Talent Management and Executive Coaching; Cincinnati, Ohio – Why is talent management so often ignored?

The senior management of companies has three main constituents – shareholders, customers, and employees. All too often, they see them in that order of importance. We see an incredible focus on short-term goals – the next quarter’s earnings report. Even a focus on customer has become secondary to the continuous drive for better financial performance, which translates to bigger bonuses, and a higher stock price for executive stock options and restricted stock units (RSU’s).

Employees are viewed in last place as somewhat of a commodity that can be used and discarded. Even the best talent in the organization is seen as being replaceable. After all, there is always more where that came from. And they may be able to be replaced with better, younger talent at a lower cost. And that investment in talent management takes away from the bottom line. So why do it?

The smartest companies recognize that a wise investment in talent management actually enhances the financial performance that has become so important in today’s businesses. It is far LESS expensive to enhance the skills of existing employees than to replace them. Even the brightest new employee will take years to regain the core business experience that the older employees have. In the end, a thoughtful, extensive talent management program is one of the most important steps that can be taken to enhance financial performance, customer service, and employee satisfaction.

Senior management teams often recognize that some of their executives have poor behavioral habits that are harmful and even abusive to other members of the organization. And yet, they allow these executives to remain in positions of authority and responsibility.

The reason for their inaction is varied. Sometimes they do not know how to rectify the situation and feel that the experience or results that the performer brings to the table outweigh the undesirable behavior. More often, they just ignore the behavior, hoping it will go away with enough appraisal comments about it. Or they rationalize that the poor behaviors are not really hurting anything or anyone. But they are mistaken. Ignoring poor performance or harmful management practices is de facto REWARDING bad behaviors.

If senior management does not address these behaviors, they send a strong, silent signal to the rest of the organization that they approve of them. Soon, good performers who do not possess these harmful traits, begin to emulate them because they feel that they are approved. A dangerous spiral begins. Soon, the culture may begin to shift to a point where undesirable behavior and bad management practices become the accepted and even the encouraged norm. Don’t believe it? Just look at a detailed case study of Enron.

The fact is than this can be avoided with the use of strong executive coaching. Oakley Advisors coaches will take the tough steps to relentlessly challenge bad behaviors and harmful practices. We can weed out the weaknesses in poor performance while saving all the experience and positive traits in our client executives.

Poor performance is not the only thing that is contagious. So is good performance. An organization that uses Oakley Advisors coaches creates a positive culture that embraces doing things the right way, values ALL of its people, and sets a tone for continual performance improvement.

Very few high-level management positions come with a Users Guide. At best, there may be a vague job description. Managers that are new to middle and upper level positions are faced with teaching themselves how to be executives. This is the case for both the hard skills, such as managing budgets and performing appraisals, to the less definable skills such as leadership and developing strategic vision. Sometimes they learn these skills well. But many times they struggle and it can take months and even years before they become proficient in their roles.

Sometime new executives are assigned a mentor to help them along. Or they select an executive whom they admire and try to emulate them. This approach, however, is inefficient, slow, and sometimes results in the executive picking up a bad or harmful management habit from the mentor.

Oakley Advisors executive coaches offer a unique combination of executive coaching and management consulting. Because we are former executives, we are familiar with the effective management techniques, which we pass onto to our clients in addition to our behavioral coaching. Most executive coaches have backgrounds in HR and are not equipped to offer their clients this very valuable additional benefit.

Talent Management, Cincinnati, Ohio – Baby boomers and the need for executive coaching.

As the baby boomers retire, they will drain millions of years of experience from American businesses – executive coaching can help the managers left behind be ready to shoulder the load.

The baby boomers are the last generation to have grown up in a world without cell phones, the Internet, pagers, and Blackberries. They learned how to communicate and lead in the business world the old fashioned way – face-to-face. They had to write memos using full sentence structure and extensive use of grammar. They had to master the skills of direct, face-to-face, personal communications. Because leadership is fundamentally based upon interpersonal communications skills, they possess a disproportionate amount of the leadership wealth in today’s corporations.

Oakley Advisors executive coaches work specifically on communication and leadership with every client. They help their clients to quickly acquire and master the communications and leadership skills that baby boomers have developed through years of experience. Oakley Advisors executive coaches help companies close the gap as the boomers retire by quickly bringing younger executives up to speed on these important skills. And they do so in a remarkably short time frame.

Corporations, large and small, invest billions of dollars each year in management and training seminars. This investment represents a significant financial commitment from which the companies expect a bottom line return. Executive coaching represents a similar investment with a similar expectation. So which is a better investment for these organizations’ executives and senior managers?

The truth is that nearly any investment in its people has a positive return if for no other reason than it demonstrates the organization’s commitment to its members. Employees feel valued, as they should. If the training program is well developed and executed, it should cause permanent changes in performance either through the development of new skills or an improved ability to leverage existing skills.

But training classes and seminars have some drawbacks. The most notable is that they cannot be personalized to fit the learning needs of each attendee. Every student knows that the smaller the class size, the higher the quality of the education. In addition, studies show that no matter how carefully training is administered, or how interesting it is, even the most attentive students will only retain about 20% of the content 30 days later.

Oakley Advisors executive coaching programs have a much higher effectiveness rate because:

• They are completely customized to the individual client. Every element of the coaching is designed to meet the specific needs of that particular client. There is nothing that is superfluous.
• The coach maintains the complete attention of the client. There are no distractions and no opportunities for the client to avoid issues or miss points. The coach will make sure the client understands every point and every tool and how to use it.
• Oakley Advisors coaches provide each client with personalized tools, which are specifically designed to make sure the client retains the full benefit of the coaching.
• Oakley Advisors coaches follow up with their clients for months and even years after the coaching engagement to make sure the behavior changes they have achieved remain permanently in place.

It is the customization and individual attention that make executive coaching such a valuable investment for our clients and the organizations they work for.