Talent Talk

Speculation is brewing that a legendary sporting name may be about to return to Formula 1.

Bruno Senna, nephew of the great Ayrton Senna, is cutting the mustard in GP2 (the feeder series for Formula 1) and looks set to move onto higher things.

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’.

An unholy row is rumbling through the corridors of football’s major powers.

It now involves Manchester United and Real Madrid, two of football’s most successful teams; FIFA, the governing body; and one man, a prodigious talent by the name of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Let’s start with Ronaldo. Two years ago, few people had heard of him. Manchester United picked him up from Sporting Lisbon for just over £12m. Many people, arch talent-spotter Arsene Wenger himself included, thought that a tad expensive for a kid with untried ability.

If this post sounds like news, you may be forgiven for thinking so. Because it is now over forty years since Peter Drucker wrote ‘The Effective Executive’ yet, in that time, we have seen very little movement away from the ‘weakness-based’ approach still practised in many schools (’you are strong at something, so that is fine; you are weak at something, therefore focus your energy on fixing that weakness’), and which stay with us as we move into adult life.

Drucker, of course, urged us to move away from that flawed paradigm.

An interesting article here gives a useful insight in the effects of different types of motivation in the world of sport.

It’s fascinating to see the approaches sports coaches use to gain great performance from their charges and there are certainly more than a couple of ideas here that can be applied to the world of the arts and business.

It would be equally fascinating to hear from our readers what approaches you find effective in your own field - or whether you subscribe to such approaches at all!

From the article: ‘I figured that, if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.’ Mohammed Ali

One of the easiest ways of relating to talent management is through the world of sport. So when I saw this article in the Daily Telegraph I thought it was of immediate interest to the Talent Talk readership. Granted, many of our readers may not care less about football but the Everton experience does show how a smaller, less advantaged club can still punch above its weight. The difference? Look no further to the mantra of selection, retention, motivation and development.

David Moyes has does reasonably well in all four departments and his efforts are now bearing fruit. It’s easy to forget that just two seasons ago his club narrowly avoided relegation (as they also had when he took over) but since his custodianship the club has been on an ever-advancing trendline.

I have an uneasy feeling that the club will not perform as well next season as it did in this one, but Moyes’ record for ‘return on human capital employed’ is impressive as a Premier league manager.

It would be fascinating to see these results tabulated as a human capital index for the Premiership - get to work any of you accountants out there!