On Nurturing Your Subordinates

Last Friday, I had dinner with a good friend who shared that he just met his ex-colleagues the day before. From the gathering, he realized that many of them had left his ex-department. And as he expected, there were rumors of more impending talent outflows. Quite naturally, our conversation developed along the line of talent turnover.

In my view, talent turnover is a common occurrence in every organization as people move on for various reasons: greener pastures, change of environment, etc. Just like unemployment rate, it is never possible to keep the rates at 0%. What can be done is to minimize them. While talent turnover is normal and acceptable at certain value, talent turnover of 1 person/month in a department of 15 is abnormal and warrants more investigation.

From what my friend told me, I believe the high talent turnover in his ex-department is mainly due to the inability of the management, particularly the direct supervisor, in nurturing his/her subordinates. The department may be able to continuously hire talents with great potential but without the proper training, these people will not be able to realize his/her full potential. Worse still, they may end up psychologically weaker than they were when hired and my friend happened to be one of them.

He joined the company brimming with confidence, having just cleared 3 rounds of interview. It was one of the happiest moments in his life, very sure he had finally found a career with bright prospects. Then the nightmare begins. Management indecisiveness caused him to change each presentation 5-6 times only to end up with the original slides and flow. Large portions of his written work which he spent days working on (at times, sacrificing the precious time that he could have spent with his loved ones) were deleted or replaced without explanation. His position as a driver in the teleconferences or meetings were cast aside as his direct supervisor cut him off and started speaking as if she was the only representative.

As time passes, his confidence continued to erode. He began keeping quiet, choosing not to mention his ideas, lest they were put down. He started to stammer when he spoke to the management. In fact, close to 1 year after leaving, he still has the phobia of expressing his personal opinions. He repeatedly proof-read his writing and practice what he wants to say, looking for the non-existent mistakes that may result in misunderstanding on the receiver’s side.

I empathize him for having such a bad experience and to prevent the same from happening to others, I would like to urge managers to evaluate their current policy on nurturing as the impact of poor ones on their subordinates may be long-lasting.