Are you getting your money’s worth from your company’s talent management processes and programs? How do you know that you’re maximizing the organization’s investments in recruitment, development, and employee retention programs?

These are questions more leaders are asking today — or should be asking. The first step in clarifying the value of your existing programs is figuring out how well your talent investments are actually supporting your organization’s strategy.  Steve Trautman, who collaborated with me on our new book The Executive Guide to High-Impact Talent Management, recently wrote a guest post describing a surprisingly easy and effective method for improving the alignment between business objectives and your talent management initiatives. Check it out on the Great Leadership Blog.

We describe how Cisco effectively uses this approach in our book. Cisco’s leaders recognize that the need to align strategy with daily activities in talent management means more than just broadcasting a few key business objectives. Employees at all levels are encouraged to think about the context in which the business strategy is being implemented. That means asking questions like:

• Where is this business in its life cycle? Is it small and rapidly growing? Is it mature or a turnaround situation?
• Do we need smart people who can execute in this market? Or do we need more aggressive people who can go toe-to-toe with major competitors?

Executives at Cisco are continually challenged to translate the CEO’s strategic objectives into more localized talent implications. This approach, which we call “Communicating the Big Picture,” will enhance the productivity of your entire organization because it forces employees to continually think through how their actions are contributing to strategy implementation.

How well is your organization communicating strategy to drive talent initiatives? You won’t know if those investments are paying off without answering this question first.