Peter Cheese wrote the book on talent management—literally. Cheese, managing director of Accenture's Human Performance practice is co-author of The Talent Powered Organization: Strategies for Globalization, Talent Management and High Performance. The book lays out some of his major thoughts around defining, discovering, developing and deploying top talent today. "There is simply not enough talent to go around," Cheese says. "This is the reality." Because of that realization, talent and talent management has become one of the top priorities—if not the top priority—for many companies. "It is a very exciting space to be in," Cheese says. "Talent management has been lurking in the shadows too long, and now it has its moment in the sun. These talent issues have flown right up to the top of business agendas; everybody is talking about them. That makes it an incredibly great space to be in as a consultant."
And indeed, Cheese spends most of his time trying to convince clients that talent management, and the HR function in general, needs to be more of a strategic player.
"This whole debate needs to be put on strategic footing. We haven't invested nearly enough in HR," Cheese says. "The nature of the debate has become so much more strategic, and that's really the basis of how we've built the human performance practice at Accenture. This is a top issue for clients, and they still need a lot of help in this area."
Other areas include the recognition that efforts need to focus on talent throughout the organization, not just the top talent or the rainmakers, he says. Also, the talent management practices within an organization need to be connected. In other words, recruiting needs to know what career development and training is taking place and vice versa. And finally, companies must have accurate and reliable measurement and metrics around all aspects of talent management.
Cheese says he's always been "immensely passionate" about the people aspect of business, including an educational background that includes a degree in industrial organizational psychology. He's also spent a good deal of his consulting career in technology and recognizes the continuing overlap of the two as the next big phase in talent management.
"It's a fascinating time. We have a social revolution going on in terms of how people collaborate, communicate, connect and share knowledge," Cheese says. "And it's not only happening in broader society, it's happening in the corporate world." It also presents the opportunity to see how companies are going to adapt and apply new thinking to some pretty old theories of management practice.
For sure, some companies have had trouble adjusting, like the one that decided to ban Facebook for all of its employees. "Is that your long-term strategy?" Cheese says he asked the company's leadership. "Because it can't be. That's got to be a short-term reaction to something you don't understand. New and emerging technologies, such as collaboration tools, wikis and social networking sites, will revolutionize how we work, how we learn and how we connect."
Some of that, in part, will be addressed in Cheese's next book, The Workforce of One, which is slated for a mid-2009 release. "Its main focus is how we attract and develop very specific workforce segments," he says. "That's my next step on this journey."
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