The highlight of September was my presentation of a paper entitled “Talent Management

– Nurturing and Retaining your Best Employees”, at the PSMB (HRDF) conference at
the Sunway Convention Centre on 5th September. In the course of the talk, one of the
things I touched on was this analogy about stallions and donkeys. I began this analogy by
saying that you need a combination of stallions (high performers) and donkeys (plodders)
in all organizations.

                    

Stallions and Donkeys Analogy

There are however some things you need to be aware of when managing stallions and
donkeys in the context of Talent Management. These are:   

 Stallions (high performers) are the ones who will win races for you. However they
do not come cheap. They are also expensive to maintain as they need special
veterinary care, vitamins, air-conditioned stables etc. They are however worth it
as they ‘win’ races for you which brings in the dollars (One idea or a new process
created by a high performer can save you millions or on the other hand make you
millions). On the other hand, donkeys given the same ‘special treatment’ will
never ever win races for you. In his article, ‘The True Value of Hiring and
Retaining Top Performers’, author Dr John Sullivan (a top HR specialist in the
US) states that “Top performers exceed the performance of average performers by
at least 25%”. When you translate that into dollars and cents it can be very big
money.
 Never recruit a stallion and use it to carry heavy loads. That is not its primary
function and if you continue to do so you will turn him into a donkey or he will
leave. You are also wasting talent and skills. On the other hand, never recruit a
donkey and then think that through the process of training and development or
other methods that you can make him win races. It will never ever happen and is
definitely not worth the time and effort! 

 Stallions want to be treated like stallions. They know that they can win races and
therefore know that they are special. They also know that they are very
marketable which may make them a little conceited. Accept their egos. It is a
small price to pay for excellence. When you treat them like donkeys, they get de-
motivated which in turn results in them not winning races or else they leave.

 It is easy to convert a stallion into a donkey by mismanaging him, de-motivating

him etc. On the other hand, try as he may, even David Copperfield will not be
able to convert a donkey into a stallion.

 NEVER, EVER allow a donkey to manage stallions. He will soon convert all the
stallions into donkeys. Curt Coffman, lead researcher at Gallup says that “If you
have a turnover problem look first to your managers,” he asserts. “People leave
managers, not companies.”

 Lastly, identify the stallions in your organization and do all you can to keep them.
It’s okay to allow the donkeys to leave. Donkeys are easily replaceable, stallions
are not.