The Major Missing Point That Should Keep CEO’s Up at Night

A couple of days ago, I was doing research in preparation for developing a survey. So I Googled, “What Keeps CEOs Up at Night?” Several articles came up and videos about this topic. As I read through the articles and listened of the videos, I made the following list:

What Keeps CEO’s Up at Night

·         Feeling overwhelmed with own to do list

·         Cybersecurity

·         Retention

·         Engaged workforce

·         Aging workforce

·         Talent management

·         Talent pipeline

·         Operating in a fast paced global marketplace

·         Setting direction and tone for company

·         Maintaining consistent company culture across different regions

·         Leading company amid shifting regulations and legislation

·         Setting priorities

·         Setting others up for success

·         Negative surprise

·         Lack of meaningful data in the organization

·         Performance of Executive team

·         Executive team not acting with urgency

·         Lack of control over company direction

·         Having an aligned strategy

·         Innovation - staying relevant

·         Finding and cultivating talent

·         Monetary stability

·         Keeping the peace

·         Customer satisfaction

·         State of economy

This is a pretty big list of concerns that surely would keep me awake at night too. But, there is one MAJOR point missing. Do you have the right people in manager roles?

In the State of the American Manager (2015), Gallup has uncovered that Organizations fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for the manager job a whopping 82% of the time.

This is a staggering statistic. Even worse news, Gallup has found that only 10% of working people possess the talent to be a great manager.

Gallup defines “talent” as the natural capacity for excellence. Talents are innate and are the building blocks of great performance. Knowledge, experience and skills develop our talents into strengths, but unless we possess the right innate talents for our job, no amount of training or experience will lead to exceptional performance.

Gallup defines a “manager” as someone who is responsible for leading a team toward common objectives. This individual takes the direction set forth by the organization’s leadership and makes it actionable at the local level.

Referring to the list above on what keeps CEOs up at night:

·       How many of those bullet points could be eliminated if your organization had the right talent in management roles?

·       Does your organization attempt to fix bad managers with training? By the way, no amount of training can fix a bad manager.

Gallup’s research shows that only 1 in 10 people have the natural, God-given talent to manage a team of people. Another 2 in 10 people have some of the key talents and can become successful managers with the right coaching and development. Hence, my question “Do you have the right people in manager jobs?”

So what makes a great manager? According to Gallup, great managers possess a rare combination of five talents. They motivate their employees, assert themselves to overcome obstacles, create a culture of accountability, build trusting relationships and make informed, unbiased decisions for the good of their team and company.

Talent Dimension	High-Talent Managers	Limited-Talent Managers
Motivator	They challenge themselves and their teams to continually improve and deliver distinguished performance.	They lack excitement about and expectations for outcomes and allow team performance to stagnate.
Assertiveness	They overcome challenges, adversities and resistance.	They struggle to create change or drive performance improvement.
Accountability	They ultimately assume responsibility for their teams’ successes and create the structure and processes to help their teams deliver on expectations.	They fail to organize the workflow of teams, making it more difficult to meet performance expectations.
Relationships	They build a positive, engaging work environment where their teams create strong relationships with one another and with clients.	They suffer from the dysfunction of teams that lack cohesion and disengage employees and clients alike.
Decision-Making	They solve the many complex issues and problems inherent to the role by thinking ahead, planning for contingencies, balancing competing interests and taking an analytical approach.	They seek the convenient solution over the best solution, not taking into account all of the pertinent information and/or complexities.

The majority of managers do not possess these five talents. According to Gallup’s, 18% of current managers have the high talent required of their role, while 82% do not have high talent. Bad managers cost businesses billions of dollars each year, and having too many of them can bring down a company. On the other hand, Companies that hire managers based on talent realize a 48% increase in profitability, a 22% increase in productivity, a 30% increase in employee engagement scores, a 17% increase in customer engagement scores and a 19% decrease in turnover. It is proven that when organizations hire managers based on talent, they will thrive and gain a significant competitive advantage.

People can learn skills, develop knowledge, and gain experience, but they cannot acquire talent — it is innate. When individuals have the right talent for their job role, they are engaged, productive, and energized by their work. But for others whose talent is not the best fit for their job role, they tend to “check-out” at work, are not engaged, less productive, and are generally unhappy at work.

Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units. Gallup’s study of employee engagement found that just 30% of U.S. workers are engaged, demonstrating a clear link between poor managing and a nation of “checked out” employees.

The percentage of engaged managers is only somewhat higher than the percentage of engaged employees. Gallup research has found that 35% of managers are engaged, 51% are not engaged and 14% are actively disengaged.

I will ask this question again in a different way, “Does your company have the right talent managing the organization’s workforce?

Talent is the strongest predictor of performance in any role. As a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach and former Human Resources Professional, I have expertise in consulting with organizations to create human capital strategies that put talent at the core to attract, recruit, assess, hire, onboard and develop managers. In addition, I coach managers to develop their talents into strengths, and to develop career paths, reward systems, and ongoing training based on their team’s talents.

Want to know more information so you can sleep well at night? Just fill out the contact form on my website www.beckiejorgensen.com and let's chat!