I joined the Kedia group of companies sometime in September’1992 as Assistant Manager (MIS)and was pleasantly surprised when my childhood school friend, Ashish Kundu joined as Assistant Manager(Exports)  fifteen days later. From the very beginning, his razor sharp alertness, street smartness in dealings with people and superb communication were so evident that within three weeks of joining I told him “ You have the talent to be among the best in the corporate world”.  I could not have been more right because Ashish also turned out to be a superb organizer and  administrator, a very good strategist and team builder and because of these and other qualities, a good leader. Since he was very versatile and good in all major functions(finance, marketing, operations), he got several double promotions and is just about an year’s time, the chairman made him chief executive of the International division.  Considering that they had a turnover of Rs 150 crores at that time,  the chairman had many people to choose from and this was no small achievement.

He then completely outclassed the chairman both in the various foreign collaborations that they were contemplating and with the political leadership of the states in which the projects were going to be set up. When the chairman started having ego problems with him, he left and setup a big project consultancy business within a span of few years and further diversified into hotels and BPOs.

Around August’1995 when we went our separate ways, when I wrote a couple of poems on him and the company’s expansion and diversification, he told me “ You are better suited for this than the corporate world” which subsequently proved absolutely right.  He also added “ You should do what you can do spontaneously and effortlessly”  . This, to my mind is the most obvious definition of talent. When we joined neither of us knew of our own latent abilities but after the interaction were able to guess each other’s potential with pin point accuracy. When we came together, I was both well read in management and much more experienced but I and some of the others stood absolutely no chance against his prodigious talent.  Three other people joined from the same institute as Ashish but he was far better in practical application. Even today, he is head and shoulders above his equally and better qualified partners.

Current Talent Management situation

Talent management is in vogue these days. Though the term is usually used in the context of celebrities in field of creative arts, when one considers a broader spectrum, the problem is that companies from a cross section of Industries- ICICI Bank, Pantaloon, Ernst and young, TCS, Infosys find conventional management education grossly inadequate and are tying up with academicians to provide customized solutions for their respective companies. One article even stated that only 20% if the talent pool was suitable for corporate India and people had to be groomed for becoming Industry ready.  This is critical as success in the future would depend on a company’s ability to find and retain talented people. Even not being able to manage the right talent after attracting it can prove fatal if they go to the competition.

 In a country whose spiritual scriptures boast of terms like “svadharma” which implies one’s calling in life or speak of “the Sukshma(subjective-person) is more important than the sthula(objective-knowledge ), how could conventional education fare so poorly.? One reason obviously is that functional talent is evident only after the person tries a particular occupation- nobody can really determine a talent in advance till the person tries a particular job. 

In today’s competitive environment, companies need to be  nimble and flexible which implies that they need   self- motivated work teams. The manager has to probe each employee , look for differences in approach,  needs and drive of each individual and then try to change his unique talents into performance in the context of the company’s goals. It is better to focus on one employee at a time. After selecting a person, one should set realistic expectations, and motivate and develop a  person accordingly.

Talent defined

The most important thing is to understand what exactly the word “Talent” implies. Concluded from a survey interviewing the world’s top managers, the book “First, break all the rules” defines Talent as “ a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied to a particular situation or role”.  After every child is born, the child’s mind tries to reach out aggressively and by the third birthday, makes fifteen thousand synaptic connections(between the cells) for each of its one hundred billion neurons. These mental pathways are the filter which produce unique patterns of behavior, which create her enthusiasms and indifferences and basically define where she will excel and where she will struggle. These pathways are indications to the child’s character and according to neuroscience ,  beyond a point, there is a limit to how much of her character she can recarve .  

The book disproves the conventional wisdom that “Human beings have unlimited potential” . Every now and then, self-help books appear on how one can win  if life on the basis of having the “right attitude” alone. Some of these so called consultants even say that it is attitude more than talent that matters in performance. It may be true sometimes but on close examination, one can find that no two individuals do even the minutest of jobs exactly alike and in the long run, it is talent which is likely to have a greater weight age on how a person performs in all circumstances.

Types of Talent

The book further says that Talents are of three types- Striving, thinking and relating talents. Striving talents explain the whys of a person- is he altruistic or competitive or both, is he task oriented or result oriented or both? Thinking talents define the hows of a person- is he a linear or a lateral thinker, is he disciplined or carefree etc. Relating talents define who- with whom he relates, confronts or ignores. The core activities of a manager and a leader are different It is entirely possible for a person to be a brilliant manager but a terrible leader or vice- versa but a few exceptional people excel at both. Mike Brearly is perhaps the only cricket captain in history who continued in the English cricket team on the strength of his captaincy alone as he was not much of a player. In the Indian context, Saurav Ganguly may pale in comparison to Tendulkar as a batsman but made a much better captain which is something that nobody could have predicted. Tendulkar, being a great batsman could have easily led by example but it was the lesser gifted batman, Ganguly who really excelled as a leader which is doubly creditable.

This difference between “performers” and “leaders” is very well brought out by the book. Distinguishing between talent and non-talents, it gives examples of waiters, bar tenders, housekeepers, nurses, data entry operators etc as to how the best were different from the rest even in minor jobs and were compensated highly without necessarily being promoted. The best bartender was someone who remembered names of 3000 guests and their drinks and the champion data entry operator was four times faster than the rest. They gave prestige by public recognition and money to these best performers without necessarily promoting them if they did not have the talent for man management. I once had a ring side view of a continuous clash between the best salesman and the sales manager he reported to. The outstanding salesman could not be promoted  because of certain personal limitations and since he was a star, the “nobody is indispensable” rule could not  really be applied to him. The sales manager was not so good at sales but was a good man manager whom others reported to. The salesman always tried to indulge in a “one-upmanship” with the sales manager all the time who was compelled to reciprocate at times. The management did not know how to manage the conflict and lost the star salesman. The real solution is broadbanding which defines different ranges of salaries for different posts for both performers and man managers. Following this, it is  possible for a superb police officer to be paid more than a less efficient sergeant without being promoted, a brilliant teacher can similarly earn more than a novice principle, an excellent flight attendant more valuable than an average pilot etc  This is talent management at its best as the concerned people remain motivated despite not being promoted for roles that do not suit them.

It also gives due respect to humble talents. A well known Management consultant stated in his book  “An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because it is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will neither have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes not its theories will hold water. “Excellence need not be confined to what are considered “intelligent” or white collared roles. It is possible to have a role excellence in every role and talent in every individual who performs that role well. In the minds of great managers, every role performed with excellence deserves respect. For instance, a chore like housekeeping was studied and the precise behavior traits that made the best housekeepers were defined which constituted “housekeeping talent”. Then, every effort was made to make housekeeping publicly revered and a genuine career choice.

It would not be out of place to mention here what Lateral thinking expert Edward de Bono had said once that just because you have solved a complicated problem is no guarantee that you shall be able to solve a simple problem. Albert Einstein is a case in point when he admitted frankly “The hardest thing to understand is income-tax”. He even refused the presidency of Israel because of lack of experience in working with human beings. This clearly shows that nothing should be taken for granted just because a person proves exceptional in one field no matter what it is. What Bono actually implies is that one type of talent is no guarantee that a person shall do equally well elsewhere whether as a subordinate, a boss or in a peer function or whether it is an exalted talent or a humble talent.

The father of Management, Peter Drucker had said once that life is a relay race and the person who has the talent to start a company is not always the best to carry it forward. Since mental and emotional talents are  not always so tangible or transparent compared to films or sports, expressions like “attitude problem”, “excuse”, “you can do it”  “ “reinvent  yourself “etc are readily used without verifying whether the person has the requisite aptitude . Amitabh Bachchan has been able to reinvent himself even in old age but none of his contemporaries of his younger, superstar days have achieved even moderate success.  Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar have 35 and 34 centuries respectively in 135 and 125 tests but in one day cricket, the ratio is 40:1 in 378 and 108 matches respectively which clearly reveals the more talented batsmen overall and the fact that Gavaskar was not such a great one day player. All this clearly shows that domain expertise is not enough and one needs to know his particular  sub- domain or his niche strength specifically. Chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar did precisely that when he called cricketer VVS laxman a “one dimensional talent” which is probably the reason that despite being respected by the Australian bowlers, he could not make it to the world cups in 2003 and 2007.

In the context of a company, the nature and ambience of a company determines individual talent. A broker with a lot of desire and focus would be better in an enterupeurial company and a broker blessed with achievement and discipline would be better in a more structured company. Lacking this knowledge, if both companies hire each other’s brokers, it may prove disastrous . Whether it is a company or a manager, they have to know their distinct identity and also determine which companies they can jell with  A manager has to standardize the ends not the means- performance has to be defined in precise terms and employees should be encouraged to find their own path of least resistance toward the desired outcomes. That is the right fit where their unique combination of knowledge and talents match the demands of the role. Marketable skill and experience should not drive a person’s career but the person herself.

The book  further says that intelligence is a boon that great managers label a talent  that cannot be taught and one has to assess the employee as a whole- “What drives an employee, how they think and build relationships- is more important”  Only the presence of talent can explain why other factors being equal, some people excel in the role and some struggle- one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

The main thrust is to make the person feel that he is in a role that uses his talents while simultaneously challenging him to grow. Great managers recognize that people are motivated differently, each person has his own way of thinking and his own style of relating to others. My father used to be a partner in a medium sized lighting company where because of his aggressive street smartness, he often dealt with suppliers directly rather than go through the purchase manager . His partner on the other hand was very calm, a talent that came in handy when dealing with government officers and workers but useless with street smart suppliers.

The book further reveals that great managers know that there is a limit to how much remolding they can do to someone. They try to help each person become more and more of what he already is by focusing on his strengths and finding him a role that is aligned to his strengths rather than try to fix his weakness to be able to do the current job better. There is an example of a boss telling his subordinate “I love you and therefore I have to fire you” and then taking pains to find a job for that person to suit his talents rather than forcing him in the current role which did not suit him. This is the best example of tough love that a person can expect to find and is at variance with giving too much importance to attitude. If everybody were to practice this brand of socialism, the world would be a much better place to live in.

Talent, Skills and Competencies

The book says that Talent primarily depends on certain behavior traits that are not easy to change. Many companies send their employees to training classes to learn new behaviors- empathy, assertiveness, relationship building etc. However, great managers believe that people don’t change much. The less articulate fellow shall never excel at debate and the intense competitor will never learn to be assertive and not aggressive no matter how much he may understand “win-win” scenarios.  Ashish told me once that one of his partners could was naturally aggressive and the other was extremely balanced. Depending upon the situation, the aggressive partner got into the act when somebody had to be told off and the balanced partner was the hero where they had to listen quietly. He tried to reverse roles to enable them to appreciate each other’s roles but it did not work because they lacked conviction in doing something that was contrary to their nature.

The Bhagvad Gita talks of functional talent in verse 18.47 “ A man who is by nature attracted to the kind of work done by shudras should not artificially claim to be a brahmana, although he may have been born into a brahmana family.If a person is not by nature in the mode of goodness and therefore a Brahmana, he should not imitate the occupational duty of a brahmana. The same holds true for Kshatriyas who may have to kill or lie for diplomacy and Vaishyas who may have to lie for profit. If people do not have inherent traits required, they should not pursue that occupation just because they are born in it.

Competencies are part skill, part talent and part knowledge.  When one refers to them, one should be clear in one’s mind which are skills and knowledge and can be taught and which are talents and cannot be taught. “Implementing business or management control systems”  is a skill but “calm under pressure” is a talent that cannot be taught. It can be disastrous to suggest that the only way to become more effective is to change your nature. For example, if a person is persistently pessimistic, rather than telling him continuously to be positive, it is better to fit him in a role where skepticism is a key to success.

Talent and formal education

Superstar Amitabh Bachchan had recently said in an interview in the context of his son Abhishek’s movie career ,” Family background does help but ultimately it is Individual talent that matters”. Substitute “family background” with “formal education” and the statement is true not only for Ashish but others as well.  My wife is qualified in English Hons and has had a much better exposure to poetry  but it is me, an MBA who has written articles and poems for magazines and newspapers. Similarly, she does certain business work much better than I do. My father does much better trading in shares than me despite not having any formal training in Technical analysis(graphs) which I have. I had played Tennis regularly for years when  my younger brother came to the courts accidentally one day and tried his hand. He liked it and played so well(he got the backhand right consistently in one week which I could not do for years) that the best player in the club asked me "Why were you hiding him all this time"? He asked his age. When I replied "15", he said "It's a little late in the day". Therefore, Talent management does not only imply detecting latent potential but doing it at the right time and need not always depend upon formal education or previous experience.  

From the above examples, one wonders how much education is required for the really talented considering the famous maxim “To do easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius”.  In the movie “Krrish”, Naseerudin Shah is seen telling a prodigious Hritik Roshan “ Others are trained but you are gifted”.  Natural talent manifests itself quite well without formal education- neither Amitabh Bachchan nor Dhirubhai Ambani received any real formal education but both were outstanding and enduring successes in their chosen fields.  The book “Ancient wisdom for Management” puts it very bluntly “ Academic degree is just an entry pass nothing else in any job” . Ambani himself has admitted  that for management tasks, he gives more attention to who takes more initiative and gets the job done rather than “paper qualifications”  which clearly shows the importance of talent over knowledge.

While skills and knowledge can be taught, talent cannot.  Skills are how to’s of a role that are transferable from person to person and can be improvised with practice. They are often situation specific and  faced with an unanticipated scenario, they lose much of their power unlike talent which is transferable from situation to situation. If one has the relating talent of assertiveness, one can always tell one’s case plainly and persuasively.  Knowledge is of two types- factual and experiential- while factual knowledge or theory is transferable,  experiential knowledge is “ your awareness of who you are and how you come across to others”

In my view, group dynamics reveals all this,  Subhash Ghai  came is an an actor but became a director, Ravi shastri trained as a bowler but also became a batsman, Salim Khan trained as an actor but became a writer( In the book the making of “Sholay”, he admits that he had the gift of conception but not the gift of projection).  This is experiential knowledge- who you are and how you come across to others. In Hindi there is a saying- “Manushya karm karta hai tau use apni pehchaan se pehchaan hoti hai” or “In work, we have the possibility of discovering ourselves”.This is absolutely true because analytical intelligence displayed while doing case studies in an MBA does not always translate into functional talent or operative skill. It is one thing to analyze well what others have done but doing the same thing competitively well yourself is a different ballgame altogether. I did a crash course MBA of one year  but I know several commerce graduates who look more natural and have better hands on spontaneous business smartness that I do.

Peter’s principle and Talent