Assessment & Development of Potential

One of the definitions of the word potential is “latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.”

The underlying premise here is that EVERYONE has potential – the bigger question is ‘potential for what?’

An article in the HBR (Reference: https://hbr.org/2017/10/what-science-says-about-identifying-high-potential-employees) talks about an interesting fact – that across a wide range of tasks, industries, and organizations, a small proportion of the workforce tends to drive a large proportion of organizational results, such that:

the top 1% accounts for 10% of organizational output
the top 5% accounts for 25%, of organizational output
the top 20% accounts for 80% of organizational output

The article also mentions these employees are “force multipliers”, raising the performance bar for their colleagues, and particularly for their direct reports.

By word and deed, they model and teach winning behaviors that shape high-performing cultures. Simply adding a star performer to a team boosts the effectiveness of other team members by 5-15%.”

It therefore becomes vital that organizations take focused efforts to identity their ‘force multipliers’ and having identified such individuals, take deliberate steps to provide them with both structured and even unstructured inputs that play to their strengths and at the same time stretch them outside their comfort zones, honor their aspirations and support them to address developmental opportunities.

Over the course of the last 9 years, I have been privileged to play a part in working with several organizations to support them in identifying and developing their high potential employees.

My work in this domain is in 3 distinct categories

Succession Planning for Senior Leaders

I have rich experience in understanding organizational context; its imperatives and challenges. I am proficient in assessing fitment of nominated individuals against proposed roles. I also offer concrete and pragmatic suggestions for transition support required to maximize chances of success in future.

Leadership Levels assessed N-2. N-3.

Potential Assessment of Emerging Leaders

I have a proven track record of identifying ‘potential’ of leaders at mid-management to take on larger and more complex roles in the future, at both the Acquisition and Development stages of the Talent Management process. I can also benchmark individuals, within a cohort and provide actionable organizational insights on actions that can be taken to provide developmental support.

Leadership Development Journeys

I am skilled at designing and delivering learning & development journeys (6-12 months) for leaders that go beyond interactions with only the nominated (self or organizational nomination) individuals.

The developmental roadmap that I design also looks at the creation of an enabling and supporting ecosystem; through sensitization conversations with reporting managers and suggesting appropriate policy changes, where and if required.