Nurturing, protecting organisational talent

working on new ways to improve his skill by dedicating himself to training, reading, researching and taking regular trips to second hand bookshops to find literature on training.
Therefore, one way of nurturing talent is by acquiring knowledge. This clearly demonstrates that if you want to be the best you have to commit yourself to the discipline of going beyond your talent. This requires working or training hard.
There is no doubt that Bruce Lee was talented but his work ethic was second to none.
Bruce Lee would do sit-ups while watching television with his kids. He would watch television with his kids while reading a book at the same time exercise some parts of his body.
He worked on everything, parts of his body, his strength, speed and power.
His speed was amazing, it was likened to that of lightning. He would throw rice into the air whilst kicking a light bulb which was 2m high and still be able to catch the rice before it landed on the ground.
Importance of role models in
nurturing talent
Talent flourishes when there are role models to copy from or emulate. David Beckham succeeded as a soccer player and celebrity by copying, and learning from influential people such as Sir Bobby Charlton.
A role model can be in the form of a mentor, coach, spiritual leader or a manager. Regardless of the title we give them, their responsibilities are similar.
They provide expertise to less experienced individuals to help them advance their careers and enhance their networks.
They are supposed to channel and panel-beat the behaviour of the protégé through leading by example.
One of the key challenges talented people encounter is lack of positive reinforcement to their behaviour.
Among the methods used to reinforce behaviour of a talented player/worker are reward and praise.
Praise is the least expensive but it is the least used. Praise motivates people to perform better and ridicule demotivates the workers/players.
Ridicule can be direct or indirect. One indirect method of ridiculing anybody is by continually reminding an individual of a specific event he/she underperformed.
Today mentors provide expertise to less experienced individuals to help them advance their careers and enhance their networks. They transfer their knowledge to the protégé.
They share their experiences, which reduces the learning curve of the protégé and thus becomes more effective in executing one’s talent.
Most role models should instill a sense of self-appreciation to a person who has talent or developed skill and manage their egos to ensure that the egos will not lead to indiscipline.
After converting, Paul did not just go and preach. He worked with Barnabas so as to develop his talent. Role models are crucial in talent management.
Leading by example is very difficult to sustain in the long run. Role models can also influence talent in a negative way particularly at the time when they fall from grace.
This could have disastrous consequences on the protégé. In some cases the fall of the role model can also result in the fall of the protégé.
Some people with talent tend to be arrogant and less tolerant to ideas from other people. This has the potential to derail their talent. Therefore talent management entails counselling the talented player, refocusing the individual as well as increasing tolerance levels of the individual.
Tolerance takes two forms, i.e. willingness to undergo the rigours of training and willingness to listen to other ideas.
Obstacles to emergence of talent
The style of management can work for or against the emergence of talent. A democratic type of leadership can promote the emergence of talent and an autocratic type can work against the emergence of talent.
You need resources and patience to identify, nurture and develop talent. One also needs to ensure that the identified talent does not go to waste.
In our culture, there was a tendency to look down upon or overlook certain talent like music, acting and sports and give emphasis on academics.
Ignorance or the negative behaviour of certain talented people may result in society looking down upon certain disciplines.
There are, however, examples of artistes or sports people like Oliver Mtukudzi, Kirsty Coventry and the Black siblings who have made it.
Some parents now realise that emphasis should not be on academics only and encourage and support their children in other areas they are good at like sports or arts.
Sometimes the people that identify and nurture talent may not be ready or willing to let go even when the talent has blossomed. This may also obstruct talent.
Talent identification and development is an integral part of a manager’s function.
It is not only the employee who is disadvantaged when their talent is not noticed but the organisation at large because it denies itself the benefits of the employee’s potential contribution.
When talent is identified, it is also imperative for the manager to allow for talent practice.