All That Matters is Talent, Talent wins?

Life Designing is an attitude and tool towards leading a full Work/life. Aspiring excellence asks for self-knowledge in terms of skills and vision. Freedom and autonomy are core ingredients for fulfillment in life. Only real "life-entrepreneurs" will eventually satisfy the imbalance of talent in business.

The author posits that both sides, the organization and the individual must do their homework in terms of developing and matching not only talents but mainly their visions. War for talent fills graves only. Talent alone will not win. Love will.

The exclusive conclusion that only talent matters seems to be the gist from the "War for Talent" survey made by a big consulting company. Winning is the unspoken basic assumption underlying the question: which resource is considered to be the critical one in the next twenty years?

As a life-long human resources professional I have experienced this emphasis on the human resources as the critical element in the game of business since starting work after graduation from HSG. But I was lucky. My boss, when interviewing me for the position as Area Human Resources Director for a multinational company, gave me one of two explicit goals in a career of 12 years: to see to it that we would always hire or promote into an open executive or managerial slot a person (male of female, irrespective of nationality) who would have the ability and the desire to advance further internationally. Hence, at given time, there would be enough talent to fill all required managerial positions.

If war is on or soon coming for talent, then a serious question must be asked: "Has something that seems so obvious for enduring success, namely the human element, been so deeply and grossly underestimated"? Has it been underestimated in terms of policies and practices in hiring, developing, leading, challenging and maintaining. Have all those fancy systems of extrinsic incentives not achieved the leading manpower available to steer the ship in rough waters, or to create new visions?

The answer to this question is not up to me. This article will rather now focus on the question whether talent is enough for winning, what the individual's interest is in that game of life called business, and what might be necessary to harmonize the obvious discrepancies in focus between employer and individual

Talents are tools only

Speaking about talents, I will use Dick Bolles´ terminology of skills:
- self-management skills (like: fast, innovative, entrepreneurial)
- functional skills (e.g. visioning, motivating, synthesizing)
- content skills (the fields I have knowledge/interest in, like e-business).
A good match between a given position's requirements and a candidate´s tool kit will not guarantee a win-win situation. At least not for too long since job requirements and circumstances change and the incumbent in the job may change too. Additional oil in the machinery is necessary, and that is very often neglected.

The decisive question is, whether the individual is doing the thing he or she really loves to do. Employing your gifts, your talents (skills) can already mean doing a lot of good living and working. The gifts we have been given, namely certain talents that we savor using to the fullest, can mean experiencing oneself to a large degree. The unemployed and the misemployed can tell a story on the important function of work in their lives.

Talents alone then will only be half the story for fulfillment and success. Love must come in too. Marsha Sinetar in her book "Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow" eagerly points out, that doing what you love does not mean doing what you feel like. In fact, "...hard, patient, disciplined long-term effort is required to do one´s right livelihood". Right livelihood then summarizes all the qualities that must merge with tasks in a work place. And there is the critical gap where everything - from the employer's and the individual's perspective - seem to be going well at first. Except that after a certain time, often during transitional life events (like big personal losses), the question on the part of the employee, the worker, the self-employed comes in: which is

What is this all about?

Unfortunately, the present world of work still works such that the individual too often delegates too much authority over his (working-) life to the "big employer". You tell me what I am good at, whether I fit the opening in question, what I need to do to satisfy the requirements now and in the future. This can be observed high up into the top echelons. People do not know their "fortes", let alone what they would really want to do with them. Yes, they know what they want in terms of material rewards, status, power etc. But they most often have little knowledge of the more intangible aspects in life that make them experience leading a fulfilled life. Time is so short to accomplish all the tasks in the daily hassle that the need for reflection, for integration of experiences is hardly felt, let alone given room. The call for answers to deeper questions like "What is this rat-race all about?" can thus not be answered.

Granted, to answer what "my call" is or "what is the mission in my life" (Bolles) is not an easy undertaking. The question is often not even heard or then done away with as "some of that soft stuff that does not get you anyplace". Again, transitional pains are often necessary as wake-up calls.

We talked about doing what you love, meaning what you are called for, what is reserved for the use of your special talents and for your function in the greater realm of things. It takes courage to find out about your mission, your real task. You must leave the noise behind you for such a journey. It may require going into the wilderness, the quietness, into the forest or the desert, or meditating on a prolonged basis. To get to a place in yourself, where you will be confronted not only with the vision of your business and its daily problems but also with the quest for the vision for yourself, called You and Co (Bridges). Only you can initiate this quest. The (war) company cannot. Will not.

You will want to get a clearer picture of what you want in this life, whether your vision is congruent with the one of your employer or not. Only the one doing his/her job and loving it and using his/her most enjoyable talents will be an efficient contributor. That presupposes that you know your values, your goals and those of your counterpart. War will not bring about this match. A war-like attitude and consciousness will not consider the soft side of life enough.

Talent is everything if .........

The match then requires a meeting of Head, Hands and Heart. The full person wants to actualize (Maslow) herself in a given job, in a given environment. And that task must satisfy both the company's right to existence (making money alone then seems to be a poor raison d'être) and the quest of the person for life fulfillment. Dick Vague, chairman and CEO of First USA, part of Banc One, is reported (Fast Company Magazine) to have said to the "War for Talent" researchers "I aspire to create an enterprise where at least 80% of everybody's job consists of doing things that they love". Chapeau. And another quote of said report even states that "Saving the World" is one of the four messages that the best people (when in the matching process for hire) respond to. Talent is everything if the values and drives for meaning are congruent. This is the big message.

Whose responsibility is it?

Human Resources, as an academic discipline, has traditionally been focusing their research and practices on the achievement of organizational goals. Thus organizational psychology, as a helping field towards such goals, has been largely treated separately from individual psychology and vice versa.

I would posit, that the necessary element in the integration of organizational and individual (and social) yearnings, called visions, must mainly get a boost from the individual´s side. It is Ellen Weber and Robert Wild that need to achieve a further state of autonomy, which allows them to develop towards a more authentic and truly human growth. Ellen and Robert and everybody around them have huge untapped potential (another word for talent). They need help to sit down and become aware of their very special strengths (again: talents) plus their mostly dormant soul. David Whyte speaks of "Inviting the Soul to Work" and encourages people to take the best of themselves to the workplace. The Toms in their book "True Work" designate the desired attitude as "Do What You Love And Love What You Do". With this suggestion comes an almost monastic training of mindfulness and joy.

Life Designing

LifeDesigning, the constant and conscious development of a person in all his/her life aspects (see mind map) will contribute to the awakening of untapped resources for the benefit of the world (including the corporate world) and the individual. Or to paraphrase Sam Keen: to discover the fire in the belly. Help will eventually come from the universities with a newly developing focus. Human Resources will start to view working and private life from Robert and Ellen´s point of view, which will not always fully integrate with the corporate endeavor. They have a right to optimize their life path and need guidance and tools for that, just like corporations do. Life Long Learning is called for by both parties to reach out to challenging corporate and individual life goals in order to further harmonize those two.

? WHY NOT ?

Is this asking for too idealistic a concept to achieve?
Hardly, if one takes into account that enough role models of all walks of life have and constantly do show ways of living a full, productive and joyful life. Besides my old boss, the clown and the wise old painter (e.g. Ferdinand Gehr) come to my mind. Their lives are like an antidote to the war (that only fills caskets). They fill the hearts with joy and are great achievers in their own right. They also represent the mentoring role (Hilb: Management by Mentoring) that - better than any six digit Swiss Franc or US dollar sign-on-bonus - will eventually contribute to filling all those top jobs, that war lords fill with their subversive or even openly aggressive and ultimately destructive means.

Summary

This paper wants to encourage individuals to continue on their path to freedom and autonomy. LifeDesigning, hopefully soon with the academic support from the author's alma mater, wants to support awake individuals at all levels, with a strong emphasis on the present and coming leader generation, to mine their gold mines for their talents and their vision. With a view to achieving excellence (Haldane) in Life/work. An attitude of " Why Not ! " will help bring to fruition so much more than what is ordinarily possible. It is not a case of war over talent, but rather of fostering the right environment for enfolding talent. That is the call. (PKay)

Clown photo: Courtesy Tom Hart