Linking strategy to talent in your organisation

In my first article for Network HR, I laid out the initial, broad themes of Strategic Talent Management. This time around, I want to sharpen our focus and look at some key areas in greater detail. Let's begin with two fundamental questions. First, what is business strategy? Second, how can we forge strong links between strategy and the people who execute it?

What is Strategy?

Our working definition of strategy gives us our first insight into how to link strategy to talent:

Astrategy is a working hypothesis that describes an organisation's approach to creating value. It must be clearly defined and well executed through coherent and integrated initiatives. Executing your strategy is a process that involves your whole organisation - no one is exempt! All your people, processes, business units, and support functions must be aligned with your strategy to succeed.

Strategy execution is vital to your talent management process because everyone within your organisation is responsible in some way for ensuring that your strategy is put in place, no matter what their role. Strategy is all about creating value for your customers, It is the talented people within your organisation who deliver that value, drive change, and help your organisation to grow.

The Value Chain

In my previous article I discussed the concept of a value chain - a series of causes and effects that transform your organisation's raw materials into products which provide value for your customers. The first link in the value chain is your organisation's strategic objective, which must be clear and well-defined for your organisation to succeed. While being able to clearly define your objective and understand its importance is critical, we need to be able to do more - we need to be able to link this strategy to talent.

One of the most widely accepted approaches to forging this link is a strategy cascade. This begins at the highest strategic level of your organisation with broad conceptual ideas. Then, as we move down the organisation and along our value chain, this cascade translates these ideas into specific details and tasks. This is where HR finds its niche - those tasks need to be addressed and executed by truly talented people. And, who is responsible for these talented people? That's right, HR is! Take a look at our cascade below, which highlights how strategy can be connected to talent.

1. Strategy is implemented through a portfolio of...
2. Initiatives, which are broad agreements of how the organization will create customer value. Value is created through...
3. Programs and projects, which convert initiatives into specific products and services. To accomplish various projects, work is organized and shared among...
4. Strategic job families and key positions which bear most of the responsibility for making the programs/projects succeed. These positions must be staffed with...
   
5. Key People who possess capabilities for using...
6. Information, Processes, and Technology-the raw materials of innovation used by knowledge and service workers.
   

When we reach step 4 - job families and key positions, and then, 5 - key people, we arrive in the talent zone. It is imperative to have the right kind of people in key positions, people who possess the capabilities that directly support your key projects and initiatives. Many conservative thinking organisations have very confused ideas regarding strategy and talent. They think about their existing talent inventory then devise ideas and initiatives that fit the capabilities of this pool. In other words, they put talent first and strategy second. Aggressive, forward thinking organisations pursue the strategic initiatives they feel are most beneficial. They then tailor their talent to fit the strategy - strategy first, talent second.

Linking our strategy to our talent is vital to value chain management. If you fail to link your organisation's strategy to the people who implement it, your company will not provide value to its customers. This is why we need value chains designed to provide serious business impact. This impact does not happen accidentally, it needs to be created, with HR playing a major role. If you cast your minds back to my previous article, you will recall I discussed the ways in which HR can have a real strategic impact on an organisation and how HR professionals can join the top table in terms of business impact. To do this, HR needs to ensure that the value chain delivers the impact your organisation requires. Having read all this, I am sure you are crying "how?" "How do we do this?"