Here’s one tip for CHRO success, from a superstar business adviser

Putting the right people in the right jobs: That responsibility alone should consume 80% of your time as an HR leader working to align your company with the new digital-based reality of business.

That was the message legendary global business adviser and author Ram Charan hammered home when speaking with thousands of HR executives gathered in China recently.

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“Your first thing to do is to improve your judgment analysis of identifying the talent in human beings,” he said.

His recommended tool? Immediately after meeting someone who works for you, with you or above you, evaluate their talents or gifts.

Ram Charan

“Take 30 seconds after you finish and recite to yourself, ‘What is the talent of this person?’ ” he said. Articulate the talents precisely and without considering any of their negative qualities. Memorize the talents you identify–strive to identify three of them, he says–and then verify those talents when you meet again. This will help you ensure everyone is in the right job.

Consider Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple. He had three talents:

  • the ability to figure out what the consumer wanted;
  • the ability to link technology with the consumer’s desires; and
  • the ability to produce those things with high margins.

Jobs focused on those responsibilities at Apple and was able to create what would become the world’s first trillion-dollar company.

With those you meet, consistently and regularly ask, “What is this person’s talent? What is this person’s gift? Ask others to tell you what yours is. Expand them, hone them, practice them,” Charan said. And then consider what job fits those talents.

“If the fit is good, then you see a lot of energy, a lot of motivation, and people love to get out of bed when the fit is good,” he said. “Right people in the right jobs.”

Charan provided several tips for CHROs wanting to become a key part of an organization’s leadership team. Here are a few others:

  • Become predictive, especially in hiring. Think eight quarters ahead about what kind of talent will be needed and start pursuing it now;
  • use data to provide the foundation for using your intuition and your judgment;
  • design your organization’s structure for speed and adaptability because strategies change so often; and
  • delegate and/or automate transactions so you can find, hire and retain the right people, in the right jobs.

Next year, HR Technology Conference & Exposition® China will take place June 16-17 at the Shanghai Expo Center.

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Elizabeth Clarke
Elizabeth Clarke is executive editor of Human Resource Executive. She earned a journalism degree from the University of Florida and then spent more than 25 years as a reporter and editor in South Florida before joining HRE. Elizabeth lives with her family in Palm Beach County. She can be reached at [email protected].