Comments

Hi Richard - hope you are well. As a Manchester United fan since I was 11 you won’t be surprised to know I am a great fan of ‘Becks’. I wish him great success in the States. Whilst David has immense talent he was renowned in his younger days as an obsessive trainer and practised his dead ball kicks for hours and hours every day – long after other players had gone home. This enabled him to hone the natural raw talent he had. Add to the mix Sir Alex Ferguson who guided him and looked after him in his early years in the ruthless and unforgiving world of professional football and you can see why the talent emerged. Without Beckham’s own dedication and the 'fatherly' guidance of Sir Alex I am not sure whether or not we would have seen such a sporting Icon emerge. Having the talent is one thing but acknowledging it; respecting it; using it; and having the right guidance from a skilled mentor are other crucial aspects. In the business world there is no reason why we cannot see the same outcome.

BTW Richard - Up the ‘ammers!!!

Posted by Trevor Gay at January 23, 2007 3:31 PM

I confess I was clueless about Stella McCartney. Talented genes. I wonder if she can sing and write songs too.

On a more serious note, the compliance mindset is still alive and well in too many business environments. I remember a machine operator in a northern Ontario sawmill telling me he knew how to save the mill a small fortune by replacing a machine part. When I asked him why he hadn't spoken up before, he said he did five years ago but a supervisor told him his job was just to run the machine.

Posted by John O'Leary at January 23, 2007 10:45 PM

You're being rather unfair to the supermarket executive: there's no contradiction between people doing what they're told and people being encouraged to bring forward ideas. Surely it all goes back to the concept of “loose / tight” where you need certain basic rules about how you work and then clearly defined areas where discretion is needed. Sure, you want an environment in which people bring ideas forward (and challenge the basic rules from time to time as well) but the real contradiction lies in this thought: what's the point in bringing a new idea forward if no-one is going to do what you think they should?

Different work environments will demand different degrees of loose / tight, even between different functions in the same business: it's a question of management being sufficiently in tune with the operation and communicating these guidelines.

Posted by Mark JF at January 24, 2007 2:23 AM

Hi

I think in "managing compliance" also there is a "need for innovation" and that can be managed using INNOVATIVE INNOVATIONS :)

nityn@yahoo.com

Posted by nitin at January 24, 2007 2:39 AM

I think we have to get away from "Either Or " type arguments. The one skill I think will be crucial going forward is the ability to correctly apply the appropriate Skill, Mood, management style etc to the specific situation. At the moment the phrase if you have a hammer everything looks like a nail comes to mind

Posted by PaulH at January 24, 2007 3:45 AM

I remember Tom saying that managers need not earn more than their (talented) staff like the football situation. I managed a very talented design contract staffer who worked half her time with us at a pay rate twice mine. But she was 30 times as effective in terms of quality speed and innovativeness. Also working for other different companies we got the benefits of cross-business knowledge transfer to our full-time staffers who improved twice as fast as their peers elsewhere.
Morale was better which meant we were more effective, etc. BUT it only works if the whole team signs up to the adventure, I had to lead rather than manage and choice of both staff and stars is crucial. on paper people looked ideal candidates to join team. In fact it sometimes didn't work out which meant shifting people about to find best job profile rather than slot filling. So managers have to be ready to reinvent themselves, often... maybe that is why Tom's message seems to have taken a snailmail route to implementation!

Posted by Jim Rait at January 24, 2007 5:29 AM

TALENT, IS IN THE WALKING. NOT THE TALKING, OR EVEN THE POSSIBILITY OF WALKING. PERIOD!

Jay, from Bangalore
http://ideaburger.blogspot.com

Posted by Jayakumar Hariharan at January 24, 2007 7:08 AM

Ahh, talent. It really is at the center of everything!
I whole-heartedly agree with Paul H about needing to avoid the "either or" situation, and Mark about differing degrees of "loose/tight." Each workplace will have differing variables and cultures, and finding the right way to hire/manage talent within that is of the utmost importance, I believe. It's a bit of a throwback, but one of my favorite parts of the "managing by walking around" concept is that it allows managers to interact with their talent, hopefully enabling them to have a better understanding of where they land on those sliding scales (and what they need to do to get to their desired spot).
With the right talent, properly motivated (kool-aid anyone?), an organization can accomplish anything.

Posted by Nick Adams at January 24, 2007 8:27 AM

It seems to me that when I encounter an organization that relies on compliance rather than commitment, it is often because there is a lack of talent. That lack of talent isn't in the ranks, but at the management level. It is easier to manage an organization to prescribed standards and use the carrot and stick approach than to rely on creativity and innovation. It requires little talent to read an operations report, identify the 20% least best performers, and then correct the nonperformance. This teaches members of the organization is to avoid being in the least best group. An entitlement culture builds, where longevity and lack of mistake making leads to promotion and the compliance culture grows. Also when I encounter a culture of compliance, I often hear a wealth of stories of people who tried to do things differently, made a mistake, and were "branded" for life. I do believe there is an important role for compliance to shared standards in business. Of course if an employee chooses not to show up for work on time, or perhaps not show up at all, that behavior must be corrected. We all must perform in compliance with shared standards...however, in an innovative company, your talent must be free to challenge standards and suggest better ways. The members of Best Buy might even challenge my statement that employees need to show up on time...They have done away with standard start times in Minnesota, instead you are held accountable for results, you pick your schedule. In the 80's many of us in management fell in love with the idea of reducing variability; a great move at the time when quality was suffering because we were not complying with spec's and standards as we should. I would suggest that we have done a decent job of process improvements and perhaps now is the time to consciously introduce variability in the form of innovation. And that will never happen until we free our talent and give them the stage to perform on.

Posted by Mike Neiss at January 24, 2007 9:03 AM

Spot on Mr. Neiss. In a recent post I made a point about a customer service department that has fairly strict metrics for their employees. However, some of those employees were willingly falling short of their metrics to provide superior customer service (which is strongly entrenched in the company's brand). Now that is the type of talent that we all need! I would love to be "branded" as that type of employee.
This is why I feel that it is important to get to know the culture in your organization. By realizing that such compliance was occurring, one might take the proper steps towards changing it.

Posted by Nick Adams at January 24, 2007 9:17 AM

1. The new worldwide explosion of Entertainment Culture the likes of Beckham & Stella is an interesting business model these days given 2.0 driven "talents" that may be able to generate revenue streams via contrived new "celebrity" and/or connections, networking, Movie-land LA

2. And though I'm not buying it - one must respect the "talent" of YouTube's $1.4Billion 24 mo. venture and similar enterprise endeavors of radical risk takers

3. "Talent" to me gets back to the Lovemarxism mantra of 10 years of focused practice - perfect practice makes perfect - AND to find an enterprise way to harvest income streams from those who are buying one's "talent" ...

Posted by sean_rad_risk at January 24, 2007 10:02 AM

I'm with Sean 100% - The British television show 'X Factor' is an example of some with limited ‘talent’ making it big as ‘short term’ celebrities - ‘5 minute wonders.’ Then we have people through reality TV shows like ‘Big Brother’ becoming ‘celebrities’ with NO TALENT WHATSOEVER. Often they ‘enjoy’ celebrity for a few weeks or months, make a lot of money and we never see them again. I prefer to look up to and respect people who work hard to get where they are. David Beckham has worked tirelessly on his natural soccer talent for thousands of hours every year. Beckham is not an ‘overnight success’ like some of these ‘false celebrities.’ Success comes through hard work, serving your time, competence and practice. There is no short cut. It may take many years to become an overnight success.

Posted by Trevor Gay at January 24, 2007 11:10 AM

I always thought and was taught that the primary job of management was to hire and manage talent (see the NFL draft and what happened to the Houston Texans and New Orleans Saints). People are promoted to management roles because they are the next in line rather than having or demonstrating talent. Once in their new role they indeed feel like "the hammer" or are simply operating in fear, fear that those who are indeed talented if given the opportunity will blow the doors off. Hence one strike and the "branding" begins. Why not search for the best available talent rather that seek to fill a job? Beckham is "insanely committed" to being the best at what he does and not just from 8 to 5.

Posted by tom wilson at January 24, 2007 11:48 AM

I don't know, I am not sure whether it is a case of "talent" or leadership. Every organization I have been in or worked with was full of very talented people, but in many cases it seemed like their talents were viewed as a threat by management. Or worse, their ideas are adopted by a manager who takes full credit and completely disenfranchises the employee.

The exception is the strong, confident leaders who understand how to take advantage of their peoples talents and adopt new ideas in order to outperform their competitors. Change is scary for most leaders and they are more afraid of the risks associated with it and maintaining the status quo rather than looking to the future. The result - most talent is completely wasted for lack of leadership.

Posted by Andrew Hayden at January 24, 2007 12:54 PM

(I read this anecdote in a management book about 30 years ago -- my apologies for not remembering the context.)

Two women were employed by a manufacturer of technical equipment. Their job was to run the finished product through a series of tests and see whether it met the numbers. One woman did exactly that: if the product met the numbers, it passed; if it didn't, it failed. The other woman talked with the engineers and got a better understanding of how the product worked, so sometimes she'd pass a product that didn't meet the numbers or fail one that did. The author concluded by saying that, "of course," the company fired the second woman; end of story.

Yes, she wasn't "doing what she was told." But, in my book, someone who's trying to understand what her job is all about so that she can do it better is NOT someone that you want to boot out of your company. Clearly, she was in the wrong job, but that doesn't make her talents any less valuable. (I suspect that she was actually fired for taking the initiative -- a hanging offense for women in that era. I speak from painful experience as a woman who's worked in technical environments for over 30 years.)

Posted by Paula at January 24, 2007 2:31 PM

Creative generalists who have multiple and continually evolving talents are the most threatening to the status quo.

Unlike the specifically talented (great designer, engineer), they are harder to define or fit, are natural leaders and not interested in the management track.

Weak managers will perceive them as defiant. Maybe defiance is a trait that should be valued?

Posted by mary at January 25, 2007 7:07 AM

How can I sum up on Talent? Well, here goes. In the mid 80’s, Ford rolled out a corporate programme called “Participative Management and Employee Involvement”. Managers were instructed to be more participative and “employees” were encouraged to get involved – in problem solving groups mainly. The initiative failed to produce the hoped for cultural transformation at Ford by the way! Twenty years on, the language has changed, and the survival stakes have been raised (by societal change, and the white collar revolution etc), but much of the debate on talent still feels the same to me.

I think it’s the management belief system that is at the root of this, or as Tom Peters once energetically ‘sprayed’ to an audience of 500 or so mostly male executives in London, “What do you see, really see, when you look into the eye of a front line employee in your firm?” The answer to this question will determine whether most managers are ready “to reinvent themselves”, to handle the extra complexity of a simultaneous “loose/tight” (25th anniversary year of that term) operating style, to offer constant guidance and advice to other people, to spend most of their time leading their talent rather than managing their processes. I’m sorry if this seems too much “either or” for some folks, but it’s the way I see it.

Posted by Richard King at January 25, 2007 8:04 AM

Richard,

Although talent is indeed very important and highly paid for in many industries: like sports, entertainment and arguably the C-level executives of many firms. Talent when perceived to be much higher than those of the peers or management establishment can be a "shortcoming" for the individual.

Depending on the organizational culture and the group-mechanics of the group talent can be either a blessing or a curse.

Now when talent is combined with wisdom to communicate it effectively, or even to use it wisely, perhaps even outside of our own endeavors, can indeed be an amazing blessing for those who posses this combination of skills and wisdom.

Instead of the Era of Talent, I would argue we are entering the era of "6 Billion Creatives". Where even the most "creatively-challenged" individual dares to share his creations with the world online. The explosion of user-created content is actually showcasing this phenomenon, people want to express themselves even if the end-result of that creativity lacks talent, instead they show guts, resolve and boldness.

If any one of those "6 Billion Creatives" keeps on creating, eventually he too, will become TALENTED, and perhaps even wise.

Great piece!

Jose Luis Hurtado
from Toronto

Posted by Jose Luis Hurtado at January 27, 2007 1:02 AM

We can all recognize talent, but is it transferable? Tom Peters talks about hiring musicians, artists, and actors, but ... Is a great pianist sure to be a good writer? Is a great designer going to be a good leader? Is a good singer going to be able to act? Are any of them going to make the transition to the business world?

It has been my experience that people can learn how to think. In my last job, there was someone I looked up to, I actually aspired to be her. Five years into the job, I realized that I answered questions the same way she would have done. By working closely with her, I had trained my thought processes to mirror hers. I think my talents are similar to hers, however. Had I learned new talents, or did I have talent in her area and simply aligned my thinking with hers? Do we have time in business to gamble on choosing people with any talent, and then hoping that their skill is transferable to the task at hand?

Posted by Sonia at January 29, 2007 4:13 AM