Talent Talk

Talent Talk

‘It’s a company that really really cares for its employees…’

‘What I love about working here is the energy of the people. People are so motivated and have so many ideas…’

‘People come from all over the country to work here…’

Is my job helping me fulfil my potential? Do I have the opportunity to use my talents every day? Is my work engaging my strengths?

These are the questions that we ask ourselves from time to time and are central to our experience in the world of work. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review picks up on these questions, with some advice on how to reach our potential.

Writing in the latest issue, Robert Kaplan shares his view that it’s important not only to identify our strengths, but also to become aware of our weaknesses.

A previous article here on Talent Talk (Drucker: Focus on Strengths) stressed the importance of strengths and how few people are aware of their own strengths, let alone their weaknesses.

Robert Kaplan gives some useful tips on how to do this: through asking your team members in a structured way. You could almost call this approach ‘an informal 360° feedback session’.

A book that recently landed on my doormat asks whether foreign-owned firms have a competitive advantage over local ones in the global marketplace.

People sometimes talk of talent development in Asian countries as being on an ‘onward and upward’ curve. There’s the sense that human development in Asian countries is improving and that these countries are closing the gap on the developed world. A closer look at the major statistics will prove this sense to be true: year-on-year increases in educational participation as covered by UNESCO show that human development in these countries is moving in the right direction.

Yet we recommend our readership to take a second look.