Attracting, Developing and Retaining Talent

By Gonzalo G. Ruiz, Jr.
Gonzalo G. Ruiz, Jr. recently retired as Regional President of American Express responsible for Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently, an Executive Consultant and Speaker with GGR & Associates


I’m sure that most of you will agree that when running a business, regardless of size or geographic location, the most valuable asset are your employees, provided they are managed correctly. These critical elements to our business success walk out the door at the end of each day. As business owners, managers and leaders, our most important goal is to lead by ensuring that these employees will look forward to coming back to work each morning, mentally and physically ready to engage in their respective responsibilities, to the fullest of their ability.

So how can we best lead to develop and retain this most important asset that we call talent? Perhaps it would be useful to first define what Leadership is. Harry Truman, 33rd President of the United States, said many years ago, "A leader is a person who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it".
Needless to say, this is a complex subject with no patented formula. Innumerable factors come into play, and success will not be either fast or easy. This is particularly hard to accept in today’s world, where society demands immediate gratification. We want it all and we want it now!

Frederick Herzburg, a distinguished professor of Management in the 1950’s and 60’s, conducted extensive research on the sources of employee motivation. The research discovered a contradiction that continues to intrigue people managers today. "The things that make people satisfied and motivated on the job are different in kind from the things that make them dissatisfied and de-motivated."

Generally, when you ask employees what makes them unhappy at work, most likely you will hear about an annoying boss or colleague, an unfair salary, an uncomfortable work space, a dirty restroom, inconvenient parking facilities or some ridiculous rule. These can be categorized as "environmental" factors that make people miserable and can not be ignored. They cannot be ignored because undoubtedly they will have a negative impact on employee morale, will affect customer service, will most likely cause low productivity and, last but not least, will speed up the costly "revolving door" of your employee base, with most of the good ones usually leaving first.

The reality is that people in general, become more motivated, thus more satisfied, when given interesting work, challenging assignments, increasing levels of job responsibility and recognition for a job well done. One must also recognize employees’ accomplishments, particularly in the presence of their co-workers. All of these elements have a very significant positive or negative impact, depending on how you handle them, because in Dr. Herzburg’s opinion they "respond to people’s profound need for growth, achievement and a healthy self esteem" So, allow me to share some of my experiences and factors which propelled high-performance teams I led to have consistently been ranked in the upper percentiles of the American Express Annual Employee Satisfaction Surveys.

In 2004 our Division’s Global President asked me to share some thoughts on how we had managed to consistently accomplish these high marks year after year. Honestly, I could not provide him with a quick response. In fact, I had to give his question a lot of thought. Likewise, I asked my management team for their feedback on the subject.
The answer was not easy to provide at first. After a few meeting we were able to identify at least seven salient fundamentals that we believed played the biggest part in not only developing and retaining talent, but also in attracting it. You see, employees talked to each other and soon the word got out that we were doing something different! The key elements we identified were:

1. Attitude/Aptitude
2. Team Dynamics
3. Adaptability
4. Communication
5. Culture
6. Integrity
7. Employee Focus

For the purpose of this article, I’d like to concentrate on the first element. We will explore the rest in subsequent issues. Identifying attitude and aptitude: In order to develop and retain talent, obviously, first you have to attract the right talent. One that (a) fits well with your existing employees, (b) meets organizational requirements and (c) matches the responsibilities of the job itself, in that order.

The key objective here, beyond the three mentioned above, is to strike a delicate balance between attitude and aptitude. So, start by not reading too much into the crisp resume in front of you and becoming enamored with it. Resumes primarily reflect educational background and job experience, but unfortunately, print is print, and even if you have flowery worded letters of recommendation and/or verbal references from prior employers, the moment of truth is about to take place: Your ability to determine the candidate’s ATTITUDE!
Have a casual conversation without taking too much time to look at the resume. Ask yourself the following questions while the employee is carrying a conversation with you:
Will this individual fit the culture of the company in general and the individual team or department in particular?
From one to ten, what is the level of enthusiasm and positive energy you perceive?
Does the individual project a passion to win?.. Is he/she a potential core player or an illusive butterfly?
Is he/she dressed for success?...How about eye contact?
Do you feel commitment to teamwork or are you dealing with an "island" type attitude that likes to work alone?
Once you have identified these elements, then and only then should you begin to talk about Aptitude. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that you can hire an individual based only on a positive attitude. Can you imagine a pilot of a 747 with a great attitude but a lousy aptitude to fly airplanes!..By the same token, I would not want the same pilot with a tremendous amount of piloting skill who in a difficult moment requiring a positive, confident take-charge attitude, wilts like a flower in a hot summer day.

In Developing and Retaining talent it is imperative to strike a balance between Attitude and Aptitude "before the games begin", because, you see, it is far easier to develop aptitude and job skills through training and developmental programs than to begin to change a deeply ingrained attitude.
An attitude is internal and influenced by many years of experiences. Attitude traits are generally part of the values formed from the early years of one’s life and cemented by the way in which we see ourselves. Attitude is developed by one’s ability to take a stand and overcome the challenges which life presents us on a daily basis. Can attitude be taught? I believe that it can. Yet, only if the person is willing to be completely open and willing to give it a try. Remember the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink it!
In summary, to develop and retain talent a leader must pay attention to the "environmental" factors that contribute to employees’ dissatisfaction on the job, as well as to the "motivating" factors that make people enjoy going to work every day and give their best. We have listed seven fundamentals that play the biggest part in attracting, developing and retaining talent, and have looked at the first one involving individual attitude and aptitude. In future issues we will discuss the other six contributing elements.