With the start of the new course, many companies resume their training and education activities, undoubtedly with the best intentions, and "business focused". I want to present in these lines my humble reflections on whether the search, training and retention of talent or the improvement of the consciousness of all people and the organization as a whole is closer to business.
I have looked for the origin of "talent development" in companies and I think I have found it in a 1998 McKinsey article entitled "The war for talent"; and then in a book published by three consultants from that firm. I take the following quote from an article that Malcolm Gladwell published in The New Yorker entitled "The Talent Myth" on July 22, 2002 in which he glosses the myth of talent:
The authors quote and endorse what a senior General Electric executive says:
“Don't be afraid to promote stars even if they don't seem to have the relevant experience, or that the position is beyond you; In the modern economy, success requires the 'talent mindset.' ”
This ' talent mindset ' is the new orthodoxy of American management; it is the intellectual justification for why the degrees of the first level business schools have a plus; and why top management compensation packages are so splendid.
In the modern corporation, the system is considered to be only as strong as its stars, and in recent years this message has been preached by management 'gurus' around the world. None, however, has spread the message as ardently as McKinsey; And, of all its clients, it was a firm that put 'the talent mentality ' stuck to its essence. Of course, the company was Enron.
If The New Yorker is a prestigious publication, as Malcolm Gladwell is an internationally recognized author, in our business environment it is more Harvard Business Review than I take the following paragraph.
“'Conscious capitalism' is the way of thinking about companies and capitalism that best reflects where we are in the human journey, the current state of the world and the innate potential of companies to have a positive impact on humanity. Conscious companies are galvanized by the high purposes they serve; align and integrate the interests of all major 'stakeholders'. Their high state of consciousness allows them to see the interdependencies that exist between them and allows them to discover and take advantage of the synergies of situations that, in the absence of such a level of consciousness, seem full of contradictions. They have conscientious leaders dedicated to serving the company's purpose, that of everyone with whom it relates, and the planet we share.Conscious companies have cultures of authenticity, trust, innovation and solidarity that make working in them provide personal development and professional fulfillment. They try to create financial, intellectual, social, cultural, emotional, spiritual, physical and ecological wealth for all their 'stakeholders'. Every day there is more evidence that the performance of this type of companies, compared to financial metrics, far exceeds that of traditional ones; in addition, they create other forms of well-being. ”Every day there is more evidence that the performance of this type of companies, compared to financial metrics, far exceeds that of traditional ones; in addition, they create other forms of well-being. ”Every day there is more evidence that the performance of this type of companies, compared to financial metrics, far exceeds that of traditional ones; in addition, they create other forms of well-being. ”
I suggest that the reader decide which of the two models is closest to the true interests of the business. In another article I mentioned in passing the possible existence of two management models: the American and the European. I think that the idea of increasing the consciousness of the entire organization is more European than transatlantic; I lean towards the first one, ours.
Also, how is talent management different from traditional human resource management? Does it bring something new to companies or is it just old wine in new wineskins? Some experts say the definition of talent includes not only past performance but potential. But I think that the level of consciousness is a better predictor of potential because it encompasses a wider range of attitudes and competencies than those that define talent that may be limited to an area of expertise or knowledge.
In my humble opinion it is of little relevance, but there are many authors and managers who also advocate increasing collective consciousness, starting with that of managers, as an effective means of achieving the objectives and purposes of companies. And for which the achievement of benefits is essential, although perhaps not with the demand of the current markets that ask for more, not every year but every quarter, having a more reasonable time horizon (and that, on the other hand, does not need as much 'creative accounting' only so that the result for the quarter is better than the previous one).
Among the works that bring awareness to the frontispiece of change and continuity, survival, of companies is 'Re-inventing organizations'.
The author maintains that organizations have evolved throughout history as the level of consciousness of the population and its leaders changed:
“With each new stage of human consciousness also came a great advance in our model to collaborate, which brought a new organizational model. As we know them today, organizations are simply the expression of our current worldviews, of our current stage of development.
Human consciousness evolves in successive stages. We cannot ignore the massive amount of evidence that supports this reality. The problem is not the reality of the stages; we get complicated if we think that the later stages are better than the previous ones; a more useful interpretation is that they are 'more complex ways of managing the world'.
Robert Kegan is one of the authors who has dealt most, in theory and in practice, with the question of consciousness. He talks about 'immunity to change': to change, we have to eliminate this immunity which is defined as the process of achieving the desired objectives by discovering the hidden assumptions; This process can also be seen as changing something to which we were subject to become something that we can observe. These personal goals of change that we want to achieve but that we find many difficulties to achieve represent the limit of our current level of development.
In the following video, it is Professor Kegan himself who talks about that gap between a person's intention to change and what they really do, called 'immunity to change' and how it can be addressed.
It is important that the person genuinely wants to overcome their immunity; or in other words, that you have enough motivation to approach the process that needs both thinking and feeling.
Kegan says:
“… The increasing complexity of our world needs a greater complexity of our minds; Today there is a great gap between our mental complexity and the complexity that the world and our organizations demand. ”
Since we assume that all humans develop in predictable stages of consciousness and values, it is necessary to highlight the three conditions for these development cycles to occur:
- identify the future or envision the values because they will be the ones that will lead us to the development necessary to reach that future; address the fears created by the values that we have not reached or lived in the previous stages of development; and acquire the appropriate skills to be able to apply the values of the stage that we are going to undertake.
Because today's organizations need leaders who further develop their consciousness. Until very recently, perhaps until now, the ideas of the Industrial Revolution have inspired organizational systems: efficiency, synchronization, centralization, and bureaucracy (everything Laloux classifies as Amber organizations); and the universe as a mechanical entity, as a clock; But now a new reality is emerging: a more collaborative way of leading, the organization as a living being; and what will make this change consolidate and improve (to reach the Turquesa de Laloux organization) will be that the level of consciousness of the leaders is at least one step above that of the followers. Leaders who lack the skills and competencies to live the values,at least at the same level as that of the people in their groups, they run the risk of not knowing how to handle the complexity (not enough talent) of the tasks, incapable of knowing how to assume the risks involved, invaded by discomfort or, unconsciously, using the system against people.
Cultural entropy occurs when energy is consumed by doing unnecessary or unproductive work. When leaders have unmet deficiencies, cultural entropy increases and employee involvement decreases. To meet the needs of leaders in the complex world in which we live we need to find ways to accelerate human capacity to manage complexity by accelerating human development.
"Without a better understanding of human development - what it is, how it is facilitated, how it is constrained - what passes for 'leadership development' will probably end in 'leadership learning' or 'leadership training'. The knowledge and skills acquired will be like new programs and files that are brought to the operating system. They may have some value but the ability to use them will still be limited by the operating system. Real development is about transforming the operating system itself, not increasing the pool of knowledge or the repertoire of behaviors. ”
I think Laloux, and many others, invite us to reflect on managerial training and education. My humble point of view is that they should focus more on raising the level of awareness-complexity of executives and less on talent management. In other words: a higher level of consciousness encompasses, but exceeds, what is known as talent management. And that level of awareness is more attached to business needs than mere talent management.
Be sure to read the second part of this series:Methodology to raise the level of mental complexity of managers
There is a suggested methodology that goes in this direction.
