Inform Yourself

One of the most common comments and questions I receive when speaking with business owners regarding their businesses is “I’ve heard the terms Organizational Development (OD) and Talent Management but what do they mean? Are they the same thing”? Their questions are usually spawned after hearing someone in Human Resources talk about one of the subjects while mentioning the other in the course of their presentation. Based on my experience, there is much confusion regarding these two business development tools especially in the small and middle market segments.

The simple answer to the question is no, they are not the same thing. Each has its specific use and place within the strategies an organization is utilizing for growing a successful business.

Let’s start by defining each of the terms for clarity sake:

Organization development (OD) is a planned, organization-wide effort to increase an organization's effectiveness and viability. Warren Bennis (an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies is a Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California) has referred to Organizational Development (OD) as a response to change, a complex educational strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values, and structure of organization so that they can better adapt to new technologies, marketing and challenges, and the dizzying rate of change itself. Organizational Development (OD) is neither "anything done to better an organization" nor is it "the training function of the organization"; it is a particular kind of change process designed to bring about a particular kind of end result. Organizational Development (OD) can involve interventions in the organization's "processes," using behavioral science knowledge as well as organizational reflection, system improvement, planning, and self-analysis.

Talent Management refers to the process of developing and integrating new workers, developing and retaining current workers, and attracting highly skilled workers to work for a company. The term was coined by David Watkins of Softscape[ published in an article in 1998. The process of attracting and retaining profitable employees, as it is increasingly more competitive between firms and of strategic importance, has come to be known as "the war for talent." Talent management is a process that emerged in the 1990s and continues to be adopted, as more companies come to realize that their employees’ talents and skills drive their business success. Companies that have put into practice talent management have done so to solve an employee retention problem. The issue with many companies today is that their organizations put tremendous effort into attracting employees to their company, but spend little time into retaining and developing talent. A talent management system must be worked into the business strategy and implemented in daily processes throughout the company as a whole, NOT just by Human Resources!

Notice the differential between these two definitions. Organizational Development (OD) is applied to the larger structure (aka the organization) in order to produce a specific desired result. Talent Management is applied to an asset within the larger structure or to attracting and integrating the asset to the structure! Two very different strategies to say the least!

Although these two are very different strategies, they do have one very big thing in common. In order for an organization to successfully implement either or both strategies, it MUST be done through the business strategy, implemented in the daily processes, and driven by the organization as a WHOLE not just by Human Resources! This means it STARTS at the top of the organization with commitment through action not words! An organization must live it, breathe it, and be it on a consistent basis always measuring its progress (or lack thereof) in order to be successful implementing either or both of these strategies.

I will provide details for each of these strategies in the blog posts that follow.

Stay tuned to learn more, leave a comment, or contact me by completing the form at http://www.timothymcginty.com/contact.html