A couple of weeks ago David Zinger wrote a great post regarding the so-called war for talent.

“I have always been troubled by the so called “war for talent.” Now, I am beyond troubled, I am angry with the use of this metaphor for those of us who offer our best in organizations.”

Take a moment to read David’s comments—they are provocative, true and well worth the time.

But I want to focus on something else today.

I have a major problem with ‘talent’—and human capital and human resources and stars—but especially with talent.

As a manager, you do not hire talent, capital, resources or stars.

You hire people.

The people you hire are rated, in the majority of cases, ‘talented’, or even ’stars’, as a direct result of the skill with which you manage them.

I spent more than 20 years as a headhunter and I’ve seen below average employees turn into innovative contributors when exposed to a different manager and the opposite, when acknowledged stars suddenly become non performers because the management changed.

Actually, you don’t really hire people, you hire persons. Individuals with all the quirks, foibles, idiosyncrasies and idiotsyncrasies common to the human race.

And you hire them one at a time.

No manager ever hired a ‘workforce’; they built it, one person at a time.

Plural pronouns not allowed.

So no more talk about talent or resources or capital. Your job is the acquisition, care and feeding of your persons.

And why in the world would you involve yourself or your persons in a war?

Image credit: flickr

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 5:30 am and is filed under Business info, Communication, Hiring, Motivation, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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