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Every company needs different kinds of talent. For example, a technology company will not be able to do without its technical professionals, but it will also need the contribution of people with negotiation skills, leadership and communication skills, and business vision to be able to achieve the goals it sets for itself.
Even if it is a business selling organic products from the garden, it may be necessary, at any given time, to have the advice of a specialist in European regulation who is an expert in food issues, or a cloud and big data consultant to expand the possibilities of your business online, or with the services of a translator to expand your distribution network to other countries or select new suppliers abroad.
1. What is talent?
Talent is a word of Greek origin, it comes from talanton, which in Ancient Greece referred to a monetary unit equivalent to 26 kilograms of silver. It was the highest monetary unit of the Greeks, worth 6,000 drachmas (an incredibly large amount when compared to an average salary of the time, which consisted of 1 drachma).
The great value of this concept is reflected today in the meaning of the word talent. Being talented means having great wealth, at least when it comes to skills.
While psychology often defines talent as a person's above-average general ability to solve problems, in the business context, talent is the ability to do a job faster, easier, and better.
Compared to other people, talented employees solve complex problems more quickly, efficiently and easily, which makes them stand out.
2. What kinds of talents are there?
Among the skills and strengths that make up the different types of talents are the following:
- Public speaking: involves being able to communicate ideas orally before a group of people
- Writing: supposes being able to communicate correctly using the written word
- Self-management: ability to make decisions and take on one's own tasks
- Communication: ability to communicate effectively through different media
- Critical thinking: questioning statements that are commonly held to be true in order to develop new hypotheses
- Decision-making: choose among several options the one that is considered the most correct
- Research: capacity for analysis and study
- Relaxation: ability to disconnect from responsibilities and thus reduce stress levels
- Analytical vision: ability to study things from different points of view
- Attention to detail: take care of both the large and visible aspects and the small and less important aspects of the tasks to be carried out
- Sense of humor: ability not to get overwhelmed and not take things too seriously
- Empathy: being able to put yourself in the place of others
- Creativity: coming up with new things
- Innovation: putting creativity into practice
- Languages: speak different languages
- Academic excellence: having a good education and having an interest in further training
- Enthusiasm: illusion and motivation to do things
- High energy: being motivated to tackle tasks
- Negotiation skills: ability to reach agreements
- Identify strengths and weaknesses: implies a high knowledge of oneself and the environment
- Leadership: being able to become a role model
- Active listening: paying attention to the opinions and ideas of others
- Persuasion: being able to convince others
- Ability to deal with failure: resistance to frustration
- Proactivity: ability to do something on your own
- Strategic planning: ability to think and design an action plan
- Intuition: letting yourself be guided, sometimes, by the most unconscious part of the brain
- Imagination: ability to develop new ideas
- Productivity: work capacity
- Time management: organize tasks well and establish an order of priorities
- Ability to detect new trends: it implies being attentive to the environment, analyzing it and letting yourself be carried away a little by intuition
- Inspirational: be an example to others
- Project management: being able to manage different tasks
- Problem resolution
- Social intelligence
- Change management
- Stress management
- Social commitment
- Risk management
- Self-control
- Health & Fitness
- Reliability
- Adaptability
- integrity / honesty
- Authenticity
- Empathy
- Self-discipline
- Positive attitude
- Self-confidence
- Sense of justice
Other skills should be added to this list that are precursors of types of talents more focused on a specific profession, such as logistical, mathematical, legal, musical, accounting skills, etc.
Furthermore, all of these abilities can be grouped into three types of talents:
- Natural talent: it is a skill or ability that you have without having to work to develop it.
- Potential talent: one that has been developed and perfected. Many times it is an evolution of natural talent.
- High performance talent: it is rare, it is the one that places certain people above the average. For example, when we are in the presence of a virtuoso of some discipline.
3. Where to find different types of talents?
Although many people defend that talent is born with, the truth is that the skills that support different types of talents can be acquired. On an individual level, training, experience and coaching can help develop new skills.
Likewise, outsourcing is an alternative available to any business, which facilitates the availability of all types of talent, based on a selection process and an agreement between the company and the professional or team of experts who will provide services for it.
The other alternative is to go to the labor market to look for talent to hire directly and integrate it into the workforce. This is not as simple as it seems, since certain professional profiles are difficult to attract. Hence, many companies are already betting on employer branding, working on their brand image to attract talented candidates.
Discover and manage talent within the company
As I have pointed out, many times companies already have talented employees, but it is important to know who they are and act in time so that they do not leave.
To discover talent, different measures can be carried out, such as implementing a continuous training system, or holding workshops, coaching sessions and evaluations. And once talented people have been discovered, you have to try to retain them within the organization, something for which measures such as the following can be useful:
- Create a good work environment.
- Avoid making work monotonous.
- Recognize the effort of employees.
- Resort to the emotional salary.
- Provide training.
- Implement a creative culture that allows employees to develop new skills.
There are many types of talents, but any of them can become important for a company. For this reason, it is essential for organizations to be able to attract and retain the best workers in the market, because a quality workforce is a good source of competitive advantage.
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