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A High-Potential Employees Program Cultivates Future Stars in Arlington, TX

How a High Potentials Leadership Development Program Helps Develop Executive Talent and Leadership Teams in the Arlington area

Whether you need to fill leadership positions now or you’re looking for future managers and innovators, identifying and developing top talent within your organization is critical. Some of the individuals most likely to succeed in leadership roles are known as high-potential employees, or HiPos. These gifted individuals tend to have natural communication, leadership, critical thinking and risk evaluation skills that help them see the big picture and navigate learning opportunities and change quickly. By identifying and investing in these individuals, you can ensure your organization has innovative team players and leaders at every level. Your HiPos benefit from employee development programs by learning to leverage their skill sets and natural talents for personal and company growth.

What Are High-Potential Employees and Why Should You Develop Them?

The first step in creating a successful high-potential employee program is understanding what high-potential employees are and why it is so important to develop them.

In their Harvard Business Review article, “Are You a High Potential”, Douglas A. Ready, Jay A. Conger and Linda A. Hill describe HiPos as possessing the following characteristics:

• A drive to excel: these employees are not simply high achievers. They are willing to do whatever it takes and make sacrifices to be the best.
• A catalytic learning ability: high potential employees don't just soak up knowledge like a sponge; they know how to convert knowledge into productive actions that get results.
• An enterprising spirit: high-potential employees are trailblazers. Never satisfied with the status quo, they are always seeking new challenges and figuring out better ways to do things.
• Dynamic sensors: the most promising leaders are always on alert for the next big thing. This can make them difficult to manage. If they can't sense a long-term career payoff where they are, they often get wandering eyes.

This combination of traits makes HiPos ideal candidates to guide your company into the future. But it also means they need the right guidance and training to keep their vision and goals reconciled with those of your business. Left to their own devices, they can easily get derailed and go rogue. The master trainers at Turnkey Coaching & Development Solutions understand the psychology of HiPos. We can help you build an effective high potential leadership program that strategically grooms them to steer your company to long-term success.

The Need for a High Potentials Leadership Development Program Increases as the Talent Pool Becomes Smaller

Consider that the current Baby Boomer generation - those born between 1946 and 1964 - are retiring in droves, at a rate of about 10,000 per day. This means that the HiPo employees pool is becoming smaller and younger. Your company needs to be ready to address leadership development for high-potential employees in the coming years as more managers, experienced leaders and upper-level executives retire. In one survey conducted by Brandon Hall’s Research, entitled The State of Leadership Development 2015, it was found that the challenge of developing a qualified group of professionals becomes even more challenging when you realize that 84 percent of organizations anticipate a shortfall of leaders within the next five years. Younger potentials might be too inexperienced to take on powerful leadership roles. They need to be developed, cultivated and trained so that their talents can be used in effective ways. For the right employees, HiPo leadership development programs do just that.

Our high potential employee assessment and HiPo development programs are nothing like the run-of-the-mill leadership programs you've likely sent your employees to before. We do not host one-day or one-week events where your company leaders mingle with executives from other firms and listen to so-called "trainers" rehash the same hackneyed leadership clichés that, by now, are probably seared into your brain.

Instead, we evaluate your company and its specific needs; then, we build a program from the ground up to meet them. We customize every program using high potential employee development best practices, including:

• Needs analysis using our high-potential employee assessment tools
• Culture analysis
• Employee level and experience
• Creating a "coach approach"
• Long-term sustainability
• Human resources integration and even ‘train the trainer’ options

Your hi potential employees get the opportunity to work with master trainers who specialize in developing high-potential employees. They have helped many businesses get the most out of their workforce and create seamless transitions between generations of leaders. Our master trainers HiPo program experts put their knowledge, experience and vast resources to work for your business.

What Do High-Potential Employees Look Like?

One of the reasons companies struggle to discern between high-potential employees and other high achievers is that they sometimes look the same, especially if all you consider on a regular basis are performance metrics. In fact, a potential HiPo that hasn’t been developed is actually likely to have lackluster performance metrics, especially if they’ve done the same task for some time and are bored with the work. At Turnkey Coaching & Development Solutions, we encourage executives, managers and HR staff to look beyond performance metrics. Through regular communication and working side-by-side with your staff — and even participating in team development programs with them — you can better identify individuals who have traits associated with HiPos. Some traits to look for include:

• Big picture understanding and thinking. HiPos don’t like to stay in a box, so they don’t think inside the box. They ask questions and seek information about the big picture; these are the employees who want to know why their task is important and what happens to work before and after they touch it. Big picture thinking lets HiPos integrate easily into teams, work for the good of both themselves and the organizations and react more proactively to changes — especially if you’ve invested in their development.
• Collaborative outlook. High-potential employees can shine, but they don’t have to. They have excellent natural communication and collaboration skills, and with the right HiPo leadership development or team development programs, your high-potential staff can even inspire and lead others to shine. That means more employees meeting goals and engaging in projects that really matter, which contributes to individual and company success as well as increased morale and a positive team culture.
• Easily adapts to change. High-potential employees roll with the punches in a way that is more skillful than laissez faire. It’s not that HiPos allow themselves to be shepherded through change without complaint; it’s that they expect change, are ready for it and find ways to make the most of it. They are agile critical thinkers who aren’t derailed by new challenges.
  

You can see how many of these traits would make someone a great leader. While it’s true that not all HiPos will rise to executive ranks (or even want to be in such a position), but by investing in leadership development for your high-potential employees, you help draw out all these positive skills. Our coaches and master trainers develop HiPo programs that integrate your mission and vision, so high-performing individuals as well as your high-potential employees are ready to return to teams and departments with actionable knowledge and increased awareness of their own skill sets.

Traditional day or week-long high potential employee development programs might seem like an easy way to develop your high-potential employees — after all, that's what other companies are doing, right? — but think about how many such programs you've attended in your career. Then ask yourself, "Am I really a better leader because I attended a few formulaic leadership conferences?"

If you want real results, you need a customized HiPo employee development program custom-built just for your company and with high potential development programs best practices. That's what our master trainers and certified coaches at Turnkey Coaching & Development Solutions have to offer. Typically, we work with both large and small groups of high potential employees to create a comprehensive training and HiPo development program crafted around your goals that prime your business for success.

What kind of background do your master trainers have?

Many of our master trainers have 10+ years corporate experience, thousands of hours of executive coaching, and have served as corporate executives themselves or had Fortune 500 companies as clients. In addition, many of them hold advanced degrees such as MBAs and Ph.Ds.

What kinds of results can my company expect?

The goal of our high potential employee assessment and development training programs is to first establish the results you hope to achieve and then design our program to offer the best chance of seeing those results. Perhaps your organization seeks to reduce turnover, or improve innovation, or perhaps your executives are within retiring age and you want to ensure a ready-now bench of competent leaders.  We can design a high potential employee development program to address these needs and more. In fact, many of our clients have reported increased productivity, better organizational strength, cost reductions, higher bottom-line productivity and many other positive results.

How much does a high-potential employee development program cost?

Because we custom design each program based on the client's individual needs, it is impossible to quote an exact cost up front. What we can tell you is this: We offer a variety of participation levels that let you choose the intensity and duration of the high potential development program based on your budget and the time your organization has available to invest.

Gifted individuals frequently excel without encouragement, but they do even better when placed in a custom-built high potential development program. HiPo programs are carefully constructed to bring out the best in your most promising people, so your investment pays off in the long run. Well-developed leaders tend to inspire their peers as well as the staff members who report to them directly, and inspired employees tend to deliver consistently great results. In a nutshell, the right executive development program applied to the right people can make your company a leader in its field.

 

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