All of us know the story of a guy named Tim Tebow. The deemed to be “not so talented” most surprisingly winning quarterback for the NFL’s Denver Broncos. This is a guy who has been considered an average player. An average player in college. An average over-hyped player in the league. But for some strange reason all the preconceived notions that people had didn’t matter. Baffled, everyone in the league, from sports commentators to fans, couldn’t stop this guy and his team from winning. Well until… but anyway.

Now let’s move from the NFL to the NBA. From a guy (Tim Tebow) that many knew about but felt was definitely was no stand-out, to a guy (Jeremy Lin) who essentially no one knew existed. Here is a synopsis from various stories on the recent rise of Jeremy Lin (if you know the story skip to the end!).

Jeremy Lin, after receiving no athletic scholarship offers out of high school and being undrafted out of college, was a 2010 Harvard University graduate that reached a partially guaranteed contract deal later that year with his hometown Golden State Warriors. After his first year, he was waived by the Warriors and the Houston Rockets in the preseason before joining the Knicks early in the 2011–12 season. Lin is one of the few Asian Americans in NBA history, and the first American player in the league to be of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.

Lin said he was “competing for a backup spot, and people see me as the 12th to 15th guy on the roster…”  New York considered releasing Lin before his contract became guaranteed on February 10 so they could sign a new player.  However, after the Knicks squandered a fourth quarter lead in a February 3 loss to the Boston Celtics, coach Mike D’Antoni decided to give Lin a chance to play. D’Antonti said “He got lucky because we were playing so bad.” Lin had played only 55 minutes through the Knicks’ first 23 games.

“Players playing that well don’t usually come out of nowhere. It seems like they come out of nowhere, but if you can go back and take a look, his skill level was probably there from the beginning. It probably just went unnoticed.” -Kobe Bryant

On February 4, 2012, Lin had 25 points, five rebounds, and seven assists—all career-highs—in a 99–92 Knicks victory over the New Jersey Nets. Teammate Carmelo Anthony suggested to coach Mike D’Antoni at halftime that Lin should play more in the second half. After the game, D’Antoni said Lin has a point-guard mentality and “a rhyme and a reason for what he is doing out there.”

In the subsequent game against the Utah Jazz, Lin made his first career start. He had 28 points and eight assists.In a game against the Washington Wizards, Lin had 23 points and 10 assists. It was his first double-double. On February 10, Lin scored a new career-high 38 points and had seven assists, leading the Knicks in their 92–85 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. He outscored the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, who had 34 points. On February 11, Lin scored 20 points and had 8 assists in a narrow 100–98 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. Lin scored 89, 109, and 136 points in his first three, four, and five career starts, respectively, all three of which are the most by any player since the merger between the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the NBA in 1976–77.

He is the first NBA player with at least 20 points and seven assists in his first four starts. Lin was named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week after averaging 27.3 points, 8.3 assists and 2.0 steals in those four starts with the Knicks going undefeated. On February 14, Lin scored a game-winning three-pointer against the Toronto Raptors with less than a second remaining in a game.  In the following game, Lin recorded career-high 13 assists and led the Knicks back to .500.

The feel-good story of  Jeremy Lin is a perfect example of overlooked talent and how the world of work should try it’s best to evaluate and effectively SIFT through the people we have. Find out what makes them tick and how we could better allow them to use their previously unrealized abilities.

In the case of Jeremy Lin it was a draw of the cards. A lucky circumstance caused from most of the players in the Knicks organization being hurt, forcing the team to allow a player, they would sooner let go, play on the court.

Here are a few things you should do to sift through the talent you already have to build on your best potential performance and not miss out on your best players!

1. Meet with each member of your team regularly: While seemingly simple too many executives and managers rarely have one on ones with their teams. They don’t have regular team meetings. This is a shame because the simple act of meeting collectively once a month or with each individual periodically will help you follow and know the pulse of each individual. Think about it this way: If you never kept stats of your players than how would you ever know how well they were doing from game to game?
2. Evaluate their performance: This goes along with performance reviews but is much deeper. The performance review is simply a tool to help you monitor and keep track of the health of each member of your team. Only a tool, not the solution or the action. When you monitor someones performance you are paying attention to their behaviors, their strengths and challenges. The paying attention part is essential! This means that you also need to develop goals for you and them to adjust periodically and appropriately!
3. Coach and prepare each player on the team! It is great when you have a few top picks from the draft that will be your stars. However, what happens when your version of Carmelo Anthony gets hurt. All you have left is but a prayer and, what you view as, an average scorer and guard going against some of the best in the league. If you only spend your time on the talent that is already good, then the talent you believe to be average will only degrade and become sub-par. DON’T LET THAT HAPPEN!
4. Ask that individual where they feel they fit: We will always have a preconceived belief of someone else regarding their individual performance. However, if we give them a chance to voice their thoughts on their own strengths then there could be an opportunity to place them in a better position to score or support the rest of the team.
5. and ultimately you have to just GIVE THEM THE CHANCE TO EXCEL! You never know what will happen. Sure it could be scary. However, just think if you give them the chance to fail… they might just succeed!

Don’t miss out on your own potential Jeremy Lin (oh and enjoy the no-longer-sleeping-on-your-friends-couch Jeremy)!

So what do you do to SIFT through and find the talented folks that are already working in your organization?

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at the Greater Cincinnati ASTD. The subject, an adjusted and tweaked version of my Building Leadership Development from Scratch.

From what I was told it was the highest and best attended monthly meeting they had for the year… I think that is pretty cool. Without further adieu here are the slides from that session. If you would like to have a downloaded version please subscribe to the blog and then contact me and I would be happy to send you the notes!

Beginning Video from the DDI Study (Development Dimensions International)

Now how do you approach and build your own Leadership and Training efforts?

When I hear the term Talent Management, I often hear it talked about in the context of recruiting and sourcing. Now I may be completely off, but to me, Talent Management is much more than just finding people for the role. It’s much more than finding the RIGHT people for a company to fill a job. Talent management is more than just recruiting. It is about how you interact, engage and build the people you have, to retain and develop them and even if they leave you, they will want to come back!

One definition I found was this: Talent Management is a holistic approach to optimizing human capital, which enables an organization to drive short- and long-term results by building culture, engagement, capability, and capacity through integrated talent acquisition, development, and deployment processes that are aligned to business goals.

Umm yeah… right. My eyes roll to the back of my head like when I was in my human psychology & anthropology classes’ freshman year.

There are many debates within the circles of HR on how you should Manage Talent. Here is what Talent Management is to me.

Talent Management = Sourcing: All you are doing is finding ways to differentiate you from the competition. Just like a candidate, you are defining and setting up how you will identify, search and contact talent. At the same time, maybe subconsciously you are projecting that beautiful and trendy word called a ‘brand’ that will attract the best, the brightest and help you somehow keep them! At the beginning of hiring, it is a sourcing strategy. You outline responsibilities; define the steps, & plans for contingencies. You also define what success looks like. Your methods become a toolkit that will set your approach and allow you to be flexible. However, this doesn’t mean you should just network or source to fill orders, meet deadlines or be “on to the next one.”

Talent Management = Talent Development: If you get the best and the brightest and ignore their need for development after they arrive, you lose the potential you once had. Talent development happens within performance management and consulting. It works when you help an individual identify and assess their needs in order for them to be prepared in performing their responsibilities to the company. By identifying where they are, where they need to be and the gaps that exist; you will keep them from or allow them to succeed. By identifying the appropriate tools and experiences for that individual, you better position the current talent to reach their full potential and contribute to the value and bottom line. This makes everyone’s job much easier ~ at least in theory.

Talent Management = Succession Planning: This simply means that an organization identifies key roles that need to be filled and the people that need to fill them when the time is right. It is preparing people and positions, getting them ready for a transition and change; not just with the possible change of a person in a position but also within the organization.

I talked to a colleague the other day and I think that there is a lack of this happening. In the current economy you would think that planning for possibility of replacement of key roles would be essential. That you would create opportunities for cross-training, identify people within the company that could fill the pipeline for unforeseen or potential. Yet with budgets dwindling and the focus being on surviving, many are forgetting that they may be surviving now, but when they get out of the trenches, will they thrive?

Talent Management = Saying what you mean, mean what you say: If you boast a great brand. Preach an awesome culture and praise what the organization will do for current and potential employees… and then don’t deliver… you not only hurt the company but also your own reputation. Now is a time where people want and appreciate honesty. Just as you are trying to make a well informed decision from the talent pool you have at your disposal, the candidates are also selecting you based on the promises you keep and the lies you tell.

Talent Management = Leadership: All of leadership, from the hiring manager and recruiter to the department head and CEO need to walk the walk, talk the talk and be ready to show that if need be, they will run with the heard to do the work that needs to be done to help make everyone be successful.

Above all Talent Management = People: In the end, it’s about people. I mean, you’re not managing androids, recruiting machines or training dogs. You are maximizing an individual’s potential to help you and the organization maximizes results! Don’t just be about the money they make for you. Don’t just hire them, forget them and then move On to the Next One…

Jay-Z Featuring Swizz Beatz – On to the next one (click for readers):

Disclaimer: This post was originally on the NAS Recruiting Talent Talk Blog in March of 2010 (without the images and narly video). NAS Recruitment Communications has created and evolved solutions to assist organizations with their recruiting, employment branding and on-boarding/retention efforts. They have not paid me nor nudged me in their direction to advertise them. Check them out.