Intervention

Coaching and talent development: good practices for corporate human resources

Extracting quality from everyone with respect to their true potential brings out the best version of people, and thus their talent

8 March 2024

5' min read

If I had to choose three words to describe the model that has allowed me to achieve important goals while holding an apex role in human resources in a large organisation such as Enel, with 70,000 active employees in 32 different countries, they would be these: results, motivation and well-being. In building a solid 'architecture' for human resources management, I have tried to transfer and share within the company a series of concepts that form the basis of my new professional adventure, that of a cultural entrepreneur. The most important one is probably the following: culture transforms unresolvable conflicts into conflict and it is the content of the relationship that allows conflict to be resolved and brought to the dimension of confrontation and dialogue.

A definition of talent

One of the discussion boards I am often called upon to participate in is the talent. When I am asked if there is a definition that best describes the concept of talent, as the revolutionary of kindness that I am, I answer with a definition that probably overturns some stereotypes: it is the authentic quality of each person, and as such cannot be questioned. The individual, in other words, must be put in the ideal conditions to express himself and relate to others, because it is through the 'we' that the chorus of a group is built. It is with this approach that one changes perspective and makes the organisation flourish, transforming it into something fantastic.

Extracting the quality from everyone with respect to their true potential, regardless of their level of knowledge and competence, brings out the best version of people, and thus their talent. A good coach, a good leader, does this and recalls an imprinting of the maternal code, that of the mother who makes all her children feel unique, elevating them from anonymity, whether they are geniuses or not. I am convinced that motivation is more important than any other requirement and consequently, in my organisation, I prefer a person who has the sacred fire to perform a certain task rather than a person who is gifted, and interested, but not so passionate. From the former I definitely get the result, from the latter probably not.

How to 'train' a talent

But can talent be trained? And can exercise make up for a lack of talent? I answer these questions by saying that exercise helps talent and coaching is the development factor to bring out the best in a person, it is the ontological foundation of this relationship because it looks at the authentic qualities of the individual, asks powerful questions and extracts the answers. Coaching in business is the cure to bring out of the individual what is really needed and not to give him what is most convenient to solve a problem. However, coaching, in order to make people evolve, requires very precise planning and very careful guidance: coherence is needed between the management of coaching activities and the management of related training.

This is not a fad. Any organisation can truly flourish through this practice, which constitutes a true people-empowerment advisor and whose use I recommend as a very high return-on-investment lever, as long as it is applied with a free model and unencumbered by the achievement of a pre-coded goal.

How to raise the capabilities of individuals

The HR function, in this context, has a very important task and must forget about being the 'butler of power' and become an architect of biographies, going to the 'power' (top management) to convince them to do coaching for the good of the organisation. But beware, we are not talking about roles, we are talking about elevating the capacities of the individual and broadening the elasticity of people's activities: it is not enough to start a coaching project and stop at saying 'I did it'. It doesn't work like that. If emotions are to be strengthened, they must find a way to express themselves. And that is why a direction and a very close connection between those who bring coaching into the company and the HR figure who manages people is necessary, otherwise there is a risk of a dangerous misalignment.

I take as an example the experience I had in Enel, where I made several young people work in task forces on experimental and start-up projects: they were still employees or middle managers but they were able to meet with managers and executives and had the chance to let their talents blossom and take a step forward in their career path. The result is the goal to strive for and must be achieved through well-being and motivation. If one of the components of this magic triangle is missing, we end up in Karpman's dramatic triangle, which theorised how people, in the absence of consistency, become victims, executioners and saviours. And when, in turn, an individual in the organisation feels victimised by a persecutor, organisations die. The fantasy of being architects of biographies is therefore the prerequisite for coaching, it is the sine qua non to prevent it from becoming a boomerang.

There is no shortage of concrete examples that confirm how coaching, and training, can lead an organisation to discover and empower talent to make a real leap forward thanks to more capable and motivated people. I return to my experience at Enel to mention this anecdote, which I believe is significant. When I was appointed personnel director, I asked the personnel managers to show me the organisation charts and colour them not with merit ratings but with people archetypes: "rational", "extrovert", "innovative" and various others. In the beginning they were all the same colour, within three years the structures became all coloured. Coaching, in this case, was the added value that made it possible to sort out the diversity of profiles and the different aptitudes of the candidates, as well as the lever that helped me to colour the structures by making cultural fertility flourish within the organisation.

Many personnel managers wonder how to modulate coaching in order to always arrive at the maximum possible result, choosing between the 'orthopaedic' and corrective model and the 'prospective' and accompanying model. Well, the first step is always to mature in the awareness that the ultimate ambition of coaching is to help people (and thus the organisation) to embark on a path towards an ultimate goal. In order to achieve this, one way forward is to rely on external coaches for the most complex profiles and with the greatest potential on the hierarchical ladder and, simultaneously, on a pipeline of internal coaches (personnel managers, psychologists, marketing people) for the other figures, surfing through the availability in the company, training the trainers and creating virality. In an immune sense, like an antibody.

The prospects for the future

Trying to imagine coaching a few years from now and its further evolution, finally, the trailer of the future that stands before my eyes is the concept of natural 'smartness'. What does this mean? That we are projected into an era in which machines, artificial intelligence, will take care of a pre-screening useful to provide the first answers to users, so that anyone, at low cost, can set the goals to be achieved with respect to the problems to be overcome. I am thinking of a first level of AI-managed coaching and a final empowerment process where the senior coach comes into play. The challenge is to turn technology into a democratic tool, which humans must programme and control. The closing, and thus the moment when the action plan is defined and whether ambitions and actions are correlated, is always human. This, in my opinion, is the future.

* Founder & President Academy of Kindness