Top talent can be frustrating
The leadership team of the not-for-profit I lead is meeting with our highly committed top talent. These meetings have made me realize how top talent might be frustrating to some leaders.
Surprisingly, talented employees/volunteers may be more frustrating than average ones.
Old ways aren’t good enough for top talent. They want improvement and innovation.
Frustrating?
Why is improvement frustrating? It means work. It means change.
Frustrated lazy leaders say no to improvements and innovations.
Additionally, top talent can frustrate leaders because they have hair-brained ideas. Their ideas aren’t always aligned with organizational vision and mission. Why does top talent come up with unaligned ideas? Leadership may not have clearly communicated mission, vision, objectives, and strategy.
Frustrated inept leaders are forced to say no because they haven’t clearly communicated.
Another reason leaders say no to top talent is because leadership is over-worked and over-whelmed. There’s no room for new approaches and innovations.
Frustrated over-worked leaders say no because one more thing will break the camel’s back.
Results of saying no:
Lazy, inept, or over-worked leaders de-motivate top talent and solidify the status quo. They may unintentionally create stagnation.
Before saying no:
- Ask if you are seeking your own comfort
- Ask if you’ve clearly communicated mission, vision, objectives, and strategy
- Ask if you really want to throw cold water on top talent
When saying no:
- Take responsibility for poor communication. Say something like, “I haven’t clearly communicated our current strategic objectives.”
- Ask questions and give explanations
- Honor passion
- Saying, “At this time…” seems to soften the blow
You have talented people on your team. They can be frustrating. I’m suggesting you find ways to say yes as frequently as possible.
*****
What tips can you offer for managing top talent?
How do you say no to people who have passion and ideas?
Good post, brother. Seems a crystal-clear vision helps in most situations when idras are coming fast and furious from the top talent.
Dear Dan,
To manage top talents, the need is to know them. Knowing means, their interest, strengths, weaknesses and attitude. This will help leaders to strike balance in approach with top talents. I have experienced that top talents are usually blind with their own ideas. They believe what they know and want, other should accept those ideas. It occurs frequently with top talented people with less exposure to different cultural environment. Whereas top talent with different exposure has comparative flexible approach. So, one should not directly negate or reject the ideas of top talents. Rather one should appreciate the ideas of top talents and then persuade them to listen to your ideas. I strongly believe that being polite and discreet with top latent opens the door for discussion.
I think, you can say No to people who have passion and ideas by discussing , debating and making them to believe that they are not right in their ideas. I think passion comes from strong belief, so you have break that belief. Once you are able to break that, you can say no to their ideas and passion. But at the same time, you have to show your ideas showing that it is better than previous ideas.
Why it becomes generally difficult to manage top talents. I think the inability of person to sense them is the major problem. It occurs from both the sides. Humble approach, appreciation and respect the feelings of top talents is more important. This will help them to connect with the people and system. And when they are connected, half of the battle is over, and next half can be won by frequent interactions and discussion with their ideas. This approach will turn their perceived ego into self esteem.
Perhaps leadership should borrow from the companies who value new ideas and hire people just to come up with them. High tech companies are an example. The people hired into these companies to come up with the next best thing are valued, and their job is to do just that. What if we considered (and incented) “top talent” to do this everywhere?
I think the key is really letting the top talent know that you are honestly listening to thier ideas but making different choices. At one point when I was very new, I pitched an idea that did not align with the current compay direction. The leaders of the company always listened and discussed my idea with me honestly. I didn’t give up and within a few years my idea was implimented. I still work for those same leaders and that is a good part of the reason why.
Good points, Dan. I like the introspective view that we should first look at ourselves for the source of our frustration.
On that note, I also think there could be a fear factor involved. Leaders are afraid (consciously or unconsciously) that their top talent is better than they are. So be on the lookout for that. Any action or decision motivated by that kind of fear is bad news for your organization and will soon drive your top talent away.
Dan,
LOTS of truth in this post. Honor passion and saying “at this time” do help. As I read the post two additional things came to my mind:
—–
#1 It’s not always the leader who frustrates people who crave change and improvements. There is a small % of people who can’t live in and with the status quo even for a short time. They frustrate others too.
Their drive for change is driven purely by their unease — not by the organization’s mission and well being. I wouldn’t call these folks TOP talent because they fail to consider the bigger picture. They are thinking “change for their own comfort” sake.
The KAI indicator can help identify these folks. They may be better off as self-employed consultants helping to kick start change in many companies.
#2 Executive leaders who communicate a vision of change sometimes have leaders “under them” who nod yes and then resist. True top talent “under them” get very demotivated. They have heard the executive leader’s call to action and feel suffocated by an inept mid-leader’s hidden resistance and fears.
LESSON: Make sure all leaders are on board if you want top talent in the ranks to make it happen and stay motivated.
Kate
Dan, I think you’re right on, in fact, I’d suggest using it as an ‘acid test’ of leadership “if talented people frustrate you, you’re not a leader, you’re a manager’
In a business context:
Managers – seek control
Leaders – seek growth
A core belief of mine is that if work is hard (or frustrating) then one is not working at true purpose. If leading talented people is frustrating, then one should strongly consider stepping down and pursuing excellence, not leadership.
This is fresh on my mind because I just blogged about it today – you can read my experiences at http://themiracleworker.wordpress.com
Something that’s been important for me has been to maintain the focus of our purpose – not to get side-tracked from it. “Our organization’s mission is specific to ______. We don’t at this time also do ______.” Part of this is for the sake of success in our primary goals. It is possible for a restaurant to be excellent at both hamburgers and fried chicken. But in most scenarios, it is more productive and effective to narrow your focus. I think it was Christopher Penn who had an article not too long ago about the perils of spreading yourself too thin and watering down your focus. I really appreciated reading it at the time because it solidified my resolve.
It’s also served well to have a fairly simple straightforward approach that allows some flex room, yet keeps our attention where it needs to be. Maintaining essentially an outline of what we know we have to stick to helps, like a road map. When you know your musts, you have a better framework to consider your possibles.
Being able to say no graciously is a very important skill to me, on a personal as well as professional level. It’s the heart of successful delegation and mediation. And as near and dear to my heart as mediation and communication is, I still struggle with saying no when someone’s really in need. Since I’m known for charity work and helping others, I receive a lot of requests. However, there’s only so much I can personally take on and most of these requests are pro bono. It’s difficult for me to turn people down because yes, I can help them, if there weren’t so many requests in the first place and I didn’t have to feed a family and maintain a business. I am passionate, but I am not infinite. And I feel people’s desperation and disappointment deeply.
To help me strengthen my communication skills to be able to gracefully and compassionately say no and yet not leave someone feeling dis-valued or neglected, I’ve been studying up on a variety of communication skills. This is as much for my benefit as for others and because I seek a solution to still help, without “helping,” if that makes sense.
Along the lines of how to say NO, I’ve been listening to the audio book, “The Power of a Positive No,” by William Ury. His method is essentially what I was striving to learn better on my own. He takes you through a variety of scenarios from parenthood and divorce to international relations and promotes a framework of a clean and simple Yes-No-Yes. Yes to your needs, no to the request, yes to another way. It is simple in nature, though there’s more to applying the principles in a variety of ways. The fact that it presents so many scenarios of applying these principles is really helpful. I recommend it as an effective resource.
Dan,
The reason why I started my own business, hearing, “That’s the way we’ve always done it around here” one too many times.
-Matt
How do you say no to people who have passion and ideas?
To be a bit flippant, my first thought was “it doesn’t matter how you say it” because they’ll come back to you again and again. I think we consider that persistence to be a negative all to often. It is the case with my 11 year old who does not give up, EVER, on a concept he feels strongly about! (I suppose that’s where your “at this time” suggestion comes in.) In a leadership/business/project/school environment, I think we often rush to snuff out those ideas, not having the time/energy to give them their time in the sun because we are on a linear path to where we think we ought to be. When we don’t take the time to honor those ideas, we all miss out. (Think of it like a “scenic outlook” on a highway – staying linear and directed toward the goal but stopping to take a breather while really exploring the vista that’s out there.
Great points Paula. Don’t snuff out the idea, just communicate the ROI the ‘idea’ must include: a) the specific business challenge(s) it will solve for the organization and b) the benefit(s) it will yield c) when those benefits will be seen and d) the negatives/drawbacks. Of course it’s more complex than that but by asking them to think through these problems BEFORE they submit their idea, you’re grounding them in the realities a business leader must consider. This trains them to think in terms of contributing a more complete, realistic idea and given innovation is a process not a destination, this may lead to future ideas. Be sure to communicate why you’re asking for these – that way the talent knows this added background gives their idea a greater likelihood of being implemented. You’re not promising it will be implemented; you’re just having the top talent think through a few of “the barriers of entry.” The talent would likely appreciate the input and respond by working harder (and thinking as a decision maker must think).
To stay with your graphic from ACS, perhaps the top talent also sees that leadership is ‘stuck’ to an old pole that doesn’t get the organization where they need to be headed. Perhaps the leaders are stuck and don’t know it. Leaving the pole quickly hurts like heck, takes time.
Timing plays a partial role in responses to both questions you ask.
What tips can you offer for managing top talent?
Since you have identified that you have ‘top talent’, connect early and often with top talent and ensure they are on board with the VMV and at the same time inquire about their perspective/ perceptions about future vision. Set expectations in both directions. Regularly engage in them in such dialogues…not monologue. Part of your leadership task is also to present timing perspectives, big picture, etc.
How do you say no to people who have passion and ideas?
Others have clearly noted ways to say ‘no’, great stuff! Make sure you, as leader, are not doing the ‘yeah, buts’ too. Often, this is about timing as well. We had a therapist who, after 3+ years was able to get a valuable initiative going and he was venting/frustrated on why it took so long. We had a timing discussion, a bigger picture review and even talked about it in context of planting seeds…some take, some don’t, some take a while and then the combo of sun, rain, nutrients click and fantastic plants appear.
Thanks for the analogy/metaphor of ‘garden of ideas’ (planting ideas, watering, weeding, some grow, some don’t) that was helpful for me for leading idea people so they don’t get frustrated and take a long view.
Thanks!
Passion and new ideas are good things, but sometimes they do need to be contained. It is okay to “think outside the box” , but eventually even the most innovative ideas need to take on the structure of the organization (or needs to reshape the organization.) It is the job of the leader to help top talent mold their ideas into something that is usable.
To manage top talent I often find myself saying “That’s great! How…” or “Then what?”, “What about?”. The point is you have to guide them to a place where their ideas are workable. As working for a non-profit I am finding that budget issues stalls my top talent. In these cases, transparency is the best policy. I challenge them to think about their ideas in the context of our budget. They now know that an idea isn’t an idea until funding is addressed.
Equally true: Top talents are frustrated by lesser leaders! Just because their message isn’t clear and they don’t really know where they’re going to. As said above these so called leaders are managers just managing the present, without the guidance of the bigger long term picture.
Would agree on the need for clarity of vision, mission, objectives, and strategy, Dan, on the basis of my own limited experience in a not-for-profit. Talent is in short supply for the not-for-profits and the retention challenges can be the last straw. This also makes it an interesting engagement. Would like to add that top-talent is not a homogeneous group – I find working with top-talent as engaging as working with a fresh and young bunch, only that the former has more binkers hardened by experience and hence, more challenging to de-freeze and re-freeze. More layers have to be negotiated in their personalities to reach their inner self – this makes it arduous. Impossible it becomes when the people in charge of top talent are not self aware and unwilling to dip into their own insecurities and comprehend why some proaction or reaction of top-talent has frustrated them. Mirroring is another way of understanding why top talent behave the way they do. And, lastly, would say that context is imp. in any decision making involving the top talent, as after all, it is organisational relevance determines whether a person is “top-talent” for an organisation or not.
Bharati,
Just a quick note… I notice a difference between top talent and high potentials which may differentiate the groups you bring up.
Thanks for your comment.
Best Regards,
Dan