals in your work flow . You haven’t done justice till the loop is closed . Even then – you will need to keep tweaking it as the world around us changes faster than we can keep up .

As technology improves and more machine learning and AI gets mainstream , the effort to do all of these will come down for sure . But then, the complexity of problems we will attempt to solve in mainstream business will also be orders of magnitude bigger . So – start small , but start today .

Got to run – my flight is boarding 🙂

Holding a tiger’s tail


Where I grew up , our elders used to advise us that we should never hold a tiger’s tail . The story is that if you do catch hold of a tiger’s tail – you will have to round and round with the tiger pretty much for ever . People will cheer for you as long as you don’t let go – the moment you let go , people will cheer even more because they get to watch the tiger eat you .

Whenever a big company CEO steps down, and I start reading the commentary in press and social media – I fondly remember the proverbial tiger and its tail .

Look at Steve Ballmer . He grew the company’s revenue and profit , yet the market cap nose dived and share price stopped swinging up . And now, the world wants Bill Gates to come back and do his magic . No one particularly worries about trivial thoughts like “if Gates indeed had a bright idea, he could have implemented it at MS any time Ballmer has been CEO”. Personally , I think the world needs Gates to continue his humanitarian pursuits way more than running MS . But I digress, the point is – Ballmer held the tiger’s tail and no glory came with it .

Look at IBM – Sam Palmisano figured out that revenue didn’t matter all that much , investors just wanted steady growth in EPS . He boldly announced a plan for $20 EPS by 2015 . And he didn’t miss a beat . Then he retired, Rommety took over and continued down the path at a pace Palmisano set . And she did miss a couple of beats and voila – there she is holding the tiger’s tail . I hope she finds a few good ways to get the great company to grow again .

Then there is Apple . Steve Jobs took it to almost stratosphere and made it extremely highly valued . Three back to back successes with iPod , iPhone and iPad . And profit margins out of the world . Top line and bottom line in excellent shape . And then he passed the baton to Tim Cook . Cook didn’t miss a beat on operations – and company still has awesome financials . Yet, since the next iThingy hasn’t come yet – there he is holding the tiger’s tail too.

Pretty much the same story at HP, Intel and pretty much everywhere else . Michael Dell tried to avoid the tiger by going private – but lets see how that plays out .

It doesn’t matter whether the company is in good financial shape or bad . Everything that had an upward trend at any point has to keep going up – for ever . Not one thing , not some things , not majority of things – everything . Otherwise CEOs have to tell upfront what exactly will go up – and then they usually get a pass for everything else . But then if they slip on the one thing they promised will go up – tiger eats them immediately . That is the deal .

The tiger will maul and eat them in public – not in some closed room . And the public that watches them will be liberal with unsolicited advice throughout the process – for ever . No breaks – no time outs .

With this well known background , I am amazed how many people still raise their hands to be counted when a CEO search is going on . More power to them !