Review: "One day people will look back at today’s HR practices and ask: ‘Why did we ever do things like that?’ Professor Clutterbuck asks those difficult questions today, and presents a wealth of alternative approaches. These will equip organizations to be more dynamic, fluid and agile in the way they manage people, develop talent, and redefine careers."
-Jonathan Winter, Founder, The Career Innovation Company

"...quickly gets to the heart of what really makes great talent management work and destroys the false assumptions and objectivity many organizations rely on. It is a wake-up call from the real world to the paper-based talent processes that actually restrict effective talent leverage. Insightful, leading edge and practical. An essential guide for senior leaders and HR professionals."
-Chris Roebuck, Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership, Cass Business School and former Global Head of Talent & Leadership UBS

The Talent Wave presents a dynamic, flexible approach to succession planning and talent management. Clutterbuck first demolishes most accepted practice in these areas, and then presents practical solutions that align employee ambitions and business priorities to ensure that organizations have the right leadership in place for ongoing success.

Contents: Introduction • What’s wrong with succession planning? • What is succession planning? • Models of succession planning • Key themes in succession planning • How organizations go about succession planning • Effective succession planning • Evaluating the effectiveness of succession planning • A special problem of succession planning in smaller companies • So how do the wrong people get to the top? • Why succession planning doesn’t work: a summary • Summary • A systemic perspective on succession and talent • Generation F: ambassadors of the complex adapative system • Challenges for HR • What do we mean by leadership? • Post-recessionary leadership • Some critical leadership roles • Leaders versus leadership • Flawed leadership • Summary • The critical challenges: what is talent? • What do we mean by talent? • How do definitions of talent affect people’s ambitions? • How do we identify talent? • A simpler way of identifying talent • The linear systems approach: competencies and grids • How far can we trust competency frameworks? • The nine-box grid: a reliable assessment or an illusion of rigour? • Is performance really measurable? • Is potential really measurable? • The ‘other’ talent • Summary • Aligning careers and business needs • What do organizations and talented employees need to understand about each other? • Developing realistic yet flexible and opportunistic career paths • Creating alignment • Recognizing and using ‘transition points’ • Retaining talent • Creating the environment for alignment • The critical challenges: the maturity question • Managing the maturity issue • Managing potentially fatal flaws • Making the maturity dialogue happen • Pools, pipelines or waves? • Dropping a rock in the talent pool • The perils of pipelines • Harnessing the power of the Talent Wave • Summary • Critical conversations • The importance of good questions • Critical conversations for succession planning • Critical conversation one: internal • Critical conversation two: employee and their stakeholders • Critical conversation three: wider organization and employees • Critical conversation four: between social networks • A strategy for career and succession planning conversations • Conversation 1: the inner dialogue • Managing the inner dialogue • Identity and values • Taking responsibility for your own career planning • Capturing the inner conversation • How the organization can help • Helping the employee plan their learning journey • Summary • Conversation 2: stakeholder dialogue • Dialogue between the line manager and the employee • Looking for talent • Finding development opportunities for the talent in your team • Harnessing stakeholder goodwill in your career and personal development • Dialogue with colleagues • Conversation 3: between the organization and employees • What do organizations need to know about employees’ career aspirations? • How to gather and communicate information about likely roles in the future • Using the broader organizational conversation to support the Talent Wave • Making the broad conversation happen • Conversation 4: between social networks • Networking theory • Social networking and succession planning • Integrating organizational and employee social networks • Benefits of integrating organizational and individual social networks • Supporting employee-focused social networking • Summary • Succession planning for a dynamic world • Working within a complex, adaptive system • Harnessing the energy of the Talent Wave • Ensuring that talent development and succession planning systems enable rather than control • Making sure the four conversations happen • So can we prevent the wrong people getting to the top? • Conclusion • References • Index.

About the Author: David Clutterbuck is a co-founder and lifetime ambassador of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and founder of Clutterbuck Associates. Visiting professor at two UK universities, he is repeatedly among the top 25 HR thinkers in HR Magazine’s annual survey, and is the author or co-author of over 50 books, including Mentoring in Action [also published by Kogan Page].