Leader as Chief Talent Officer

I'm starting to really "get it" regarding the importance of having talented people on your team. Now that I say that, it sounds very obvious however it's more top of mind for me now than it ever has been. As a result, I'm spending more time on talent issues that I have in the past.

What got me thinking about talent? Frankly it was something of a lucky break. On last year's board we had somebody who had to leave after a couple of months, in part due to medical reasons. And so we advertised for replacement for her role, and soon found ourselves with two amazing candidates. And so we took them both on the board, creating an additional role.

Both of these people have shown me how powerful it is to have talented people on your team. The most obvious "before and after" case has to do with our events chair. Prior to her arrival, our organization had done a reasonably good job of putting on an annual conference, but had absolutely struggled with doing medium-sized monthly events. It had been talked about for a long time, but nobody really knew how to do them. Sometimes they would be tried with mixed results, but more often than not, nothing happened.

Then our new events chair join the team and very soon after put together a "Winter social" event at a local gallery. She wrote the description in a certain way, she found just the right venue, and she leverage the contact to bring great wine. I was cautiously optimistic about the event, and then absolutely blown away when we had about 50 people attend. Prior to that, if we'd had 20 people show up we would have considered it a success. In the three events that she's organized since then have been similarly dynamic and well attended.

Now I have to tell you that in my first year on the board, I was the events chair. I really didn't know how to do it and neither did anyone else on the board, and so in terms of monthly events, the things I tried didn't go very well. Just consider that this is the same organization, the same community, just a different events chair and the events are like night and day in terms of their success. Clearly there is something that she knows that makes a difference.

But for my role as board president, I'm getting more and more clear about how critical it is for me to develop the talent that is on the board, and also to help recruit the best talent I can find for next year's board. Although the success of the organization ultimately depends on the degree to which we can engage the community in our organization, the board will be the ones leading the charge in making that happen.

Better talent --- better results.