Make Your People Before You Make Your Products: Using Talent Management to Achieve Competitive Advantage in Global Organizations

Chapter 3 Defining talent

Executive summary

• The definition of talent varies from organization to organization, since history, structure and culture will have an impact. Defining what is meant by talent is an organizational imperative.
• For some, talent is about high performance and the potential of a selected number of people to move up the organization into senior leadership or managerial positions.
• For others, talent is an inclusive term which refers to all employees. For most, a successful talent strategy is concerned with both ends of the employment spectrum.
• The definition of talent in multi-national companies tends towards an exclusive approach which involves a focus on certain groups of ‘high-performing’ or ‘high-potential’ people, whilst for others it meant a focus on certain ‘key’ positions in the organization.’
• In the future, organizations will look to develop a talent strategy that embraces all employees but at the same time has initiatives to supply future leaders. This is a talent strategy that appears to be simultaneously inclusive and exclusive.
• Globally, organizations need to manage their talent supply chain with the same rigour they would with other parts of the organization, and focus on making their organizations the most attractive to the best local talent.
• The strategic workforce plan will inform the talent strategy.
• The sum total of all of the potential of individual talent in an organization will be that organization's theoretical competitive position. ...