A simple question – would you like your employees to feel more energized, focused, purposeful and contribute to the next chapter in your company? I would imagine we will get a resounding “yes” from senior leaders and HR. But, what exactly are we doing to meet this goal?

Breakthrough or incremental value creation requires optimal utilization of the company’s talent – so called “our greatest asset”. So, here’s an idea for a new metric to understand “Talent Squandering”.

• Identify the percentage of employees who are either in your high potential talent pool or are given high performance ratings. Usually, this number is likely to be under 20% of your workforce.
• Next, administer a simple survey to this targeted group asking them – “What percentage of time do you have for creative or strategic thinking?”. Of course, you could add other questions to the survey about connection with the company’s strategic direction & goals, the ability to focus on key issues, overall energy levels at work etc.

And that can give you a quick sense of whether you are building an organization of “do-ers” or an organisation that is powered by ideas and has the ability to disrupt business models, exploit disruptions and avoid obsolescence.