Bob McDonald, Ph.D.

Talent

One of the more frustrating and interesting aspects of dealing effectively with talent in the corporate environment is that it is essentially invisible. On the football field, a coach can immediately see who is fastest, who is biggest, who is strongest and who can throw the ball accurately.

In the corporate world, however, how do you tell who has the richest natural talent for strategic thinking? Who is the best natural leader? Or who has the best natural talent for making quick, effective decisions with very little information? People often get into roles in corporations for which they are not naturally talented. In fact, one of the biggest problems in talent utilization is that there are many people who have strong talents, but aren't aware of them and never use them at work.

Natural talents are our built-in hardwiring that makes some tasks and roles easier than others. People with a certain kind of ability to imagine three-dimensional space, for instance, tend to be able to understand and work with complex work systems more easily than others. Any complex role in the workplace is easier to do (and more fun) when people work with their natural talents - and not against them.

Natural talents are hardwired into our neurons. Practice doesn't make them any better; neglect doesn't make them worse. Natural talents are distinct from intelligence or personality. People can have very strong natural talents that they are never even aware of. Similarly, people can work all of their careers in roles that do not suit their natural talents. If they are intelligent and motivated, they can even be quite successful. But they are never really satisfied or as productive as they could be unless or until they really use their natural abilities.

In my research on the utilization of natural talents in the workplace, I have consistently demonstrated an almost linear relationship between utilization of natural talent, productivity, and satisfaction (see chart below). This finding is entirely consistent with findings from other researchers in the field of natural ability.

Abilities are not something that people usually know about themselves quantitatively. If you were asked whether you have strong spatial abilities, what would you say? Maybe you know that spatial abilities have a lot to do with science and math, and maybe you feel you did well in these courses in school, so you might answer yes. Or maybe you never did that well in math in high school and never took any math beyond high school, and so you would say no. But you could be wrong either way.

There is an objective way to know for certain what your talents and abilities are and what roles let you use them most. It involves completing a set of ability worksamples.

With worksamples, rather than ask you what you think your talents are, you do a carefully researched task (called a worksample) that loads specifically on natural talent. That way, if you have a strong natural talent, you can see it. It's objective. It gives you the means to make talent visible - and therefore more usable and consistently available to you and to the corporation.

Talent and Productivity

People are more productive when they use their natural talents well. They are also happier. In a long-term research project on utilizing talent in corporations, I showed that improvements in match between people's talent and the roles they accomplished at work were accompanied by improvements in productivity, satisfaction, and connection to company (McDonald and Russell, 2000; McDonald and Hutcheson, 2000).

Graph summarizing results of seminars using Dr. McDonald's Whole Person Approach in corporations, 1995-2000. N=204. Pre- to Post gains positive and significant. Pre to Six Months gains positive and significant

All gains pre- to post- are positive and significant On six month follow-up there were either continued positive gains or there was no significant change. All gains from Pre- to Six Months were positive and significant This means that the positive changes people experienced from going through the program were retained in long-term follow-up.

Research consistently shows that organizations in which people match their jobs in terms of natural talents are more profitable, retain their people better, are more productive, and have higher customer satisfaction.

Creating Key Talent and Using Talent More Effectively

It seems obvious that improving the utilization of talent of the individual contributors a company already has on the payroll is a far more cost effective and efficient way to increase overall productivity than merely hiring new workers. Many companies have been interested in so-called 'Key Producers' or 'Key Talent.' Finding and rewarding these highly productive people in a company's workforce has often been seen as an important way to improve organizational efficiency and productivity.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could actually create more Key Producers? Wouldn't it be nice if you could improve the productivity and creativity of the Key Producers you already have?

Key producers contribute a great deal more to the bottom line than other groups. McKinsey and Company indicated that 'A' producers in general contribute 126% more to the bottom line than other employees. Any improvement in productivity, satisfaction, or connection to company in this group of people carries far more leverage and impact than for other groups. Any program that helped people move from being average producers to being 'A' producers would have similarly enormous impact.

By helping people quantify and understand their true talents, any company can open the door to greater utilization of its key resources. When people can actually use their own and other's talent more effectively, they can be more productive, more satisfied more creative and more connected to the company.

The difference between 'A' producers and other people is, in general, not in the magnitude of talent. The difference is that the 'A' producers are using the talent that they have. There is a proven way to increase utilization of talent in corporations and to demonstrate this and its impact on key business indices.

Utilization Index

I have worked out a way to understand Roles in corporations in terms of patterns of natural abilities. This means that for any given individual, one can tell immediately how well or poorly natural abilities line up with the actual roles they fill. It also means that by aggregating this data for an identified group we can tell how well talent is being utilized by the group as a whole.

This Talent Utilization Index (TUI) provides a means to quantify objectively any improvement in the use of talent over time. It also gives us a means to link talent utilization with other business indices, such as productivity, retention, satisfaction, customer satisfaction or profitability.