Chocolate and a Dragon Make a Very Special Occasion _{20 June 2009}

The Talent Pool held its first Annual Symposium for clients and guests on 16 June and celebrated the official launch of the company. The occasion was sponsored by Thorntons Chocolates, with everyone taking home the company logo made up in chocolate bars.

Deborah Meaden from the BBC’s Dragons’ Den was the Keynote Speaker and the theme for the day was “A Common Sense Approach to Business” to coincide with the launch of Deborah’s new book. Delegates were able to question Deborah about how she has achieved her career success as well as informally chatting with her over lunch. Sally Rixon, Talent Pool’s Director of Collaborative Learning said: “We feel very privileged that Deborah agreed to join us. She was the perfect Keynote Speaker for our delegates as, although she demonstrates her entrepreneurial skills on the Dragons’ Den, she has a very pragmatic and down to earth approach to business. She has grasped the nuts and bolts of what makes people succeed and fail and we wanted our members to learn some dos and don’ts for accelerating their own careers.”

Client Adam Thorn, a Consultant at Facilities Management Specialists, Nicklebys said: “The Talent Pool’s Annual Symposium was an excellent opportunity to meet people from diverse areas of work. It was an enjoyable and highly informative day. The highlight for me personally was the speech by Deborah Meaden. She spoke eloquently throughout and was thoroughly engaging. Afterwards she spent a good deal of time with Talent Pool members, answering questions and leading interesting debates.”

The Talent Pool was set up by two independent business women, Lisa Smale and Sally Rixon, who are both specialists in organisational and people development. The alarming demographic crisis that is upon us means that the future success of our businesses will depend on being able to attract, retain and develop talented people. Both Lisa and Sally have spent years in large corporate environments responsible for developing the outstanding individuals who were earmarked as future leaders, but they struggled to find the kind of support they needed anywhere in the marketplace.

The Talent Pool provides a 12 month, individually tailored development programme for the people who organisations value and do not want to lose. In summary it provides a simple solution to help organisations to develop their future leaders.

Adrian Peace from Somerfield is a Talent Pool member and he feels that “Finding the time for Personal development can be a case of priority, convenience and being inspired. I have found the Talent Pool’s approach to be completely different to any kind of Personal Development programs I have been involved in – it really is truly motivating, engaging and a result I have naturally made my own development a higher priority.”

Talent Pool members have access to a vast blend of learning activities that include online media, coaching, development workshops, social networking- to name but a few. The variety of learning opportunities is designed to minimise the time spent away from the workplace, so that participants’ ability to focus on achieving their business objectives is not compromised. Delegates learn what they want, when they want and where they want. They get to learn with people similar to themselves from a variety of business environments enabling them to learn from and with others.

The Talent Pool was formed in the summer of 2008, amidst the chaos of the recession, which has meant that Sally and Lisa have had to work harder than they could ever have imagined to get their dream off the ground and to ensure that their delegates receive the outstanding levels of experience they envisaged.

“Each quarter, members can question a key business figure — this has so far included the CEO of a Championship Football Club, a Director of a property company which builds and manages high profile retail shopping complexes and, of course, Deborah Meaden. All are from very different environments but they face similar challenges when it comes to managing customers, employees and even themselves.”

“One of the things that we are keen to do is to give the delegates the opportunity to speak to key business figures. We think that this is important as we want them to learn from people who have been where they are now and have achieved great success as a result of ‘who’ they are” explained Lisa Smale, Director of Management and Leadership Development.

There is definitely a need for organisations to begin managing and developing their talented people in a more focused way if they are to survive the demographic time bomb that is surging toward us. We know that 50% of the workforce is due to retire over the coming 10 years. Interestingly, the latest figures for the Department of Work and Pensions are that 60% of their managers will retire in the next 5 years. These figures give us a rough idea of how the shape of our workplaces will develop in the next decade, so, bearing in mind that the Engaging Leadership Study by the CIPD found that 37% of leaders are currently failing in their roles as they don’t have the appropriate basic skills, we need to be firstly promoting the right people into leadership positions and perhaps, more importantly developing them to be effective. Managing our talent is no longer just a good idea, it is a fundamental requirement for ensuring we have the people in place to create successful futures for our businesses.