We do not take advantage of the talent when we found.
The current champion of the Giro d′Italia, Nairo Quintana, was found by chance for cycling just a few years ago. In 2009 he still was an amateur cyclist.
Born in a region of Colombia essentially dedicated to agriculture, his family lived in the rural area of a small town called Combita. In order to cover the 16Kms of distance between his house and school his father gifted him a bicycle to make easier for him to go to study.
In Colombia exists a great fondness for cycling and in Boyaca, the region in which is located Combita, is a major world-class cyclists producer. That is why is not strange find in their roads a lot of them; groups of professionals cyclists, riding many kilometers for training purposes.
What no one was expecting is that a boy with a bicycle much more heavy and without any kind of training; in the hills with more difficulties, could be able of surpass many of these professionals, who's immediately noticed Nairo′s skills and quickly convinced him to enter on a regular training system.
The surprises did not stop there, when he was tested in the sports high performance centers of the region, the power of his body (watts per kilo), broke the limits of the measuring device. The tests were repeated several times assuming it was because of a problem of the device, but nowadays his enormous international triumphs have made clear that the machine did not have any problem.
From that moment on, his transition toward the best cycling teams in the world was quite fast!!.
I wonder right now: if a ¨Nairo¨ appear without any warning in a corporative environment, what would happen?.
Most of the people who pose that question, almost unequivocally raise ironic comments about the surreal situations which they would have to be involved. In reality is high the probability of what a person like this end up wasted and totally lost in all the ¨traps" of the corporate hierarchy.
In the background of a situation like this, lies a great paradox, Supposedly today we live in a knowledge-based era, but most the organizations mostly still behave like institutions of the industrial era.
No matter how hard they try to look different, when it comes to reality, the way they behave; the way they make decisions, illustrate that they're still vast vertical hierarchy which still thinks that in general their key element is the capital resource(1) and not the skills, intelligences in all it's firms, and the capacity and experience of the people.
I get amazed on how almost every person understands and agree on how making right decisions in sports; based only in the capacity of the individuals, but it is exactly the same people who in a corporative environment will behave in a diametrically different way.
Now that we are taking part in the world cup, I invite you to read my next post in a week: "Why a company should be like a soccer (sports) team".
1. Excellent analysis by Clayton M. Christensen and Derek van Bever: "The Capitalist’s Dilemma" HBR 2014/6.
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10 年Elkin, Thanks for this post as illustrative. Now, it's a fear that is seen in all settings, not just in corporate, volunteer and also in others. People who are in a company should be scheduled so they know their capabilities and not by other measurements. All these would be great steps to reach the knowledge society.
General Manager | Sales Analytics Manager | Chief Information Officer | IT Product Manager | Scrum Master | Knowledge Manager
10 年Jesús Elkin: muy interesante artículo que, sin duda, debe llevarnos a reflexionar por qué, en la era del conocimiento, aún no se le concede la suficiente importancia al capital intelectual. Por otro lado, en cualquier entorno corporativo, esta analogía, debería permitir identificar plenamente mis capacidades y, más importante aún, las de los demás para que desde nuestro rol [como pares o colaboradores] permitamos que se beneficie la organización, potenciando el talento de las personas que pueden brillar por que se lo han propuesto o por que tienen la capacidad innata de hacerlo.
Emprendedor/Consultor/Innovación en salud/Cannabis Medicinal
10 年Thanks Elkin for sharing your thoughts. And should do it either in spanish for many people and leaders in Colombia that would take advantage.
CTO WeRadikal / CTO WeShareIq SAS
10 年Hi Elkin. the challenge to change from the industrial era, to information era are strong. When the enviroment it′s designed for mass production, the expontaneous generation of the talents and how work with them is more complex. Regards