Hack:
Building the Leadership Pipeline through Cyclical Recpiprocity

By Reggie Clark

November 30, 2011 at 1:10pm

Summary

Investment and performance are the underpinnings of building a successful leadership pipeline. These two decision points are the beginning and the end of talent management strategies.

Problem

As the workforce becomes increasingly diverse, in many ways, organizations are trying to find ways to uniformly recruit and retain top talent. Current processes often leave managers, as well as employees, confused about opportunities for professional growth and advancement. This leads to turnover, loss of productivity and can negatively impact organizational culture.

Solution

Cyclical Reciprocity (CR) focuses on Organizational Investment and Employee Performance and the development of a perpetual cycle that results in the ultimate expression of the employment contract. CR poses one main question:
1. Is a given employee's performance worth continued organizational investment?

The next step is two decision points:
1.Does employee performance merit further investment?
2. What needs to be done to continue maximizing employee performance (mentoring, resources, training...)?

This is done under the scope of the organization mission, vision and business strategies and tightly woven around organizational values; while being supported by organizational cultural and core competencies. Organizations can now focus on two decision points that lead to objective criteria for deciding organiational investments in employee performance.

Practical Impact

This provides a framework for an objective performance management system while providing flexibility in the process. Investment will differ by employee (age, organizational level, job function...). However it is a sturdy framework that ensures decisions are based on the rigidity of organizational values.

First Steps

Track three employees (high performer, steady Eddie, low perfromer), look at the performance of each and the amount, and type, of investments the organization has made in each. Chances are the high perforemer was "fast-tracked" with many investments (training, mentoring, education) to aid his or her performance. The "steady Eddie" probably experienced investments of annual raises and other forms of recognition to recognize "steady" but not stellar contributions to the organization. The low performer most likely received very little investment such as a cost-of-living adjustments and continued to perform poorly.

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