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| Dr. Prakash V. Bhide |
“In future TALENT will be a big differentiator between companies that succeed and those that don’t. One organizational competency lasts. The ability to create a steady, self-renewing stream of leaders. Talent is the edge.” (Ram Charan – Talent Masters)
I find that there is a lot of confusion on the meaning of TALENT and POTENTIAL in organizations and even among many HR professionals. The meaning also changes with context.
It is surprising that the definition & concept of TALENT eludes description. Different thought leaders view talent in entirely different ways. Many organizations do not define what they mean by talent and use it rather loosely. Economist (2006) reports “Companies do not even know how to define talent, let alone manage it.” Some use it to mean people like Aldous Huxleys ALPHAS in the “Brave New World”- those at the top of the ‘Bell Curve.’
Talent as a noun – is a natural aptitude, skills, a marked innate ability for a natural endowment or ability of superior quality. Other synonymous words are gifted, aptitude, ability, faculty, genius and capability leading to a consistent and far superior performance. Names of Lata Mangeshkar (singing), Sachin Tendulkar (cricket), Tiger Woods (Golf), Michael Jordan (Basket Ball) and Amitabh Bacchan (Acting) immediately come to mind.
The word ‘Talent’, in Latin, means ‘a variable unit of weight/money used in ancient Greece, Rome and Midde- East. Indian Vedas say that every person has some unique talent and potential.
नास्ति मुलंश औषधीम्
अयोग्यः पुरुषः नास्ति
योजकः तत्र दुर्लभः
There is no syllable which cannot be turned into a mantra. There is no root of any tree which cannot be turned into a medicine. There is no person in the world who does not have a unique potential and capabilities. The leaders are rare who can spot such unique potential.
Marcus Buckingham defines talent as “Talent is the naturally recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings and behavior that can be productively applied in practice. Talents, knowledge and skills combine to create strengths”. He recommends that each person should discover his own talents and strengths, develop them and sculpt his/her career and vocation around these strengths. This will bring the greatest success, happiness and enjoyment. They will be enjoying the work so much that they will really never have to work any day in life.
Many organizations define talent as ‘a person with superior performance in the current job and having potential to grow into more senior roles, usually at least two levels above.
David Clutterbuck recommends to delete the requirement of ‘Upward Progression’ in the definition of talent. He defines talent as “A superior performing employee who has the potential to contribute significantly more, by developing his/her skills, knowledge & experience and who is motivated to do so’. He recommends organizations to be open to the possibility that lateral movement & job rotations can be as important and valuable to the organization as the upward movement and promotions.
I strongly recommend that each organization should define talent in alignment to its Business Strategy & Industry Context. The definition should not be very narrow as it will be less flexible to accommodate changes in the leadership requirements in future. On the other hand, it should not be so broad that almost every employee in the organization is considered as talent. Differentiation is the mother’s milk for Business Excellence. And we need to define “Talent” in this context.
In IT, BPO/KPO/ITES sectors, talent is viewed as all employees who have the right skills and can perform the job adequately. Their business strategy requires a large number of client facing and backroom service associates. These are not easily available in the market due to large gap in demand & supply, huge attritions of more than 100% per year and hence significant challenges of retention. These companies call all of them as ‘Talent’ as each headcount generates revenues & profits for the company. The more the number of headcount, greater the profit and greater the strength & ability of these companies to undertake outsourcing work from developed countries like USA, Europe etc. Many companies in this sector have grown by 30 % year on year and made huge profits over the last fifteen years in India. We hence find specialized positions with fancy designations such as ‘Head of Talent Acquisition’, ‘Head of Talent Retention & Engagement’ in companies like Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Accenture and many other ITES & BPO companies.
Many companies define talent as the employees who are high on both performance & potential on the 3X3 matrix of performance and potential. Some other consultants recommend that only 5% of top High Potential employees should be considered as’ Super Keepers’ as they contribute substantially to the company profits. Authors such as Richard Beatty have researched and recommended that “Strategic Talent” should be differentiated and determined starting with finding the ‘A’ positions which contribute to the business “Competitive Advantage” in line with Business Strategy to create Customer & Economic Value. ‘A’ players occupying such ‘A’ positions and servicing ‘A’ customers are called Strategic Talent. The identified successors for such positions are also included in the Strategic Talent Pool. Interestingly, these strategic positions are only 5 to 7% of the total positions in the company and are located at all levels including frontline levels. (AAA concept – ‘A’ positions, ‘A’ players for ‘A’ customers.)
Many companies regard talent as ‘RIGHT STUFF’ i.e. they consider the end state CEO/CXO leadership qualities to be present in a primitive or disguised form in the young talent. Because it is already present inside, they put these identified talent in challenging assignments and situations. If the young talent does well and survives, they put them in more and bigger challenging assignments to prove themselves.
‘The survival of the fittest’ is the methodology to find the ‘RIGHT STUFF LEADER’ to rise to senior levels and top of the organization. (Morgan McCall – High Fliers)
A simpler way of identifying talent as per David Clutterbuck is people who demonstrate:
1. Significant continued investment in their own development.
2. A track record of assisting the development of others. E.g. through coaching and mentoring.
3. Ambition to achieve greater responsibilities.
4. A high motivation and ability to learn.
POTENTIAL
Potential is defined as “Latent; capable of coming into being” (Oxford English Dictionary). Potential derives from the word POTENT or STRENGTH. One way of defining potential is ‘The ability to achieve or contribute more by building upon personal strengths or aptitudes, while managing relevant weaknesses’.
A practical definition of potential from Talent Management perspective is ‘The capability of an individual to build upon existing strengths, knowledge & experience and improving on major weaknesses, so that they do not become derailers, to perform effectively at higher levels of responsibility within an appropriate environment’
Potential is the latent future capability of the work one can do in future. Ram Charan recommends three categories of potential for succession planning:
1. TURN POTENTIAL – able to do the work at the next level of leadership pipeline in three to five years or sooner.
2. GROWTH POTENTIAL – able to do the work of bigger jobs at the same level in the near term.
3. MASTERY POTENTIAL – able to do the same kind of work currently being done, only better.
Corporate Leadership Council defines HIGH POTENTIAL in terms of three major components which need to be simultaneously present –
1.) Aspiration
2.) Engagement
3.) Ability
David Clutterbuck has another pragmatic way of looking at potential as an equation given below:
Potential = Ambition + Learning Orientation/Maturity + Self Awareness – Fatal Flaws.
Ability to realize potential heavily depends on the context and the environment. Potential as an Olympic Swimmer is unlikely to be realized if they live in a desert. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book ‘Outliers’ says that as per his research, OUTLIERS such as Bill Gates, The Beatles and many top Ice Hockey sportsmen of Canada (were found to be born in a particular month of the year)or in fortunate environment and fortunate time. The Outliers also put in practice of more than 10000 hours in the particular field to hone their natural talent in the particular field.
Morgan McCall in his book ‘HIGH FLIERS’ is of the view that many of us make a serious mistake of trying to find the END STATE capabilities and behaviors (RIGHT STUFF) of a successful CEO, in a budding young High Potential Talent. As per him many of the qualities and abilities cannot be observed in the young talent as these are not present but can be developed by experience, reflection, grooming & nurturing. He is of the view that the focal point in early identification of potential is the assessment of LEARNING ABILITY. Several thought leaders have added dimensions of learning agility, learning orientation, proactively seeking feedback, learning from criticism etc.
My own experience & research shows that high Fluid Intelligence/IQ is an excellent indicator of Learning Ability and hence potential in the front line and middle management levels. At senior levels, this has to be supplemented by Emotional Intelligence – particularly Self Awareness and Self Management. At very senior levels and for successful life, Spiritual Intelligence becomes important.
TALENT AND POTENTIAL:
Many people use Talent and Potential interchangeably. This confusion is also enhanced as organizations do not clearly define Talent & Potential. In fact some definitions of Talent include the word ‘Potential’ adding to further confusion.
As per me, we say someone has TALENT, when we see the person in action and observe outstanding performance and results on a consistent basis. POTENTIAL, on the other hand, is latent, virtual and implies the possibility of being developed and expressed in future .All will agree that much of the latent potential in ourselves as well as all human beings, does not flower due to various reasons.
My experience of assessing potential of more than 2000 High Performers in organizations at various levels, collaborates with the latest research, that only about 30 % of High Performers are found to have High Potential to excel at two levels above. High potential individuals need to be groomed and nurtured as per the 70:20:10 formula. 70% of the development and learning takes place through structures and planned job rotations/developmental experiences helped through reflection, executive coaching and mentoring. Humility to accept and learn from others, own mistakes and setbacks, is critical for flowering the potential.
In future blogs, I plan to explore how to identify potential and develop future leaders.
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