Why do companies lose their best talents?

“Some friends asked me to translate this post to English. Hope you enjoy”

Original Portuguese Version - http://linkd.in/1FJKpfl

Why do companies lose their best talents?

A lot of companies seem to be living in a stage of lethargy, hibernation. For months, sometimes years, focused on their day to day, they end up neglecting one of the key success factors of all companies, PEOPLE! I often say that no company is bigger or better than the people who work there, employees give it a damned hard every day. So why do companies lose their best talent all the time? Why does the motivation disappear suddenly favoring the non-achievement of targets and market gains?

(1) Happy employees help businesses to thrive.

Nobody is happy just by being somewhere, happy people are part of something, they feel actually useful and collaborating, not just following orders, but contributing proactively, being heard, sharing knowledge and especially clearly understanding what they are doing and where they are going. Overlook this simple equation and there goes another talent of the company.

(2) After all, what is my role in this company and where can I give my best?

Many managers do not devote the time required to create the Job description of their areas, especially when they turn to HR, recruitment companies and head hunters for more senior positions.

Defining the core business of each department is important in order to escape the trap of being wrapped under a pile of projects that very often should not even have started.

It is very common for employees, new or not, to bump into tasks or activities that have nothing to do with the job description that originally attracted them, much less with the interview that they participated. To make it even worse formed and fully functional teams are faced with contradictory information and policies that often confuse employees that are ready to give their best in the completion and consolidation of its projects. I have followed groups of professionals who come home every day wondering of why being involved in certain projects and how contradictory it has been the performance of their departments between what is said and what is practiced.

See professionals involved in endless meetings, one after the other in which more than 70% of the cases, say stuff like:

"What a waste of time, boring and pointless meeting, I will finally sit down at my desk and do what actually needs to be done. I spend most of my time building presentations in order to say the same thing or communicate what is already known”.

These and other issues are present in employees’ minds 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

(3) Authoritarianism and arrogance are more common than you think.

The rush of day-to-day distractions, pressures for results, personal issues, lack of training, fear, ego, and the list is huge. These and others are the main reasons of both authoritarianism and arrogance within companies. From all of them, I would say that the ego is the main annihilator of talent.

It's amazing how many professionals have the “New Boss Syndrome” (I say you do), many of them change dramatically overnight. Before loyal and engaged colleagues, now believe they should take a new approach, it seems that they have moved to a noble caste missing the chance to become great colleagues and perhaps great leaders.

Another well-known group are the EXPERTS. Known as dominant in their own truths, some go so far when facing a team with over two hundred employees proclaim their knowledge as sovereign. They forget that two are better than one, three better than two, and so on. All this expertise will go down the drain once he realizes that since he knows so much, 100 of his team walk in first gear, another 50 still did not understand anything and the other 50 are literally doing nothing, waiting for the circus to catch on fire.

Authoritarianism and arrogance are like a mirror that only reflects the self-image of the beholder, not realizing that, by breaking the mirror, only their self-image that falls apart and there goes another unbearable boss and many talents along the way.

(4) “Feedback of fear”

Simple as that, you must see it to believe, just talk about feedback and everyone starts to shake, even more when it comes packed with a feedback technique that starts with a compliment and is followed by BUT...

It is not uncommon amongst humans to emphasize the error instead of highlighting the successes. Feedback should be daily and preferably positive because no one likes to be the “ugly duck”, people like to look up to winners, not losers. Feedback done badly is like a plague, only spread terror.

(5) Who points out errors is punished or banned

As Vincent Falconi (Brazilian Consulting) points out, the coping policy can be more positive than it seems. Who points out the errors is punished; who is in the comfort zone is awarded. All wrong, a strong team is exactly a team of self-criticism, of course when properly dosed. Many enter into a cycle in which they become very passive. Once in this cycle all they do is complain, they build nothing.

(6) Creativity annihilator

Not very rare that an employee comes up with an idea that is immediately refused, that employee or team that has a product design that capture images in digital form for example and the company sits on top of your idea saying: This will cannibalize our business ". It seems like a joke but it happened at Kodak. The digital camera was created within the Kodak and today there is not much left of that company.

(7) 10, 15, 20 years with the company and a “little medal”

I see many, many companies honoring its employees with a party, a diploma, a gold medal. It has been years of dedication and results, nothing more fair than establishing an average score for performance for those years and reward the employees with a bigger bonus, so they can take their families on holidays and simply buy something they have been wanting for a long time.

A “little medal” means nothing other than: Thank you, you have done nothing more than your obligation!

After all, why to retain talents?

They are the most important assets of the company, our best employees and our intellectual capital. True, but perhaps rather than simply retaining talent, companies start eliminating once and for all with what is already known to all.

Nothing that has been said is new; it is part of the daily life of professionals and companies. What about disseminating a culture where the meritocracy is applied, where favoritism is eliminated, where qualified professionals are recognized, where the mission and the vision of the company are in fact present and not simply printed on flyers hanging on walls around the company.

Where employees perform their duties aware that they really need to do their part, that the function of creating the meanings for doing things and keeping those in place is not solely a company’s responsibility, but of everyone involved, shareholders, managers and employees.

Nobody leaves a fertile and prosperous land, pleasant and enriching ground, nobody leaves the “dream company”.

We need to wake up to the fact that we are looking in the wrong direction, creating plan after plan to retain people when in fact we should tackle the causes rather than the symptoms that make us lose talent every day.