Hemant Minocha: Talent In A Changing World TotalPicture Radio Interview Transcript from the IACPR

Welcome to TotalPicture Radio's exclusive coverage of the International Association for Corporate and Professional Recruitment (IACPR) Global Conference. The theme of this year's event: 2010 and Beyond: Forging New Talent Paths.

This podcast from the IACPR conference in Philadelphia is brought to you by Riviera Advisors, a premier global human resources consulting firm that helps organizations worldwide improve their internal recruiting and staffing capabilities. Visit rivieraadvisors.com/podcasts to access interviews from the IACPR Global Conference and other thought leaders in HR and recruiting.

Companies everywhere in all industries are wrestling with the impact of the global economy, changing workforce demographics and increased competition. Which critical workforce challenges are companies facing today? How are they handling them? What can your organization expect three years from now?

Welcome to a special inside recruiting channel podcast on TotalPicture Radio. This is Peter Clayton reporting from the International Association for Corporate and Professional Recruitment (IACPR) Global Conference in Philadelphia.

Joining me is Hemant Minocha, global leader for HR strategy and transformation, human capital management practice, IBM. His presentation at the IACPR Global Conference included data from a just released global survey IBM conducted to address talent supply demand, ways to motivate collaboration and innovation through the organization, and how to attract and retain valued executives now and in the future, and how to prepare for the rocky road that lies ahead.

Hemant, thank you so much for taking time to speak with us today on TotalPicture Radio.

Hemant: Thank you for having me, Peter.

Peter: You just made a very interesting and very impressive presentation. The title of this is Cultivating Creative Leaders, which I find fascinating because I keep hearing all this stuff from organizations about leadership development and the problems that they're having. You just did a whole major study so you can tell us a little bit about the study that you've done and some of the findings.

Hemant: I'm happy to do that, Peter. This study that Peter is referring to is a study that has been conducted over the last six months across the world, where we have interviewed 700 chief human resource officers of organizations of all sizes, both from the public sector and the private sector.

The purpose of the study is to understand what are some of the current and emerging issues and problems and opportunities in the area of human capital management as seen through the lens of the leaders of that particular function across the world.

The study really focuses on three key findings and resulting opportunities to do something different. One is the challenge of fostering, of developing creative leaders for the future. Our clients, our respondents are telling us that that's the single most important issue for them at this point in time, both of the impact it can have on the business and also an issue in that they are least prepared to be successful in that area.

The second area that the study focuses on is the need to more rapidly develop skills and capabilities to be responsive to the ever changing needs of the business.

The third area that the study focuses on is the need for a significant increase in the use of collective intelligence in an organization, suggesting that there is a significant gap between where clients and organizations want to be with respect to collaboration and knowledge sharing and what they've actually been able to accomplish so far.

Peter: One of the things I find so fascinating about this is we hear a lot about leadership development but I have yet to hear a leader such as yourself come in and refer to creative leaderships. Where does the creative fit in to this?

Hemant: Peter, that's a good question. Again, to the point I mean earlier, the focus really is that what has worked in the past in terms of both the style of leadership, as well as the substance of leadership is undergoing change; the focus of these organizations in the future is going to be less about managing the business. It's about finding opportunities for business, whether it be in terms of penetrating new markets or developing new products, or it is question of how business models are going to be selected in the future, how do they combine businesses with the third parties where they don't have any ownership interests.

There is a significant amount of shift in not only executing extremely well to a given business model, but more creatively creating new business models - creating new markets. Creating new products where none exist and therefore, the emphasis on creativity has become a lot more important than execution which may have been an important factor in the yester years.

Peter: One of the slides that you showed today – 45% of companies in India plan on increasing head count in North America and 44% in Europe. Where are those folks going to come from? How you are you going to get them into the United States with all of the visa problems we're currently having?

Hemant: Again, there are two parts to your question. One is the fact that companies all over the world are seeking talent at this point in time. There are companies in the US and Western Europe that are seeking talent in markets that they are emerging into namely; China, India, Brazil, and other parts of the world. But at the same time, these successful companies in India and China are trying to grow in markets beyond their own border. They are trying to at this point in time understand how will they source the leaders they need in these markets. Not everybody is right for the US market. Even if they had a visa, they would not be the right people to necessarily be successful in these markets.

The challenge is how do you rapidly acquire, develop, deploy talent when you're going both ways. The American-European companies are entering nontraditional markets for them and the Chinese-Indian companies are entering nontraditional markets for them. There's a cross exchange that needs to take place and therefore, lies the question of how best are we going to develop and deploy talent across many different spectrums?

Peter: Of course that also brings up the point, Hemant, that the US companies are very aggressively still recruiting in places like India and China. Now that Chinese and Indian companies are recruiting as well, there's only so much talent out there, right? We got interrupted, what, three times coming in to do this interview by people working for global companies wanting to share that kind of information with you that they're facing challenges in markets like China and in markets like India, trying to find talent.

Hemant: That's a very important point. One of the last questions we had on the session, one of the ladies asked the question that - why is it that in the relative importance of the ability to source talent outside the organization, companies feel relatively comfortable that they do that very well and yet, when it comes to developing future leaders, they feel that they are way behind where they need to be.

The point it makes is that, while the traditional path of acquiring talent from the outside may have worked, there's a significant shift to developing more talent inside the corporation, for the very reason that there is limited supply outside the organization. The growth has to come from within and are companies equipped to develop the next generation of talent and leaders for the business and therein lies the opportunity to do something different in the area of leadership development.

Peter: Your survey showed that the number one issue across the world with all of the companies you surveyed, and I think there were 700 responses to your survey in that neighborhood, was developing future leaders. That was the number one concern out of everything that you surveyed, which I find really fascinating. It's a global problem.

Hemant Minocha It is a global problem. It's not just in the private sector; it's in the private sector and it's in the public sector. It cuts across geographies, it cuts across industries and it cuts across the form of ownership. That is a significant challenge at this point in time where companies and organization and governments want to do something different, but don't have the leadership to take them that.

Peter: Yet, less than one-third of the companies you surveyed feel they are effective in this area.

Hemant: Only one-third do. That's not a very impressive number.

Peter: It's not.

Hemant: It's not a very impressive number at all. In fact, we were very surprised of how low that number came up to me. It's partly because, as the adage goes, to be able to get to the future, you must be able to envision it. Therein lies the gap.

Peter: Right.

Hemant: Is that there are not many leaders who can envision the future for their companies; leave alone and get them to that destination. The quest is going to be, how do you find, retain, develop that talent that will be able to help you envision the future and then deliver to that promise?

Peter: One of the other issues you touched on today, I spoke with Rodney Moses from RIM yesterday, and of course, their business is moving so rapidly, they're growing so rapidly. One of the things he said, is I'm trying to recruit talent for products that don't even exist yet. You mentioned a big issue with all of your clients, and through this survey was speed and flexibility. Companies are very concerned globally about having enough speed and flexibility to really take advantage of what's going on in the marketplace.

Hemant: It's a huge issue. It's a huge issue. I can't name this particular client, but it's a very large Fortune 50 Company in the US, very strong Midwestern groups, have a huge market in front of them, given growth in some of the emerging economies of the world. They have the product, they have the market, they just can't find people to sell them fast enough. They have a need to ramp off to several thousand people over a period of time. They have not been able to develop an indigenous pool of sufficiently qualified resources who can support their product in some of the emerging markets.

As an example of what different levels in the organization, some are struggling at leadership level, but there is as much struggle at the entry level, technician level, and Bachelor's level, where they are trying to find the talent that can really propel them forward in some of the emerging economies.

Peter: You asked the audience a question which was – how many people within NASA do you feel are full time employers versus contract employers? The correct answer is?

Hemant: My answer is somewhat dated over here. But it is fair to say that while it varies depending on how many missions they are flying at any point in time, but it would seem like of the ratio of internal NASA staff to external contractor that are supporting NASA, is easily anywhere in the ratio of 1:2 to 1:3. For everyone employ, there maybe 2 or 3 contractors that serve the needs of NASA.

Peter: How did they get that way?

Hemant: I think the history is such where the complexity of the technology involved in the space programs has been (1) very complex, (2) it is ever changing, (3) it tends to be product specific, and (4) it requires a multitude of disciplines, which the federal government (NASA in this case) has not been able to attract as employees or been able to retain as employees. The private sector has done a much better job of providing both career opportunities, providing research and innovation in this space, developing those particular skills that will allow them to more effectively serve the needs of an organization like NASA.

Peter: One of the very interesting things that you spent quite a bit of time talking about was around the area of collective intelligence, and you used an example of an airplane manufacturer who used a global platform with people over a number of countries contributing into the design of an airplane.

Hemant: I think in this particular instance, the entire aerospace defense industry has gone through a significant renaissance in the last 10-15 years. It's a highly competitive industry. It is very intellectual capital intensive. It is also very protective of the intellectual capital because that is there competitive advantage. Yet, both in terms of the economies of intelligence and the economies of scale required that, there is a collaborative process and multitudes of providers that contribute to it.

In this particular instance, the situation is the traditional path was like in the automotive industry, company A will design a product – it's a car, it's an airplane. Then say okay, now let me source an engine from Korea, for example. Or let me source seats from China, or let me source part A, B, C from another country.

What this particular organization has done is instead sourcing parts and sourcing components, they actually source design, they co–source the design. They followed a series collaborative processes using some very compelling technologies, to collectively take their top partners in the program to contribute to the design process. So that the sourcing at the back end became very straightforward. They designed a better plane. They designed a cheaper plane and they did it faster than they would have done it themselves.

Peter: Yet, another one of your slides – capitalizing on collective intelligence, 78% of the companies you surveyed feel that they're ineffective.

Hemant: Yes, and that's when they are looking even within the organization. The number would probably get much worse when they try to capitalize on the collective intelligence of external organization. But clearly what we're seeing in marketplace is demanding is the creation of ecosystems that organizations will collaborate with to both come up with creative solutions, as well as cost effective solutions and faster solutions. But that is again, from many organizations, that's still a quest, still a dream and many are far behind in being able to achieve that particular goal, if you will.

Peter: Is it on the front burner?

Hemant: Increasingly so. Increasingly so. I think there is a tremendous amount of focus on not to do it yourself, to do it better with others, how well do you do it with others varies from industry to industry, but almost every industry today is looking at better ways to both minimize the risk of going alone to accelerate the piece of which you can achieve results and (3) do it cheaper in terms of capitalizing on the strengths of other partners.

Peter: I think one of my takeaways from your presentation is you truly have to have a global mindset today in business. You can't be working in silos. You can't be specific to one region, one country. You really have to be out there and think globally.

Hemant: That is, in fact, a very important factor. You don't have to be a global company to be impacted by the trend of globalization. You could be a domestic US corporation where your competitive positioned is now being dictated in part by others who are global.

Even though one company may think well I am really serving my customers in America. I make in America, I sell in America. Globalization doesn't affect me. Just give it time. Globalization is affecting everybody to varying degrees, but absolutely a trend is particularly in the larger corporations, that globalization is the reality of 2010 and increasingly the reality for 2015 and 2020. There will be very little that we do that's going to be purely domestic in nature.

Peter: One thing I keep hearing at all of these HR and recruiting conferences that I go to is retention. Many companies are just terrified as soon as the economy turns around just a little bit more, their best people are out the door and yet, the kinds of things that you're talking about, and learning, and how learning styles have changed, especially with Gen-Yers coming into the workforce. You were mentioning gaming platforms as a style of learning and being very effective. Can you talk a little about that.

Hemant: I think that's a very, very important area of focus as we move forward over here is, in some ways, the companies are finding that the products of our traditional educational processes are not sufficiently equipped to be effective in the workforce. Yet, the quest is to make them productive as soon as possible.

In closing the gap, many organizations, IBM for example, has made significant investments in how we develop, train and deploy talent so that (1) they can be productive for themselves, (2) they are productive for the company, (3) they are learning as they go along, (4) they are learning when required to learn, and (5) they're learning frequently.

Again, learning has taken on many different dimensions. Some of it is to replace the more traditional classroom training methods with more online methods. But our researchers at IBM, that there are a number of more advanced techniques that even more effective, including how we take care of virtual training, where we'll be essentially invite participants to join a virtual world in which they will role play. (2) There is a tremendous amount of focus on what we call action learning, where you learn from actually solving a very specific business problem germane to the organization you work for. And (3) we are now simulating various environments through gaming technology, so that individuals can learn by doing, they can learn from experience, they can learn from making mistakes, and they can learn by a number of what if situations that they may have to encounter.

Peter: You have 400,000 full time employees, another 100,000 contractors working within your organization. From my perspective, IBM certainly is at the forefront of social media, social marketing, and social interaction allowing employees to blog and creating internal Wikis and having many, many different ways of collaborating internally. To me, that's just such a competitive advantage because first of all, you know who you have working for you and what their skill sets are and how many companies can really say that?

Hemant: Thank you, Peter. I think IBM is at the forefront. It has very early on – perhaps faster than a lot of other organization in the world – realize that its human capital is going to be the center of this competitive strategy.

Yes, IBM is known for the fastest computers in the world. Yes, we have some of the best software in the world. Yes, we have some of the best technical solution in the world. But we are nothing if we don't have expertise. Expertise lies in the mind and heart of our people. How do we best leverage that, how do we best utilize that, how do we best grow it, how do we allow people to use it together – is at the essence of what we do for our business. It's a matter of survival and in part, it's a matter of strategy. But we could not have a half a million brilliant minds working at IBM on any given day of the year, and not collectively get ahead in terms of what does half a million minds can produce.

Peter: And of course, your organization now is so much focused on consulting.

Hemant: Absolutely. Actually half of our revenues come from the services business consulting is a large part of this services offerings we have in the marketplace. Again, these skills have to be kept current. In the business we are in, those skills get obsolete very fast. We have a constant need to refresh, refurbish, and in some cases, change the skills sets that we have in the organization. We have a significant investment in being able to manage to that refurbishment process and that not only is good for business, but it's also one of the reasons why we attract some of the very best in the marketplace because the IBM is the place that you grow at, not only in terms of role of responsibility, but intellectually and in terms of skills set, which is, frankly, one of the top reasons why individuals come to work for IBM and stay at IBM.

Peter: What haven't I asked you that you think would be important to share with the audience, especially concerning the presentation you made today here at the IACPR conference?

Hemant: I think a couple of things, you think of large parts of the essence of what I presented today. But there are couple of points I would make is the role and need to manage talent, whether they be public sector or private sector organization, has become even more acute and likely to become even more complex as they move forward. We're coming through the end of a recession, to your earlier point, the demand for talent is fierce. The competition for talent is fierce. The ability to deploy that talent appropriately, whether it be within your borders or across the world, is going to be a significant challenge. Those organizations that have not focused their time and effort looking at their human capital talent, now is the time to do it. Financial capital is easy to get today than human capital.

Peter: Hemant, thank you so much for taking time to speak with us today on TotalPicture Radio. I really appreciate it.

Hemant: Thank you, Peter. Thanks for the opportunity.

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This is Peter Clayton reporting. Thank you for tuning in to TotalPicture Radio, the voice of career and leadership acceleration.