Eastern culture with its ancient wisdom explains that a crisis is an opportunity. I adhere to this conception and I hope that the global crisis that affects us will serve as an opportunity to think about the paradigms, theories and demands that are placed on the people who work in organizations.
In the middle of the last century, a large number of studies have emerged on the training, capacities and competencies that a person must have to obtain employability, to which must be added the "talent" to maintain their permanence in the organization.
Thus, when attending several business conferences where experts explained how to retain the “talents” of the organization in the face of the global economic-financial crisis, it led me to reflect on; which is because it is called talent.
Given the situation of instability and uncertainty that companies face, it is the right field for fears of losing market presence and the best of their human capital to settle. It is there, that organizational discourses arise in which it is established: "retain talents", "it is essential to retain the best talents", etc. Now, what do we talk about when we talk about "talent", how is it defined, what is or what is called talent and who determines the talent.
When consulting the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy this says: from the Latin talentum and this from the Greek τάλαντον, plate of the balance, weight.
1) intelligence; ability to understand.
2) fitness; capacity for the performance or exercise of an occupation.
3) intelligent person or suitable for a certain occupation.
4) currency of account of the Greeks and Romans.
If we adjust to the definition, we can say that human talent is made up of a variety of characteristics, personal and social experiences, which are embedded in cultural diversity.
I am interested in marking the importance of cultures in relation to the significance of talent. As an example: an organization that develops its production, commercial or service activities in the capital and in cities in the interior of a country, will not have the same definition of talent for people who live in the big city and work in the central offices, to the others that do it in a small town and provide their services in a branch of the same company. We can also extend the example to global or transnational companies where the cultural diversity between the parent company and the branches have conditioning factors such as idiomatic, to which are added the different conceptions about labor, legal, social relations, etc.
Continuing with this line of thought, I believe that we cannot speak of talent, but rather of "talented people". Those that are going to be considered in this way according to the culture, the context and in this case according to the needs of the organization. We train companies and are made up of people, and each one of them has knowledge, creativity, innovation, commitment, defense of humanistic values and respect for laws and cultural diversity.
Only men and women can create and transmit knowledge from generation to generation, channel personal emotions and respect those of other people, integrate socially and interact with other citizens, acquire technical skills, develop linguistic and numerical intelligence, such as resolution problems, take and manage risks and have collaborative attitudes.
When speaking of talent and not of talented people, a weighting of the word itself is made, making it difficult to visualize “what is” what is called talent. This becomes an abstraction that we all talk about, think about and consider essential to have to retain in the organization and especially in times of crisis.
Therefore, from our point of view, we understand that talent is only in the nature of people. So much so that all human beings have some kind of talent. This is not absolute, nor general, neither specific or momentary, it can be cultivated as helping its manifestation. A good example is the 47-year-old British Susan Boyle, who is presented to the Britains Got Talent, the evaluators of "talent" in the first instance and because of her appearance they did not consider that she could sing and less the chosen song Dreamed a Dream (Soñé un Sueño) but the surprise was that he did it exceptionally.
Reflecting on the example, many times, if not all, people are classified and categorized according to theoretical parameters or taken from dictionary definitions. These definitions in themselves are arbitrary and exclusive, because they suggest that there are people who have talent and others do not, which leads us to ask ourselves; who and how talent is valued. Those in charge of retaining talent have talent. Talents choose talents.
There are many questions and it may be a bit "hard" in the criteria of analysis that I am carrying out, but the objective is to contribute a more inclusive thinking, seeking a comprehensive weighting of the person.
We know that the current moment that organizations are going through is difficult, they must assimilate a new reality, characterized by permanent changes and growing dynamism. They are required to build a differential value to be competitive in the market and the value will be directly related to the capacity, creativity and innovation that their human capital develops, that is, talented people who manage complexity and uncertainty from commitment in the global world of business.
If we accept that all people are talented but in a different way, we will stimulate them to give value to the organization from their work environment, to develop their full potential, form and integrate teams where each one contributes their knowledge, creativity and experience.
