Nurturing young talent - key to Value Maximization

By

Dr. Rana Singh
Assistant Professor (Finance)
Editor - Delhi Business Review
Delhi School of Professional Studies and Research (DSPSR)
9, Institutional Area, PSP Facilities, Sector-25, Rohini, Phase III, Delhi-110085
 

The best performing search engine of the globe google.com has been promoted by two young brains that started small when they were Ph.D. Scholars in USA and gradually excelled par excellence. Google.com has set a history by outperforming all other search engines of the globe. This example and various other examples of corporate excellence have proved them and again that corporate excellence is not only confined to old, senior and people with grey hairs. Now the new generation youngsters and entrepreneurs are setting global benchmarks of excellence at a young age.

This article makes an attempt to ring the bells in the mind and ears of the top echelons of management by reminding with real life examples of corporate excellence, that gone are the days when only the old/ people with grey hairs were expected to accomplish jobs involving higher degree of responsibility.

The corporate world today is full of examples of young employees/ entrepreneurs who have accomplished historical milestones. The time is ripe that the HR department must start focusing on nurturing young talent so as to accomplish outstanding results.

The average age of the employees in the leading MNC's is gradually decreasing. The top MNC's have already understood and started processing the art and process of mapping and nurturing young talent. Young talents have the capability to think radically different and are innovative in approach. The heavyweights of the organization thwart all attempts to ensure that young breed of employees do not outperform the seniors as it creates a threat to their long term sustainability.

The young examples if given enough space and empowerment can produce/deliver outstanding results by their out of the box thinking. Young employees up with new ideas and have high risk taking aptitude.

History of corporate excellence is live testimony to the fact that the financial results achieved by old time entrepreneurs and leaders in decades have been achieved by the new generation leaders/entrepreneurs in few years.

The most advantageous aspect of the new generation employees is their friendliness with technology, open-minded approach, positive attitude , young mind devoid of stereo typed thinking and last but not the least the fire in the belly to reach the top at the earliest both in professional career as well as taking the company to new height.

The simplest methodology of nurturing young talent is to meet them consistently, discuss new ideas, plans, processes and systems to be implemented and thereafter chalk out an action plan to convert the plans into reading so as to leave behind all competitors in the same industry.

Old is gold but young is diamond. The young bread of techno-business entrepreneurs of the globe are the ones who have been able to catch up with the global bandwagon of boom in Internet technologies, and E-commerce. The young generation of the e-commerce entrepreneurs and technopreneurs have become the millionaires and billionaires in the shortest possible time.

The ceo of 9xm Ms. Indrani Mukherjea is all set to leave behind the best performing companies in the satellite media at an early age of 30 years by launching 12 satellite channel under the aegis of INX media.

The cost of acquiring, mapping and nurturing young talent is far less than retaining the old and experienced juggernauts with grey hairs and bald head. The young breed of employees need love, care, affection, sympathy, caring and nurturing approach and the optimum degree of empowerment and flexibility to explore new ideas and vistas to achieve outstanding results.

The power of young minds is mind blowing. They have very high degree of energy level and are always ready to leave behind any or all of their global contemporary performers/competitors.

The HR department must evolve a unique strategy to have the optimum blend of the old & young. TSMG- i.e. (www.tsmg.com) the Tata strategic Management group evolved a unique breed of taskfource under the aegis of Tata group of companies and created a special cadre of officers in the name of TAS i.e. Tata Administrative services and has allocated to attract the best of the talent from the Indian B-Schools. In very short span of time, it has become one of the most preferred employers on the top-20 B-School campuses.

The power of old practitioners must be optimally mixed with the young generation of employees with strong analytical and techno-managerial skills.

The average age of most of software development and IT consulting firms hovers between 20 and 40. The young employees in most of the IT companies have consistently delivered outstanding results.

The passion to excel and achieve new heights by the youngsters, multi-skilled personality, high risk taking ability, and the zeal to outperform the global counterpart makes the young breed of employees relatively much sought after resource among the HR managers of leading organizations.

The HR managers must evolve a holistic plan & strategy to optimize the young talent .The focus must be on acquiring, nurturing, retaining and heading the team of young employees towards corporate excellence. The degree of freedom, flexibility and empowerment must be strategically optimized so as to give them a smooth road to excel par excellence devoid of any hurdles.

To conclude, the coming years will see more no. of millionaires and billionaires at young age and more no. of companies in the best of fortune 500 companies of the globe and the nation under the dynamic leadership of young leader either by age or by heart. Thus last but not the least, the organizations and enterprises aiming at being the front runners in their chosen area of operations must start focusing on nurturing young talent so as to excel beyond excellence and beat the competition in the exponentially dynamic environment.
 

Dr. Rana Singh
Assistant Professor (Finance)
Editor - Delhi Business Review
Delhi School of Professional Studies and Research (DSPSR)
9, Institutional Area, PSP Facilities, Sector-25, Rohini, Phase III, Delhi-110085
 

Source: E-mail December 4, 2007

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