Topic 2 What is talent? Flashcards
What is talent?
Why is talent hard to define?
Many ways to define within one organization.
Restrictive definitions make it hard to find evidence to characterize talent.
Vague definitions => what’s the point of using the term talent if everyone has it?=> would be a skill, knowledge or competency then.
Define the word talent
Superior mastery of systematically developed abilities and knowledge in at least one field of human endeavour.
What is the meaning of talent in the workplace?
Context specific/dependent: industry, profit/non-profit, etc.
Has organizationally specific definition.
Talent can mean many things in the same organization (not properly conceptualised)
What are the consequences of confusion of the world talent?
Harder to establish widely acknowledged TM theories and practices (hinders scholarly advancement)
Lack of legitimacy of conclusions of previous literature.
What is Gallardo-Gallardo et al. (2013) view on talent?
Gallardo-Gallardo et al. (2013) give an approach to viewing talent in the world of work, stating there are 5 tensions when defining talent in organizations:
Object vs subject
exclusive vs inclusive
innate vs acquired
input vs output
transferable vs context dependent
Explain object vs subject approach.
Object approach: talent as characteristics of people.
Subject approach: talent as people
Based on the views of Tansley, define talent
Object: “Talent can be considered as a complex amalgam of employees’ skills, knowledge, cognitive ability and potential. Employees‘ values and work preferences are also of major importance.” (Tansley et al., 2006, p. 2)
Subject: “Those individuals who can make a difference to organizational performance, either through their immediate contribution or in the longer-term by demonstrating the highest levels of potential.” (Tansley et al., 2007, p. 8)
What are the different views of talent as object?
Talent as a natural ability: talent is innate at least to acertain degree, so enduring and unique => quasi-impossible to learn orteach. Should not be managed but enabled.
Talent as mastery: Systematically developed knowledge & skills that lead to superior performance comes. From deliberate learning and experience. People have different ultimate potential, but you need learning and practice to reach talented levels of performance.
Talent as commitment: To work and to the organizations. Intrinsic and direct focus attention and dedication. Complementary to others.
Talent as fit: between the context and individual’s talent (right place, position and time). Essential: importance of context=> meaning of talent is subjective not objective => not always transferable from one organization to another.
What should you consider when taking different approaches of talent as object into account?
Talent as commitment or fit are not considered to be talent without the natural ability and/or mastery
What are the different subject approaches?
Inclusive subject approach: talent as all people (everyone in the organization as they own strengths => can all add value)
Exclusive approach: talent as some people (can alter performance immediately or have the highest potential to)
Explain the inclusive subject approach. What effect does it base itself on?
Success comes from encompassing the talent of the entire workforce.
Reasoning: nowadays it is mostly employees that create value for organizations => main determinant oforganization performance.
Common in knowledge-based economies,service industry. And Common in strength-based approaches to talent management: Mark effect (treat everyone as equals => more pleasant collegial and motivating climate.
Guarantees egalitarian distribution of resources across all employees => not downturn in morale. Also investing in only small elite performers is risky.
What are the main criticism for the inclusive subject approach?
Talent is the entire workforce => managing talent = managing entire workforce.
Can also lead to unnecessarily high costs in HR => strength-based approach is less efficient than the gap-based and exclusive approaches (More cost-effective and efficient)
Explain the exclusive subject approach
Talent as high performers: those at the top 10%. A-players. Happy few. Most important drivers of organizational performance
Talent as high potential: possibility of becoming more than they are at a faster pace then their peers, with different needs, motivations and behaviours.
Given based on previous performance => halo bias? (invalid generalization of one positive characteristics to others).
More arguments in favour of it. Widely used and supported.
What the benefits of the exclusive subject approach?
Seeinghigh performers get rewarded can also encourage low performers to quit or dobetter => higher performing workforce.
Continuoustournament in the workplace => employees are motivated to develop and applyskills and qualities needed.
What are the disadvantages of the subjective exclusive approach?
Evaluationof performance and potential is not fully objective. Reflects judgements madeby top and line management => subjective (can bebiased)
Assumptionthat talented employees are inherently different from less talented employeesdoes not consider A players can look like B players under certain conditionsand vice versa.
Assumptionthat past performance predicts future one is controversial + causalrelationship between performance levels before and after being identified astalent are distorted by that identification (leads to higher support for performanceimprovement)
Identifyingelite subset can lead to self-fulling prophecies
E.g.:Pygmalion effect (expectations of performance, high or low, determineactual performance, negatively or positively by impacting motivation andself-esteem) => is it valid and useful to identify talented employees if allcan benefit from it?
Labellingsmall groups as talented => negative effects (increased sensitivity tofeedback, fear of failure) on promising employees.
Allocatinglarge part of resources to small number of people can damage moral and causeresentment among peers.
Overemphasison individual performance: discourages personal development organization-wide,undermines team work (zero-sum reward practices where only some teammembers are rewarded, causing an overall negative or neutral effect) and cancreate a destructive internal competition that stops learning and the spread ofbest practices.
What are the criticism against the subject vs object approach?
Talent as fit: can both be as an object and as a subject approach depending on how you see it
Inclusive approach: if everyone is talented because of their unique characteristics you can make it also an object approach (focus on characteristics they possess)
Exclusive approach can also be seen object approach (depending on what makes a person a high performer/potential)
What is the difference between exclusive and inclusive talent management?
Interpersonal excellence: exclusive talent. Compare between people => only some are talented (have “excellence”)
Intrapersonal excellence: inclusive talent. Compare within people (to find what their talentis) => everyone is talented.
What is talent in exclusive TM? What effects are at play?
Talent = the happy few
Focus on those that are exceptional in their role and outperform other : Pareto Principle: 20% of employees contribute 80% of the total value
Benefits from the Mathew effect (allocation of more resources for better performance => higher return on investment since more resources are allocated to where returns can be expected, i.e., talented individuals)
What are the advantages of exclusive TM?
Seeing high performers get rewarded can also encourage low performers to quit or do better => higher performing workforce.
Continuous tournament in the workplace => employees are motivated to develop and apply skills and qualities needed.
Particularly effective in industries with low-wage workers (e.g., restaurants, retail companies and call centres) since Employee contribution does not depend on hierarchical position.
What are the critiques against exclusive TM?
Evaluation of performance and potential is not fully objective. Reflects judgements made by top and line management => identifying talent is subjective (can be biased)
Assumption that talented employees are inherently different from less talented employees does not consider A players can look like B players under certain conditions and vice versa.
Assumption that past performance predicts future one is controversial + causal relationship between performance levels before and after being identified as talent are distorted by that identification (leads to higher support for performance improvement)
Identifying elite subset can lead to self-fulling prophecies => E.g.: Pygmalion effect (expectations of performance, high or low, determine actual performance, negatively or positively by impacting motivation and self-esteem) => is it valid and useful to identify talented employees if all can benefit from it?
Labelling small groups as talented => negative effects (increased sensitivity to feedback, fear of failure) on promising employees.
Allocating large part of resources to small number of people can damage moral and cause resentment among peers.
Describe inclusive TM. What is it based on?
Talent = everyone
“a person’s recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that can be productively applied” (Buckingham & Vosburgh, 2001)
Based on positive psychology: Not only about things that do well, but also things that energize (things you enjoy doing). Strengths = overlap between the two
Usually about the unique combination of characteristics you have: VIA Character Strengths => gives you 5 strengths that make you unique (e.g., kindness, love, spirituality, hope and prudence)
What is the difference between innate and acquired talent?
Innate talent: Some talents exist in certain people from birth.
Acquired talent: empirical studies that show you need to practice deliberately to get good at something.
What is the consensus regarding innate and acquired talent?
The consensus now is that it is a mixture of both. Some people are more predisposed to certain things, but they still require practice to excel at them
Nature-nurture interaction: innate feature are necessary but not sufficient conditions for future achievement (influenced by environmental factors.
Expertise = talent
Genes (nature) affected and affect the environment (nurture)
Describe the input vs output tension
Input: Motivation * Effort * Ambition * Passion * Engagement * Commitment
Output: Performance * Achievements * Results
Describe the transferable vs context dependent tension
Context-dependent: If you move a superstar analyst (investment banking) from one firm to the other, their performance may drop for a period of up to five years, depending on:
Resources at old and new firm
Moving solo or with the entire team (no drop)
Transferable: eminent scientists tend to have very broad interests and are extremely versatile, working on different, unrelated projects at any given point in time and integrating knowledge acquired in different contexts (Simonton, 1999)
But was done still within the academia context (very uniformly global)
Still need the support system to be in practice => requires head hunting activities to be changed
