Uncovering hidden or undervalued talent can lead to big success for organizations. Often, just a sprinkling more information could lead to finding undervalued assets and disproportionately better outcomes. That additional tidbit of data often comes from the social feedback from the individual’s network.
In 2002, the Oakland Athletics, with approximately $41 million in salary, were competitive with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees who spent over $125 million in payroll that same season. Because of the team’s smaller revenues, Oakland was forced to find players undervalued by the market.
Running a professional sports team is no different than running a business. Both want to uncover hidden talent from their farm systems, bubble up undervalued assets, and put the right people in right roles to gain distinct competitive advantages over their competition. The difference? More often than not, the pro sports scouts have clear visibility and insight into their organizational talent, development trajectory of their key players, and insights to actively manage demand and supply of organizational talent. On the other hand, your enterprise talent scouts (HR departments) often do not have the insight and visibility into their organizational talent. They are often unable to lock pivotal talent before it flees to greener pastures. They are often unable to develop bench strength necessary for sustained excellence.
In sports, many elite general managers have clearly recognized that traditional talent metrics are not sufficient for a player to succeed in a specific culture and with a particular group of team members. A lot of emphasis is given to getting social feedback from previous coaches, team members and the entire pro-sports network to uncover unique characteristics and hidden talent. There is also a greater emphasis on statistical metrics such as “plus/minus” that compares team performance when a player is in the game versus when he’s out. The key is often to uncover that undervalued player who may not score or rebound much but excels on the plus/minus metrics. He raises performance of others on the team. His team wins when he is in the game!
Corporate talent scouts (HR executives) can definitely lean on the experience from their pro sports counterparts, take steps towards gaining visibility, uncover hidden talent, polish undervalued assets by developing them and enable their business executives with a sustainable competitive advantage. To gain an edge over their competition, corporate scouts can start looking at not only formal qualifications of an employee but also start looking at social feedback such as how connected, respected, and influential they are within the business network. Their ability to uncover hidden talent, polish undervalued talent, create high performance culture, fast track high potentials, develop leaders and ensure that the talent supply is adequate for fueling their CEO’s growth agenda has a direct impact on competitive agility and success of their business!
A west coast baseball team was able to accelerate the development of their rookie catcher, find an undervalued left-handed late inning pitcher, develop a rookie fifth starter and find undervalued hitters that nobody wanted but became unexpected source of RBI’s and power. The team put together a band of undervalued and seemingly misfit talent who came together to end the torture of 54 years and bring the championship home!
Why not you and your company?
