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Introduction[1]

The winter of 2009/2010 was a long one for many, because in these days of global warming, the French found it challenging to cope with a ‘normal’ winter. Every day, the newspapers added their share of bad news about the country’s finances, economy and double-figure unemployment rate. Sitting at the back of a smoke-free café, a recruiter lamented over yet another missed opportunity: recruitment was getting more and more difficult. Because of the time taken to reach a decision, his customer – the company – had once again lost out on recruiting a young network specialist who had just accepted another offer elsewhere. In this highly specialised segment of the market, there was an all-out talents war. Recruiting companies have to make up their minds every bit as quickly as buyers of apartments in the most sought-after areas of Paris. The talent war is on, but it is a silent war because it does involve the kind of large numbers that would allow us to forget the unemployment figures. But it does affect those rare group of people blessed with skills vital for certain activities. It’s not easy to attract talent!

Just a few miles away, a CEO tells me about one of his talented managers. When this apparently-ordinary young graduate began work on an internal audit, it became clear that she had an extraordinary skill, not only due to her technical expertise and business-sector knowledge, but as a result of her rare ability to manage a team. So now, at the age of 29, there she is as Financial Director of a major bank subsidiary. Intrigued by such an amazing level of talent, I arrange a meeting to find out more her how she works. Imagine my surprise when I come face to face with a young person who is embittered and cynical about her company. What she says is completely at odds with what her admiring CEO told me. In fact, she says that I should have no illusions about her promotion, because having heard the bank chairman insisting on the need to improve diversity and gender equality, she is in no doubt whatsoever that she was promoted… simply to improve the gender statistics. It’s not easy managing talent!

At around this time, the head of a big services provider attending a city dinner hardly has time to utter the name of his company before being pounced on by the other diners, keen to take him to task – whether ironically or in a false spirit of “helpfulness” – about the problems they have had with one of his call centres. Finally able to take heart from the good experience related by a diner at the other end of the table, he begins to realise just how difficult the job of a call centre operator might be, but more importantly, he appreciates the talent shown by a limited number of team managers who can channel this thankless job to create torture or a beautiful human experience. It’s not easy to spot hidden talent!

What these three stories have in common is that they all put talent at the centre of company concerns. It is this rare combination of rare skills that is such an important factor in success, which no doubt explains why the notion of talent is gradually permeating the world of human resources. Some see it as a fashion, others as a revolution that is profoundly transforming a human resource management style that has lost its footing in the quicksand of process and technocracy.

It is the people in the first scenario who are right: the term talent is spreading. If you have any doubt, just look at the “Human Resource” sections of most large company websites. But when a new fashion emerges in ideas and management, it is rarely because a genial guru or visionary professor (if such a thing exists) has caught a glimpse of the Holy Grail that is the oh-so elusive goal of managerial success. Fashions emerge because at a given moment the notion of “talent” is seized upon by many people as a possible key to unlocking solutions to new problems.

But the second group of people are also right, because a talent-based approach can profoundly question today’s human resource management practices. These practices involve abandoning an overly bureaucratic vision of the job, and putting people and strategy at the heart of the management issues.

So a plague on the cynical irony of those who recognise the value of fashion only in terms of skirt length or tie colour; and a plague on the naïve optimism of those who get excited about any idea that only someone of their ignorance could find novel. Perhaps it is time for a positive and reasonable approach which questions the meaning behind the emergence of this notion of talent, the possible contribution it might make to resolving practical issues and how it can be used in ways that don’t come back to haunt us later.

It may be standard practice to say that life is changing profoundly in companies all over the world, but it is more difficult to arrive at a clear view of how today’s changes will transform managerial practices. Demographic upheaval, changing attitudes, the new economic balance of a multi-polar world, climate change… the list goes on and on, and over the coming decades, historians will be able to assess their true importance. Nevertheless, the challenges for human resource management are real and have been further exacerbated by the violence of the global crisis. Given the extent of the adjustment and transformation required, no one can believe that the social function of the company can be the strongest defence against painful restructuring. The truth is that the social function is more about doing right by the present and preparing for the future. So will the notion of talent help us to cope better with challenges? That is the first question that this book attempts to answer.

Talent would be meaningless if it were just a new way of dressing up traditional practices. Many companies are moving beyond simply paying lip service to this enabling and positive term to introduce new practices built around talent management. Nevertheless, companies sometimes differ in their definition of talent: some see it as exceptional performance, whilst others think of it as potential for change. Some think that talent is restricted to a minority, whilst others believe that everyone has an inner talent that simply needs to be discovered. Depending on which of today’s ‘new’ management practices you look at, talent is becoming either a highly sought-after quality, a philosopher’s stone to be guarded, a resource to be developed or a key strategic asset. So what is the full range of current practice in terms of talent? That is the second question that this book attempts to answer.

Although admittedly transient, talent will never be just a concept. It interprets the expectations and representations of an era. Given the speed at which the notion is advancing in communication, education and the discussion that surrounds human resources, it is clear that it will leave its mark on the eventful history of management. According to Peter Drucker, management is not a science of progress that accumulates knowledge over time and leads towards a single truth. It is rather a science of delving deeper and repeatedly confronting the mystery of individuals and their behaviour. Talent will therefore never deliver efficiency: only its effective use will allow us to address the human issues faced by our organisations from a new and productive angle. What then would be the right way to use this notion of talent? That is the third question to which this book offers routes to possible answers.

So in Chapter 1, we stand back to explore and consider the possible origins behind the use of the term “talent” in the context of management practices. Despite our insatiable appetite for new concepts that we hope will reinvent our management methods, we must still question the meaning of these new words when they appear so prevalent.

In Chapter 2, we review a number of the current challenges facing human resource management, which outline a more relevant framework within which to interpret the emergence of this notion of talent. Demographics, the needs of business, the need to take greater account of people, the control of organisations and, of course, the global economic crisis form the five levels of challenges that undoubtedly explain the successful emergence of the notion of talent.

Chapter 3 locates talent more accurately within the history of the many concepts generated by human resource management to interpret and organize human activity. Without doubt, the interest in talent is linked to today’s criticism of excess measurement[2], because talent is more about description than measurement. This chapter also puts forward a model to accommodate the notions of aptitude, classification/qualification, competence and talent (the ACCT model).

In Chapter 4, we put forward a global view of the notion of talent which suggests not only elements of definition, but also points of comparison with the very closely related notions of competence and potential. The general model of the talent management practices offered in this chapter is based on the definition of talent as a rare combination of rare skills.

The next three chapters address the three levels of talent management practice prevalent in companies today. Chapter 5 deals with attracting, recruiting and retaining talented people. These are standard approaches on the basis that management needs talented people and will be more effective WITH talented people.

Chapter 6 looks at the development, recognition and comparison of talented people, i.e. the management practices that focus specifically on talented individuals. It therefore involves management acting ON these talented individuals to develop their capabilities. Chapter 7 completes the picture by presenting all the approaches designed to put talent at the heart of strategy in practical ways that will enable effective management BY talented people.

The former HR professionals of BSN (which later became Danone) formed an association called “Avec et Par” [With and By]. The structure we propose simply adds one proposition to this excellent name (With, To and By) by adding the word “To” which may be a little provocative, but will undoubtedly help the readers’ comprehension of the cautionary practical recommendations made in the final two chapters.

Chapter 8 highlights the step changes that the notion of talent can make to the traditional approaches of HRM. These step changes are far reaching and raise some very pertinent questions, because as readers will appreciate, they are not all necessarily positive. This is the reason why Chapter 9 summarises the preceding chapters as a series of possible talent management outcomes. Some are counter-productive and pose a number of potential problems if not addressed; others are benign and potentially fruitful.

It is, of course, the use that human resource professionals make of talent that will determine the true value of talent. When you hit your finger with a hammer, it is never the fault of the hammer, but when you drive a nail in soundly, it is only partially due to the tool itself.

[1]  We would like to thank Etienne Normand for his attentive re-reading and valuable advice, and Maryse Laigle for her support and ready assistance at every stage of writing this book.

[2]  Supiot, A., L’esprit de Philadelphie, Seuil, 2010.

Chapitre
1

Talent

The concept of talent had invaded the world of human resource management, and people are now talking about the war of talents, talent development and special talent management. Some go so far as to suggest that the very “term” human resource management should be replaced by talent management. The emergence of this notion inevitably raises fundamental questions about its definition, its origin and its relevance when addressing today’s human resource management issues. Is it a new fashion, a concept that will flourish only for the period of a short-lived generation of human resource consultants and managers? Is it perhaps a sign that the old methods are no longer suited to the issues of today and the current business and societal context? Could it perhaps allow us to return to some basic anthropological and cultural truths, since this notion draws very deeply on our collective references?

Peter Drucker[1] said that management (which he defined as the noble endeavour of enabling groups of individuals to produce worthwhile results) is not a progressive science like physics or medicine where new discoveries are constantly being made. In the world of management and human resource management, we are dealing with sciences that go deeper and involve repetition rather than progress. People don’t change, and we will never manage to resolve the issues that surround them. The oldest texts can often be enlightening (or perhaps more enlightening?) as the latest sociological studies when dealing with the mysteries of human behaviour. Economic and environmental circumstances change, of course, casting new light on the eternal problems of working effectively together.

However, repetition is not the same as rehashing. Otherwise, there would be no point in cooking meals from the same recipes or learning the same Bach pieces so many years after they were composed, and doing so at a lower level than the countless great performances that have gone before, or so poorly after the amazing technical progress made in audio reproduction? The craftsman does more than simply reproduce things. Only an ignorant observer sees the shoemaker’s job as repeating the same old monotonous tasks. Like the fool who concentrates on the finger of the wise man rather than on the moon he is pointing at, the casual observer of human endeavour assumes that the repetition of problems is just commonplace, pointless and ultimately uninteresting.

The skill of human resources may lie in repetition, but it can be steadily improved by being applied in ways appropriate to local and environmental conditions. The emergence of a new concept, metaphor or benchmark that seeks to impose itself – often clumsily, naively or violently – should always lead us to consider the meaning of the emerging idea and what we can learn from it. That is what we will be doing with this notion of talent which refers to such a familiar term. This in itself indicates the need to arrive at a simple and commonplace semantic concept to describe situations, rather than to use the – often Anglo-Saxon – jargon that simply adds further mystery to human resources.

The word talent is a positive one. Telling someone that they have talent is first and foremost a compliment. It is seldom used as a form of mockery or irony to express some kind of unfathomable and confusing eccentricity. Talent is seen as a highly valued quality. Educational standards have used this term to highlight the personal abilities of each child and sometimes to excuse their lack of performance in the more traditional type of education system. We often confuse personal traits with the people to whom they belong, but talent suggests at least three highly positive connotations in terms of values.

Firstly, it alludes to capabilities, skills and expertise. Talent is not theoretical or abstract; it can be immediately attested and validated by practical evidence and results. These capabilities, or at least their combination, are not commonplace. There is something exceptional, rare and unique about talent; a kind of special combination of special skills. The talent we see in artists takes the forms of practices, outcomes and tangible achievement in the world of work.

Secondly, the word talent describes the person with that talent, to the point where the person becomes synonymous with the word. The special combination of special skills is inevitably attributed to a person in the same way as originality and uniqueness. Using the term talent is to compliment the talented person, not in terms of vague abstract opinions about human nature, but in terms of practical characteristics regarding that person’s ability to do things, create worlds and add value to organisations, and whose very purpose in life is to serve his or her environment.

Lastly, talent evokes recognition. What a talent! There must certainly be talents in the form of unrecognised geniuses in the workplace as in all other areas of community life, but if we adopt this notion and apply it to management, talent is considered as “knowable” and therefore “recognisable”. This undoubtedly indicates that what is necessary is to actualize these skills and capabilities, shape them and make them one of the bases for making the most commonplace and practical decisions involved in human resource management.

Talent is one of those positive notions that human resource specialists always have need of, because they need positive words not only to say things, but also to help them manage things and control things. The list of these positive words is long indeed. We talk about culture, commitment, motivation, satisfaction and competence. In today’s communication-driven world and the need to make human traits tangible, this quest for the positive is not hard to understand.

In the first instance, the decisions and situations involved in human resource management are not simple. In real life, selection, evaluation, decision-making and applying sanctions are all difficult. Only outside observers or those who have yet to experience such responsibilities can possibly see these as simple, obvious and immediate opportunities to apply their facile theories. Positive words are comforting for those who have to make such difficult decisions, but they can also act as a soothing balm for those who suffer the harsh realities of the way in which human organisations operate. Positive words give hope and present human realities in a favourable light: it is no more meretricious than the current systematic habit of presenting the same realities “dressed up” as pain and derision.

Secondly, it is important to recognise that words have a finite life. For evidence of that in politics and history, simply re-read some old newspapers from previous decades to see how the words used then no longer work today, and could in some cases even be actionable. It is not that people then were necessarily less virtuous than they are today; it is just that the meaning of some words has changed. Words wear out and become debased. In the post-war period, there were many well-meaning thinkers who used the term “social engineering” to describe the ideal society that they were committed to building. When you remember that the theorists of apartheid in South Africa used the same term, the concept looks rather tarnished…

The situation is exactly the same in management. Words appear, are taken up with enthusiasm, become general currency only to disappoint later, doubtless because of the very fact that they do become general currency, and also undoubtedly because they have never delivered their initial promise or because the naïve expected too much of them. We can disapprove of this wearing out of words or we can ignore it on the basis that it is simply fashion, but there is no getting away from the fact that, as in politics, it is very much the rule in management as well. It is therefore not surprising that new words surface regularly in the world of human resource management, just as the notion of talent did in 2000 (McKinsey[2]). From that moment onwards, the word was on everyone’s lips, whether they were questioning it, using it or rejecting it. But talent remained at the heart of a number of issues for a variety of reasons surrounding new expectations of HRM, which we will address in the following chapter. For the moment, we will focus on the word “talent” itself, and structure this explanation by using the reference points offered by the definition contained in the old Littré dictionary of the French language, which remains largely immune from the outrageous mangling of the language sometimes committed by management.

[1]  See the special edition of the Harvard Business Review, vol. 87, no. 11, November 2009.

[2]  McKinsey Study, 2000, in E. Michaels, H. Handfield-Jones, B. Axelrod, The War for Talent, Harvard Business School Press, 2001.