{"id":1502,"date":"2020-09-19T20:48:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-19T19:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjiweber.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2023-11-11T11:54:32","modified_gmt":"2023-11-11T10:54:32","slug":"a-little-rant-about-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjiweber.co.uk\/blog\/2020\/09\/19\/a-little-rant-about-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"A little rant about talent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s become less common to hear people referred to as “resources” in recent times. There’s more trendy “official vocab guidelines”<\/a>, but what’s really changed? There’s still phrases in common use that sound good but betray the same mindset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I often hear people striving to “<\/em>hire and retain the best talent<\/em><\/a>“<\/em> as if that is a strategy for success, or as if talent is a limited resource we must fight over.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another common one is to describe employees as your “greatest asset”<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d like to believe both phrases come from the good intentions of valuing people. Valuing individuals as per the agile manifesto<\/a>. I think these phrases betray a lack of consideration of the “\u2026and  interactions”<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implication is organisations are in a battle to win and then protect as big a chunk as they can of a finite resource called “talent”<\/em>. It’s positioned as a zero-sum game. There’s an implication that the impact of an organisation is a pure function of the “talent”<\/em> it has accumulated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People are not Talent. An organisation can amplify or stifle the brilliance of people. It can grow skills or curtail talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talent is not skill. Talent gets you so far but skills can be grown. Does the team take the output that the people in it have the skill to produce? Or does the team provide an environment in which everyone can increase their skills and get more done than they could alone? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We might hire the people with the most pre-existing talent, and achieve nothing if we stifle them with a bureaucracy that prevents them from getting anything done. Organizational scar tissue<\/a> that gets in the way; policies that demotivate.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reading Humanocracy and reminded of https:\/\/t.co\/Y3mkAJAXHH<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/LMGOyGUxzb<\/a><\/p>— Benji Weber :: @benjiweber@mastodon.social (@benjiweber) August 21, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>