Conversations with leaders
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10 min read
Key findings
Silence does not keep a high-potential list secret, because people infer their status from who is invited to what.
The executive team agrees six points before the review, among them what the label means, who tells whom and when it expires.
A person not on the list needs three things: their performance position, a likely next step, and the evidence that would change the view.
A reason given as a role demand can be acted on, and a reason given as a personal characteristic cannot.
A designation with a review date is an assessment, and one without a review date becomes a title.
Telling employees they are high potential works when two conditions hold. The organisation has agreed what the label promises, and everyone reviewed also hears where they stand.
Silence does not keep the list secret, because people infer their status from who is invited to what.
The larger risk is the strong performer who is not on the list and is told nothing.
Most published advice debates whether to tell the people chosen.
Few articles cover the conversation with the person who was left off, and that is where the organisation is most exposed.
Two conversations come before the manager holds it.
The first is with the executive team about disclosure, and the second is with the manager about wording.
Three Disclosure Policies
Organisations settle on one of three policies, and many have never chosen between them deliberately.
Tell nobody. The list stays with HR and senior leaders, and managers use it without saying so
Tell those on it. Designated people hear their status and what it means, and everyone else hears nothing
Tell everyone their position. Every person reviewed hears their performance, likely next step and what would change the view, and the label is optional
Korn Ferry advises telling employees they are high potential.
The framing is greater responsibility and scrutiny, and never a privilege or a promise of promotion.
It also observes that managers in a no-disclosure organisation often tell their best people anyway.
That puts the organisation in breach of its own policy.
The case for telling those on the list rests largely on retention.
A Center for Creative Leadership guidebook cites a 2010 Forbes.com article.
It reports that 14 per cent of formally identified high potentials were seeking other employment.
The figure was 33 per cent for employees who were not formally identified.
The two groups differ in more than disclosure. The figures show a pattern and do not establish a cause.
They also say nothing about the people outside the list, who are the majority.
Adrian Furnham, Ian MacRae and Martin Reed make a related point.
A restrictive definition of success can demotivate people outside the pool whose potential is being overlooked.
Telling only those on the list settles one group's position and leaves the majority to work it out for themselves.
Why Silence Does Not Hold
The review happens in one month. The conversations happen when managers get round to them, which can be a quarter later.
In that gap, decisions become visible. One person is invited to a leadership session, and another is given a stretch assignment.
Furnham, MacRae and Reed observe that people form their own expectations where an organisation fails to communicate.
Those expectations may bear no relation to the job.
They also describe six responses to perceived inequity.
Three are reducing effort, revising how one sees oneself or colleagues, and leaving.
They add that people with high potential may have a particularly keen sense of equity.
That describes the strong performer who works out that the list exists and that they are not on it.
A workable rule is two weeks.
The review closes, the criteria and briefings go out, and the conversations take place inside a fortnight.
That requires the talent function to prepare its materials during the review and not after it.
The Policy To Agree First
Before the review, the HR partner takes six questions to the executive team. The answers go on one page.
What the designation means, stated as a role type and a timeframe
What it does not promise, including promotion by a date
Who tells whom, and within how many days of the review
What is said to a person who asks whether they are on the list
What happens when a manager breaks the policy
When the designation is reviewed, and by whom
The objection raised most often is that the label creates an implied promise.
The first two questions answer it, and so does the review date in the sixth.
A designation with a review date is an assessment, and one without a review date becomes a title.
The second objection is that a person told they are not chosen will leave.
Some will leave.
Where the person's ambition and the organisation's plan do not match, a departure suits both sides.
It is better that it happens after a conversation than after the person has worked it out alone.
The decision on who is on the list comes earlier, and who to include in a talent review covers it.
The review that produces the judgements is described in running a talent review that changes decisions.
What Each Person Is Asking
Underneath the question about the list are three questions, and each needs a different answer.
Worth. Does this organisation rate me
Trajectory. What happens to my career here over the next two years
Fairness. Was the judgement made properly
Most managers answer only the first, with reassurance.
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen give a name to one of them.
The internal debate about whether an event means the person is competent is the identity conversation.
The person holds that debate with themselves whatever the manager says.
The organisation holds the answers on trajectory and process, so the manager supplies those two.
Preparing The Conversation
The Center for Creative Leadership describes four types of talent conversation.
The one for a solid performer fits many of the people who are not on the list.
Its purpose is to communicate the value the person provides and to show they are appreciated and well placed.
It also says how they can maintain or improve their performance.
The guidebook includes a case of a director who met every target and led his team well.
He was frustrated at not moving into a larger role.
His manager explained how he was seen outside his own group.
The organisation needed leaders with impact across the business, and the manager agreed to coach him on it.
Three things can be shared honestly with a person who is not on the list.
Where they stand on performance, which should hold no surprises
What the organisation currently sees as their likely next step, as a role type and a timeframe
What would change the view, stated as evidence and not as effort
A comparative rating is left out, because it invites an argument about other people that nobody present can settle.
The manager prepares two sentences.
One says what the person does well, specifically enough that it could only be about them.
The other states the gap between where they are and the role they are aiming at.
If the second sentence cannot be written, the review is unfinished, and the fault lies with the review.
Telling only those on the list settles one group's position and leaves the majority to work it out for themselves.
A Script For The Conversation
The lines below use an imagined regional finance manager, and each is written to be said aloud.
The conversation runs about thirty minutes and has five parts.
1. The purpose. "I want to talk about your development over the next two years."
"This follows the review of talent across the business, and I would like it to be a conversation."
2. The performance. "Your delivery is not in question."
"Regional margin rose from nine to eleven per cent under you, and the March client transition ran without one escalation."
3. The position. "For the director roles we reviewed, you are not in the group we are preparing for the next two years."
The manager stops talking after this sentence.
The pause belongs to the person, and filling it with reassurance turns the conversation into a lecture.
4. The evidence. "Those roles cover three markets, and everything you have run has been inside one."
"The group has not yet seen you do it at that scale, and here is what would show it."
5. The offer. "The Singapore integration would give you that evidence, and I have asked Dana to sponsor it."
"We will review it together on 15 November, and I will send you this in writing tomorrow."
The evidence sentence names what the role demands and what has not yet been seen. The person can act on that.
A reason given as a personal characteristic gives them nothing to act on.
Hilary Scarlett recommends putting important messages in writing and checking understanding.
The practical reason is that the person will remember the verdict and lose the detail.
The same five parts serve a promotion decision. The added difficulty is that colleagues can already see the outcome.
Three Versions Of The Position
The position sentence differs by situation, and each version needs rehearsing because it carries the message.
Behavioural gap. "Your delivery is not in question. What the group could not see was how you work when you have to influence people who do not report to you. You have not been in a position that required it."
Thin evidence. "The group could not agree, and it did not have enough evidence to place you. What was missing was your work outside the finance team, and here is how we will test it."
Mismatch of ambition. "You have told me you want a general management role within two years. Based on this review, that will not happen here in that timeframe, and I would rather tell you than let you wait for it."
The second version protects the organisation from its own records.
A person filed as not high potential on thin evidence tends to stay filed that way.
The third is the sentence most organisations avoid, and the person usually finds out anyway.
What Not To Say
"Nothing is decided yet." If something was decided, this is dishonest, and the first invitation exposes it
"You are still very valued." It is probably true, but as a reply to a specific judgement it reads as consolation
"It is a stretch for anyone at your level." It invites the comparison the manager is trying to avoid
"Between us, I disagreed with the decision." It leaves the person no route, because the process has become the problem
Anything describing potential as a fixed quality. Furnham, MacRae and Reed, citing Silzer and Church, note that one person can be a high potential artist and a low potential leader
Four Reactions
Most reactions fall into four patterns, and each needs a different response.
Disagreement with the evidence. The manager takes it seriously, asks for specifics and commits to a date for an answer
Anger at the process. The manager explains how the decision was made without defending every part, and names any genuine weakness
Withdrawal. The manager agrees a short follow-up within a fortnight, before the person reaches conclusions alone
Signs of leaving. The manager says calmly that ambition and plan may not match, and makes no retention promise the organisation cannot keep
A manager does not concede in the meeting to reduce discomfort. A concession the review has not supported has to be reversed later.
Comparative Questions
People ask why a colleague was chosen and they were not. They ask how many people are on the list, and whether they are close.
The position that holds is to answer about the person and decline about others, said once and without apology.
"I am not going to discuss anyone else's assessment with you, in the same way I would not discuss yours with them."
The disclosure policy decides whether numbers are shared.
When The Manager Disagrees
A manager who disagrees with the decision has two poor options. One is to pretend to agree, and the other is to distance themselves and leave the person with nothing.
The workable position is narrow.
The manager explains the decision and the criteria accurately and says what they put forward in the review. The manager then commits to work that would change the view.
A manager who believes the process failed says so in the review. Saying nothing there loses the argument for the whole cycle.
Conversation With A Designated Employee
This conversation is treated as the easy one. Naming someone as high potential raises their expectations and their visibility together.
Three statements keep that from backfiring.
What the designation is for, given as a role type and not a general status
What it does not mean, including that it is no promise of promotion by a date
When it will be reviewed
What HR Owes The Manager
Line managers hold most of these conversations. They were not in the review and did not write the criteria.
The talent function supplies three things before the conversations start.
The criteria in plain language
A one-page briefing per person with the evidence and the agreed next step
A rehearsal, aloud, for managers who hold several of these
The rehearsal is the part that gets cut. Saying the position sentence aloud once beforehand stops it arriving wrapped in qualifications.
The wider preparation follows the approach in difficult conversations at work.
After The Conversation
Two follow-ups decide whether the conversation was worth holding.
The first is a written note within a day, recording the work agreed, the support and the review date.
The second is the review itself, held on the agreed date whether or not anything has changed.
A manager who skips it confirms what the person suspected, which is that the conversation was a compliance exercise.
Committing to these conversations also improves the review.
A rating that must be explained to the person it describes cannot rest on a phrase like "not quite ready" or "lacks presence".
Someone in the review has to turn it into an observable gap and a piece of evidence.
The wider weaknesses of the lists themselves are covered in the trouble with high potential lists.
Early Signs Of An Unmanaged List
Nobody can say who is allowed to tell whom
Conversations take place a quarter after the review
Managers say "I cannot tell you" and offer no next step
The designation has no review date
Strong performers ask colleagues whether the list exists
Where The Tools Sit
Trusted Talent Advisor holds the structure and language for these conversations in its stakeholder conversation component.
Its reframing tools cover the moment a person disputes the judgement.
Its template pack includes the conversation preparation canvas.
Related reading: how to give constructive feedback to employees.
Sources
1. Smith, R. and Campbell, M. Talent Conversations: What They Are, Why They Are Crucial, and How to Do Them Right. Center for Creative Leadership.
2. Furnham, A., MacRae, I. and Reed, M. High Potential: How to Spot, Manage and Develop Talented People at Work. Bloomsbury.
3. Korn Ferry. Tell or Don't Tell: Talking Talent With Your Employees. This Week in Leadership.
4. Stone, D., Patton, B. and Heen, S. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. Penguin.
5. Scarlett, H. Neuroscience for Organizational Change: An Evidence-based Practical Guide to Managing Change. Kogan Page.
From the system
Trusted Talent Advisor sets out the full method: seven components, 51 tools, The Talent Template Pack and The Prompt Library.
See the system
Questions this answers
Should you tell employees they are high potential?
Tell them when the organisation has agreed what the label means and promises, and give everyone reviewed a conversation about where they stand. Silence does not hold, because people infer their status from who is invited to what.
What do you say to an employee who asks if they are on the high-potential list?
Follow the disclosure policy and answer only about that person. Give their performance position, the likely next step as a role type and timeframe, and the evidence that would change the view.
How do you tell an employee they did not get a promotion?
Say the outcome in one sentence and stop. Then give the reason as the evidence the role demands and has not yet been seen, offer specific work that would show it, confirm it in writing and set a review date.
Should talent review outcomes be shared with employees?
Share the person's own position and next step, and keep comparative ratings and other people's assessments private. The disclosure policy, agreed with the executive team before the review, settles who tells whom and when.
What happens when employees find out about a secret talent list?
Employees who work out the list exists tend to draw their own conclusions about fairness and their future. Some reduce effort, some revise how they see colleagues, and some leave, so an unmanaged list carries its own cost.
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