Keep it in the Family - What You Can Learn From Your Talent Family Tree
“Like a tree, a family is born, flourishes, branches out or withers.”
(The Genesis of the Family Tree, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber)
For centuries, trees have been used as a graphic to illustrate a family’s lineage -- its members and branches over many generations and their relationships to one another. Until recently, few of these family trees were preserved and widely shared, but fortunately with the popularity of platforms like 23 and Me that is changing.
A recent romp through my own well-researched and digitally enhanced family tree uncovered relatives I didn’t know I had, where they originally came from, where they migrated to over the centuries and, thanks to DNA, even what their health might be like in the future. All this information in turn revealed far more than just the name of the guy hanging from that branch over my head. So, naturally, I could not resist the urge to extend the family tree metaphor to my work as a talent and career development practitioner.
WHAT IS A TALENT FAMILY?
A family is commonly defined as “a group of individuals united by blood, marriage or adoption…” But that same definition goes on to include individuals united by “other close association, contact or familiarity.” This may be why employees often refer to their work unit as “my work family” – and why their managers might do well to think of their employees as “my talent family.”
I define “talent family” as a collection of individuals united by close association, contact or familiarity who operate collaboratively in pursuit of shared business objectives and independently in pursuit of individual career goals. And I believe there would be great value in graphically representing this dynamic in the form of a talent family tree.
Imagine a family tree that would record your organization’s talent lineage. A lineage that would document where a manager’s talent family had originated and how it had evolved -- or not. A lineage that would provide insight into an individual’s talent and career trajectories. A lineage that would provide both a picture of an organization’s talent history and a record of how skilled its management had been at keeping it in the family.
DOES TALENT RUN IN YOUR FAMILY – OR FROM IT?
If you were to research your own organization’s talent history, what would you find? How many family members left your family and under what circumstances? How many did you inspire and coach to expand and grow for the health of the tree, even if it meant watching them move to another branch? How many times did you provide a job-sharing opportunity that helped an employee realize a career goal without leaving the larger family? Your talent family tree would capture all this information and more because it is more than a record of who has been hired and fired. A talent family tree is about all the individuals who have worked in your organization during your tenure. It’s about who left and why, who stayed on your branch, who grew in place and who outgrew you but expanded their career in the larger organization under another manager. And maybe it’s even about who is weighing it down now– but that’s another article.
Plus, if you manage other managers, their talent family trees will also tell you which of them is a “talent grower” and which is a “talent hoarder.” A talent grower’s family tree will show evidence of employees being shared or moved to other parts of your organization for the greater good of the larger enterprise. A talent hoarder’s family tree will cause observers to ask questions like, “Why has Justin been in the same role for so long?” or “Are you retaining talent or just detaining it?”
ARE YOU RETAINING TALENT OR JUST DETAINING IT?
“Retain” means “continue to have, cherish, perpetuate, maintain.” “Detain,” on the other hand, means “to keep from proceeding; to hold back, delay, slow down or set back.” Managers who retain talent will cherish, perpetuate and maintain it by encouraging it to both “grow and go.” Managers who simply detain talent, however, while they may receive kudos for keeping it in the family, may be putting both the talent and the wider organization at risk by hoarding it for their own benefit rather than retaining it for the whole enterprise. Counter-intuitive? Not really.
“Go,” in the context of talent, has many forms. Unfortunately, it most often refers to the act of leaving a company because of dissatisfaction with management, lack of development opportunities, or career stagnation. But it can also describe what happens when talent moves from one group to another within the existing “work family,” takes on stretch or temporary assignments or pursues internal gigs. The first should be avoided, but the other three should be rewarded.
WHAT IS YOUR TALENT LEGACY?
Managers create a talent legacy whether they intend to or not. A legacy is the historically significant achievements of an individual’s tenure -- often referred to less elegantly as “what you leave behind.” A talent legacy, then, could be defined as “the historically significant achievements of a talent manager’s tenure.” As such, it will be determined in large part by how skilled they are at helping talent to stay inside and grow.
As talent managers, we all want to leave behind a good legacy -- one that is respected and remembered, one that attests to the significant achievements we made on behalf of both the talent we guided and the larger enterprise we supported. One that identifies us not as mere talent herders or hoarders, but as heroes who grew the whole family tree as well as our own branch. One who was not afraid to move valuable talent to richer branches. A talent family tree can memorialize that legacy.
