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What do we mean by talent?

The term “Talent” – widely used today and the core of many senior job titles in HR – originates in its current usage from a famous 2001 article called “The War for Talent”. Written by three Mckinsey consultants in the US, they identified “five imperatives of talent management”:

  • instilling a talent mindset;

  • rebuilding your recruiting strategy;

  • creating an employee value proposition;

  • developing great leaders; and

  • differentiating and affirming your people.

The article placed a particular emphasis on the influence that an immediate manager can have – either positively or negatively – on the development of their people. These so called “imperatives” lead us to three aspects of talent management that require some measures and indicators – enabling us to set goals, track progress, benchmark internally or externally and link where possible to business parameters. These are as follows:

  • data about talented people;

  • effectiveness and efficiency of talent management processes; and

  • the extent of the supporting culture and environment.

However organisations have varying definitions of what they mean by talent – who should be included in this population or populations that require “management”? Figure 1 shows the spectrum of inclusivity here.

A common definition is to confine it to those individuals who are seen to be “high potential”, able to reach the upper echelons of leadership. Certainly these would be included. However in any organisation it is rare that this group would comprise more than 1 per cent of the workforce. They are often not identified until already in middle management and one might argue also that they are the group that need the least “management” or help from the organisation. In an excellent study Professor Alan Mumford (Developing Top Managers, 1988) talked to a large number of CEOs and practically none of them could give credit to any HR process or intervention that had enabled their rise. It was opportunity, being in the right place at the right time or just luck that had given them the chance to show achievement and potential.

At the other end of the spectrum are organisations who are uncomfortable with any differentiation and who argue that everyone has talents and it is the job of organisations to develop them all. This...

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