Talent Management Not a Fad

My recently published book “Career Dynamics in the 21^st Century “is apparently creating continually increasing opportunities, of conducting career as well as personal development seminars, not only for groups of individuals, but also schools and organizations. Alongside, many individuals are openly revealing their personalized predicaments, especially with regard to career paths. Some 3 individuals present interesting scenarios worth discussing in this space.

One of them is a university lecturer that will be referred to as Emily. In her late 40’s, Emily has worked hard to acquire a number of academic feats. Though her passion was in languages and literature, Emily was soon after high school, admitted to pursue a Bachelor of Commerce degree and finally specialized in accounting. Upon boosting this with a Masters degree, Emily eventually became a university lecturer.  But, before pursuing her PHD, which is currently in progress, Emily had successfully acquired a law degree. She had felt that knowledge in law would boost her abilities, as well as career progression in lecturing.

On the other hand, Thomas, a seemingly successful advocate of the High Court, volunteered some interesting personal information. During his high school days, he was scoring almost 100% of the examination marks in physics, Chemistry and Biology. But, something was not working quite well with the Mathematics course. There was a challenge occasioned either by the teacher or the learning environment. During the final Exams, Thomas scored A’s in all other subjects, except Mathematics and Religious Education in which, he obtained C grades. That meant missing out on medicine and engineering oriented studies, at the university. He finally chose to study law as he seemed fine with switching between artistic and science oriented careers.

Ali is another interesting case worth discussion. At school, he was a high scoring student who had a passion for pursuing a teaching career. This seemed unusual since research has proven that not many teachers ever treat their career as the first choice. Ali is nevertheless an exception, especially in realization that   he was at ease pursuing subjects aligned to either sciences or arts. But, in his 40’s, Ali seems settled in teaching sciences in secondary school, without any desire to progress any further. Why? “I intend to diversify from teaching in due course,” Ali intimated.

A careful analysis indicates that Emily is a good example of Kenyans, who may have spread their academic advancement a little too thin. This was probably occasioned by an initial challenge of pursuing the career orientation prescribed by the school system. Thomas on the other hand is clearly a sciences oriented person, whose path was altered by performance in Mathematics. Did you notice that Ali may not be passionate in teaching after all?

Ideally, internal drive or intrinsic motivation is crucial to career alignment, which is the foundation of all talent management.   But, challenged alignments largely happen when people pursue their careers on the basis of the expediencies of the school system and other factors, rather than their own passion or intrinsic motivation. Unfortunately, many people tend to imagine that once they take up, what the world presents; they will become passionate or deal with the eventualities, particularly in light of the expected rewards.   But, is that the case?

The concept of talent alignment or management can no longer be taken for granted, if individuals and organizations are expected to unleash their full performance potential. Apparently, the world has evolved through different eras and is in this 21^st Century operating on the 5^th one. That is talent era, after having transited through the information/knowledge, which had earlier been preceded by the industrial era.

The common denominator between the eras has mainly been the perceptions about efficiency. Continued transition has been associated with consistent increase in efficiency.  Notably, the human being was perceived as a labourer, thus a factor of production, during the industrial era. The same was as good as all other organizational resources and could be done away with or replaced at will. Has that changed with time?

The demolition of the Berlin wall, which had until 1989 separated East and West Germany, marked the beginning of the information/knowledge era.  This development led to the end of the cold war and the beginning of free flow of information. The internet, cable news and other modern communication systems took shape. Google and other technology driving agents mushroomed, whereas social cultural evolution became a reality in the modern world.

Alongside, capitalism or free market economies overwhelmed communism/socialism, eventually resulting to a borderless trading world. At the same time, the labourer transformed into human capital. This knowledge or intellectual organizational capital was now fully charged with managing all other resources.

Things started changing fast. It became almost impossible to make sense of the voluminous information, constantly available to the human species. That formed the genesis of the talent era, which finally took shape at the turn of the 21^st century. Apparently, getting educated especially in the developed world was no longer enough.

Competition or the market forces continued becoming more and more complex. Education could no longer guarantee effective performance of the human capital. Those already employed started feeling the heat.  Performance contracting took shape. The private sector for example no longer accommodates permanent and pensionable jobs.

Degrees became just a formality. Those who acquired them only aiming to secure formal employment opportunities started experiencing difficulties. Job opportunities were finally pegged to the performance capacity of the respective human capital. That is why unemployment and unemployability of our university graduates started becoming a challenge and is to date estimated to have reached 51 per cent.  Are these statics likely to subside?

The truth is that the figure can only continue rising if the situation is not arrested. Education for the sake of acquiring degrees that lead to well paying jobs, may no longer be tenable. Instead, quality education that is aligned   to people’s orientation is now beckoning.  In this regard, it is about aligning education with inborn abilities, at the earliest opportunity. Thereafter, available opportunities become secondary considerations.

More still, getting a job will not be enough, especially in this era of performance management. Some employers who are in tune with 21^st century dynamics employ the vitality curve, which was the brainchild of Jack Welch, a former long serving CEO of General Electric Corporation.

The curve recognizes that 20% of organizational employees are excellent or value performers. Another 70% are average performers, whereas 10% are viewed as poor performers and therefore liabilities, who should continually be made to exit. Luckily, personalized talent alignment will no doubt take care of this unfortunate scenario.

Meanwhile,

• At what stage of the performance cycle is your business organization operating?
• If you wanted to holistically and strategically transform the fortunes of your organization, where would you start?
• Did you ever know that we can help your organization to completely transform direction for the better in only 2 – 3 days?
• Did you also know that we extend PERSONALIZED and MONEY BACK GUARANTEES on the respective solutions?
• How about starting with a non committal, one on one discussion on how the transformation can be achieved?

We are only a phone call or email away

Welcome !!!