In an increasingly competitive world, it is very clear that the most sustainable form of competitive advantage and organizational excellence is talent management. Organizations with "good enough" talent management processes are organizations that are standing still or in decline. Excellent organizations implement excellent talent management processes.

The core talent management processes are:

• recruiting,
• performance management, (i.e. performance contracting / feedback, not performance appraisal),
• promotion management / succession planning.

21CSI focuses on recruiting and performance management. These processes are implemented on the one-on-one level,

• between recruiter, hiring manager, applicants and final candidates,
• and between boss and subordinate.

Automated business applications that manage appropriate work flows are needed to support these processes. But they cannot generate excellence in them. Excellence in recruiting and performance management can only occur as a result of the behavior of individuals in your organization.

Consulting on Recruiting Processes

"Recruiting and Innovation", a 36 minute voice-over Internet presentation, describes 21CSI's view of the new recruiting reality. Innovative organizations (ones which are experiencing start up, break out, transformation, or intense competition in new market places) need to adapt their recruiting practices to these realities. 21CSI will help you do so.

Consulting on Performance Contracting

Most organizations appraise individual performance. That simply is not enough to generate high individual delivery across the board. Certain individuals will always deliver at "above average" levels. The key to organizational excellence is getting everyone to do so. That requires performance contracting.

When you ask individuals how they want to managed, most of them say two things. "I want to know how I am going to be measured before I am appraised. I want the whole process to be fair."

When you ask managers about how they experience performance appraisal, they generally grimace and let you know they see it as a necessary "evil" they have to do. Managers who enjoy it are generally on a "power" trip.

Changing performance appraisal into performance contracting and feedback requires a commitment to developing managers. Performance contracting is not a skill they develop spontaneously. Skill development, coaching and "walking the talk" is needed from the top of the organization on down. 21CSI will help you do this. Review 21CSI's' "Delivering Results" handbook to get insight into what we mean by performance contracting.

Our Consulting Principles

21CSI's senior principals have deep experience in promoting individual excellence and in automating work flows (IT). We work with you to create a talent management organization change program that creates excellence in your hiring and talent management processes.

21CSI is strongly committed to project management disciplines in our consulting work with with clients. Our first step is always the creation and acceptance of a project charter that defines scope, intended outcomes (key targets and deliverables) and progress metrics. We incorporate "go/no go" decision points in the project plan. We take pride in keeping projects on defined scope and within budget. We also treat the risk mitigation planning as a necessary component of project management work.

21CSI is a "sunset oriented" consultant. We know our job is to define what needs to be done, get it done and disappear. We are strong believers in skill transfer. Our goal is to transfer our knowledge to your staff, so that they continue to do the innovative things we have started together

"Process improvement consulting has been around for at least a decade now. But consultants still get it wrong. They think it is about computer systems and automated applications. Although these are part of the solution, they are not the solution. Process improvement consulting is about changing people's behavior on-the-job. Technology only supports and facilitates this. By itself, it does not achieve it."

Access the PDF version of "Recruiting and Innovation".