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Channeling Star Power with a High-Potential Employees Program in Pasadena, TX

How High Potentials Leadership Development Programs Shape the Future of Your Company in the Pasadena area

Training new leaders for your organization is a vital task, but it's not always easy to identify those with leadership potential. A program designed to tap the talents of high-potential individuals, sometimes called a HiPo program, can make a substantial contribution to the future of any organization. When high-potential individuals aren't recognized and challenged, they're likely to leave for greener pastures where their worth is acknowledged and where they see opportunities for leadership development. Yet few organizations go out of their way to identify, train, and utilize HiPo employees. Developing a high potentials leadership program is one proven way to motivate these employees to make long-term commitments to an organization in a way that maximizes results not only for the company, but for the employees as well.

Who are High-Potential Employees?

High-potential employees are a relatively rare breed. They’re people who rise successively through multiple management levels, inspire the individuals in their departments and achieve consistently good results. When business owners identify high-potential employees — also known as HiPos — early on, they can develop their most promising leaders via HiPo programs. While all employees deserve effective training programs, high-quality High potential development programs are especially vital to success because they strengthen company structure and prepare businesses for the future.

What Do High-Potential Development Programs Do?

Essentially, well-conceived HiPo development programs take individuals with great leadership potential and develop those management skills to the max. Department heads and other leaders identify high-potential talent, typically through proven employee potential assessment tools and then invite the HiPos to enter a leadership development program in which they are granted access to interdisciplinary learning opportunities, given real-world challenges to solve and are coached and mentored on a one-to-one basis. Your high-potential candidates then use their newly honed skills to excel in their existing roles and advance smoothly through the ranks.

One of the best peripheral payoffs of a great high potential employee development program is its effect on other employees, who reap many benefits when their managers go through advanced training and development initiatives.  High otential development programs frequently cause positive paradigm shifts when they’re properly implemented, making both individuals and the companies they work for more successful.

Identifying High-Potential Employees

In a recent study by the Harvard Business Review, 98 percent of companies surveyed said that they deliberately identified high-potential employees. However, half of respondents said that they spent less than 10 percent of their time actually developing those potential future leaders. If the HBR study is a reliable indicator of the wider marketplace, then we can conclude that a sizable proportion of all companies don’t adequately leverage their existing talent bases. The first step on the road to high-potential employee development is HiPo identification. Though different companies have different criteria they use to ID talent, most businesses agree that HiPo personnel share the following characteristics:

• They outpace and outperform their peers in a variety of work-based situations
• They achieve superior results and simultaneously exemplify company values
• They are upwardly mobile and display healthy ambition

According to the same Harvard Business Review survey, most businesses place the top 3 to 5 percent of their most gifted employees in the high potential category.

Why Are HiPo Development Programs Vital?

Naturally talented people are tremendously useful and add value to any corporation. But talent isn’t enough to guarantee either personal or overall success. Talent is a tool: when used correctly, it can broker deals, cut through red tape and break quarterly sales records. When neglected, however, talent alone doesn’t breed accomplishment.

High Potential employee development programs help kindle talent and drive success in three distinct ways, particularly if HiPo employees are identified early in their careers:

1. High potential leadership development programs focus on methods for success as well as results. In the regular business world, bonuses and accolades frequently depend upon results alone, but in the high-potential world, methods matter too. High-potential managers don’t use negative reinforcement or bullying to make staff members work harder, for example — even if those tactics break sales records.

2. Effective high potentials leadership programs help guide early-stage high-potentials as they make developmental decisions. The earlier high-potential employees go into a HiPo development program, the more quickly they’ll develop and the further they’ll go. When companies develop high performing individuals expediently, they set themselves up for ongoing success.

3. High potential employee development programs help prevent burnout. When left to their own devices, driven individuals often push themselves to the brink of total exhaustion. High-potential development programs help HiPo employees pace themselves, so they stay healthier in the long term and remain loyal to the company.

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.

When to Hone High-Potential Employees

Most businesses identify high-potential employees at two key points: early in their careers and when individuals are promoted into senior management positions. Opportunities for growth abound at both junctures, though a high potential development program and corresponding training methods used may vary.

• Early-stage HiPo development courses leverage technology, internal mentoring, cross-functional exposure initiatives and existing resources to hone skill in a cost-efficient way. The earlier high-potential individuals begin training, the further they may go.
• Succession planning initiatives that include middle-management and later stage high potentials can embrace high potential development programs best practices by leveraging the experience and knowledge of more senior employees.  Often this type of program requires more customization and thus a little more investment, but can reliably help talented managers and even executives excel in senior management positions. An effective high-potential employee program does not exclude late-blooming high potentials. In fact, the more experienced hipos add significant value and depth to an executive potential program. We encourage our clients to consider a customized, top-down development approach to capture the wealth of experience gained in a lifetime on the job.

In either case, effective HiPo development programs help drive company growth and give businesses unique competitive advantages.

High Potential Leadership Development FAQs

Q: Why are high potential employee development programs so important?

A: Whenever possible, all employees at a business should be given access to high-quality training programs. Having said that, high-potential employees require special attention because they function as key players in your company and hold the power to influence others. Furthermore, developing high potential employees has been shown to reduce turnover, improve innovation, and positively impact the bottom line.

Q: What makes a HiPo development program great?

A: Superior high-potential programs are tailor made for your particular company and built to help your particular batch of HiPo employees succeed. An effective high potential program should consider your company’s mission, values, leadership competencies, and strategic trajectory.  

Additionally, a qualified high potential program partner will customize the program to meet the needs of any level of employee while still challenging your most experienced HiPos.  

Your high potential employee development program should be built using best practices and include various components such as high potential employee assessment tools, feedback and development planning, one-on-one coaching and/or peer to peer coaching, leadership competency instruction, real-business simulations, shark tank style capstone projects to build business acumen, internal mentoring, and cross-organizational introductions, etc.  

There’s no such thing as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ HiPo program.  Instead, we encourage you to give TurnKey a call at 281-469-4244 to explore the right components for your employee development needs, budget, culture, and strategic priorities.

Q: How do High Potential Leadership Programs benefit my business?

After a successful high-potential employee development program concludes, participants return to their roles with renewed vigor, tackle challenges with fresh enthusiasm and advance to new management positions with greater confidence.   The comradery built within the program, amongst their peers, continues to thrive and supports greater networking and interpersonal effectiveness.

Providing your high-potential employees with a career plan and development opportunities fosters a happier culture. And, according to a recent Columbia University study happy company cultures have a turnover rate of 13.9 percent on average; compared to their counterparts with lower morale, where turnover is more likely to be in the 48.4 percent range.

Furthermore, according to the Department of Economics and the University of Warwick, happy employees are 12 percent more productive than average employees.  The research also showed that unhappy employees cost American businesses more than $300 billion annually.

The case is strong to take your high potential employee development goals seriously.

It can be tempting to believe that high-potential employees simply succeed by themselves, but, in fact, they benefit greatly from targeted learning and development. A carefully constructed high potential development program can help gifted individuals stay on track, stick to long-term goals and make the most of their abilities. Moreover, well-conceived HiPo programs help truly talented employees advance into fantastic leaders you can count on as your company evolves. In short, when you make a relatively minor investment into your most promising employees, you’ll likely receive big dividends later on.

 

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