Misplaced Talent: A Guide to Better People Decisions

Conclusion

The previous chapters took us on a tour of how people decisions are typically made in the workplace. As we have seen, a diverse and extensive range of tools and techniques can be utilized. Some of these are worthy of use and application across the organization. Others, despite promises to the contrary, can actually do a great deal of harm to the employment relationship.

Alongside this toolbox is organizational inertia, which has to be overcome to ensure that any change in how people decisions are made is sustainable in the long run. Without constant attention and updating, organizations revert to shortcuts and biases that undermine the thoughtful architecture that has been put in place to manage talent. In general, we are currently in a state of misplaced talent, where employees most capable of doing the job are overlooked, not given the resources to grow, and placed in positions that do not maximize their talents.

How we got to this situation is a result of a combination of factors. The most obvious is that we have emphasized the legal elements of talent decisions while failing to either sell the benefits of our approaches or communicate the risk of doing nothing. Compounding this issue, those of us working in human resources, occupational psychology, or other related fields are generally not the best at selling our profession. We often hesitate when talking about business metrics, which makes it difficult for us to be taken seriously and establish equal footing with ...