The Coming Talent Gap
In business history of the United States, there have been four eras:
1. Agri-Man
2. Industrial-Man
3. Knowledge Man
4. Innovation Man
Agri-Man (with apologies to females everywhere) existed at the very beginnings of our country. The business of business was food production. Service industries sprang up to provide tools, channels, distribution networks, etc. Interestingly, about half the farm-land was devoted to growing hay to feed the tens of thousands of horses needed to produce and deliver. Wow, that stinks!
In the late 1800’s, the Industrial Revolution spread from the old country to the USA. Perhaps because Europe was steeped in Craft Production, mass production took root much faster in the US. We became the world’s leading producer of about everything and the envy of the rest shortly after WWI. Industrial-Man became the dominant figure of this era.
Reaching it zenith in the early fifties, Peter Drucker then coined the term “knowledge worker.” By 1955 white-collar jobs outnumbered blue collar ones for the first time. Knowledge-Man was born armed with analysis plots, rational thinking, the scientific method, time studies, and efficiency charts. To simplify, it was a highly left brained culture. Great US manufacturing colossuses dominated the world and the famed Whiz Kids saved Ford.
With the proliferation of ever more powerful and cheaper computers, internet access, and cell phones, Knowledge-Man figured out that most everything could be done faster on a computer or cheaper in developing countries. That “giant sucking sound” became a reality. It all came to a screeching halt in the fall of ’08 when the perfect storm of over speculation, under regulation, and exponential greed brought the system to its knees and perilously close to complete collapse. Business Week (August 3, 2009) screamed “The Incredibly Shrinking Boomer Economy”. At this writing, unemployment hovers at between 10 and 20% depending on your locale and how the numbers are tallied. Knowledge-Man is toast!
What’s next?
The Economist did a major survey of global executives and proffered some startling conclusions:
1. “More pressing than the need for better technical skills is the demand for employees to make use of the softer management skills and techniques…the ability to manage change will be critical to their organization’s success over the next three years.”
And
2. “Talent without teamwork is not sufficient. If you have talent that cannot work together, you have an all-star team, but they’re not going to win: you keep buying free agents, but they don’t play well together.”
TA-DA!
Innovation-Man is born.
Left brained thinking (only) no longer gets it. Daniel Pink listed the new right brain (or whole brain) skills as “design, story, symphony, play, meaning and empathy” in his blockbuster book, A Whole New Mind. A huge shortage exists. Women, with far more numerous connections to their right hemisphere may well dominate this era. The resultant “Talent War” will separate winners from losers in the new global business Olympiad. Organizations that succeed will possess a new skill set:
1. Hire the Right Talent
2. Develop that Talent
3. Retain that Talent
And the newest strategic tool and hot job in the Innovation-Man era—Chief Talent Officer!
artwork: Curtis Parker
August 4th, 2009 at 10:34 am
“Talent without teamwork is not sufficient…”
Just one person on a team with a me-first attitude affects the teamwork of all the other players. Each and every hiring choice can make or break a team.