Talent management for the future

In theory, talent management is a very simple proposition. An organisation recruits the best talent available, develops that talent over time and dismisses those individuals who no longer have the abilities needed for the challenges and opportunities that the organisation faces. As with any seemingly simple proposition, there are some challenges. I’d like to focus on two in particular which are ultimately related in that they both have exploration as a common theme and are very relevant for those considering an MBA and who in the future will be leading organisations.

The first concerns exploring the known and the second the unknown. Organisations are global with operations, offices, supplier and clients spread all across the world. Common sense would suggest that ambitious managers would wish to develop both their knowledge and their know-how by stepping up to this global challenge. The findings of recent Ashridge research on Talent Management undertaken with the UK’s Chartered Management Institute, however, indicates that many managers are reluctant to take on international assignments.

A study conducted in 2006 by Elisabeth Marx and Heidrick & Struggles did not look at managers in general but at FTSE 100 CEOs specifically. She notes that while in 1996, only 42% of CEOs had completed an overseas assignment, by 2005, 79% had. While this may sound like tremendous progress, there is a glossed over caveat which only appears later in the study. By 2005, 28% of the CEOs of the FTSE 100 were not British and thus have de facto international experience. This leaves only 51% of British FTSE 100 CEOs with international experience.

While this is a British example, the same argument can be applied to many European countries – Marx concludes that “moving abroad means moving ahead.” So, isn’t it time to dust off that passport? The next best thing to working abroad is to make sure that any personal development embraces as much diversity as possible. For example, when choosing an MBA programme, the learning experience is likely to be richer if faculty, fellow participants and programme material are highly international. An MBA should also be an opportunity to learn about other business cultures and ways of working. For example, on the Ashridge MBA, there is an International Study Week on which participants spend a week in countries such as China to experience how business works in an emerging economy.

It is not only an understanding of the immediate corporate environment which is fostered by moving abroad. It is also the acquisition of different ways of seeing things and of different approaches which can lead to the acquisition of best practice or, even better, of a new insight which combines the best of multiple viewpoints. The experience is even stronger when it is combined with different languages so that one can really understand the environment. From my own experience, I know that speaking to Germans in German, to the Dutch in Dutch or to the Quebecois in French makes a big difference. I’d love to be able to speak Mandarin as I’ve found that handing phone numbers to taxi drivers in Beijing is an adventure and having interpreters a rather disconnecting experience. I mentioned a second unknown and I’ll admit that this one is my personal hobby and yes, I do know that prediction is notoriously difficult, especially when it concerns the future.

When I think about the talent that will be necessary not for tomorrow or for the next day but for 20 years from now, I honestly think that we will live in different worlds. We’ll still have the debate on work life balance and on whether one is posted abroad. That conversation, however, will be expanded by the existence of fully-fledged virtual worlds.

Two, Second Life and World of Warcraft, are probably overhyped at the moment, but they are harbingers of things to come. There are already, by recent estimates, 150,000 people earning their living in these worlds, selling virtual goods or collecting either Linden Dollars or Gold Coins which are sold on E-bay for real Dollars, Euros and Pounds, allowing other players who purchase this money to upgrade their avatars.

Presently, an enormous project is taking place in Beijing called the Beijing Cyber Recreation Project. Nine Virtual Universes are presently being built to coincide with the opening of the Beijing Olympics. They will allow literally millions of people to simultaneously work, shop and play in a Virtual World. In physical terms, a 100 square kilometre site is being built to house the servers and suppliers including banks, logistics companies and virtual advertising companies. People will literally get up in the morning, decide what their avatar should wear at work that day while they sit in pyjamas.

What are the implications for business and today’s MBAs who will be CEOs in 20 years time? It is difficult to say with any certainty, but what is certain is that managing virtual teams and employees who are spread out around the globe calls for a different set of skills than managing colleagues in the office next to you. Any decent MBA programme will tell you how to read a balance sheet or produce a five year strategy, but what is needed by more and more by managers is an understanding of the softer skills – how to influence people without formal authority and understanding team dynamics. Possessing excellent leadership skills will be an even greater requirement for managers in the future and MBA programmes need to address both the ‘soft’ personal skills as well as the ‘hard’ functional ones.

Even more far-fetched from today’s perspective will be what develops in human-machine interaction. We are already putting computer chips in our pets to track them and keep health care records. Driven either by utopian goals of improvement or dystopian fears about control, it will not be long before children are chipped. If one is positive, and I hope that most of us are, chips will allow within body storage of databases: policemen with built in photo databases of wanted criminals which automatically make matches or stellar A Level results when it comes to remembering the order of the Wives of Henry VIII come to mind.

Knowledge will be something that can, in large part, be embedded. So what is Talent Management for the future? For individuals at all levels, we need to explore the present world much more. Curiosity, ambition and thoughtfulness are called for and I hope that we can find a way to create this sense of curiosity right through to the disenfranchised members of society. Moreover, a new realm of exploration needs to be taken into account. Technology is on the verge of a total breakthrough, by most estimates it is fifteen to twenty years away, thus in most of our lifetimes.

When, in addition to questions about being posted “abroad”, studies start to ask about manager’s experience in being posted “virtually”, we’ll be realistic about the talent and skills we need for the future. Kai Peters is Chief Executive of Ashridge Business School. He has lived and worked in Canada, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands and the UK both for IBM and VW as well as for universities. He likes to write and experiment with technologies.

Voor meer informatie
Ashridge Business School