Talent Liberation was developed by Primeast as a strategy for competitive advantage, building on the fact that people are unique and perform at their best when they do what they’re naturally good at in support of clear goals.

The focus of talent management for most large organisations is the identification and development of talents held by high-performing and potentially high-performing individuals (the critical 10% or “HIPOs”).

Whilst this is important, at Primeast we believe that organisations neglect the talent of the other 90% at their peril. For this reason, in collaboration with our clients, we have established Talent Liberation as a philosophy for leveraging the talent of all staff and creating a talent-centred culture that adds value. Click here to see how this can work for you.

Talent Liberation is best summed up in the following philosophical statement:

Organisations reach prime performance when they recognise, value, develop and use the unique talents of their people in the delivery of their objectives

Competence alone simply won’t do

Since the 1990s, organisations have focused on competence as the key to development. Role profiles prompt development primarily in areas of personal weakness. Yet all the research shows that people perform best when they develop and play to their strengths. To leverage this fact, we need to start thinking differently.

1. Work out what we believe

The first step is to determine our corporate philosophy for talent. How important is competence across the skills for each job? Where is our focus? Is it in the prevention of mistakes, the development of opportunity or a bit of both? Do we believe talent is the domain of a special minority, the top 10% or that everyone has it? These considerations are vital.

2. Make sure our processes are aligned

Having worked out what we believe, we need to make sure our processes are aligned in support of this philosophy and the business direction. For example do our recruitment, performance appraisal and training policies emphasise that we will recognise, value, develop and use unique talent in the delivery of our objectives?

3. Develop our leaders

A crucial step in liberating talent is to develop leaders so they know what this means to them and their people. They first need to recognise, value, develop and use their own talent. Then (and only then) they can begin to recognise, value, develop and use the talents of people in their teams. We have found that working with managers in this way can quickly leverage significant bottom-line value.

4. Develop teams

Talent Liberation becomes truly embedded when everyone lives the philosophy. At the personal level this means everyone has ownership of their career. For teams it means taking the time to share talents with each other. This can be a powerful component of team development.

Sharing talents beneath the Nkuyu Tree

Primeast’s Head of Talent Liberation is Clive Wilson – to find out more about how Primeast can help to empower your workforce to identify problems and use their talents to drive performance forward, contact him at our UK offices (+44 (0) 1423 531 083), or email him directly.

Want to engage with leaders, human resource professionals, practitioners and anyone seeking to achieve more? Primeast support Releasing Potential, a site where challenges and best practice can be shared and connections made to enable further constructive dialogue to take place online and face to face