Wednesday, January 18, 2012

When Is Differentiation Okay?

Oh how we all hate to hear the word "differentiation".  For many, it's a word we want to remove from our conversations.  For HR practitioners it opens up a discussion many want to avoid entirely.  We have spent years, make that decades on ensuring we have processes in place that eliminate the opportunity to discriminate.  It's one of the many compliance issues HR faces every day.

Well as you all know, I think in a disruptive and uncommon way.  I do believe there is a time and place for differentiation and yes it is in the workplace.  Many organizations spend countless hours, days and years in identifying their superstars.  Those people who have been identified as hipo's, hiper's, the next leaders and influential contributors in our organizations.  These are the people who you believe will lead your organization into the future.  The ones who will take you from good to great.

Where we seem to fall down is in differentiating in the way we engage, provide opportunities and treat these individuals.  We have no problem identifying who they are but for one reason or another we can't bring ourselves to treating them differently.  My question to you is why?  What keeps you from treating your superstars differently than your average performers?  Why can't we provide them with opportunities others aren't offered?  Isn't the whole purpose of identifying high potentials to foster development and growth for them so they can achieve greatness?

Organizations who believe everyone should be treated the same are missing huge opportunities.  Take a moment and speak with your high potentials and they will tell you that fairness and equality breeds mediocrity.  Differentiation facilitates greatness.  If you believe these individuals won't become frustrated that they are treated the same as everyone else, you are missing the boat.  Your best people want to be treated differently and more importantly deserve to be treated differently.  Regardless of whether you have a tell or don't tell policy they will come to expect more development, engagement and opportunities than others.  And don't think for a second that if you don't provide them with what they need they will find it some where else because they will.

So my last question to you is why gamble with your future success when you can very easily engage them in different ways?  Is it really worth losing your future leaders because you don't want to be perceived as not being fair.  Your employees expect you to differentiate when it comes to talent.  It's what drives people to greatness.  So I challenge you to take a look at what you're doing to engage these individuals and step it up a notch.  Your people will appreciate you for it.

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