Albert Ellis is Chief Executive Officer of Harvey Nash, the global professional recruitment and IT Outsourcing consultancy.

Companies don’t know what to do about uncertainty and unpredictability.

The recession means many employees are paralysed with fear and can’t do their own jobs, they are not on the same page as the leadership and can’t execute with excellence. Confidence has disappeared and has been replaced by its polar opposite - fear.

When employees are fearful it undermines trust there is no transparency or honesty and eventually they will panic.

These companies are still in what I refer to as a TOP DOWN mode and are concerned about being seen to be active, slashing jobs, reducing costs aggressively and increasing earnings in the short term to appease investors. It’s a race to the bottom and it’s got some very ugly aggressively macho characteristics. The PR teams are churning out the press releases everywhere.

Do you think I am being extreme? Well just look at the example of what’s happening in Europe where a senior Director of one of the largest companies in France has resigned yesterday after a number of suicides in the company blamed on “management through terror”. This downward spiral leads to negative energy in the organisation where the whole adds up to less than the sum of the parts. In this environment “innovation” and “creativity” is stifled, snuffed out like a solitary candle exposed to a strong wind.

The old paradigm

It doesn’t work anymore. Most top executives I have worked with haven’t bought into the new paradigm that we are living in a knowledge worker age. The industrial age is over.

Many pay lip service to this, nodding attentively but go straight back to the old ways of working. Hierarchical, command and control ways.

Failure

Mostly this has resulted in failure particularly over the last 10 years. The corporate landscape is beginning to be littered with examples - I would say in my experience over 50% of the global organisations of today are old paradigm organisations staring at failure down the road at some point. Do I need to mention the US auto industry? The collapse wasn’t a one night phenomenon it was obvious for most of the last decade.

Talent

All of us will be succeeded by Generation Y at some point in the not too distant future. Tomorrow’s leaders. Generation X is now in charge at Glaxo, BP, the new US administration, David Cameron and Boris Johnson perhaps. They will be succeeded by the media generation (Y) and this demands of us a change in approach.

The Talent paradigm shift is only possible with a complete change from the top. Empowerment. Letting employees and managers decide for themselves what greatness looks like to them, how it fits in. Not “what I want” but “what can I do?” It’s a positive force that’s needed and its source must be the CEO and his team.

Creating the conditions for innovation is more important than the innovation itself. Because then its sustainable and not a one off.

• a high level of trust
• empowerment
• collaboration

Initiate new organic growth and thinking in your organisation, but don’t manage the process or the outcome. Introduce the tools; open your systems to web 2.0.

Embrace new technology - sometimes its anarchic but it connects people, ideas and creates the unexpected. Twitter, love it or hate it. It definitely fills a need in society, as does Facebook.

When I say offshore you think cost reduction. But don’t! Think “I need to have my Technology Group integrated from more than one nationality and culture to foster innovation as well as driving down cost”.

As many technological innovations originate in the East now, it may be useful to tap into Asian talent, in our case it’s in Vietnam. Beginning to create new paradigms from having new people in the team from completely different cultures. With different life experience and different educational backgrounds. Enriching and creating the conditions for innovation.

Conclusion

Every successful activity has involved a breakthrough. But there is no breakthrough without a change in paradigm.

How can I tell you to innovate with Talent? I can’t. Most innovations are accidents anyway. Certainly in medical terms it’s a journey through the dark for most of the R & D process until something happens. Think Viagra and Penicillin - probably two of the best examples.

So you can’t manufacture innovation but you can create the right conditions for it.

Breakthrough requires a “break” with the old ways of thinking. It starts with your culture, your leadership style, acceptance of the new paradigm of talent management. It allows your teams to develop third alternatives. Not MY WAY or YOUR WAY but a THIRD WAY, our way.