“What's new for "traditional" HR?

“What's new for "traditional" human resources management

“Team-CARE can be understood as a sort of Copernican revolution. Thanks to Team-CARE, one moves from believing that the centre is the team leader (Earth) to seeing the team (Sun) as part of the Teamsystem (universe of stakeholders).
Why do we need to change? We often hear about Human Resources (HR) programs for acquiring talents, developing talents, retaining talents and promoting talents. I would argue that this focus on talents, understood in terms of those persons with superior skills and competences, is misplaced. Why? For a number of reasons.
1 Talent for 99 Non-Talents? First, when the HR dept. chooses to develop one talent or few talents among staff members, effectively it tells the others: "Sorry, you are not talents. Sorry, you are not going to play the game with us. Sorry, you lost the game and are an outsider. Sorry, you have been downgraded to the Second league" and so on. The need for selection is obvious and fully understandable among external candidates and for small firms with a limited set of managers. But within medium and large firms is it rewarding under all circumstances and for all managerial levels to select a restricted group of people? In other words, does it pay off to let the staff believe that their own firm is like a pyramid where professional development is restricted to a few people? Does it motivate staff to tell them they missed the train or lost the game, that there is no second chance?

Talent for life? Second, it is hard to prove that one Talent is and will remain a Talent for the rest of his/her life. What if the choice of the Team leader is over time revealing as wrong? How many times have we encountered bosses who were not selected based on meritocratic reasons, or more likely, after some years of noteworthy management they are simply tired and without motivation. He/she may now be doing more damage than good.

What type of Talent? Third, I would argue that medium to large firms face a risk. This happens when they do not consider that the development path for so called talents should not only focus on the managerial track but also on the professional. In other words, those who are precluded from the managerial path may well be suitable for another professional path, where equally important consideration should be given.

Who and What is a Talent? Finally, the most important reason is normally overlooked because it requires a change in the mind-set. A Talent should not be understood as a person but rather as a competence. Everybody has talents, namely different competences. The challenge is to find the right chemistry for the different competences and team them up. The firm should not be seen as a pyramid but rather as a playing field. Each of us has talents as well as different attitudes which make us more suitable for certain roles than others. Or better, talents/competences which allow us to perform certain roles in a different way from the others. It would be fundamentally wrong to select 11 goalkeepers, even though some would argue each of them is a talent.