Talent Talk

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.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am guilty.

Not, you may be relieved to know, of any crime or misdemeanour, but of spending big chunks of my working life doing what I love doing, as opposed to working with money as the prime motivator, and being paid for it.

This week I rediscovered how fortunate I have been to do so. Called on to write and submit a witness statement, along with a raft of supporting documents for the court, I emphatically re-learnt something I have known, pretty much all my life, that one's talents are very specific.

A painting of a muddy pond with a few lilies floating on it sold for a record $80m last week amid signs that despite the economic downturn, the art market is in good health.

Monet's Bassin aux Nympheas may not strike you as being one of his greatest works (as in all probability it is not) but the fact that it was able to attract such a high bid says something about how we price talent.

It's that time of year again.

The Crown has submitted its annual accounts which have shown expenditure up 5.3% and the Royal Family now costing the UK taxpayer a whopping 66 pence per annum. At a time when everyone from MPs to Russian moguls are tightening their belts, you can imagine the chorus of disapproval emanating from Hoxton to the Houses of Parliament when they learn that the cost of running this enterprise is now over £40m per year.

We wonder however if those concerned are being a bit harsh. After all, the Press has covered only one side of the story, which is the cost of running the Royals. This gets us frankly nowhere. Every company thinks its staff are overpaid and every employee thinks they're invariably worth more than their monthly paycheque.

'If you take a chance based on the best information available and you get it right, you get a small reward.

'If you take a chance based on the best information you have and you get it wrong, you get a medium-sized punishment. 'If you take no chance, and just go along with the boss or go along with the majority, you get a small reward. So what would you do?'

Intrigued, as ever, in the goings on in the world of the arts, this latest skyscraper design signals a break from the past on a grand level.