How to create a Talent Vision | Session 3 of the Talent Planning Process

Time to read: 3 minutes

We put many plans in place in our professional and personal lives, from marketing to health insurance plans. I am guessing you have 15+ plans in place in your life. It is time to add another plan in your professional life – a talent plan.

With over ten million open positions in the United States, people issues remain the #1 issue facing companies today, especially growing companies. So, although we put a plan in place to solve other issues around us, why would we not create a plan to solve our people’s issues?

In this week’s scoop and podcast (click here to listen), we create a talent vision that becomes the target for your company-wide talent plan to solve your people issues and accelerate growth.

This can be a standalone process, or if you are completing the talent planning process with us, this is the last of the three planning sessions. It is time to create a talent vision for your organization.

Session 3: Create the Talent Vision and Execution Cadence

If you just joined us in the process, here is a high-level summary of the talent planning process we have shared to date for you to complete in your organization.

1. Session #1 – Team Development Exercise
2. Session #2 – Strategic Vision
3. Session #3 – Talent Vision & Execution Cadence

The Talent Vision is the functional organizational structure you need by the end of your vision to achieve it. For example: if you developed a 3-year vision (12/31/2024) in session #2, your Talent Vision is the functional structure that needs to be in place by 12/31/2024 to achieve your Strategic Vision. So, if you are $10 million in revenue now and you envision to be $20 million by 12/31/2024, what does your functional structure need to look like by then to support your growth?

In prep for session #3, each homework team takes the functional organizational structure template and prepares their recommended structure that needs to be in place by the end of their strategic vision to achieve it. The homework teams focus on the functions and do not think about the current structure or any of the people in it.

At the start of session #3, each homework team presents its recommended functional structure and talent vision for the organization. This is often the planning team’s favorite exercise as teams love talking about the organizational structure.

After each homework team presents their Talent Vision, then as a planning team, you start at the top of the functional organizational structure and work your way down to all functions in the organization. The beauty of the homework teams is that you get all these ideas on the table and then come together to create the Talent Vision needed to make your Strategic Vision come to life.

As I’ve shared the talent planning process over several scoops/podcasts, the example I’ve used–where Talent Planning came to life for me–is a contract manufacturing company. In our session #3, I remember each homework team presenting their recommended functional structure that needed to be in place to achieve our vision to grow from $5 to $15 million in three years.

One of the homework teams recommended–in their structure–that the Maintenance Manager should be a member of the leadership team. This is because our competence (value proposition) was having the fastest changeovers in the industry. For example, we could change our packaging lines to a new product flavor in about 30 minutes, guaranteeing that our clients would never be out of product, no matter the sales level.

This one idea accelerated the growth of our business from $5 million to $30 million in five years. Not only achieving our initial 3-year vision but well on our way to achieving our second 3-year vision before we sold the company.

Once the planning team agrees on the talent vision, the company leader owns the next steps of creating the 3-year talent plan to achieve the talent vision, which we will cover in the next scoop/podcast.

The last step in session #3 is to set the company goals for the first execution sprint. As the planning team wraps up the final session in the Talent Planning Process, they develop action plans to present their new plan to all their team members and start department planning.

At this stage in the Talent Planning Process, you have created your company’s Strategic Vision, Financial Vision, Talent Vision, and Execution Cadence to make your visions happen.

We have all the plans in place in our lives, but I can say with 100% certainty that few plans will bring greater value to your organization than a talent plan.

Remember, Those Who Talent Plan—PROFIT.