o“The buzz word in the management
f people for the millennial generation has been "talent".
”
By SIMON NASH, Human Resources Director, Carey Olsen
along that changes everything. Well at least it changes the conversation in business about the way organisations should be led. Tom Peters established the new vocabulary of quality in his 1982 classic, In Search of Excellence. Through the 1990's Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, became beloved of CEO's and presidents, propelling its author to fame, and a not inconsiderable personal fortune.
The buzz word in the management of people for the millennial generation has been "talent", and this too was started by an influential book, but in this case the hype has far eclipsed the original book. When McKinsey consultants Beth Axelrod, Helen Handfield- Jones and Ed Michaels first published their "War for Talent" on 1st October 2001 they could hardly have imagined the impact their little book would have. It didn't even sell particularly well, especially in comparison to some of the
Page 56 20/20 Society
the myth of the Talent War O
Exploding
nce in a while a management book comes
greats of twentieth century management literature, but its wider impact has been phenomenal.
Now over 7,000 titles on Amazon now extol the virtues of a "Talent-based" Human Resources strategy. Literally thousands more conferences, seminars, management summits and training courses every year promise organisations that they will outstrip their competitors if they learn the "Talent Strategies" of the best in the world. The role titles of managers and all sorts of business processes are being revised to work that magic "T" word into them. Truly the "Talent Agenda" has been like a gold rush for business consultants, but the question should be asked, after a decade of "talentmania" whether we are merely mining pyrite… mere fool's gold.
So what, according to the authors, is this talent to which they refer? Well, rather tellingly the book itself did not contain a definition of talent. Talent
"eludes description" they say "you simply know it when you see it." They do go on to provide a collection of nine attributes which the talented people they are describing will exhibit. They write "... managerial talent is some combination of a sharp strategic mind, leadership ability, emotional maturity, communications skills, the ability to attract and inspire other talented people, entrepreneurial instincts, functional skills and the ability to deliver results."
More to the point the talent agenda says that some people possess these attributes ahead of any actual relevant experience in business and some other people, no matter how much training and experience they acquire, will simply never be your organisation's "alpha's." This then is a genetic theory of organisational leadership, and one in which the top stream of high flyers also happens to contain those who could afford to go to the top business
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