The Department of Getting Things Done

When I was at primary school, my gnarled old English teacher (actually, he was probably in his forties, but he looked gnarled to an innocent nine-year-old) would delight in rapping us over the knuckles for the use of what he called sloppy English. One word he would pounce on was “nice”. Why? Because over the past century it had become a weak word – an easy way of avoiding having to think of a more descriptive adjective. The verbal equivalent of a Kraft Cheese Slice – bland, inoffensive and inconsequential. For example, a “nice picture”. “Explain yourself, boy. Do you mean striking, soothing, exhilarating, amusing? Does it bring tears to your eyes? No, I suppose it would have to be very nice to do that. Nice is a nothing word!”

I remember his rants to this day, and throughout my life his spirit has remained at my shoulder. Those who have worked with me will also have occasionally witnessed my own little rants about the use of clichés, especially in business English. When does a cliché become a cliché? Well, probably in the time it takes for a government to go from fresh and enthusiastic to clapped out and ready for the knackers’ yard. And of course government, after business, is the second most prolific creator of meaningless and eventually hackneyed phrases.

So I present to you a word that has not only become hopelessly devalued, but also a key cliché in the lexicon of the people industry. That word is TALENT. Why, you may ask, am I picking on this word, and by implication pouring scorn over all who use it?

Because the innate thinking behind the common use of the word is that some have talent, and others don’t. So we talk about Talent Management, when what we really mean is identifying people in the workforce who have the skills we need, further developing their skills and getting rid of the rest. Are we managing the talents of the rejects? I don’t think so. Then we talk about talented people. What do we mean? Lots of potential, or a track record of achievement?

Poor Theo Walcott was recognized as one of the most talented footballers of his generation in England, yet he didn’t make the cut for the England World Cup Squad. Because he lost his talent? No, because when he needed to, he couldn’t deliver. David Laws, a senior minister in the new British government, was reckoned to be one of the most talented ministers in the pack. Yet he had to resign because of an irregularity in the expenses he claimed as a member of parliament. So for all his talent, he was unable to deliver.

Most people specialists would agree that everyone has talent of some kind. Those who don’t succeed in life (using conventional definitions of success) don’t fail because of lack of talent, but often because they’re not doing the things they’re best at, or because despite their talent, they don’t deliver, for whatever reason.

Here in the Middle East, there is no shortage of talent, and yet across the public and private sectors, examples abound of great schemes, great projects, great initiatives which fail. It’s not that there aren’t talented people who thought of them, designed them and tried to implement them. The problem is competence, in design, planning and delivery. And much of the time, people here are so focused on talent (meaning in this case potential) that they don’t recognize that of equal importance is to deploy people who have a proven ability to make things happen, who can deliver.

A friend in one of the larger GCC countries made the point that his government is forever coming up with grand initiatives, inspired by someone’s vision, or perhaps by a committee of MBAs. The initiative is launched, with megabucks of funding, and two or three years down the track it fails to meet expectations, limps along while consuming vast resources, or is quietly shelved. The problem, my friend says, is that the initiatives are misconceived and never had a chance of working, or that the people assigned to making them happen simply lack the basic competence or, equally important, the motivation, to deliver. Great ideas thought up by talented people, but did they take the society and culture into account, did they get the key stakeholders (oops there’s another cliché…) on board? Ultimately, did they practice the art of the possible (oh dear, yet another one)?

Anyone reading this in the UK or the US might smile, and ask in what way is the Middle East different from our countries? I would answer: not much different – we have our own share of expensive disasters. But remember that the GCC countries look to the west for advice, expertise and best practice. We offer their top people a quality education in our business schools (the same schools that have produced our highly successful bankers….), we send our experts to advise them, and we sell them techniques, methodologies and systems. And sadly, we often let them down, because our solutions are born in the context of different cultures, attitudes and frames of reference. Attractive as they are, the gifts we bring are often unfit for purpose – new wine into old wineskins.

So to return to talent, I don’t have a better word to use, and anyway, whatever I could come up would have a short half life on its way to cliché status. For me, nine times out of ten, talent is a given. Purists and HR people much more talented than me will argue that the word encompasses all the qualities of “effective people”. But my old teacher would have said that it’s a lazy word – sounds good, means very little. I would humbly suggest that the quality we should celebrate above most others is the relatively pedestrian ability to make things happen, to deliver. Even if that means more tortoises and less hares. At least the tortoises get there.

Steve Royston
June 2010