Talent Masters - Bill Conaty and Ram Charan

This book is part of my efforts to build up my knowledge about talent management. It provides useful advice both from the system point of view (how should a talent management branch go about building talent in the system) and unit-level point of view (how should a manager go about building talent in his department).

Here are the key learning points:

1. To have meaningful conversations about talent and their development, management teams need to develop specific and sensible vocabulary about their talents. e.g. saying that XX is a "great worker" doesn't add much value to the conversation, while YY is able to "relate to consumers, employees and partners and articulate the business vision clearly" enables the participants of the conversation to be able to refute or support whether the person indeed has the traits needed to succeed in a particular role. Relentlessly pursuing this specificity is key to good talent management.
   
2. Inbuilding people matters into annual review cycles is key. GE's cycle apparently starts with people, before going to strategy and then operations and budgets. (Not sure if I've got the order right but people is in Jan - maybe their cycle starts in Apr?) But in any case, the key learning point is that there needs to be a structured process to discuss people issues. I'm going to build this into my team process - so that people issues will be discussed at least once every half a year - the team's development, performance, etc.
3. In the same vein, there need not be an artificial differentiation btw business plan reviews and talent reviews - both should be tightly integrated with each other and conversations about one can take place in meeting focused on the other.
   
4. Based on the book, top leaders spend more than 30-40% of their time on people matters. They in turn hold other leaders accountable for developing talent under their charge.
   
5. Constructive and timely oral/ written feedback to officers is key to setting the right expectations and guidance.
6. Discussion about talent needs to be candid and direct - this is the only way to get a true understanding of a person's potential and capabilities.
7. Differentiation is key to driving talent.
8. Take a long term view of talent. Look at what kind of system and process they leave behind after they leave, and not just look at their current performance.
9. Get your leaders to attend and teach at classes targeted at rising stars. The conversations will benefit both parties.
   

However, what the book lacks is how to set quantifiable targets and remains largely a qualitative book that provides good practices for companies to follow.