Talent Management Monthly Brief: See Through Talent from Different Angles IV Feb. 2016

People are always the most invaluable asset in businesses. “Hiring the right person to the right position at the right time,” is the mantra of many forward-thinking organizations. The question is how would you define the right people? How do you define wrong, average, mediocre, good, great or extraordinary person? Or put simply, for what should they be right? Traditional Performance Management focusing on measuring what an employee does (mainly being told to do) in quantitative way is not sufficient to identify high performance or high potential, should we see through talent from different angles?
See Through Talent from Different Angles Three Questions to Assess a Person’s Advancement Are you an analytical or synthetic thinker? An intuitive or a logical thinker? Are you a critical and independent thinker or the conventional thinker (following conventional wisdom) Etc. To put simply, we are what we think of. Perception is based on one’s thought processes which are influenced by one’s thinking style, cognitive understanding, and knowledge level.  As a matter of fact, the way we think has much of an effect on how we deal with problems, and turn out in our life (though many other things do as well). Some examples might be, who we surround ourselves with, how hard we try to do certain things, whether or not we're repetitive, the communication styles, the career preferences, or the hobbies and entertainment choice, etc.
Three Questions to Assess an Employee’s “Balance” Digital is all about the balance: the balance of the physical and the virtual world; the balance of innovation and standardization; the balance of unconventional insight and accumulated human wisdom. From talent management perspective, should you also assess the “balance” capability of an employee? Surely we don’t expect all employees have gymnast's balance skills, so what does digital balance mean for today’s digital professionals? And what are thought-provoking questions to evaluate their “balance” ability?    
Three Questions to Assess an Employee’s Authenticity: Most of the employees at pyramidal organizations in the industrial age are like cogs in the huge mechanical business wheel, keep working, but lack the big picture about the strategic goals of their organizations as well as lack the imagination about their own potential. Now the new digital paradigm that is emerging is one of a living organization, one that is organic, alive, energetic, fluid, connected and holistic. Every staff is also like a living “cell,” can continue to discover and grow, creative and influential. So an important perspective for either talent managers or employees themselves is to ask tough questions and discover authenticity and purpose of the work, to unleash the collective human potential and business potential as well.
How to Assess a Person’s Intelligence: "Intelligence" is from Latin word “intellego” -Inter-lego: Bind together, read between the lines, or connect the dots. Intelligence has been defined in many different ways such as in terms of one's capacity for logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, emotional knowledge, memory, planning, creativity and problem solving. Intelligence is indeed multidimensional, so how to assess a person’s “intelligence”?
Three Questions to Evaluate a Person’s Perception? Perception is the way you understand someone or something. It is as we see, observe and experience as defined by our mental "band-pass filters." Our mind notices and recognizes some things, but may not do the same for some other things. Our perception is what makes up our worldview, and how do we articulate and convey from what we “see” or understand. Perception is one's interpretation of the reality. So it is very subjective and varies from person to person. How to evaluate a person’s perception, though? The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.3+million page views with about #2500+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. blog posting. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom, to inspire critical thinking and spur healthy debates. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.
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