Talented and Passionate Employees: to be Exploited or Constrained or Managed

“If clever people have one defining characteristic, it is that they do not want to be led,” -Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

As a Business Owner, sometimes I wonder if there is anything more painful than losing competent and capable employees to other companies. Brilliant and highly talented employees are rare to come by, and every organization needs them. They are required because they can help create extraordinary values and place the organization on a different performance pedestal.  To put it in perspective, Bain and Co’s study shows that employees at Apple, Netflix, Google, and Dell are 40% more productive. In comparison, their companies also recorded between 30-50% more profit than their counterparts. Why is this so? A surprising finding from Bain and Co is that those companies do not have a disproportionate number of gifted employees because they only have 16% as against 15% star performers in other companies. What makes the difference is what they do with those star performers, leading to them achieving groundbreaking results.

Organizations compete for highly skilled talents because of their ability to turn the organization’s fortune, having recruited them; however, it takes no time to grow impatient with them simply because their behavior may not be in tandem with the established norms of the organization. 

Talented employees sometimes possess complex traits; mismanaging them may deprive your organization of creating solid values. Gifted employees are very visionary, and they are innovative and comfortable in getting to the root of complex problems.  Do you have what it takes to recognize, recruit and nurture talented employees?  Does your current organizational setup and culture support extraordinary talents? Can your disposition as a manager create an enabling environment for such employees to grow and prosper? Suppose your answer to any of this question is negative. In that case, that may explain the reason why your organization or team has been deprived of transformational success and only living on incremental success.

Recognizing Gifted Employees

Talented employees can be a handful because of the probability of behaving differently. To create extraordinary value through them, Managers must have the proper insight, attitude, and skill to manage them for their overall benefits. If you ordered them poorly, you might be working against the interest of your firm. You cannot manage Star performers in your organization if you don’t understand their traits. In Her 1999 Book “The Gifted Adult,” psychologist Mary-Elaine Jacobsen said there are three traits of gifted people:

• Intensity: they extraordinarily focused, empathic and enterprising.
• Complexity: they can immediately consume and analyze vast amounts of information.
• Drive: they are high on curiosity, motivation, and commitment.

Various research shows that highly skilled employees are sometimes perceived to be proud, insensitive, emotional, argumentative, restless, disorganized, lack respect for process and procedures, not a good team player. At the height of it, we may even conclude that they engage in self-destructive behavior.  While these categories of employees are just trying to be themselves and are honest about their vision and passion for the organization, wrong accusations and treatment could lead them on a lonely, emotional, and frustrating path.

Tips for Managing  Gifted Employees

Recognize their Gift: are you able to spot the Gift in your employee, and can you link them to how mission-critical they are to your business’s success? If you can recognize their assistance, you also need to ask yourself a critical question are you humble enough to use their Gift to benefit the organization by looking at the big picture rather than a narrow picture of self-preservation and ego. Finally, in relating with this employee, will you constrained or exploit them if your answer to the last question is a YES. You may be lucky to have some star performers, but you won’t be fortunate to retain them. So, the place to start is recognizing their skills and being humble enough to allow them to thrive.

Create an Enabling environment: It is expensive to support intelligent and gifted employees; however, if you get it right, they will deliver better values to your organization beyond their investment. Their perceived weaknesses is what makes them function at a different performance level. Rather than feel threatened by them, you should give them space and support them to support your business or vision.

Keep Them engaged: a common trait with most gifted people is easily bored. Linda Hill, a Harvard  Professor and coauthor of Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader, suggests leaders ensure that gifted employees have enough to do. Have enough on their plate to remain fully engaged without loading their container to burn them out. Keep them occupied and shift their eyes from yesterday’s success so they don’t get consumed by the hubris of their achievement.

Be Empathic Towards their development: gifted and competent workers are not perfect; they fail from time to time. It would help if you recognized their propensity to fail, lower your expectations of their “invincibility,” Support them through various personal development programs.  A good talent development program should ask them about their development aspirations and how they can support them. When employees work in an environment that cares, they tend to reciprocate that in loyalty and performance. Show empathy, help them to sharpen their skill, and broaden their perspectives.

Praise Moderately: star performers love praise; who doesn’t? However, overpraising them at the expense of others may lead to resentment and conflict. It could boost their ego and turn them into abrasive workers. After a yeoman’s job, praise moderately and don’t take the shine off the team. You will make a great mistake to use negative psychology to beat others to performance; such tactics will only lead to cracks in the team. Eventually, the star performer will be frustrated out of the system.

Turn your Performer to Relationship Builder: the gifted employee may be pretty introverted and flawed in building bridges. Please help them sharpen their people skill to gain supportive acceptance and actualize their vision. Without making a solid relationship with colleagues, the star performer may perform poorly due to a poor support network.

Don’t treat them like Factory Workers: Did you know that that high-performing employees are industry disruptors in the making? Is your condition of services such that it gives them a sense of ownership, especially on an invention that led to innovation? Can they grow with the company through stock options and stake in products they invented?  Employees are not to be constrained and exploited. They are to be supported to develop unchecked.

Conclusion Innovative employees are clever because they can outstanding and fortune-changing results. A particular skill is required to support them. If you treat them poorly, they may end up becoming the disruptor of your business in the future

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Olukunle A. Iyanda PhD, FCA, SNFLI.

Founder/CEO, BROOT Consulting Nigeria Limited.

Human-Centric Design Led Innovation Consultant.