September 9, 2025 • 44 mins
Marc founded the Talent Strategy Group and advises the world’s premier companies, governments, foundations, NGOs and not-for-profit organizations. He is regarded as a trusted counselor to organizations on their most sensitive talent issues.
He co-founded the Talent Management Institute, now the world’s most popular executive education program on talent with 7,000+ graduates. He co-authored the Harvard Business Review Publishing best-seller One Page Talent Management and 8 Steps to High Performance. His prior corporate experience includes executive HR roles at Bank of America and Avon Products. His prior consulting experience includes starting and leading the Global Leadership Consulting practice at Aon/Hewitt.
We dive into the nitty-gritty of talent management, tackling the real talk about upskilling and reskilling in today’s job market. It’s a wild ride out there, and while everyone wants to jump into new roles, the reality check is that not everyone’s cut out for it—especially when they’re up against seasoned pros like Susie, who’s been rocking graphic design for a decade. Our guest, Mark Efron, breaks it down for us, highlighting that while the concept of shifting jobs sounds peachy, the practical application is a whole other beast. We also get into the importance of operationalizing talent processes so they actually work instead of just looking pretty on paper. So grab your headphones and let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how to not just keep up with the times but actually thrive in them!
Exploring the landscape of talent management these days is like diving into a wild ocean of change, where every wave brings new challenges and opportunities. Mark Efron, the big cheese at the Talent Strategy Group, joins us for a deep chat about what’s cooking in the talent space. We kick things off by discussing the heightened interest from CEOs and boards in attracting top talent, which is music to our ears. After years of being sidelined, talent management is finally getting the spotlight it deserves. But hold your horses! While the demand for talent is skyrocketing, there's a bit of a hiccup on the supply side. People are starting to rethink what it means to be a high performer. The pandemic has shaken things up, making folks evaluate their work-life balance and question whether they really want to climb that corporate ladder. This shift means that companies must think creatively about how they engage and retain their employees. We dive into the nitty-gritty of talent management: how do we bridge the gap between the skills that are in demand and the people who possess them? Efron emphasizes that skilling and reskilling are essential, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows—implementing these changes is easier said than done. We also touch on the importance of operationalizing talent management processes so that they don’t just exist on paper but actually yield results. If you're in the talent management game or just curious about how companies are tackling these issues, this episode is packed with insights that could make your head spin in a good way!
Takeaways:
- Mark emphasizes the importance of clear deliverables for high-performing teams and regular check-ins to ensure everyone stays on track.
- There’s a growing demand for great talent, but the supply side is struggling as many potential high performers opt out of traditional career paths.
- Upskilling and reskilling are hot topics, but they come with real-world challenges that can make implementation tricky in any organization.
- AI has potential in talent management, especially in goal...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
I want as many people to moveinto new jobs as possible, but I
think we need to be realistic.If Susie was already a brilliant
graphic designer, Mark loseshis consulting role, decides to go
into graphic design. He's notgoing to be competing against Susie
very well because Susie's beendoing it for 10 years and Mark is
still stepping up that scale.So I think we've got fundamental
questions like that aboutupskilling and reskilling. It sounds
(00:27):
lovely, but practically, it'sgoing to be very difficult to apply.
Hi there and welcome to theStep up expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
(00:49):
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
(01:11):
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome, everyone.Today we are talking about the state
of talent management and I amthrilled to have with me today for
this conversation Mark Efron,president of the talent Strategy
Group. Welcome, Mark. So gladto have you today.
Super happy to be here andlooking forward to our conversation.
(01:34):
So I'm fascinated myself. I'dlove to hear, before we kind of get
into our topic, tell us alittle bit about how you got.
Into what you're doing todayaccidentally, and I will expound
on that. I did not have apurposeful career in either consulting
or in hr. I started off lifecoming out of college with a political
science degree, worked for acongressman for a couple of years,
(01:57):
fell into politicalconsulting. So I'll tell a short
story, but it ties to what I'mdoing today. So a felon with a group
in Southern California who didpolitical consulting for land developers.
And here's why it's relevant.What they had done is they had figured
out that to win in localoffices, meaning water board, school
(02:22):
board, sewer board. Now youmay ask, tangent here. Why would
you care about winning waterboard, school board, sewer board?
Well, because if you weredeveloping land in the middle of
nowhere, think Palmdale,California in 1987, well, you needed
the votes of the water boardand the school board and the sewer
board in order to get yourproject approved. And so you wanted
(02:44):
to have people who werefriendly to development on those
boards. So they figured outthis consulting board. I worked with
the most simple way to getpeople elected to those offices.
They figured out, well, youneed to print up the right types
of signs, you needed to walkdoor to door, read a particular script,
and something else. So theyhad radically simplified the election
winning process to a fewthings that mattered. Okay, one thing
(03:07):
in Mark's mind, simplifythings to a few things that matter.
So, worked for a congressmanfor a couple of years, or a congressman
that worked for thisconsulting firm, was in politics
for a few years. And afterthat I felt dirty and wanted to do
something else. Went off tobusiness school. Had no experience
with big companies at all. Andso I got to business school and they
said, well, what do you wantto do? I'm like, I don't know. I
(03:27):
had read this book that waspopular at the time called In Search
of Excellence. And I said, oh,I want to do what they do with that
book. They're like, well, it'skind of like HR work. I was like,
what's hr? They said, well,you should take classes like organizational
development. And I said, okay.And it turned out those are the only
classes that I actually didwell in business school. You know,
accounting kicked my butt,econ kicked my butt, all the quant
(03:50):
classes kicked my butt. Butfor some reason, like the ob, the
od, the consulting classes,it's just like, oh, this goes here
and that goes there, and youdo this. So for the next 15, 20 years,
I moved back and forth betweenconsulting roles and corporate roles
in hr. But I just. I neverreally thought about it as hr. It
just was kind of fun. You lookat people and structure and you try
(04:12):
to optimize it. And then Iended up, I was at Aon Hewitt, leading
their leadership consultingpractice. And kind of all these thoughts
came together that we can dothis so much simpler and easier.
I went to my boss at the timeand I said, hey, got this epiphany.
We can do it simpler andeasier. And he said, I'm not going
to do it simpler and easier.You just talked about reducing our
(04:33):
fees by 75%. No. And I'm like,fine, I'll go somewhere else. And
so I went to Avon Products atthe time, very big cosmetics company,
and they wanted to do thingsin a simpler and easier way. And
so I had this wonderfulgreenfield site, a very supportive
chro Lucy and Al's area,brilliant guy, very supportive CEO
(04:55):
Andrew Jung. And I had thisgreenfield site where me and my team
could actually practice all ofthese simpler, easier things. Middle
of that scenario, somebodyasked me to speak at a conference
about all the changes that wewere making. I'm like, yeah, sure,
whatever. They're like, well,what's the title of your speech?
I don't know, like one pageTalent Management. Like, okay, giving
(05:20):
the speech. Afterwards ithappened that there was an editor
from Harvard BusinessPublishing in the audience and she
was like, hey, pretty goodspeech. Or have you ever thought
about writing a book on that?And I said, well, no, I'd be pretty
stupid to write a book aboutone page talent management, wouldn't
I? I said, I've got three muchbetter book ideas I'll pitch you
(05:41):
on. I'm like, here's idea one,idea two, idea three. She's like,
those are all pretty terribleideas. And I was like, let's talk
about that old one page talentidea you pitched me on. And literally
that was kind of the kick intoconsulting was it was a bit of a
put up or shut up moment. It'slike, okay, Mark, you think you got
(06:01):
a better way of doing thisstuff? You can get a book behind
you. Let's see if it works.And so that launched Talent Strategy
Group. And for the past almost15 years now, we've, we've had the
good fortune of working withthe world's premier organizations
to help them radicallysimplify HR. And back to the. I'll
end the story in 10 seconds.Back to that initial political consulting
(06:25):
environment. What I reallylearned was, yeah, if you reduce
a few things to the essence,what really matters in political
consulting, it was you printsigns the right way, you knock on
the doors and have a simplescript. It was something else at
the time. The same thingapplies in our field. A few big things
matter that stuck with me tothis very day. End of story.
(06:47):
Nice. Well, and I'm reallythrilled to hear the story. I think
it's important for consultantsto have spent some time inside organizations
as well. I just think it helpsyou see how these things come to
life, what works, whatdoesn't. And really better understand
the business rhythms.
(07:07):
Well, yeah, I think especiallyaround things that aren't evident
unless you've been inside thatwe all know, hamstring talent practices,
accountability, transparency,organizational politics, all the
stuff that eviscerate a welldesigned process if you don't understand
them. And you and I haveprobably both seen consultants who
(07:29):
don't have practicalexperience come in with the 30 page
dad, go. It works like this.And you're like, no, it doesn't.
That's lovely. Thank you,thank you so much. But no it doesn't,
because, yeah, unless you'vebeen inside, you don't understand.
Okay. Bob's not going to likethat because Bob actually designed
the predecessor process andhe's going to dig his heels in when
(07:50):
you come in with that. I mean,just the basics. Unless you've sat
there, you don't know.
Yeah, yeah. Well, so I reallyappreciate you being on today. I
first came in contact with youthrough Talent Quarterly. So, you
know, at least 2 of the talentteams that I have worked on, you
know, basically treated thatas, you know, our own little book
(08:11):
club. Right. So that wouldcome out. We would, you know, read
either some targeted thingsbased on what we were working on
or the whole thing and sort ofbat around, you know, what are the
takeaways that we want to putinto practice. And so, yeah, so I've
been sort of reading whatyou've been, you and your team have
been putting out for some timeand so just thrilled to have the,
(08:33):
you know, a talent managementcelebrity on the, on the podcast
today.
Well, one Talent Quarterly,we, we, I love putting it out for
the, for your listeners whoaren't familiar with it. It was a
magazine where we literallyjust asked the best, the smartest
people in the talent in HR andconsulting field, hey, would you
write for us? And people wereincredibly generous and we, our goal
(08:55):
was to put out, or my originalgoal was to put out a magazine that
was a bit of a cross betweenan art magazine and a foreign affairs
magazine. Kind of a punchy butirreverent but fact based magazine.
And so we tried to keep itgraphically cool but have really
interesting articles in there.And we did it for about, I think
five or six years and then itliterally became just too challenging
(09:18):
to do running a full timeconsulting group. And it was a great
way to lose money as well. Soyou combine those two things together
and it just wasn't. And itwasn't sustainable.
Yeah, but you're still, you'restill putting the writing out right
through other sort of online,your own writing at least. Right
through.
Yeah, we do, we do our own. Itjust, it's gathering other authors
together, unfortunately. Justwe might revive it in the future.
(09:40):
Yeah, yeah, well, we're stillbenefiting from the writing whether
or not our fun, cool physicalcopy of the Talent Quarterly is arriving
at our doorsteps. Well, so wewanted to talk about sort of the
Future of talent managementtoday. There is so much happening,
you know, for the listener.Cause I think this is gonna come
out in September. So it's lateJune. We're on the doorstep of July.
(10:03):
It's been a wild year, wildtime to be alive. 2025, a lot happening.
Right. So there's tons of sortof whiplash coming out of Washington
when it comes to tariffpolicies and things like that. Right.
So we're seeing clients sortof be running in one direction then
needing to pivot and run, youknow, in another direction with all
(10:24):
of their own operations, letalone, I think we've seen a fair
number of layoffs in the last,you know, quarter. So we have sort
of a flooded market of talent.So it's, it's kind of a wild time
to be in the talent managementspace. So I'd love to just generally
start with any thoughts orreflections you have on 2025 so far.
(10:46):
Where are we at? Where are we going?
Yeah, I think the, the goodnews, good news in the talent space
is that CEOs and boards aremore interested in great talent than
ever. So they always havebeen. But the past I think five years,
they have heightened theirinterest in having more better quality
(11:09):
talent, which is great for us.And I think we've seen they put greater
pressure on chros, they putgreater pressure on heads of talent
to have more better qualitytalent in their organizations and
to have processes andpractices that sustained the flow
of that talent. So one, thecustomers are hungry and are demanding.
(11:31):
That is a beautiful thing. Andit puts good pressure on us. I think
that's the demand side. Andthe challenge is on the supply side.
We've seen a bit of a shift.We've seen, I'm going to call it
10%. I might be off by halfthere of the population say I'm not
as interested in signing upfor that particular deal anymore.
(11:55):
And so I think we've seen somepeople say, I could be a high performer
based on your definition ofit. I don't want to be anymore. And
so there has probably been asomewhat a decrease, I don't know
how much of a decrease, adecrease in the supply of talent
who we might have wanted to betop talent. So I think at the macro
(12:18):
level we have a misfit, a bitof a Misfit of demand versus supply
or even of just the mindset ofCEOs still want people to show up,
work their butts off, behaveperfectly. Their team loves them,
their colleagues love them,they'll give anything. And the supply
where it's like, yeah, somepeople still do that, but a lot of
(12:40):
people won't. So just themindset of what it means to be talent.
Let's just start kind of writlarge. I think there's that challenge
and then we get into a fit ofskills. Do people even have the right
capabilities to match? Ihaven't looked at the numbers recently,
but it used to be there were 3or 4 million open roles out there.
(13:02):
And it wasn't because we justhadn't found the right people. It
was because we just don't havethe right skills to fill those three
or four million open roles. Sopart of the challenge is, even if
layoffs are happening, are theroles that are being laid off, do
they fit with the roles thatare out there? Or are people even
trainable? I mean, everyoneloves to scream skills these days.
(13:26):
People have to be onetrainable to want to be trained to
do different things. Those areboth big open questions for all those
people who are very, very inlove with skills being everything
going forward. So I thinkthat, you know, one big question
for talent management is howdo we make sure that we can bring
(13:47):
enough of the right talentinto our organizations as quickly
as we can going forward?Third, and then I will take a breath
is can we do a better job ofrunning the machine? I use the machine
analogy very purposefully oftalent building in our organizations
because what we see everysingle day with our clients around
(14:09):
the globe and through a lot ofour research is oftentimes we are
really good at ticking the boxof saying, oh, yes, we have that
practice in place. We haveperformance management, we have succession
planning, we have talentreviews. But then when we look at
the output, what we see is youhave all of the, you have all of
(14:32):
the machinery, but it's notactually producing anything. And
the most recent example is toillustrate that we did a survey earlier
this year on critical roles.And the good news was we asked companies,
do you select for criticalroles and how do you do it? And we
actually have, I think it waslike 84% of 200 plus companies said,
yes, we actually do select forcritical roles. And we ask, how do
(14:54):
you do it? And most actuallyused methodologies that we would
consider to be good ways ofselecting for critical roles. Which
means you aren't doing it byhierarchy, you aren't doing it by
the incumbent in the role, soyou're doing it the right way. Cool.
Then we asked, great, do youhave a development plan for people
in critical roles? And like40% of people said, we do. Okay,
(15:16):
do you hold leaders of peoplein critical roles accountable for
their growth? Like 25%. Sowhen we ask, do you actually operationalize
critical roles? No. So, yeah,you say you have critical roles,
but you don't do anything withthem. We can say the same thing with
succession plans. You havesuccession plans. Do you select successors
(15:38):
from them? You haveperformance management. Does everybody
have a three, three bigpowerful goals? So I think the other
challenge for us in talentmanagement right now, we think about
the future of talentmanagement is can we not just tick
the boxes and say, oh, yep, wehave all these things. Can we operationalize
them in the way that actuallydelivers the outputs that people
(16:00):
are paying us for?
I'm trying to decide which,which thing to dig into first here.
I'm going to, I'm going totake it from the top. Right? So,
you know, I think you weretalking about folks who are sort
of opting out of maybe beinghigh performers or maybe even, you
know, putting themselves,raising their hand for leadership.
(16:20):
Right. So I think, you know,in the, in the past, I found in my
own consulting in the past wereally had to work with people to
kind of pull apart advancementdrive from leadership drive, right?
To say, you know, do you wantthe role because of the pay and prestige
or do you want the rolebecause you enjoy leading and the
(16:41):
work of being a leader? Andbest case scenario might be both,
right. And second best mightbe you've got the leadership drive,
maybe not the strongeradvancement drive. Worst case scenario
is you have the advancementdrive without the leadership drive.
Right. That's sort of from apotential for flame out perspective.
But I think what you're sayinghere is, and I've seen this too,
(17:01):
is, and I would say thepandemic was probably pretty eye
opening for people aroundessential roles. What is really essential,
what's not, what's essentialin their lives and what's not. Right?
How are we finding. And I knowthere's a lot of interesting writing
these days about work lifebalance, which might be a podcast
(17:22):
for another day, but how isthis fulfilling me as a total person
in adding into the equation ofmy life? And so I think I've seen
this as well where people aresaying, I think I kind of want to
step off this, the leadershiptrack, right. Or this high potential
track and get into a job whereI can knock home runs and just show
(17:44):
up and do that and maximize mylife in other ways. Right. And I
think that's been, I thinkit's always been hard for HR folks,
talent management folks,consultants, to make space for people
who just want to be an expertand do their thing and show up every
day. Like, you know, thinkingback even to when I was going through
(18:05):
school, grad school, this ideaof like, well, why wouldn't everybody
want to develop and want to bepromoted, right? So I think maybe
we're finally getting smackedin the face a little bit more with
that.
Well, and I think it, itchallenges companies to think through
the multiple deals they needto offer to people at work. And we're
(18:26):
not already not good at this.And one of the things that we have,
this very simple tool thatpeople are amazed by, they shouldn't
be called the talentinvestment grid, which is literally
just a nine box, where we sayyou need to think through how you
want to invest in people ineach of these boxes. Whether you
use a nine box grid or not,just use it as an example. Hey, your
hypo investment should lookdifferent than your high performer
(18:46):
investment. That should lookdifferent than your average performer
investment. So you should havea deal, a conscious deal in each
of those boxes. I think thechallenge in many organizations right
now is they have kind of ahypo deal and then everybody else
gets some stuff. Okay, now weneed to be conscious about. There's
a deal for the person whowants to put in the best 30 hours
(19:07):
they can. You need a deal forthem. You, you never even thought
about that deal becauseactually they do. They're, they're
not lazy, but they've got 30hours and they're to give you the
best 30 hours, like a realbest 30 hours. Have you thought what
the deal is for them? And Ithink we need organizations to think
more about. You're going toneed to kind of split up the deals.
(19:29):
You might need to have 10different deals that you need to
think through. But you need tofigure that out because there are,
to your point, people who aresimply saying, yeah, I'm going to
work my butt off for thisperiod of time. You're going to get
the absolute best of me, butit's going to end at that point.
Well, and this might come tothe core of what you were talking
about earlier too, which isI've been in organizations who have
(19:51):
leveraged a very similar ninebox to try to drive the sort of the
next step for leaders, right?Not just to identify who's high potential,
but to say, if someone's inthis box, what does that mean? What
kind of time attentioninvestment should they be getting
based on where they're at? AndI think this is sort of what you
were saying. At the beginning,which is where the rubber hits the
(20:14):
road on. Are we actuallyoperationalizing that? That is much
harder to scale. So I canpoint to some phenomenal individual
leaders who really take howthey're managing people as an individual
thing. Right. Anindividualized thing. It's kind of
at the heart of the termequity. But everybody gets what they
(20:37):
need kind of an approach. Butscaling. That's really tough, right?
I think so. Maybe I'll throwthis question back to you is how
do we continue to. How do wecontinue to scale that? Right. Because
if it was just a factor oftools and processes or knowing what
to do. Right. We'd already be there.
(20:58):
Well, you have to categorize.I mean, at the end of the day, you
have to say, hey, people areto show up in buckets, and you have
to draw a line somewhere. Andthey're the easy buckets. They're
the hypos. That's an easybucket. There's a good solid average.
That's an easy bucket. There'sthe lower folks. That's an easy bucket.
It's that group that's aboveaverage and below hypo. It used to
be you could. You could almostsay they're high performers. Okay,
(21:19):
that's a bucket. That'sprobably the bucket. You need to
slice into a few differentcategories now because they're the
clear high performers, whichis. Hey, let's take. I always use
international tax because it'sa good. Hey, it's a very precise
thing. You're probably notgoing to become CFO out of that job.
But wow, if you'reinternational tax, you're sharp.
We want you to be good at yourjob. We want you happy. Cool. But
(21:42):
maybe now it's theinternational tax person who used
to work 50 hours, who onlywants to work 30 hours now. You're
still really good, but I'mgoing to invest in you a little bit
differently. So we probablyneed to think about that high performer
category in a few differenttranches of investment. But it does
mean literally thinkingthrough what does the investment
(22:03):
look like? Because if you'remy boss, Kent, you need to come to
me and say, mark, I've got agreat deal for you. Here's the deal
we offer at ABC Company forpeople who want to contribute like
you do. And I used to thinkthe lever was. Because I get upset
when people want more thanthey have earned. I used to think
the lever was, oh, if youdon't want to work that many hours
(22:26):
or contribute that much,you're not going to get all the goodies.
But now people are like, Idon't want the goodies. It's like,
okay, well, that actuallymakes the conversation easier. You
can say, look, here's thedeal. They're like, yeah, cool, that's
a good deal. But we need todefine the deal.
Yeah, yeah. Well, for the sakeof time, I want to move into the
other topic. So you mentionedskills. Right. I think with sort
(22:46):
of where we're at with a lotof talent kind of on the market,
so to speak, and our need tobe thinking about. And I like how
you put it. So both like, whatare the skills that are needed? Because
there might not be obviouschoices right now in terms of people
who have done that role. Sohow do we pick people who have that.
The transferable skill. But Ilike how you were sort of also referencing.
(23:10):
But do they want to be, youknow, are they trainable? Do they
want to be trained in a newway, aimed at something new? Right.
And so I know skills Basedorgs has been a real catchphrase,
so to speak, that I've seenmultiple organizations that I've
been in, in hr, you know, tryto be moving toward. It's not without
its challenges either. So I'dlove to just hear some of your thoughts
(23:33):
on those who are moving inthat direction and making some level
of progress with it.
Yeah, I wrote an article lastyear called Is the Juice Worth the
Squeeze? About skills. And itreally was just. I think I wrote
18 questions. It was me simplysaying, I don't quite understand
(23:57):
the hype around skills,because obviously we need skills,
just like we need capabilitiesand we need behaviors. But the shouting
from consultants and techfirms that this is the only way our
companies are going to surviveis by fundamentally reorienting them
(24:17):
with skills. Is the pivotpoint. You know, volume get louder,
louder, louder around that. Itjust seemed a little odd. And it
also caused me to ask myselfthe question, what have you L and
D people been doing the past20 years? If we need to urgently
do this right now, it's like,what have I been paying you to do?
(24:38):
You this is. This must happenimmediately. It's like, I assume
you've been doing something togrow capabilities that didn't work.
So one. That was one question.But it feels like, well, yeah, we
all certainly need to increasecapabilities. But a lot of the promises
(24:58):
that I think are at the top ofthe hype cycle around skills are
just that they are wonderfulhopes that somehow we can call out
these small latent skills thatpeople have and match them with needs
in the organization or otherorganizations or that the gig economy
(25:18):
will somehow if that was true,it would have already happened. So
I think there are plenty ofways that people can use latent skills
already through fiverr,through lots of other. So if I wanted
to apply my graphic designskills, I'm actually pretty good
at graphic design. I can goout and apply that somewhere. I haven't
because I don't want to. Iwouldn't make much money doing that
(25:40):
versus my daily rate which isextremely high for being a consultant.
Most people so long wayaround. Most people like their day
job and they want to keepdoing their day job. And so if I
lose my day job, I probablydon't have a real interest in doing
something else until Iabsolutely have to. Day jobs are
sticky for a reason. I'm goodat it, I like doing it. My self worth
(26:04):
is probably wrapped up in it.And so assuming that somehow I'm
going to take the skills, Ihave abandoned them and learn to
do something else, I thinkthat's a real stretch. And assuming
that I am going to be trainedto be better at those skills than
somebody else who was alreadydoing those skills, so I'm somehow
(26:25):
going to compete is I think achallenge as well. So I think one,
I want as many people to moveinto new jobs as possible. But I
think we need to be realistic.If Susie was already a brilliant
graphic designer, Mark loseshis consulting role, decides to go
into graphic design. He's notgoing to be competing against Susie
very well because Susie's beendoing it for 10 years and Mark is
(26:48):
still stepping up that scale.So I think we've got fundamental
questions like that aboutskilling and reskilling. It sounds
lovely, but practically it'sgoing to be very difficult to apply.
Yeah, really well put. Whatyou're making me think about is I
wonder if the desire to applyit at an enterprise level is where
(27:08):
it's maybe causing swirl andgetting stuck versus more strategic,
more surgically. Right. I'mgoing to use a poor example in the
summer of 2025, but I rememberhearing about air traffic controllers.
They're saying, hey, we needmore. Now this is before the current
situation, which anybody who'straveling, you understand the pain
(27:31):
these days. But there was thisconversation that was happening around
we need more air trafficcontrollers. Where do we find the
talent? Right. Because there'sjust not the typical people applying.
And the conversation startedto look at gamers, people who have
a willingness to sit in frontof a screen, you know, for, you know,
(27:52):
so they kind of you know, youstart to break it down into, well,
what are the skills here?Right. Like this ability to sit in
front of a screen, you know,be hyper focused, you know, strategic
about, you know, the blockingand tackling in front of you on that.
I don't know that they evergot to a place of enacting that from.
And I can't remember where Iread it, but like that's an example
(28:13):
of more of a surgicalapplication to say we have a need
and how do we think about, youknow, where to find that skill? Maybe
there's a conversation onwhere to build that skill too, but
it almost feels like it's.There's more of a surgical application
around both from a job, youknow, recruiting and maybe even EVP
(28:34):
perspective versus a. How dowe roll this out at an enterprise
level? I think absolutely, yeah.
Can it solve some problems?Absolutely, absolutely. And can it
add some benefits around theedges? So a lot of the companies
that I see using this arecompanies who have a bit more financial
largesse. A lot of my pharmaclients are using it. They got a
(28:56):
lot of extra money. Great. Wecan buy talent marketplaces. Does
that make movement within theorganization easier? Absolutely.
Cool. Use it. I think that's abeautiful thing. Would I use that
to move people to my bestroles? Nope. Still need a talent
review process. There's stillsome roles that are off limits so
(29:16):
for kind of the masses toensure a more efficient marketplace.
I think it's a beautifulthing. Am I going to create unusual
matches? So people always loveto find the. Oh, Susie is a home
chef and we needed a corporatechef and, and so she. People love
calling those out and writingthe cases. No, that's not the use
(29:40):
case. We're not going to payfor the talent marketplace doing
that stuff. We need massiveshifts of skills to make this stuff
actually worthwhile.
Yes. I think even what you'resaying here is there's probably a
leveling aspect where thisworks better than others. Right.
We're not going to recruit acollegiate mathematician to be the
(30:01):
CFO of a company. There arecertain, certain repetitions and
experiences that one needsthat, that build towards that role
versus, you know, probablymore entry level sort of individual
contributor type roles wherethis makes this makes more sense.
So looking at the time, I wantto, I want to just circle back to
(30:22):
critical roles as well. Justvery quickly and time is just flying.
I am floored. And we're goingto have to have you, have to have
you back again because I thinkcritical roles is fascinating as
well, because I'VE been atsome places where we've done this
and I think your observationis spot on and I wonder if it's part
of this is again it's in howwe operationalize things. The organizational
(30:46):
metabolism for processes andwhatnot. Right. And I think what
I've seen is thinking aboutspecific development or successors
for critical roles somewhatgets caught in. We're already spending
so much time identifying highpotentials where walking through
succession plans for eitherevery role above a certain level
(31:07):
or targeted roles that youknow, I think what I've seen firsthand
is the. Well, we've alreadyspent this much time doing these
ones, we just don't have time.Let's identify them and like that
I've seen that being kind ofthe, the ending place as well. Not
to mention it's challenging toget organizations heads around management
(31:30):
more often than not might notbe the critical roles. Right. So
there's this challenge whenyou're sitting around talking about
critical roles with theleaders at the table being like how
do I kindly gently explainthat it's none of you versus some
other high leverage role inthe company?
Yeah. Short answer is we needto let the free market in our organization's
(31:53):
work. If we describe criticalroles in the right way and the organization
says I'm sorry, we've just gottoo many other things going on, great,
that's conversation foranother day. But if we say there
are a few roles here thatclearly add more value than other
roles that the marketplacewould panic if they knew we had the
(32:14):
wrong person in. If there areroles like that, should we know which
roles those are and pay a lotof attention to who the incumbents
are and ensure that we have asuccess assessor for those roles
that can step in and performat least as well. So if we can have
those conversations, peoplesay oh yeah, then it's incumbent
on us in HR to takeaccountability for that. So for things
(32:35):
like that, I don't say, oh,that's the business's job. No it's
not. It's our job to help thebusiness do a good job with that.
And I think in the talentmanagement space we need to be the
ones who are project managingthat. And we haven't even touched
on AI. I can't believe wehaven't touched on AI yet. This is
where hopefully I can startplaying a role in almost just monitoring
and managing. You know, I canget a, I can get a text that says
(32:59):
hey, for those three criticalroles, there's no development plan
in the system yet. I'm like,okay, I'll take, you know, and we've
already. And the machine. Theagents already followed up with those
managers to say, where's thedevelopment plan? So hopefully, you
know, things like that can bemade easier to manage through technology.
I'm glad you mentioned thatbecause that was going to be my wild
(33:19):
card in just a moment too. Onething I would say about how do you
balance high potentialidentification, succession planning
and the work of identifyingcritical roles? I might also recommend
if you're going down the roadand see critical roles as an important
part of your talent managementstrategy is maybe take a look at
(33:41):
how deep you're going in theorganization and you're getting the
feedback of we don't have timeor capacity to do this the way we
need to. Or well, take a lookat how deep you're going with high
potential. Take a look at howmany roles are identifying successors
for. Because I think what I'veseen firsthand is it's a fun process
that makes leaders feel good,makes leaders feel like they've really
(34:03):
done some great talent work.But often we're probably going too
deep in order to truly trustor really get the mileage out of
manager assessment of highpotential and maybe identifying successors
for too many roles, especiallywhen. Now I get it. When we do and
(34:24):
don't enact a succession plan.I think the succession plan is kind
of in a vacuum when we buildit. So there are times when there's
a context around an openingwhen somebody leaves where who we
had planned to be the nextsuccessor just isn't going to work
right now. But I don't knowthat we're always having that conversation
anyway to say, like, is therea reason why the person we thought
(34:46):
would be next for this rolecan't be right now and we have to
think differently or, youknow, I'm getting a little off track
here with saying there mightbe ways to make room for critical
talent, critical role work bylooking at are we, how deep are we
going in the high potentialand succession place? And to borrow
from your article on skillsbased on leaders are like, is the
(35:09):
juice worth the squeeze onhow, how deep and how many roles
we're identifying or not onthe critical side, but succession.
I think that's a great scan.Yeah. I mean, at the point where
people say I don't really. Assoon as the. As soon as your customer
doesn't, if you're interested,great. Draw the line. Because if
they don't care, you shouldn'tcare. I mean, unless there's a really
good Reason that they shouldpay attention. Great. Go where their
(35:31):
energy is because then they'realways going to be excited. Let them
build the momentum and say,hey, actually this might be valuable
one level lower. Okay, great,I'm with you. I'll help you out.
But yeah, I never want to sellpeople on stuff where they don't
have any energy unless they'refundamentally missing something.
I think that's a great way tothink about it.
Yeah.
Well.
(35:51):
And so I want to come back toAI because I know we, you know, we
chatted once about this alittle bit too, and I think you've
identified a great placewhere, you know, if we're thinking
proactively. Right. About howcan talent make use of AI. Right.
I think you've identified agreat place like where can we leverage
AI to mine the data, flagcertain. Whether it's anomalies or
(36:17):
parts of the process thathaven't been completed. But I want
to take a big step back andsay, or ask the question, because
I think, I think again, summerof 2025, you know, every other day
you're seeing posts orarticles saying, you know, when is
AI coming for your job? Solet's talk about hr, leadership development,
talent management. Where doyou see, you know, how do you see
(36:39):
AI coming into this sort ofthese coes?
I think it can do a lot onceit has more correct information.
I think to me, the mostpowerful area is going to be in goal
setting because mostorganizations are not good at goal
setting. We do a ton of workwith companies to help them be better
(37:01):
at goal setting, but theprocess in most organizations is
not good. I think that once wecan put in place into a system, here
are all the jobs that we have,here's the structure that we have,
here are the goals we'retrying to achieve at the top of the
organization. And the systemcan spit out, boom. Here are the
(37:22):
goals. Good for your level,for your job, for your job. Here
are the four goals that thenladder up perfectly. You'll need
to get this done. Kind of likea lot of times, comp systems will
say Kent for your team membershere, the recommended comp. Now,
you can change them if youneed to, but we've spit out what
should happen. That to mewould be a huge lift in just helping
(37:44):
to elevate performance. Now, Ithink also there's some obvious things
like can it sort through dataand say our prediction of potential
for marker for Kent is X or Y.Yes. But that goes to how much incrementally
better are those predictionsgoing to be than what we already
do in a talent review. So myquestion for everybody when we talk
(38:05):
about additional pieces ofinformation is how much better validity
do you have with thisadditional piece of information?
So great. Maybe the system cannow synthesize information faster.
Great. Is it going to be 1%better or 25% better accuracy that
we're going to get out of it?So I think theoretically you could
(38:28):
eliminate half of what a lotof talent leaders do through AI going
forward. But I think it'sgoing to be at least five years before
we're at that point. And Ithink you're still going to have
a fundamental question,fundamental question of am I going
to as an executive going totrust AI over trusting an individual
sitting across from them?
(38:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thinkalso so really good insights and
I would add to that a lot oforgan and I think you kind of said
this right, right on the frontend. Is it kind of is going to end
up depending on how clean isyour data, how far back does your
data go? Right. And I knowingsome HR data analysts, that's a big
(39:11):
struggle in organizationsbecause for a number of reasons,
right? Modernizing the data,kind of getting off of other paper
based or database systems,moving into various talent, talent
systems. How far back does thedata go, reorgs and how that changes
some of the data. So I thinkI'm going to sum it up and say especially
(39:36):
you know, talent folks hr,your, you know, talent folks in hr,
your jobs are probably safefor quite a while while, you know,
given the current state ofdata. But I like the ideas that you're
throwing out here too iswhere. But where can we lead with
it, right? Where can it makesome of the parts of the job that
are maybe more clunky andadministrative easier versus where
(40:01):
some of the value truly isadded oftentimes in the room with
leaders and heads of HR andbusiness leaders. I'm going to give
us a violent shove because Iam just shocked at how fast time
is flying. So I'm going to,we'll have to have you back someday.
But I'm going to get into theadvice, what I like to call the advice
column. So Mark, what is onepiece of advice you have for leaders
(40:26):
out there?
One piece of advice is be surethat you can sustain, be sure that
your team can sustain highperformance and do that in two ways.
One, make sure that everybodyis clear about the three big deliverables
they have this year and meetwith them at least every 90 days
to discuss where they areagainst it. As simple as that sounds,
(40:49):
that is the best way to ensurethat you have a high performing team.
I love that. And I find myselftalking regularly with like people
getting confused with what arepriorities, goals and just asking
people to step back and saywhat are the, you know, two, three
things that you know,Essentially your head rolls if they're
(41:10):
not done by the end of theyear. You know, what is that? So
I like that. I think you'reright in. It's simpler than we think
and more powerful than weprobably give credit for. So what's
one piece of advice you havefor those of us who are supporting
leaders out there? Could behr, could be senior leaders.
Increase your influence bybuilding strong relationships. Relationships
(41:34):
are the key to getting stuff,stuff done. I think a lot of us in
HR think that our technicalskills are what should count and
I believe that for a longtime. Hey, I'm a smart guy. I know
my technical stuff. Peopleshould trust me because of that.
Yes, they will trust youtransactionally because of it. They
will believe the data youbring to them and that's a good thing.
(41:56):
Will they stake theircorporate life on that? No, they
will not. They will staketheir corporate life on, oh, I've
known mark for 10 years. We'vebeen buddies, we've hung out, we've
had dinner. If he says do it,I'm going to do it. That comes from
the relationship that you havebuilt and that happens over time
through social interactionwith individuals. Build stronger
(42:19):
relationships. You will havefar more influence.
I'm shocked at the accuracy ofthat and to me it rings of like taking
your own medicine. Right? We,that's the advice we give to leaders
today. Right. We're givingleaders this very same advice when
it comes to their own crossfunctional influence, how they're
managing up, across, down. Ithink that's the beauty and the simplicity
(42:44):
of that advice is those of uswho are supporting leaders out there
need to take that medicine aswell and build those relationships
and not just show up as theexperts. I think that's fabulous.
All right, well as we'rewinding down here, for those people
out there who want more talentStrategy Group or Mark Efron in their
lives, how can people findyou? What should people be reaching
out to you for?
(43:05):
They can get all sorts ofinsights on our articles and videos
and research. Attalentstrategygroup.com we share
everything for free. So it isall out there. Read all about it
there. Sign up for ournewsletter so you'll hear from us
every Tuesday and Thursday.
I love it. Awesome. Well,Mark, next time we'll maybe schedule
a three hour long forminterview. That way we can truly
(43:26):
get to everything. But I justthrilled to have you here today.
Thank you so much.
Thanks again. Great to talk.
All right, that brings us tothe end of our episode. Thanks for
listening. I'd encourage youto head on over to my website, Kent
Coach and start a conversationwith me there. Or check out my promotion
playbook at Kent CoachPlaybook. Before you go on with your
day, I ask that you pleasetake a moment to leave a rating and
(43:49):
a review wherever you listento podcasts. Five stars. That helps
put this podcast in front ofmore eyes and ears. Until next time,
Take it easy.
I want as many people to moveinto new jobs as possible, but I
think we need to be realistic.If Susie was already a brilliant
graphic designer, Mark loseshis consulting role, decides to go
into graphic design. He's notgoing to be competing against Susie
very well because Susie's beendoing it for 10 years and Mark is
still stepping up that scale.So I think we've got fundamental
questions like that aboutupskilling and reskilling. It sounds
(00:27):
lovely, but practically, it'sgoing to be very difficult to apply.
Hi there and welcome to theStep up expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
(00:49):
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
(01:11):
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show. Welcome, everyone.Today we are talking about the state
of talent management and I amthrilled to have with me today for
this conversation Mark Efron,president of the talent Strategy
Group. Welcome, Mark. So gladto have you today.
Super happy to be here andlooking forward to our conversation.
(01:34):
So I'm fascinated myself. I'dlove to hear, before we kind of get
into our topic, tell us alittle bit about how you got.
Into what you're doing todayaccidentally, and I will expound
on that. I did not have apurposeful career in either consulting
or in hr. I started off lifecoming out of college with a political
science degree, worked for acongressman for a couple of years,
(01:57):
fell into politicalconsulting. So I'll tell a short
story, but it ties to what I'mdoing today. So a felon with a group
in Southern California who didpolitical consulting for land developers.
And here's why it's relevant.What they had done is they had figured
out that to win in localoffices, meaning water board, school
(02:22):
board, sewer board. Now youmay ask, tangent here. Why would
you care about winning waterboard, school board, sewer board?
Well, because if you weredeveloping land in the middle of
nowhere, think Palmdale,California in 1987, well, you needed
the votes of the water boardand the school board and the sewer
board in order to get yourproject approved. And so you wanted
(02:44):
to have people who werefriendly to development on those
boards. So they figured outthis consulting board. I worked with
the most simple way to getpeople elected to those offices.
They figured out, well, youneed to print up the right types
of signs, you needed to walkdoor to door, read a particular script,
and something else. So theyhad radically simplified the election
winning process to a fewthings that mattered. Okay, one thing
(03:07):
in Mark's mind, simplifythings to a few things that matter.
So, worked for a congressmanfor a couple of years, or a congressman
that worked for thisconsulting firm, was in politics
for a few years. And afterthat I felt dirty and wanted to do
something else. Went off tobusiness school. Had no experience
with big companies at all. Andso I got to business school and they
said, well, what do you wantto do? I'm like, I don't know. I
(03:27):
had read this book that waspopular at the time called In Search
of Excellence. And I said, oh,I want to do what they do with that
book. They're like, well, it'skind of like HR work. I was like,
what's hr? They said, well,you should take classes like organizational
development. And I said, okay.And it turned out those are the only
classes that I actually didwell in business school. You know,
accounting kicked my butt,econ kicked my butt, all the quant
(03:50):
classes kicked my butt. Butfor some reason, like the ob, the
od, the consulting classes,it's just like, oh, this goes here
and that goes there, and youdo this. So for the next 15, 20 years,
I moved back and forth betweenconsulting roles and corporate roles
in hr. But I just. I neverreally thought about it as hr. It
just was kind of fun. You lookat people and structure and you try
(04:12):
to optimize it. And then Iended up, I was at Aon Hewitt, leading
their leadership consultingpractice. And kind of all these thoughts
came together that we can dothis so much simpler and easier.
I went to my boss at the timeand I said, hey, got this epiphany.
We can do it simpler andeasier. And he said, I'm not going
to do it simpler and easier.You just talked about reducing our
(04:33):
fees by 75%. No. And I'm like,fine, I'll go somewhere else. And
so I went to Avon Products atthe time, very big cosmetics company,
and they wanted to do thingsin a simpler and easier way. And
so I had this wonderfulgreenfield site, a very supportive
chro Lucy and Al's area,brilliant guy, very supportive CEO
(04:55):
Andrew Jung. And I had thisgreenfield site where me and my team
could actually practice all ofthese simpler, easier things. Middle
of that scenario, somebodyasked me to speak at a conference
about all the changes that wewere making. I'm like, yeah, sure,
whatever. They're like, well,what's the title of your speech?
I don't know, like one pageTalent Management. Like, okay, giving
(05:20):
the speech. Afterwards ithappened that there was an editor
from Harvard BusinessPublishing in the audience and she
was like, hey, pretty goodspeech. Or have you ever thought
about writing a book on that?And I said, well, no, I'd be pretty
stupid to write a book aboutone page talent management, wouldn't
I? I said, I've got three muchbetter book ideas I'll pitch you
(05:41):
on. I'm like, here's idea one,idea two, idea three. She's like,
those are all pretty terribleideas. And I was like, let's talk
about that old one page talentidea you pitched me on. And literally
that was kind of the kick intoconsulting was it was a bit of a
put up or shut up moment. It'slike, okay, Mark, you think you got
(06:01):
a better way of doing thisstuff? You can get a book behind
you. Let's see if it works.And so that launched Talent Strategy
Group. And for the past almost15 years now, we've, we've had the
good fortune of working withthe world's premier organizations
to help them radicallysimplify HR. And back to the. I'll
end the story in 10 seconds.Back to that initial political consulting
(06:25):
environment. What I reallylearned was, yeah, if you reduce
a few things to the essence,what really matters in political
consulting, it was you printsigns the right way, you knock on
the doors and have a simplescript. It was something else at
the time. The same thingapplies in our field. A few big things
matter that stuck with me tothis very day. End of story.
(06:47):
Nice. Well, and I'm reallythrilled to hear the story. I think
it's important for consultantsto have spent some time inside organizations
as well. I just think it helpsyou see how these things come to
life, what works, whatdoesn't. And really better understand
the business rhythms.
(07:07):
Well, yeah, I think especiallyaround things that aren't evident
unless you've been inside thatwe all know, hamstring talent practices,
accountability, transparency,organizational politics, all the
stuff that eviscerate a welldesigned process if you don't understand
them. And you and I haveprobably both seen consultants who
(07:29):
don't have practicalexperience come in with the 30 page
dad, go. It works like this.And you're like, no, it doesn't.
That's lovely. Thank you,thank you so much. But no it doesn't,
because, yeah, unless you'vebeen inside, you don't understand.
Okay. Bob's not going to likethat because Bob actually designed
the predecessor process andhe's going to dig his heels in when
(07:50):
you come in with that. I mean,just the basics. Unless you've sat
there, you don't know.
Yeah, yeah. Well, so I reallyappreciate you being on today. I
first came in contact with youthrough Talent Quarterly. So, you
know, at least 2 of the talentteams that I have worked on, you
know, basically treated thatas, you know, our own little book
(08:11):
club. Right. So that wouldcome out. We would, you know, read
either some targeted thingsbased on what we were working on
or the whole thing and sort ofbat around, you know, what are the
takeaways that we want to putinto practice. And so, yeah, so I've
been sort of reading whatyou've been, you and your team have
been putting out for some timeand so just thrilled to have the,
(08:33):
you know, a talent managementcelebrity on the, on the podcast
today.
Well, one Talent Quarterly,we, we, I love putting it out for
the, for your listeners whoaren't familiar with it. It was a
magazine where we literallyjust asked the best, the smartest
people in the talent in HR andconsulting field, hey, would you
write for us? And people wereincredibly generous and we, our goal
(08:55):
was to put out, or my originalgoal was to put out a magazine that
was a bit of a cross betweenan art magazine and a foreign affairs
magazine. Kind of a punchy butirreverent but fact based magazine.
And so we tried to keep itgraphically cool but have really
interesting articles in there.And we did it for about, I think
five or six years and then itliterally became just too challenging
(09:18):
to do running a full timeconsulting group. And it was a great
way to lose money as well. Soyou combine those two things together
and it just wasn't. And itwasn't sustainable.
Yeah, but you're still, you'restill putting the writing out right
through other sort of online,your own writing at least. Right
through.
Yeah, we do, we do our own. Itjust, it's gathering other authors
together, unfortunately. Justwe might revive it in the future.
(09:40):
Yeah, yeah, well, we're stillbenefiting from the writing whether
or not our fun, cool physicalcopy of the Talent Quarterly is arriving
at our doorsteps. Well, so wewanted to talk about sort of the
Future of talent managementtoday. There is so much happening,
you know, for the listener.Cause I think this is gonna come
out in September. So it's lateJune. We're on the doorstep of July.
(10:03):
It's been a wild year, wildtime to be alive. 2025, a lot happening.
Right. So there's tons of sortof whiplash coming out of Washington
when it comes to tariffpolicies and things like that. Right.
So we're seeing clients sortof be running in one direction then
needing to pivot and run, youknow, in another direction with all
(10:24):
of their own operations, letalone, I think we've seen a fair
number of layoffs in the last,you know, quarter. So we have sort
of a flooded market of talent.So it's, it's kind of a wild time
to be in the talent managementspace. So I'd love to just generally
start with any thoughts orreflections you have on 2025 so far.
(10:46):
Where are we at? Where are we going?
Yeah, I think the, the goodnews, good news in the talent space
is that CEOs and boards aremore interested in great talent than
ever. So they always havebeen. But the past I think five years,
they have heightened theirinterest in having more better quality
(11:09):
talent, which is great for us.And I think we've seen they put greater
pressure on chros, they putgreater pressure on heads of talent
to have more better qualitytalent in their organizations and
to have processes andpractices that sustained the flow
of that talent. So one, thecustomers are hungry and are demanding.
(11:31):
That is a beautiful thing. Andit puts good pressure on us. I think
that's the demand side. Andthe challenge is on the supply side.
We've seen a bit of a shift.We've seen, I'm going to call it
10%. I might be off by halfthere of the population say I'm not
as interested in signing upfor that particular deal anymore.
(11:55):
And so I think we've seen somepeople say, I could be a high performer
based on your definition ofit. I don't want to be anymore. And
so there has probably been asomewhat a decrease, I don't know
how much of a decrease, adecrease in the supply of talent
who we might have wanted to betop talent. So I think at the macro
(12:18):
level we have a misfit, a bitof a Misfit of demand versus supply
or even of just the mindset ofCEOs still want people to show up,
work their butts off, behaveperfectly. Their team loves them,
their colleagues love them,they'll give anything. And the supply
where it's like, yeah, somepeople still do that, but a lot of
(12:40):
people won't. So just themindset of what it means to be talent.
Let's just start kind of writlarge. I think there's that challenge
and then we get into a fit ofskills. Do people even have the right
capabilities to match? Ihaven't looked at the numbers recently,
but it used to be there were 3or 4 million open roles out there.
(13:02):
And it wasn't because we justhadn't found the right people. It
was because we just don't havethe right skills to fill those three
or four million open roles. Sopart of the challenge is, even if
layoffs are happening, are theroles that are being laid off, do
they fit with the roles thatare out there? Or are people even
trainable? I mean, everyoneloves to scream skills these days.
(13:26):
People have to be onetrainable to want to be trained to
do different things. Those areboth big open questions for all those
people who are very, very inlove with skills being everything
going forward. So I thinkthat, you know, one big question
for talent management is howdo we make sure that we can bring
(13:47):
enough of the right talentinto our organizations as quickly
as we can going forward?Third, and then I will take a breath
is can we do a better job ofrunning the machine? I use the machine
analogy very purposefully oftalent building in our organizations
because what we see everysingle day with our clients around
(14:09):
the globe and through a lot ofour research is oftentimes we are
really good at ticking the boxof saying, oh, yes, we have that
practice in place. We haveperformance management, we have succession
planning, we have talentreviews. But then when we look at
the output, what we see is youhave all of the, you have all of
(14:32):
the machinery, but it's notactually producing anything. And
the most recent example is toillustrate that we did a survey earlier
this year on critical roles.And the good news was we asked companies,
do you select for criticalroles and how do you do it? And we
actually have, I think it waslike 84% of 200 plus companies said,
yes, we actually do select forcritical roles. And we ask, how do
(14:54):
you do it? And most actuallyused methodologies that we would
consider to be good ways ofselecting for critical roles. Which
means you aren't doing it byhierarchy, you aren't doing it by
the incumbent in the role, soyou're doing it the right way. Cool.
Then we asked, great, do youhave a development plan for people
in critical roles? And like40% of people said, we do. Okay,
(15:16):
do you hold leaders of peoplein critical roles accountable for
their growth? Like 25%. Sowhen we ask, do you actually operationalize
critical roles? No. So, yeah,you say you have critical roles,
but you don't do anything withthem. We can say the same thing with
succession plans. You havesuccession plans. Do you select successors
(15:38):
from them? You haveperformance management. Does everybody
have a three, three bigpowerful goals? So I think the other
challenge for us in talentmanagement right now, we think about
the future of talentmanagement is can we not just tick
the boxes and say, oh, yep, wehave all these things. Can we operationalize
them in the way that actuallydelivers the outputs that people
(16:00):
are paying us for?
I'm trying to decide which,which thing to dig into first here.
I'm going to, I'm going totake it from the top. Right? So,
you know, I think you weretalking about folks who are sort
of opting out of maybe beinghigh performers or maybe even, you
know, putting themselves,raising their hand for leadership.
(16:20):
Right. So I think, you know,in the, in the past, I found in my
own consulting in the past wereally had to work with people to
kind of pull apart advancementdrive from leadership drive, right?
To say, you know, do you wantthe role because of the pay and prestige
or do you want the rolebecause you enjoy leading and the
(16:41):
work of being a leader? Andbest case scenario might be both,
right. And second best mightbe you've got the leadership drive,
maybe not the strongeradvancement drive. Worst case scenario
is you have the advancementdrive without the leadership drive.
Right. That's sort of from apotential for flame out perspective.
But I think what you're sayinghere is, and I've seen this too,
(17:01):
is, and I would say thepandemic was probably pretty eye
opening for people aroundessential roles. What is really essential,
what's not, what's essentialin their lives and what's not. Right?
How are we finding. And I knowthere's a lot of interesting writing
these days about work lifebalance, which might be a podcast
(17:22):
for another day, but how isthis fulfilling me as a total person
in adding into the equation ofmy life? And so I think I've seen
this as well where people aresaying, I think I kind of want to
step off this, the leadershiptrack, right. Or this high potential
track and get into a job whereI can knock home runs and just show
(17:44):
up and do that and maximize mylife in other ways. Right. And I
think that's been, I thinkit's always been hard for HR folks,
talent management folks,consultants, to make space for people
who just want to be an expertand do their thing and show up every
day. Like, you know, thinkingback even to when I was going through
(18:05):
school, grad school, this ideaof like, well, why wouldn't everybody
want to develop and want to bepromoted, right? So I think maybe
we're finally getting smackedin the face a little bit more with
that.
Well, and I think it, itchallenges companies to think through
the multiple deals they needto offer to people at work. And we're
(18:26):
not already not good at this.And one of the things that we have,
this very simple tool thatpeople are amazed by, they shouldn't
be called the talentinvestment grid, which is literally
just a nine box, where we sayyou need to think through how you
want to invest in people ineach of these boxes. Whether you
use a nine box grid or not,just use it as an example. Hey, your
hypo investment should lookdifferent than your high performer
(18:46):
investment. That should lookdifferent than your average performer
investment. So you should havea deal, a conscious deal in each
of those boxes. I think thechallenge in many organizations right
now is they have kind of ahypo deal and then everybody else
gets some stuff. Okay, now weneed to be conscious about. There's
a deal for the person whowants to put in the best 30 hours
(19:07):
they can. You need a deal forthem. You, you never even thought
about that deal becauseactually they do. They're, they're
not lazy, but they've got 30hours and they're to give you the
best 30 hours, like a realbest 30 hours. Have you thought what
the deal is for them? And Ithink we need organizations to think
more about. You're going toneed to kind of split up the deals.
(19:29):
You might need to have 10different deals that you need to
think through. But you need tofigure that out because there are,
to your point, people who aresimply saying, yeah, I'm going to
work my butt off for thisperiod of time. You're going to get
the absolute best of me, butit's going to end at that point.
Well, and this might come tothe core of what you were talking
about earlier too, which isI've been in organizations who have
(19:51):
leveraged a very similar ninebox to try to drive the sort of the
next step for leaders, right?Not just to identify who's high potential,
but to say, if someone's inthis box, what does that mean? What
kind of time attentioninvestment should they be getting
based on where they're at? AndI think this is sort of what you
were saying. At the beginning,which is where the rubber hits the
(20:14):
road on. Are we actuallyoperationalizing that? That is much
harder to scale. So I canpoint to some phenomenal individual
leaders who really take howthey're managing people as an individual
thing. Right. Anindividualized thing. It's kind of
at the heart of the termequity. But everybody gets what they
(20:37):
need kind of an approach. Butscaling. That's really tough, right?
I think so. Maybe I'll throwthis question back to you is how
do we continue to. How do wecontinue to scale that? Right. Because
if it was just a factor oftools and processes or knowing what
to do. Right. We'd already be there.
(20:58):
Well, you have to categorize.I mean, at the end of the day, you
have to say, hey, people areto show up in buckets, and you have
to draw a line somewhere. Andthey're the easy buckets. They're
the hypos. That's an easybucket. There's a good solid average.
That's an easy bucket. There'sthe lower folks. That's an easy bucket.
It's that group that's aboveaverage and below hypo. It used to
be you could. You could almostsay they're high performers. Okay,
(21:19):
that's a bucket. That'sprobably the bucket. You need to
slice into a few differentcategories now because they're the
clear high performers, whichis. Hey, let's take. I always use
international tax because it'sa good. Hey, it's a very precise
thing. You're probably notgoing to become CFO out of that job.
But wow, if you'reinternational tax, you're sharp.
We want you to be good at yourjob. We want you happy. Cool. But
(21:42):
maybe now it's theinternational tax person who used
to work 50 hours, who onlywants to work 30 hours now. You're
still really good, but I'mgoing to invest in you a little bit
differently. So we probablyneed to think about that high performer
category in a few differenttranches of investment. But it does
mean literally thinkingthrough what does the investment
(22:03):
look like? Because if you'remy boss, Kent, you need to come to
me and say, mark, I've got agreat deal for you. Here's the deal
we offer at ABC Company forpeople who want to contribute like
you do. And I used to thinkthe lever was. Because I get upset
when people want more thanthey have earned. I used to think
the lever was, oh, if youdon't want to work that many hours
(22:26):
or contribute that much,you're not going to get all the goodies.
But now people are like, Idon't want the goodies. It's like,
okay, well, that actuallymakes the conversation easier. You
can say, look, here's thedeal. They're like, yeah, cool, that's
a good deal. But we need todefine the deal.
Yeah, yeah. Well, for the sakeof time, I want to move into the
other topic. So you mentionedskills. Right. I think with sort
(22:46):
of where we're at with a lotof talent kind of on the market,
so to speak, and our need tobe thinking about. And I like how
you put it. So both like, whatare the skills that are needed? Because
there might not be obviouschoices right now in terms of people
who have done that role. Sohow do we pick people who have that.
The transferable skill. But Ilike how you were sort of also referencing.
(23:10):
But do they want to be, youknow, are they trainable? Do they
want to be trained in a newway, aimed at something new? Right.
And so I know skills Basedorgs has been a real catchphrase,
so to speak, that I've seenmultiple organizations that I've
been in, in hr, you know, tryto be moving toward. It's not without
its challenges either. So I'dlove to just hear some of your thoughts
(23:33):
on those who are moving inthat direction and making some level
of progress with it.
Yeah, I wrote an article lastyear called Is the Juice Worth the
Squeeze? About skills. And itreally was just. I think I wrote
18 questions. It was me simplysaying, I don't quite understand
(23:57):
the hype around skills,because obviously we need skills,
just like we need capabilitiesand we need behaviors. But the shouting
from consultants and techfirms that this is the only way our
companies are going to surviveis by fundamentally reorienting them
(24:17):
with skills. Is the pivotpoint. You know, volume get louder,
louder, louder around that. Itjust seemed a little odd. And it
also caused me to ask myselfthe question, what have you L and
D people been doing the past20 years? If we need to urgently
do this right now, it's like,what have I been paying you to do?
(24:38):
You this is. This must happenimmediately. It's like, I assume
you've been doing something togrow capabilities that didn't work.
So one. That was one question.But it feels like, well, yeah, we
all certainly need to increasecapabilities. But a lot of the promises
(24:58):
that I think are at the top ofthe hype cycle around skills are
just that they are wonderfulhopes that somehow we can call out
these small latent skills thatpeople have and match them with needs
in the organization or otherorganizations or that the gig economy
(25:18):
will somehow if that was true,it would have already happened. So
I think there are plenty ofways that people can use latent skills
already through fiverr,through lots of other. So if I wanted
to apply my graphic designskills, I'm actually pretty good
at graphic design. I can goout and apply that somewhere. I haven't
because I don't want to. Iwouldn't make much money doing that
(25:40):
versus my daily rate which isextremely high for being a consultant.
Most people so long wayaround. Most people like their day
job and they want to keepdoing their day job. And so if I
lose my day job, I probablydon't have a real interest in doing
something else until Iabsolutely have to. Day jobs are
sticky for a reason. I'm goodat it, I like doing it. My self worth
(26:04):
is probably wrapped up in it.And so assuming that somehow I'm
going to take the skills, Ihave abandoned them and learn to
do something else, I thinkthat's a real stretch. And assuming
that I am going to be trainedto be better at those skills than
somebody else who was alreadydoing those skills, so I'm somehow
(26:25):
going to compete is I think achallenge as well. So I think one,
I want as many people to moveinto new jobs as possible. But I
think we need to be realistic.If Susie was already a brilliant
graphic designer, Mark loseshis consulting role, decides to go
into graphic design. He's notgoing to be competing against Susie
very well because Susie's beendoing it for 10 years and Mark is
(26:48):
still stepping up that scale.So I think we've got fundamental
questions like that aboutskilling and reskilling. It sounds
lovely, but practically it'sgoing to be very difficult to apply.
Yeah, really well put. Whatyou're making me think about is I
wonder if the desire to applyit at an enterprise level is where
(27:08):
it's maybe causing swirl andgetting stuck versus more strategic,
more surgically. Right. I'mgoing to use a poor example in the
summer of 2025, but I rememberhearing about air traffic controllers.
They're saying, hey, we needmore. Now this is before the current
situation, which anybody who'straveling, you understand the pain
(27:31):
these days. But there was thisconversation that was happening around
we need more air trafficcontrollers. Where do we find the
talent? Right. Because there'sjust not the typical people applying.
And the conversation startedto look at gamers, people who have
a willingness to sit in frontof a screen, you know, for, you know,
(27:52):
so they kind of you know, youstart to break it down into, well,
what are the skills here?Right. Like this ability to sit in
front of a screen, you know,be hyper focused, you know, strategic
about, you know, the blockingand tackling in front of you on that.
I don't know that they evergot to a place of enacting that from.
And I can't remember where Iread it, but like that's an example
(28:13):
of more of a surgicalapplication to say we have a need
and how do we think about, youknow, where to find that skill? Maybe
there's a conversation onwhere to build that skill too, but
it almost feels like it's.There's more of a surgical application
around both from a job, youknow, recruiting and maybe even EVP
(28:34):
perspective versus a. How dowe roll this out at an enterprise
level? I think absolutely, yeah.
Can it solve some problems?Absolutely, absolutely. And can it
add some benefits around theedges? So a lot of the companies
that I see using this arecompanies who have a bit more financial
largesse. A lot of my pharmaclients are using it. They got a
(28:56):
lot of extra money. Great. Wecan buy talent marketplaces. Does
that make movement within theorganization easier? Absolutely.
Cool. Use it. I think that's abeautiful thing. Would I use that
to move people to my bestroles? Nope. Still need a talent
review process. There's stillsome roles that are off limits so
(29:16):
for kind of the masses toensure a more efficient marketplace.
I think it's a beautifulthing. Am I going to create unusual
matches? So people always loveto find the. Oh, Susie is a home
chef and we needed a corporatechef and, and so she. People love
calling those out and writingthe cases. No, that's not the use
(29:40):
case. We're not going to payfor the talent marketplace doing
that stuff. We need massiveshifts of skills to make this stuff
actually worthwhile.
Yes. I think even what you'resaying here is there's probably a
leveling aspect where thisworks better than others. Right.
We're not going to recruit acollegiate mathematician to be the
(30:01):
CFO of a company. There arecertain, certain repetitions and
experiences that one needsthat, that build towards that role
versus, you know, probablymore entry level sort of individual
contributor type roles wherethis makes this makes more sense.
So looking at the time, I wantto, I want to just circle back to
(30:22):
critical roles as well. Justvery quickly and time is just flying.
I am floored. And we're goingto have to have you, have to have
you back again because I thinkcritical roles is fascinating as
well, because I'VE been atsome places where we've done this
and I think your observationis spot on and I wonder if it's part
of this is again it's in howwe operationalize things. The organizational
(30:46):
metabolism for processes andwhatnot. Right. And I think what
I've seen is thinking aboutspecific development or successors
for critical roles somewhatgets caught in. We're already spending
so much time identifying highpotentials where walking through
succession plans for eitherevery role above a certain level
(31:07):
or targeted roles that youknow, I think what I've seen firsthand
is the. Well, we've alreadyspent this much time doing these
ones, we just don't have time.Let's identify them and like that
I've seen that being kind ofthe, the ending place as well. Not
to mention it's challenging toget organizations heads around management
(31:30):
more often than not might notbe the critical roles. Right. So
there's this challenge whenyou're sitting around talking about
critical roles with theleaders at the table being like how
do I kindly gently explainthat it's none of you versus some
other high leverage role inthe company?
Yeah. Short answer is we needto let the free market in our organization's
(31:53):
work. If we describe criticalroles in the right way and the organization
says I'm sorry, we've just gottoo many other things going on, great,
that's conversation foranother day. But if we say there
are a few roles here thatclearly add more value than other
roles that the marketplacewould panic if they knew we had the
(32:14):
wrong person in. If there areroles like that, should we know which
roles those are and pay a lotof attention to who the incumbents
are and ensure that we have asuccess assessor for those roles
that can step in and performat least as well. So if we can have
those conversations, peoplesay oh yeah, then it's incumbent
on us in HR to takeaccountability for that. So for things
(32:35):
like that, I don't say, oh,that's the business's job. No it's
not. It's our job to help thebusiness do a good job with that.
And I think in the talentmanagement space we need to be the
ones who are project managingthat. And we haven't even touched
on AI. I can't believe wehaven't touched on AI yet. This is
where hopefully I can startplaying a role in almost just monitoring
and managing. You know, I canget a, I can get a text that says
(32:59):
hey, for those three criticalroles, there's no development plan
in the system yet. I'm like,okay, I'll take, you know, and we've
already. And the machine. Theagents already followed up with those
managers to say, where's thedevelopment plan? So hopefully, you
know, things like that can bemade easier to manage through technology.
I'm glad you mentioned thatbecause that was going to be my wild
(33:19):
card in just a moment too. Onething I would say about how do you
balance high potentialidentification, succession planning
and the work of identifyingcritical roles? I might also recommend
if you're going down the roadand see critical roles as an important
part of your talent managementstrategy is maybe take a look at
(33:41):
how deep you're going in theorganization and you're getting the
feedback of we don't have timeor capacity to do this the way we
need to. Or well, take a lookat how deep you're going with high
potential. Take a look at howmany roles are identifying successors
for. Because I think what I'veseen firsthand is it's a fun process
that makes leaders feel good,makes leaders feel like they've really
(34:03):
done some great talent work.But often we're probably going too
deep in order to truly trustor really get the mileage out of
manager assessment of highpotential and maybe identifying successors
for too many roles, especiallywhen. Now I get it. When we do and
(34:24):
don't enact a succession plan.I think the succession plan is kind
of in a vacuum when we buildit. So there are times when there's
a context around an openingwhen somebody leaves where who we
had planned to be the nextsuccessor just isn't going to work
right now. But I don't knowthat we're always having that conversation
anyway to say, like, is therea reason why the person we thought
(34:46):
would be next for this rolecan't be right now and we have to
think differently or, youknow, I'm getting a little off track
here with saying there mightbe ways to make room for critical
talent, critical role work bylooking at are we, how deep are we
going in the high potentialand succession place? And to borrow
from your article on skillsbased on leaders are like, is the
(35:09):
juice worth the squeeze onhow, how deep and how many roles
we're identifying or not onthe critical side, but succession.
I think that's a great scan.Yeah. I mean, at the point where
people say I don't really. Assoon as the. As soon as your customer
doesn't, if you're interested,great. Draw the line. Because if
they don't care, you shouldn'tcare. I mean, unless there's a really
good Reason that they shouldpay attention. Great. Go where their
(35:31):
energy is because then they'realways going to be excited. Let them
build the momentum and say,hey, actually this might be valuable
one level lower. Okay, great,I'm with you. I'll help you out.
But yeah, I never want to sellpeople on stuff where they don't
have any energy unless they'refundamentally missing something.
I think that's a great way tothink about it.
Yeah.
Well.
(35:51):
And so I want to come back toAI because I know we, you know, we
chatted once about this alittle bit too, and I think you've
identified a great placewhere, you know, if we're thinking
proactively. Right. About howcan talent make use of AI. Right.
I think you've identified agreat place like where can we leverage
AI to mine the data, flagcertain. Whether it's anomalies or
(36:17):
parts of the process thathaven't been completed. But I want
to take a big step back andsay, or ask the question, because
I think, I think again, summerof 2025, you know, every other day
you're seeing posts orarticles saying, you know, when is
AI coming for your job? Solet's talk about hr, leadership development,
talent management. Where doyou see, you know, how do you see
(36:39):
AI coming into this sort ofthese coes?
I think it can do a lot onceit has more correct information.
I think to me, the mostpowerful area is going to be in goal
setting because mostorganizations are not good at goal
setting. We do a ton of workwith companies to help them be better
(37:01):
at goal setting, but theprocess in most organizations is
not good. I think that once wecan put in place into a system, here
are all the jobs that we have,here's the structure that we have,
here are the goals we'retrying to achieve at the top of the
organization. And the systemcan spit out, boom. Here are the
(37:22):
goals. Good for your level,for your job, for your job. Here
are the four goals that thenladder up perfectly. You'll need
to get this done. Kind of likea lot of times, comp systems will
say Kent for your team membershere, the recommended comp. Now,
you can change them if youneed to, but we've spit out what
should happen. That to mewould be a huge lift in just helping
(37:44):
to elevate performance. Now, Ithink also there's some obvious things
like can it sort through dataand say our prediction of potential
for marker for Kent is X or Y.Yes. But that goes to how much incrementally
better are those predictionsgoing to be than what we already
do in a talent review. So myquestion for everybody when we talk
(38:05):
about additional pieces ofinformation is how much better validity
do you have with thisadditional piece of information?
So great. Maybe the system cannow synthesize information faster.
Great. Is it going to be 1%better or 25% better accuracy that
we're going to get out of it?So I think theoretically you could
(38:28):
eliminate half of what a lotof talent leaders do through AI going
forward. But I think it'sgoing to be at least five years before
we're at that point. And Ithink you're still going to have
a fundamental question,fundamental question of am I going
to as an executive going totrust AI over trusting an individual
sitting across from them?
(38:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thinkalso so really good insights and
I would add to that a lot oforgan and I think you kind of said
this right, right on the frontend. Is it kind of is going to end
up depending on how clean isyour data, how far back does your
data go? Right. And I knowingsome HR data analysts, that's a big
(39:11):
struggle in organizationsbecause for a number of reasons,
right? Modernizing the data,kind of getting off of other paper
based or database systems,moving into various talent, talent
systems. How far back does thedata go, reorgs and how that changes
some of the data. So I thinkI'm going to sum it up and say especially
(39:36):
you know, talent folks hr,your, you know, talent folks in hr,
your jobs are probably safefor quite a while while, you know,
given the current state ofdata. But I like the ideas that you're
throwing out here too iswhere. But where can we lead with
it, right? Where can it makesome of the parts of the job that
are maybe more clunky andadministrative easier versus where
(40:01):
some of the value truly isadded oftentimes in the room with
leaders and heads of HR andbusiness leaders. I'm going to give
us a violent shove because Iam just shocked at how fast time
is flying. So I'm going to,we'll have to have you back someday.
But I'm going to get into theadvice, what I like to call the advice
column. So Mark, what is onepiece of advice you have for leaders
(40:26):
out there?
One piece of advice is be surethat you can sustain, be sure that
your team can sustain highperformance and do that in two ways.
One, make sure that everybodyis clear about the three big deliverables
they have this year and meetwith them at least every 90 days
to discuss where they areagainst it. As simple as that sounds,
(40:49):
that is the best way to ensurethat you have a high performing team.
I love that. And I find myselftalking regularly with like people
getting confused with what arepriorities, goals and just asking
people to step back and saywhat are the, you know, two, three
things that you know,Essentially your head rolls if they're
(41:10):
not done by the end of theyear. You know, what is that? So
I like that. I think you'reright in. It's simpler than we think
and more powerful than weprobably give credit for. So what's
one piece of advice you havefor those of us who are supporting
leaders out there? Could behr, could be senior leaders.
Increase your influence bybuilding strong relationships. Relationships
(41:34):
are the key to getting stuff,stuff done. I think a lot of us in
HR think that our technicalskills are what should count and
I believe that for a longtime. Hey, I'm a smart guy. I know
my technical stuff. Peopleshould trust me because of that.
Yes, they will trust youtransactionally because of it. They
will believe the data youbring to them and that's a good thing.
(41:56):
Will they stake theircorporate life on that? No, they
will not. They will staketheir corporate life on, oh, I've
known mark for 10 years. We'vebeen buddies, we've hung out, we've
had dinner. If he says do it,I'm going to do it. That comes from
the relationship that you havebuilt and that happens over time
through social interactionwith individuals. Build stronger
(42:19):
relationships. You will havefar more influence.
I'm shocked at the accuracy ofthat and to me it rings of like taking
your own medicine. Right? We,that's the advice we give to leaders
today. Right. We're givingleaders this very same advice when
it comes to their own crossfunctional influence, how they're
managing up, across, down. Ithink that's the beauty and the simplicity
(42:44):
of that advice is those of uswho are supporting leaders out there
need to take that medicine aswell and build those relationships
and not just show up as theexperts. I think that's fabulous.
All right, well as we'rewinding down here, for those people
out there who want more talentStrategy Group or Mark Efron in their
lives, how can people findyou? What should people be reaching
out to you for?
(43:05):
They can get all sorts ofinsights on our articles and videos
and research. Attalentstrategygroup.com we share
everything for free. So it isall out there. Read all about it
there. Sign up for ournewsletter so you'll hear from us
every Tuesday and Thursday.
I love it. Awesome. Well,Mark, next time we'll maybe schedule
a three hour long forminterview. That way we can truly
(43:26):
get to everything. But I justthrilled to have you here today.
Thank you so much.
Thanks again. Great to talk.
All right, that brings us tothe end of our episode. Thanks for
listening. I'd encourage youto head on over to my website, Kent
Coach and start a conversationwith me there. Or check out my promotion
playbook at Kent CoachPlaybook. Before you go on with your
day, I ask that you pleasetake a moment to leave a rating and
(43:49):
a review wherever you listento podcasts. Five stars. That helps
put this podcast in front ofmore eyes and ears. Until next time,
Take it easy.
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