The Art of Early Talent Spotting

Stories abound about situations where individuals and groups that went on to great performance levels were passed over (or nearly overlooked) in the early stages of their careers. Talent isn’t always easy to recognize early on, and the challenges in distinguishing potential from performance aren’t new. However, the increasing pace of change in most industries coupled with alternative opportunities from competing organizations means that most firms can’t afford to overlook emerging talent as much as in the past. Spotting future leaders “early” means spotting them in their initial jobs and roles. This means looking for signs of potential that do not necessarily correlate with current performance metrics. Since leadership potential isn’t always embedded in early jobs and roles where it can be easily demonstrated, we need processes to spot the “glimmers” of potential that manifest themselves in less-than-systematic ways. We also need systems that help organizations sort out those glimmers from the day-to-day noise. All cases will be somewhat different, and talent spotting probably leans more toward an art than a science. The point isn’t to be 100 per cent accurate, but to leverage more critical development time by looking for serious leadership potential while it’s in the glimmer stage, but understanding that glimmers aren’t constant in frequency or equal in brightness.

• Human resources
• leadership development
• talent spotting
• IBJ Insights