RPO and Talent Management Blog by Ochre House | Ochre Talk

I came across a blog post on Harvard Business Review the other day which spurred me into writing a piece on leadership succession.

An “identified patient“ is a psychological term referring to a family member — often a child or a teenager — who gets scapegoated for behaviour that is actually just a predictable response to dealing with an unhealthy family. In this sense, Tony Hayward is BP’s identified patient.

BP is a great example of an organisation in the grips of a leadership crisis because it has suddenly found itself with an “Identified patient”. Whether this is because of leadership failure or because the US administration “wants some blood” is a point for debate. However, it is clear that few organisations are immune from this potential risk. This therefore poses some interesting questions for those in charge of planning succession.

Typically, leadership succession processes are designed to fulfil three objectives:

Build a “talent pipeline” that is full of the capabilities required in the future organisation
       – Plan for future leaders in specific roles
       – Be ready for a sudden change in plan

It’s this final objective that organisations are frequently poorly prepared for. Whilst BP is one example, the Saga at ITV  last year just underlines the point.

My observation is that whilst strategic leadership planning seems to happen relatively smoothly, scenario planning for shorter term changes tends to be overlooked. So a question for you all? If you had an unidentified patient in your organisation, would you have an answer?

Social Media has enabled us to communicate, engage and collaborate with the wider world like nothing ever seen before and presents progressive organisations with a new way of looking at talent attraction, engagement and of course the overall Employer Brand.
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Businesses like ours spend years working with clients to formulate compelling employee value propositions (EVP) for our clients and how to get an unfair share of top talent through their doors. And then you get the UK authorities who are able to stick a spanner in the works with just a couple of poorly thought through pieces of tax legislation. 
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This was the title of an article that was shared with me the other week. The basic premise was that in a web 2.0 world, where user generated content dominates, employer branding can no longer be viewed as a monologue dictated by the corporate. Instead, focus should be on managing (or should that be influencing?) the messages shared about an organisation in the market. I wanted to look deeper…
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Or to put it another way… X Factor didn’t!

Never has it been clearer that you cannot afford to ignore the power of social media. Whether this was a protest vote or not, it is proof positive that with the right message you can reach a vast market quickly, directly and cheaply. And once again, you can only fight the battle for your brand if you enter the debate and try to influence it head on. If you stick your head in the sand, don’t embrace it as part of the “new norm”, then the opportunity cost be enormous.

When considering your Employer Brand we have had a stark reminder this week that you need to be in control of your message in ALL media, but particularly online where opinion is rampant and freely and cheaply expressed.

So who will be Christmas Number 1?  Joe McElderry with a bland, regurgitated version of an original by Hannah Montana (yes, its true!), called “The Climb”?  Or Rage Against The Machine’s dire, little-known expletive-laden (apparently that’s why they chose it) 1992 track called “Killing in The Name”.  “Who cares” I hear you ask.  Well, hundreds of thousands of people do and are making their voices heard through a Facebook group called Rage Against the Machine for Christmas No 1.  Some would argue that this opinion is not entirely rational, but it is nevertheless out there, growing fast, and even spending cash!
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