Tan Kin Lian's Blog: The Purpose of Talent

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Purpose of Talent

The word "talent" become fashionable after a report printed by the management consultancy firm, McKinsey entitled "The War for Talent". The report said that "talent" is the most important corporate resource for the next 20 years.

I wondered what happened to the world before "talent" was discovered. Did we get into trouble? Was the world stuck in the dark ages, with no progress? Was there no scientific discovery and progress, before talent was discovered?

Anyway, what is a "talent"? I thought that it referred to the small number of remarkable people who were able to create wealth and give a better standard of life to the billions of people in the world. But, this was not to be the case!

Who were the talents that were sought after by the corporations? They seem to be the smart people who created the sub-prime mortgages, structured products and financial derivatives, or engaged in humongous bets on the financial markets. If they get the bets right, they make billions in profits. If they got it wrong, they will be bailed out by Uncle Sam.

The talents included the top CEOs who increased the profits of their companies by reducing the cost through global outsourcing, leading to the destruction of countless jobs and high unemployment. They included the talents who created accounting frauds, ponzi schemes, investments scams and the biggest asset bubbles of all times. Before they were discovered, they were lauded as talents who created wealth (a.k.a asset bubbles and large bets).

They included the CEOs who make super profits by exploiting their monopolistic power or through a hidden cartel (e.g. look at the high charges for banking and telecommunication services). These super profits were extracted from the high prices paid by the consumers who were paid depressed wages for their work.

They included the lawyers and doctors who charged large fees for providing their services to the clients, i.e. fees that would make the many families bankrupted for a generation.

It is easy to make super profits by betting, by cheating and by exploiting the weak. It need talent to do all of these and avoid getting caught by the law.

What is the value of talents, if they are not backed by ethical behavior and the spirit of public service, of doing good for the ordinary people?

Tan Kin Lian

6 comments:

Unknown said...: Mr Tan,
I beg to differ. The so called acts of talents you mentioned requires a high degree of unscrupluous behaviour in order to achieve the goals at the expense of the masses. Depending on the business model, the talents achieve this by squeezing and manipulating their pricing. Obviously, the GLCs in Singapore are very "talented" as they have our balls in their hands at all times.

If not for the pirates and Freeware, Bill Gates would have ruled the world. The hackers are the talents that perform "jailbreaks" on Apple products. These people are frowned upon whereever they go. The world is full of greed and I sense a new world order coming.; August 11, 2010 12:32 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Hi stevenskloke
I thought that we are on the same wavelength, so why are you differing from me?; August 11, 2010 1:14 PM
yujuan said...: So-called talents are being exploited and abused by Singapore based campanies. Local SMEs who provide IT products and services lament the skills level of these cheaper foreign IT staff, and they have to send their own people to teach and train them. Their employers make use of their contractors as trainers for these employees.
The same with the construction industries. Developers and contractors employ Bangladeshi FWs, who have no or low skills, largely they are much cheaper to employ, and very often you have two or three workers doing one piece of work. This is a case of dollars foolish, cents wise, as low skills lead to inefficiency and poor quality.
Just look at the two IRs. Very often we haer of electricity breakdowns, large scale leaking problems in their resorts, and the breakdown of attractions that are shelved indefinitely, all due to poor quality work and of course to haste.
Govt's comments we need another 100,000 foreigners must be taken with a pinch of salt. We are now attracting low skilled Foreign talents, because are have to be cheaper and faster. In previous yaers Singapore could attract more highly skilled personnel, now the better ones are skipping Singapore to work in more highly paid countries. Greed makes employers here employ cheap foreigners, never mind the low skills, low productivity and low quality work.
It is the bottom line that counts, and the huge bonuses they receive at the end that counts.
It is the cheapskate mentality and greed that is at play.; August 11, 2010 2:15 PM
Jasjit said...: Mr Tan,

You are spot on in your comments relating to "talent". In fact, a whole series of books have emerged on the issue including "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle and "Talent is Over-Rated" by Geoff Covin.

What many are probably not aware of is that, following Kinskey's report on talent, the “talent” philosophy was adopted hook, line and sinker by the likes of Enron to the exclusion of every other consideration. The idea was that as long as an organisation hired talented people, it didn’t matter where you placed them within the organization – they would all their contributions because they were talented. With the hindsight of history, we all know what happened to Enron. There is an excellent article “The Talent Myth” on Malcolm Gladwell’s website that is worth a read.
http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_07_22_a_talent.htm

Carol Dweck, a professor of developmental psychology at Stanford University in her book "Mindsets" goes further to suggest that labels like "talent" are counter-productive and often result in individuals in organisations then ensuring that nothing is done that would “strip” them of their “talented” label. This involves covering up failures, finding excuses, etc. It’s high time that organizations and institutions re-visit the notion of “talent”.; August 11, 2010 2:19 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Dear Mr Tan,

Your thoughts on "The Purpose of Talent" were interesting and I found myself agreeing whole hearted with them.

Regards,
Jasjit

You are spot on in your comments relating to "talent". In fact, a whole series of books have emerged on the issue including "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle and "Talent is Over-Rated" by Geoff Covin.

What some readers may not be aware of is that, following Kinskey's report on talent, the “talent” philosophy was adopted hook, line and sinker by the likes of Enron to the exclusion of every other consideration. The idea was that as long as an organisation hired talented people, it didn’t matter where you placed them within the organization – they would all make their respective contributions because they were talented. With the hindsight of history, we all know what happened to Enron. There is an excellent piece “The Talent Myth” on Malcolm Gladwell’s website that is worth a read. http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_07_22_a_talent.htm

Carol Dweck, a professor of developmental psychology at Stanford University in her book "Mindsets" goes further to suggest that labels like "talent" are counter-productive and often result in individuals in organisations then ensuring that nothing is done that would unseat them of their “talented” label. This involves covering up failures, finding excuses, etc ending up in a "fixed" mindset. It’s high time that organizations and institutions re-visit the notion of “talent”.; August 11, 2010 3:00 PM
Anonymous said...: It is not recruiting talents for talent sake that matter. What matters is how you recruit talents that are moral and ethnic-eccentric. The initial stage of recruitment by the PAP government seems random and without any safeguard in place. I wonder how many bad-egg already got through to our shore.; August 11, 2010 3:30 PM