Dividends with Lee Meadows: Your company can buy talent or make talent

by Lee Meadows for Oakland Business Review
Thursday October 16, 2008, 5:05 AM

The next skill set needed by managers and the organizations they serve will be knowing how to broaden the search for badly needed talent without making it seem like an Indiana Jones adventure.

The nature of an organization has little relevance as to whether or not it is equipped to locate and select good people to fill the talent void. Most organizations don't recognize that there is a problem until a noticeable percentage of their workforce is strutting down Project 'Done, Wave' while smiling at the receptionist.

The choice of where to divert limited resources, in an attempt to remain competitive, is the classic 'make' or 'buy' dilemma that confronts most senior managers. On the one hand, time, energy and effort can be channeled to a revolving door hiring process in which talent is 'bought' by way of a decent hourly wage, benefits and the always appealing element of being employed.
This kind of 'buy' decision recognizes that success is measured by the number of people who do not make it past the 30-, 60- and 90-day cycle of employment, and it relies heavily on casting a wide net among employable adults and hoping that of those who are brought in, a few hang on long enough to become good employees.

Unfortunately, this kind of repetitive occurrence is akin to what Bill Murray experienced in the movie, 'Groundhog Day'. It keeps repeating itself, and it always will, until something drastic takes place. Meantime, a reckless cycle of net casting frontloads the organization key resources by having them engaged in a non-stop pattern of 'hiring' interviews that do nothing more than bandage the problem.

Usually the 'buy' decision is tied to an internal structure in which management training, leadership development and communication skills are avoided because they are seen as 'fluff' and have no basis in reality. The impact of a well-trained manager is, apparently, less visible to the naked eye when compared to the physical reality of actually seeing a body sitting in a chair, so what if it's only for 30 days.

On the other hand, the 'make' decision moves the use of resources from the front end to the internal core of the organization.

The process focus is on the retention, development and elevation of internal talent through a series of carefully planned experiences that are more than just watching a seat being warmed for 30 days. A manager is now actively engaged in working with staff members to draw out the best thinking, skill acquisition and knowledge expansion needed to sustain an ongoing competitive advantage.

When an organization commits to 'make' the talent, the support comes directly from the organization by way of management training programs that go above and beyond 'Supervision 101'. Managers are required to do more than just 'direct' - they are required to provide guidance and constructive feedback, insure development and position themselves as their organizations' emissaries to the employees performing the tasks.

Managers working within a 'make' talent structure understand the importance of consistently meeting with employees to discuss organizational, professional and personal goals to insure that there is an alignment that allows the employee to progress forward. Far from creating a therapeutic community, the manager understands that tone, tempo and temperature are established through their individual style and their approach to creating the set of organizational conditions that allow for the 'making' of good talent.

At a time when talent retention is an ongoing issue for organizations that employ 'Gen Y'ers' and 'Millennials', whose mindset starts with the career portfolio as opposed to the career ladder, then the choice between 'make' or 'buy' talent will have implications for organizational performance in ways that are still unrealized. Lee Meadows is a management professor at Walsh College in Troy and a motivational speaker. He can be reached at (248) 679-1435 or lmeadows@walshcollege.edu.