Sunday, January 9, 2011

In My Business...This is an Indicator! A Talent Indicator...

Greetings,

The United States Intelligence Community has suffered through a number of surprises. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor created the Intelligence Community and other world events like the the North Korean attack on South Korea and the 1973 Yom Kippur War helped precipitate the modern Indications & Warning system used to help limit strategic surprise. The goal? Identifying a set of critical indicators to prevent or negate strategic surprise.

Indicators are important...really important. Indicators allow us to try and see patterns in the events that are occurring around us and that may have a significant impact on our organizations ability to execute business strategy. Indicator is defined in this document from the then Joint Military Intelligence College titled "Indications Warning Terminology."

"Indicator: A generalized, theoretical statement of a course of action or decision that is expected to be taken in preparation for an aggressive act and that can be used to guide intelligence collection resources."

Why should you care about this in relation to your organization's talent? A recent query for the term "Talent Acquisition" on LinkedIn "indicates" an interesting dynamic taking place...there are a lot of companies gearing up for a new War for Talent. Looking for these types of "Talent Indicators" is important to track. This one for "Talent Acquisition" would tell me my competition is preparing for "an aggressive act" like the definition indicates. If you were preparing to start hiring...seems a critical indicator would be hiring Talent Acquisition positions in preparation for it. This would not only tell you who is hiring, but also lead you to what talent segments an organization is targeting. This can help you focus retention efforts within the organization if they are critical to your organization's success.

This concept of Talent Indicators is not all that strange. The concept of metrics and dashboards are intended to do the same thing...provide you the ability to make proactive, strategic decisions before they turn into strategic surprise...the new War for Talent that is upon us will demand it.

Cheers,
Keith

Twitter: JKeithDunbar
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jkeithdunbar
DNA of Human Capital: http://dna-of-humancapital.blogspot.com/

The opinions or views expressed here are mine alone and do not represent the views of the Department of Defense or the Defense Intelligence Agency.

3 comments:

  1. You might find my blog interesting: Our Work Ethos: www.ourworkethos.blogspot.com

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  3. I get it. Remember before the Six Day War erupted? Egypt's President Nasser indicated that he's going to make an aggressive action against Israel. This prompted the Israelis to launch a pre-emptive war that defeated the Arabs in 6 days. Could we use this to find better employees? Certainly, in fact this could even be revolutionary.

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