A Talentist: Tides in Talentism

First I would like to (admittedly, this should read “feel the guilt-induced need to”) apologize for my extended absence to the people who read this blog. In my last post (over a month ago, yuck) I proudly announced a series of articles that start a conversation with an executive from a major RPO firm. Well, that time has come and gone, and as any perceptive reader can see, no post. The exec is still lined up and is ready to write, but I am continually choosing other priorities for my time. So, mea culpas all the way around. At some point in the future it is likely that I will get my act together and start the RPO War series. That’s about as Clintonian as I can get in my guarantees.

But my busy schedule hasn’t prevented me from keeping up with my favorite writers, including John Sumser. John’s article today pointed his readers towards a wonderful piece titled Hiring is Obsolete. It is an essay derived from a discussion given by a gentleman named Paul Graham.

I bring this up because it is further validation of the central point of this blog and And Talentism in general: in the creative age, talent is more expensive than capital. I really mean “more valuable” but determining value is a fuzzy business compared to determining cost (expense), and CFOs presently rule the economic universe, so putting this in terms that they can understand seems to work better (even if it leaves everyone else a little bumfuzzled).

As the economic engine of the US necessarily retools to drive value in the creative age (which we see in the ongoing pain associated with losing industrial age manufacturing jobs), this fundamental transition from capital-centricity to talent-centricity will, for the first time ever, bring to life the kind of egalitarian and meritocratic ideals that we as a country have been espousing for over 200 years. It is an exciting time, and as talent professionals we are in the eye of that fiscal hurricane.

Talentism is about putting talent at the center of the economic equation. It is about the sustainable competitive advantage of moving the means of production AND accountability for return on invested capital as close to the individual worker as possible. It is the next logical stage in the progression from feudalism to mercantilism to capitalism.

And the talent professional is at the heart of that change. All of which begs the questions: Is the Chief Talent Officer the next CFO? What is talent’s equivalent of Wall Street? And what exactly does a manager do when their first and foremost accountable for talent, not capital?

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I know. I can hear it now. "What does this have to do with 'Time to Fill'?" Well, nothing and everything. There is a lot of tactical stuff we all have to work on: req management, lousy hiring managers, changing regulations. But even with all of that we have to keep our eye on the big picture: huge changes are happening in the world of business. We can either be a part of that or swept away by its tide. Or, as said with greater eloquence by our friend Bill Shakespeare in Julius Ceasar:

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.