ABSTRACT

There is lots of publicity about a talent crisis and concerns that this will significantly limit the way in which businesses can grow. Talent management has evolved to address these concerns with a goal of winning the ‘war for talent’. The aim of talent management is to help organisations find ways to secure competitive advantage by securing ongoing access to the ‘best talent’. In this chapter we start by drawing on the academic literature to explore what talent ‘is’ and conclude that there are four ways in which talent can be viewed, including ‘Personal Best’, ‘High Potential’ and ‘Strengths’. We explore these definitions with the context of talent management. We then take a critical stance, identifying our five key concerns with talent management: mindset of scarcity; cult of individual heroes; lack of strategic clarity; dominance of formal process and missing half the story. We conclude that in most organisations, the way talent management is practiced is not fit for purpose and the way it is applied is too narrow to bring the competitive advantage it aims to deliver. The chapter concludes with coaching questions to help the reader apply what they have read.