The Lore Talent Management Maturity Model
The Lore Talent Management Maturity Model (Lore TMM) is a diagnostic and prescriptive framework that allows organizations to assess the current state of their Talent Management (TM) efforts, identify what needs to be done to move to the next higher stage of practice, and develop the plans to get there. The Lore TMM used in conjunction with Lore's diagnostic assessments and services provides a complete Talent Management roadmap for success.
The Maturity Model itself is based on an extensive array of research covering organizational theory, technology and innovation adoption, and talent management practice and systems. From this research, Lore has developed and validated a four-stage model of TM system growth. The following graphic illustrates the four developmental stages of a corporate Talent Management system. Associated with the progression from one stage of development to the next higher stage of development is a specific crisis that must be successfully resolved in order for the enterprise to advance (adapted from McClure, New Entrepreneur Guidebook, 1998 and Adizes, Corporate Lifecycles: How and why corporations grow and die and what to do about it, 1988). The initial crisis is related to gaining organizational commitment. When enough commitment is achieved, the new initiative starts, but a crisis of leadership must be overcome before progressing to Expansion. When a strong leader has emerged, the Talent Management system can progress to a stage of Professionalism. Organizations in this stage face the crisis of autonomy, standardizing and ensuring consistent quality while allowing leaders at all levels to lead. Many efforts falter at this point, remaining disconnected from the business. Lastly, before reaching the Best Practice stage, organizations must address the crisis of control. Addressing this crisis means that the entire organization is pulling in the same direction, so that the Talent Management system is finally contributing its true value to the business.
Talent Management Maturity Model (TMMM) Crisis Definitions
Crisis of Commitment: The initiative idea dies if no one makes a real commitment to it. A real commitment means giving of one's self and/or vital resources to pursue the new idea (initiative). Equally important as the commitment of time and resources is the reason for making the commitment. At this stage, the founding leaders are committed to the dream, the burning vision, of making the initiative a success and seeing it widely appreciated. The founding leaders have to have desire in order to sell the dream and get others committed and involved. Once this happens, the initiative can become a reality and enters the New Initiative stage.
Crisis of Leadership: The founding leaders are usually risk takers with little or no
patience for administration. These founding leaders directly supervise or do everything
themselves. The founding leaders are the initiative. As the initiative grows, it becomes
a mix of dreamers and doers, without many checkers and organizers. Only when strong
managers emerge or are brought in will the initiative be ready for the Expansion stage.
Crisis of Autonomy: The new leaders flex their muscles and head off in new directions. They decide things differently than the founders would have. Mistakes happen, and the founding leaders feel blindsided and threatened. Control is pulled back to the founding leaders, but eventually, delegation returns. If there are no guidelines in place, managers cannot use their delegated power without getting crosswise with other parts of the organization. The implementation of policies, procedures, and guidelines will be necessary to ensure that all parts of the organization are headed in the same, correct direction and allows the initiative to enter the Professionalism stage.
Crisis of Control: No amount of professional glue (i.e., policies, procedures, and guidelines) can hold human nature in check forever. Strong leaders will want to run their own shows. The initiative will require better coordination in order to rise to the Best Practice stage. This means that coordination must be addressed structurally, through resource allocation, and reward/incentive alignment.
The resulting stages of Talent Management system development, from New Initiative to Best Practice, are used in the Lore Talent Management Maturity Model to organize the activities that represent normal TM activities at that stage of development. Lore's research has identified three success factors that a comprehensive TM system must address: Organizational Support Conditions, Talent Management Utilization and Talent Management Activities. In each of these strands are critical components that must exist in the TM system in order for it to be effective. So for example, within the strand of Organizational Support, the attributes of Leadership, Alignment and Infrastructure determine the success of the TM system in the organization. The Lore Model shows how each of these three attributes must change from one stage to the next in order for the TM system to move to higher levels of performance.
The table below shows the full Lore Talent Management Maturity Model. The model presents each of the four maturity levels in terms of the three organizational success factors, and identifies the critical and measurable attributes in each factor:
| Maturity Stage | Crisis | Organizational Support Conditions | Talent Management Utilization | Talent Management Activities |
| Stage
4: Best Practice |
Control | Leadership:
Full ownership and accountability at all organizational levels, CEO and
Board proactively involved |
Metrics: Value-based metrics & ROI | Focus:
Business Impact |
| Alignment: Aligned with business strategy, goals and objectives reinforced by compensation | Uses:
Talent Management efforts are part of the business fabric and evolve continuously
with business |
Components:
Complete suite of Talent Management Components |
||
| Infrastructure: Integrated with enterprise IT systems and extensive support resources including funding | Adoption:
Enterprise wide |
Integration: Seamless with business execution | ||
| Stage 3: Professionalism | Autonomy | Leadership: HR, Executive Sponsor, ownership and accountability at most organization levels | Metrics: Activity, Commitment, Results | Focus: TM Results |
| Alignment: Aligned with business strategy, customized to fit business needs | Uses:
Data from TM efforts drive strategic decision making ensuring that Talent
Management efforts meet business needs |
Components: Most standard TM components | ||
| Infrastructure: Set of IT systems or Separate TM system, appropriate level of support resources | Adoption: Most business units, attributes | Integration:
Activities are connected and integration with business execution has started |
||
| Stage 2: Expansion | Leadership | Leadership:
HR, Some Executive Sponsorship, multiple pieces of organization |
Metrics: Activity, Commitment | Focus:
TM Development (developing new TM components) |
| Alignment: Aligned with pieces of business strategy or with units of business | Uses:
Data collection from TM efforts to
identify and address local and/or tactical issues |
Components:
Multiple components |
||
| Infrastructure:
Some IT stand alone applications, some support resources |
Adoption: Some business units, attributes (Early Majority) | Integration: Mostly stand alone activities, maybe some activities connected | ||
| Stage
1: New Initiative |
Commitment | Leadership: HR, Program Owner | Metrics: Primarily activity based | Focus:
TM Activity Delivery |
| Alignment: Little alignment, may be “off the shelf” program activity | Uses:
Data collection to identify and/or address local issues |
Components:
Single or a few components |
||
| Infrastructure:
No or little IT, program support resources only |
Adoption: Early adopters only | Integration: Little or no integration, likely a stand alone activity |
The Talent Management Audit
Lore's Talent Management Audit™ is a scalable consulting engagement that examines all nine attributes of the maturity model in a client's organization.
The audit focuses on:
The outcomes of the TM Audit are:
The benefits of a TM Audit are:
The Talent Management Maturity Model was developed by William Doherty in collaboration with Noah Rabinowitz and Michael Pilnick.