The term ‘talent management strategy’ of an organization includes both onboarding and managing ‘human’ resources to effectively bring out the best of their potential both in the individual capacity and collaboratively as a team. The team responsible for onboarding these talents has to mandatorily identify the right talent for the right role, and it is equally important that the leader managing these talents creates an environment to nurture and flourish so that they upgrade their talents. While it is very easy for us to bucket the job of an HR Head as (a) attracting talent (b) retaining talent, and (c) growing talent – care should be taken to ensure that the ‘talent’ is not reduced to an employee number or a head count but the human aspect of the talent is recognized, appreciated and addressed. Ultimately, the talent manager is accountable for managing the talent by creating a culture in the team in such a way that the hidden potential flowers and there is an opportunity for the talent to express herself/himself by understanding the purpose of the role for which she/he has been made part of the team. Alternately, when the manager does not micromanage, and the talent understands the task at hand by having clarity on the role – the talent will have more joy in fulfilling the responsibilities.

This article focuses on looking at a talent as a human being – making the role performed by the talent more aspirational – it is imperative that the manager managing the talent or the team does not look at them as a head-count or an employee ID. Ultimately, a talent should be seen as an individual with emotions – without any bias or preconceived notion.

The approach taken at the School of Design Thinking is first ‘Design The Thinking®’ before ‘Thinking The Design’. Design The Thinking® is a mindset that helps to focus on the person facing the problem more than the problem itself. Hence, in this context, talent is looked at from three different perspectives – capability quotient, emotional quotient and capacity quotient.

Capability quotient focuses on the knowledge that is the force of growth for the team/individual. The emotional quotient focuses on the emotions that either bind or scatter a team towards siloed working or collaborative working. Capacity quotient is all about how the environment nurtures purpose-driven intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivation.

CAPABILITY QUOTIENT – A person acquires a skill, either in college or as part of the demand of the job. The knowledge thus acquired is largely theoretical with minimal practical experience in application. When that person applies that skill repeatedly over some time, she/he gains depth in that skill – also called expertise. We generally seek expertise from a cardiologist or home décor because we need someone who understands the domain better – someone who can meet our expectations in time, cost and quality. It will not be out of place to quote Malcolm Gladwell from his book ‘Outliers’ wherein he says, “To become an expert, it takes 10,000 hours (or approximately 10 years) of deliberate practice”. As an expert now, the individual is able to perform the job repeatedly in the shortest possible time and with high quality and precision. However, is that enough? While depth of knowledge is definitely needed, that is not enough in the long run. Beyond a point, expertise leads to comfort, stagnancy and even irrelevance of that skill. That is why it becomes imperative that the talent manager leads the talent towards a big-picture view of the world around that skill. If expertise is 20,000 feet deep, the big picture is 20,000 feet above – termed as perspective. If expertise is knowledge, perspective is wisdom. This wisdom tells us where to apply the knowledge, when to apply the knowledge, and even how much of the knowledge should be applied.

Perspective helps the talent to learn, unlearn and relearn newer skills depending on how the world around them is changing. It is this perspective that helps the talent to connect the dots across different domains, such as business and technology. As an expert, the talent was restricted only to one domain, but perspective helps build ideas across different domains. When multiple domains converge, there is alignment across the team, department or organization. This can be viewed as the gradual growth of talent from being an ‘order taker’ (as a skilled person) to being an ‘agenda setter’ (when the talent builds ideas through perspective).

The talent manager needs to understand that each talent has his or her own journey of moving from skill to perspective. It is the primary responsibility of the talent manager to help a skilled talent to graduate to perspective by providing the necessary environment.

EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT – The journey of talent across various stages in the ‘capability’ growth becomes more complicated when the talent is part of a team. While working together, their emotional aspects come into play. These emotions are termed frictional forces; the reason is that emotions are like frictions – too much is bad, and its absence is equally bad.

• Doubt – The talent may have doubts regarding either the role, the job at hand or even where the project is heading. The question here is – Is there an avenue for the talent to ask questions? Does the culture allow talent to question the status quo? Are only questions repeatedly asked with no action being taken post-clarification? Alternatively, there could also be a scenario where the talent is not seeking clarity but is happy with ambiguity and jumps into action.
• Conflict – This emotion arises in three different possibilities – a difference of opinion, a difference of perspective or a difference of expectation. How these differences are resolved or sorted is the moot aspect here. It is recommended to have a dialogue among the parties involved. Dialogue is all about ‘what’ is right rather than ‘who’ is right. The behaviour of the talent needs to be observed. Is the talent overly assertive/aggressive from her/his point of view or just succumbing to someone else’s point of view?
• Anger – Doubt and conflict, when not addressed in a timely and effective manner can lead to anger – a state of frustration leading to stress. This is actually a state of helplessness. A talent can react either by displaying anger or by swallowing anger.
• Fear – This emotion can arise due to multiple reasons. It could stem from the fear of going wrong, fear of failure, fear of commitment, fear of being judged or funnily enough, the fear of the unknown. Even when the culture does not allow clarification of doubts, fear could creep in. However, the talent manager should be aware of the fear that prevents the talent from either taking action or throwing caution to the wind and working for the thrill.
• Ego – One of the most dangerous of emotions, particularly when the talent is an expert in any domain. Ego leads to an ‘I know it all’ attitude, which could further lead to the assumption that others do not know anything at all. While self-pride is important, one’s attitude should be that of humility – there is more to learn.

While the talent manager needs to ensure that all the above emotions are under check for the talents, she/he should be cognizant of these emotions within herself/himself. It will be in the best interest of the team to ensure that these emotions are managed and channelled well and that they do not take any extreme direction either way.

CAPACITY QUOTIENT – The capacity quotient acts as a catalyst for the blossoming of the capability quotient and emotional quotient. The culture of the team should be such that it promotes the capacity of every individual talent to grow. There are three catalysts or capacity levers:

• Vulnerability – Is the talent always operating within the confines of her / his comfort zone? The talent would always restrict herself/himself within a comfort zone if the organization does not allow mistakes or failure as part of the learning process. When the organization says, ‘First Time Right’, fresh thinking stops, and the talent refuses to create newer comfort zones.
• Appreciation – There should be a culture of appreciating the effort that has been put in by the talent irrespective of the outcome. The positive reinforcement coming from other talents improves trust within the team, and there is renewed energy and vigour by the talent to forcibly put themselves in an uncomfortable zone. Care should be taken that during the process of appreciation, the GST framework is followed. The appreciation should be Genuine, Specific and Timely.
• Limiting Belief – The elements in the emotional quotient can bring down self-confidence thus, drastically reducing the capacity of the talent. Limiting beliefs can be infectious too. It is imperative for the talent manager to ensure that the team does not spiral down into disbelief and demotivation.

Thus, these thirteen musical notes – 5 of the Capability Quotient – Skill, Expertise, Perspective, Idea and Alignment, 5 of the Emotional Quotient – Doubt, Conflict, Anger, Fear and Ego and 3 of Capacity Quotient – Vulnerability, Appreciation and Limiting Beliefs –are present in every talent and when these are managed well, the team tends to outperform itself. The talent tends to move from incremental growth to exponential growth. These 13 musical notes, when balanced, provide an environment to collaborate and co-create.

School of Design Thinking is committed to creating awareness about Design Thinking as a ‘Human Centred – Future Focused’ approach to society at large. It strives to bring the culture of design thinking to all aspects of life by focusing on preparing the design mind. A design mindset helps solve complex challenges as well as create meaningful and immersive experiences. For more information, visit www.d-thinking.com