5 Tips for Retaining Frustrated Key Talent
As part of the discovery phase of a High Potential Leadership Development engagement I was 
creating for a company in the high-tech industry, I asked my subject matter experts – executives and key stakeholders of the learning journey – to share their most significant worries about their key talent. Most of the SME’s gave me the usual suspects; “a lack of critical thinking”, “a weakness in the area of business acumen”, “the inability to coach others effectively”, and “the inability to leading successful change.” However, during the interviewing process, one of the SME’s shared something that I thought was fascinating and worthy of pursuing further; “The biggest worry I have is that I see our high potential leaders getting easily frustrated when the people around them aren’t high performers just like themselves.” I asked the SME to explain in more detail and he summed it up perfectly; “These are the smartest, brightest people in the company and they’ve always been surrounded by bright, smart people just like them in university, arts, and socially. Like most companies, not everyone here is a high performer and so these identified and proclaimed future executive leaders seem to become really impatient and lose interest quickly when they work with what they dismissively call ‘the mere mortals’ of the company. While on the surface you might think it’s no big deal and they need to grow up. But, the fact of the matter is if they are unhappy, they will leave and we can’t afford not to retain that important talent.”
Retaining key talent during these times of uncertainty can mean the difference between success and failure of your business. In this post, I share five things that your organization can do when you think your high potential leaders are becoming frustrated by others they perceive as not being able to keep up with them:
Provide world-class and challenging learning engagements (with continuous reinforcement)
The first and most obvious solution is to provide your high potentials with the best and most challenging learning engagements you can. Leverage technology such as computer-based business simulations, virtual role plays, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence tools for reinforcement. Learning engagements for high potentials should provide content that they haven’t been exposed to before and key topics should include enhanced business acumen and enhanced business leadership skills that will enable them to run business units.
Put them in situations to remember the purpose of your business
Beyond the work and beyond any training, I have observed that high potentials love being involved with jobs and projects that directly support your business purpose to customers. No matter what your strategy, your company has a unique value proposition and these high potentials chose to work for your company for that core reason. The closer and more direct your high potentials can be to the actual development and delivery of that value proposition the happier that will be.
Recognize significant achievements
Another observation I’ve had is high potentials appreciate being recognized for significant (not trivial) achievements. Completion of a major project, the launch of a new project, a big competitive win, the implementation of a cost reduction program are just a few of the important things high potentials should be leading within your organization. Sincere and warranted recognition tailored to their individual personality style for their accomplishments is one of the tools to keep them engaged, happy, and productive. However…
Don’t give them badges!
HR and Talent Development professionals have somehow fallen into this trap of thinking all high potentials are millennials who want and expect a “badge” for everything they do. I recently saw an HR Business Partner handmake little smiley-face badges that she would hand out and expect people to wear for the day on their name tags in recognition of some sort of accomplishment. Note to everyone who thinks they know what millennials like; they don’t like badges! Especially silly badges that are demeaning and thoughtless.
Don’t give them stretch assignments
As long as I’m taking a contrarian approach, I am also going to suggest moving away from the notion of rewarding high potentials with “stretch assignments” to develop their talent and keeping them happy. Think about the real message you are sending; “As a reward for your hard work and being identified as a high potential, we are going to give you more work and take whatever free-time you once had in your life away so that you can work on a meaningless project that supposedly pushes you and develops skills that you may not use and has no bearing on your real job.”
