Unwrapping Talent: Break the Box

I remember being young on Christmas day and genuinely having a better time playing in a box than with any toys. In the nostalgic mind of the 30-year-old I am today, it was a safe and soft place to play. Even back then, I was doing my best to break that box. Regardless of the situation, a box can be very claustrophobic. So why do so many job specs and adverts try to put us in a box? We see evidence of it in the “must contain” lists at the end of a many job advert- even among the best employers. 

From the perspective of someone in talent, it can be an easy thing to fall back on to when recruiting a high volume of roles. Ticking the boxes of the skills perspective employees have, the experiences they have highlighted on their LinkedIn profiles, other shared social accounts, and CV’s does make it easier to put someone in “that” box.

As I’ve highlighted in past posts, with roles forecasted to change in their very make-up with the upcoming “revolution”, if we are not careful, we could find ourselves in a situation where a mentality of putting people in boxes sees us missing the abundance of talent at our fingertips. 

As top talent, how do you break that box?

1. Partner, don’t be sold

In the talent industry it is easy to put people in boxes based on skills and experience but at its heart it remains a people business. When you are looking for that next step it is important that you partner with talent consultants and businesses rather than be seen as just a commodity. You are more than your role. Really test the consultative approach of your partners, question what they understand about what motivates you.  

               A great partner will listen to you, will want to gain an understanding of what drives and motivates you and will instruct you on where your passions can find themselves aligned within their organisation.  A great partner will want to see you succeed. They will want to see this beyond the role they assist you with. They will want to see you succeed in the wider business and far in to the future.  

2. Get involved in projects and shift gears to the slow brain

               I work in Talent Engagement for the GroupM Talent team, across the UK and International teams. If there was a box, I would be firmly in this one but in GroupM we have many projects, initiatives, business pitches and events that people can get involved in. These projects give our talent a real edge. We run Inclusion and Diversity events that take a lot of planning and people management, we run Speed Mentoring and Fireside Chats that take logistics planning and stakeholder management.

               If we spend the majority of our time in the Fast Brain (read this book if you are interested in how our brains work!) where we make mostly quick, automatic decisions these projects are a great chance for us to engage that Slow Brain and sharpen our skills and abilities. The Slow Brain is where the magic happens, where we really engage ourselves.  

3. Take on more (both in and out of work!)

               I went to a great event run by Indeed called Indeed Explore, where they had the now Ex-Editor-in-Chief of Wired, David Rowan talking about the “Technology for Tomorrow’s Workforce”. David was extremely optimistic, infectiously so, about this future. David was amazing, and inspired me to do more and think differently about work.

               He was quick to point out that in the future when asked, “What do you do?” our answers may be 100% different from today. I will no longer say I work in Talent for GroupM. Instead I will say, 50% of the time I work in the GroupM Talent team, 25% of the time I focus on the family and the other 25% of the time I work with charities or on projects for start-up businesses. If this future seems bright to you, as it does to me, it is important that we are ready, that we have the skills to adapt and are taking on more of the things we love.   

How do you make room for taking on more? Listen to Shonda Rhimes of Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder fame, who is responsible for some 70 hours of television per season, and she loves to work.

4. Act like a Sponge

               Jenny Bullis, the Chief Strategy Officer at GroupM was kind enough to impart the best career advice she had been given to us after our last Speed Mentoring event, “The best advice I’ve been given was from the former England rugby team coach Clive Woodward… He said there are two types of people - Sponges who want to keep learning and Rocks who become fixed. The more senior and experienced we become the more Rock like we are. The highest performing people with the longest and most fruitful careers hold on to the sponge like qualities of their youth and keep learning with a genuine drive and passion for improvement.”   

              With technology disrupting most work environments, usually for the better, it has never been more important to continuously adapt and have these Sponge like qualities, this love for lifelong learning. This love will put you in the best position to stay out of the box. As this Harvard Business Review articles says excellently: “there is now a premium on intellectual curiosity and learnability, the desire and ability to quickly grow and adapt one’s skill set to remain employable.”

With our GroupM University team recently winning another award, this time the Top 20 Learning Providers by The Learning and Performance Institute, it has never been clearer that we are inspiring a culture of learning!

Want an example of people whose boxes where totally broken, out of their control, by a change in environments? Listen to this podcast from the great team at Stuff You Should Know about Jobs of Bygone Eras. I am sure, at one time in our history, the esteemed Chariot Racer never seen the end of their careers coming! That speed bump in their path knocked them totally out of a box that stopped existing.

My final words for this Unwrapping Talent: to employers, stop putting people in boxes. Talent needs stay ahead of the curb, ahead of the change, keep learning and loving what you do and never stop looking at ways to break the box. 

*As always, these are my thoughts and I speak for me. I appreciate that these tips are not for everyone and they are not meant as a one size fits all. The links and images are from Pexels and Unsplash (great place for photos) the articles, podcasts and talks are all linked to the pages so feel free to follow if you enjoy.