TALENT BY S CHAKRABORTY

India with an over-abundance of human capital has millions of talented individuals, where millions are born every decade, but not all find their place in the sun. For a nation caught up with the glamour world, the quintessential Bollywood, not everyone makes it as Amitabh Bacchan, Sharukh Khan, Ranbir Singh or Govinda. Thousands are struggling artist and just do not make it. Not everyone makes it, as Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar or Ravi Shastri, where in millions aspire to be the next great cricketer. Not everyone turns into Indira Nooyi, Nadella or Pichai in the corporate world, either.

Why are some people more successful than others? Leaving aside luck, which equates to confessing that we don’t really know, there are really just two explanations: talent and effort. Talent concerns the abilities, skills, and expertise that determine what a person can do. Effort concerns the degree to which the person deploys their talents. I am on purpose avoiding the topic of Luck but, promise, will revert to it in due course of the article, because just the utterance will only, damage my submission.

Why do only a handful make it and the rest just drop off on the path? Is it because some do not put in the adequate effort or some are plain Lazy? Let us understand one fact and it is that, in any organization or team on a few will contribute to the collective output, rest will either follow, block or stop or just drift with the flow or out.

Pareto effect illustrates in the creative world, the distribution of Team success, scientific discoveries, publications, and citations; entrepreneurial success and innovation; and productivity rates. In all these areas 20% of individuals (or less) tend to account for between 80 and 98% of performance. Millions therefore in our competitive world become the countless, faceless objects of a period, unknown, unnoticed and forgotten, in the world we live in. Why? 

Thus in a dynamic world in a Dynamic exchange of Things and not every seedling gets its space for growth. The same is for Talent! Talent needs nurturing like a sapling/seed with water, nutrients, manure, sunlight and pesticides with constant weeding to cull the encroachers. Similarly, Talent, too needs attention, Encouragement for efforts and hard work, counselling/coaching to keep one self-hardy against weeds in this highly competitive world. Similarly, like the probability of a sapling/seed everyone needs ample – Luck! Anyone of the ingredients missing makes it more and more impossible for talent to rise.

Sunshine is necessary for plats as sapling to create chlorophyll which is the same for Human talent that needs attention at the right time and place for the Talent to runs his or her creative juices (adrenalin) and succeed. Anything in the wrong moment of time could create a Vinod Kambli out of sheer talent. Despite having the highest career batting average for an Indian test cricketer of 54 and he played his last test when he was just 23 years. Nawazuddin Siddique took 14 years of struggle to find that sunshine in his life. Rajesh Khanna found it early in life and spent the rest of his years in emptiness. Sachin stuck it through thick and thin with his guru (who begrudged Sachin the word “Good”) and made it with resilience, effort, hard work and discipline and reached the pinnacle of success. One thing, I do note, is that, arrogance has no place for the talent if they are brave. Look where both the talented Kumar Sanu and Avijit Bhattacharjee have reached? Pinnacle of obscurity! You have to have the humility & hard labour of Sachin, resilience of Mohammed Ali (habit of come backs and fighting against all odds), Had work and labour practicing and practicing like Sindhu the badminton star from Hyderabad.  

Some guys have all the luck

Some guys have all the pain

Some guys get all the breaks

Some guys do nothing but complain

-       Rod Steward -

What goes round comes around. So if you have been lucky and get all the breaks all the time, someday the steam will come out and you will need to fold your sleeves and dirty your knees, even if it means to change the flat tire. That’s the word karma which literally means “activity.” Karma is divided up into a few simple stages — good, bad, individual and collective and that’s the piston of life as everything you get is in pairs. Sometimes it’s Good, sometimes its bad times and sometimes its sheer hard work whilst sometimes it tough luck! Lest I get carried away, this bit was just to make a few feel vindicated on the principles of Luck…………….

Meta-analytic studies show that there are consistent personality attributes associated with top performers across all fields and industries. Most notably, the star organizational players tend to have higher levels of ability, likability, and drive. Ability is in part domain-specific as it involves the technical expertise and knowledge that people have acquired in a field. However, the key component of ability is learnability or the capacity to learn new things – it is a function of IQ and curiosity. Likability is mainly about emotional intelligence and people-skills, and these are pivotal to success no matter what field you are in. Finally, drive is the dispositional level of ambition – a person’s general desire to compete and the ability to remain dissatisfied with one’s achievements.

Being the precursor to my articles on Talent Management and Personal vision, I will delve on two important aspects of Talent in our country. I write this with no malice to anyone or the ones who consider themselves, already talented. The issue in our nation is: (1) Judgmental error in selection of Talent and (2) Most Indians do not assess themselves honestly whilst viewing himself/herself as a Talent.

The problem lies in a Nation of 1.25 Billion Humans wanting to make it big all aspiring to be the Great Actor, Singer, Cricketer, Footballer, Dancer, Racer, Biker, Banker, CEO/MD, Tycoon, Technocrat, Leader, Prime Minister, President, Chief Minister, BCCI President, Head because all of us are born Raja beta and Rani’s and do not see our own face in the mirror as a Do’er, Government servant, Manager, Clerk, Worker, Engineer, Accountant, Assistant, Karya karta and the quintessential Farmer. We are all the best! After all the song “I am the Best” does prove that Sharukh Khan is the best! Everyone is out to carve out his or her niche in a nation where the masses follow the masses. Jump into well syndrome! Don’t just aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.

Having worked with a number of CEO’s/MD’s, FOB malik’s, as an HR Head I have never had the satisfaction of even one top management being recruited for his or her true worth. I have all the time and again, vehemently, stuck to my assessment, never to be accepted by the each CEO/MD, I have worked with. Call it personal failure, which is not the issue I am addressing. All MD’s & CEO’s go for the same razzle dazzle of a white shining diamond irrespective whether or not he or she suits the position. They like every HR live, love, prefer the clone and end up making the same mistake. As usual – Fire the Chap! Another, Sikka and Cyrus?  How did the board and Narayan Murthy choose a top notch techy (actually CTO) for an Entrepreneurial /administrative role in Infosys. How did Ratan Tata convince the board to choose Cyrus Mistry and then, finally, opt for the local “Yes Man”, Chandrasekhar? Have they taken the opinion/ advice of the HR Talent experts? Or it was just a “Yes Sir” in agreement to these autocrats?

On the other hand, I have, found, traditional Entrepreneurs and Marwari companies’ owners/founders such as, Uday Kotak, Kumar Mangalam Birla, doing a far better job whilst choosing, Talent, as long as they are not trying to act professional.

Something is wrong somewhere with the selection process everywhere, in our nation, be it Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi or Fadnavis? Companies have been succumbing to the pressure to the judgement of the CEO’s/MD’s whims and fancies in recruitment with the silent admission of the HR. Are we convinced we have the best? Are we selecting the right guy for the job? Are we being honest to ourselves in believing, that we have it in us? There are a whole lot of questions that go into the gamut of Talent.

Talent has to be like Amitabh Bacchan – Par Excellenct! Everything else is just good! Unless you have it in yourself, to be perfectly, the best there is, you are just another Guy. You need to be a Sachin to sustain the long innings, Niki Lauda to live to see it all on tracks, Kishore Kumar to make records after records, Lata to reign eternally on the top, whilst the rest are just good and end up with a short self-life! The gap between the excellent Talents, we have or may have produced and the present day mass production Singers, Actors, HiPots, Sportsmen/sportswoman, Political Leader, Bankers, Defense Commanders is massive, almost a dismay. Compare Kishore Kumar to any of the new age singers, or Lionel Messi with any of our star national footballers? Compare the present day, actors with Amitabh Bacchan or Dilip Kumar? All have limited screen life. Take a pick in any field and you will start appreciating, what I have been stating. Great people never think they’ve reached the top of their game, whilst Good people are dying to get there!

According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, organisms which are better adapted to their environment tend to survive longer. Does the environment we create influence the selection process and favour those that possess attributes that give them a temporary advantage while at the same time disqualifying those who at that moment in time are struggling to adapt? Adaptive behavior is key to the survival of the human race and specific to football, a trait of high quality players.

Are some systems and structures just counterproductive ideologies that that are in conflict with development (learning & biopsychosocial) and the young talent’s natural learning process? We should, of course remember that struggle is also part of the learning process. What are we doing to help talent overcome those struggles that will appear during their (non-linear) development?

My dear, friends, think before you make the next Talent select, think of the future, think of the quality and standard of Talent we , so select? Think what will Rahul Gandhi bring to the table? Think what the likes of Sitaram Yechury, Chavan father and sons and hundreds of other driftwood, lack lustre politicians, brought to the table? Think once more and decide – was Lalloo a Talent or charismatic person? It’s not about ideology, it’s Performance and Excellence! I am not here to castigate anyone in particular but here to make a point. The future is in our hands!

(S Chakraborty has Global CHRO/CPO profile in Multi-Industrial, Multi-Regional and Multinational experience of more than 27 years in Pan India, Middle East (UAE - Dubai, Kuwait & Bahrain), Pan Africa and Turkey is presently, today, re-engineering HR, dedicated to creating Leaders, back to the basics and setting a performing Performance Culture. Soum as popularly called upon as a professional Executive COACH and A Gender Sensitizer.)

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