The Talent Business (and how to manage it)
The readers of this blog tend, I believe, to fall into three overlapping and indistinct camps: computer scientists, academics and those occasional readers who arrived through some process of search or serendipity. My guess, supported partly by the statistics and by some feedback, is that the articles that appeal to the first group of readers do not necessarily appeal to the second, and vice-versa. Who knows what appeals to the third group? They are probably looking for an altogether more serious professor. So it is, that I try and address what unites computing professionals and academics. We are in the talent business.
A talent business is one in which the key determinant of performance is the creative work of gifted individuals or small groups of individuals. In a talent business the core work cannot be routinised or systematised. Individuals are not directly substitutable, one with another. Generally, talent businesses exhibit 'power law' performance in which a small set of individuals exhibit very high creative attainment while there is rapid drop-off to a long tail of weaker performers, 'bit players'. In universities all the various (flawed) statistics, such as grant income and citations, point to the same thing. In software development, anecdotally (the empirical evidence is not as strong as we would like), the same differences in performance are manifest.
Talent is, of course, a delicate thing and sensitive to context. Individual talents can wax and wane. The particular situation, for instance an emerging class of scientific problems, can call forth new talent and put existing talent in the shade. Personal circumstances too make a big difference. Individuals can, for example, exhibit sudden surges or slumps in performance, creativity and energy at various life-stages and as their personal situation alters. This does not alter the basic facts of the talent business, that high performing individuals are what makes the difference.
The managerial consequences of being in the talent business are clear, but often unacknowledged. First and foremost, nothing, repeat nothing, is more important than recruitment. Strategy is important, of course, but its first function in a talent business is to direct, support and shape recruitment. There is a bootstrap issue, talent attracts talent, while weak organisations are unable to recognise talent or to risk bringing in individuals that are better than the existing staff, with the obvious negative consequences. In a talent business good recruitment is ultimately about 'selling' not about 'selection'.
Retention of talent is, naturally, more cost-effective than recruitment but, once somebody is inclined to leave, the psychological forces are usually such that not much can, or probably should, be done. This must be contrasted with the the requirement to avoid talent from initially contemplating departure.
The further consequence is that you must provide the freedom and resources for the exercise of talent. Here strategy follows talent, though strategy, and the strategy formation process, can be the way to have a dialogue around choices that have to be made and to nudge things in the 'right' direction. This is not a prima donna's charter, though it may appear so. It reflects the need to allow the necessary scope for creativity. Talented individuals are, in my experience, driven to create and are sensitive to roadblocks. The principal role of management in this setting is to encourage and enable. You back people to make things happen.
Talent businesses do need clearly articulated boundaries. Sacred monsters cannot and should not be tolerated and nobody should be beyond the reach of the standards of civilised behaviour. This is not quite the same thing however as recognising the benefits of judicious and proportionate rule-breaking.
The hallmark of a talent business is diversity. I do not mean by this an organisation that is simply gender, nationally and ethnically diverse, though this is an absolute requirement, but rather an organisation that is willing to embrace very different ways of thinking about and approaching the business. An organisation that incorporates talented introverts and extroverts, entrepreneurs and systematisers, builders and critics. Diversity, just to the point of discomfort, is what marks out the real talent business. Managing a talent business is about 'working' that diversity and feeling comfortable about it.
Talent businesses must be forgiving because failure is inevitable. Creativity and risk are bedfellows. Nothing is more motivational for individuals in a talent business than the sense of being trusted and supported. Few innovations or creative works have proceeded without failure and a talent organisation must accommodate the process and the accompanying learning.
Lastly, management in a talent organisation has to involve personal relationships. It is about individuals, what motivates them, what upsets them, why they do what they do. A talent business can be fiercely competitive but it must also be close and personal and must be managed as such.