One of the biggest challenges of companies is selecting and promoting talents. In particular among potential leaders it is for many different reasons becoming more and more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. While in the first millenniums the focus was on finding the “fittest“ (physical properties such as size, strength etc.), intelligence and experience were added to the relevant selection criteria in the middle of the 20th century. The third period started in the 90s (in Germany) and today still is represented in most companies: The selection according to competencies. The prevailing idea is to compare the competency based target profile with the current competencies (actual profile) of potential candidates. The problem: The job requirements are changing ever more rapidly, the environment is becoming less and less predictable and working conditions are getting increasingly complex. That is why organisations have a greater need for people that can deal with these conditions quickly and successfully. The decisive question no longer is who has which competencies but who has the potential to successfully deal with future challenges amidst continuously changing overall conditions?
Fig. 1: Potential management
How can potential be detected and how is it differentiated from talent?
We believe talent is an inherent “set“ of skills that makes it possible to apply acquired know-how relative quickly and easily. The following situation seems familiar to everyone: Suppose, you play soccer and your trainer shows you a new shooting technique. It is easy for you to apply it and you quickly integrate it into the game. That would be a talent. Unfortunately, you would rather play golf than soccer. Of course, you would still have a talent for playing soccer, but unfortunately no potential, because you do not want to play soccer. Let’s further suppose you were trained for the position as right footed striker, which is also your biggest talent. However, your club doesnot need striker with a strong right foot, because they already have enough. Your talent remains, but according to our definition you would not have any potential in this club. Let’s go even further by assuming your club so far has been favoring a defensive strategy and would now like to change to a more offensively oriented strategy. How quickly and how well are you now able to develop the special skills required? We conclude: potential means talent x motivation x ability to learn.
How can potential be measured though?
In so called learning potential centres participants are confronted with diverse challenges that they need to solve. Afterwards they receive feedback from the observers. In the exercises that follow they can show how quickly they are able to adapt their behaviour. A high degree in one’s learning ability demonstrated in such simulations serves as a rather reliant predictor for similar correct behaviour. The second variable is motivation and engagement, accepting a task and pursuing aims persistently and on a long term basis. Real motivation can hardly be measured by means of tests since motives often operate subconsciously. Nevertheless, procedures such as targeted interviews exist in which motives can be determined. Conscious motives (“What makes me get up in the morning?“) can be determined as well via validated tests. Talent as a third variable is based to a great extent on skills / capabilities that can quite easily be measured via methods of competency diagnostics. The most promising procedure to find the most suitable candidate seems to be a combination of diverse methods. Thus, the search for potential makes more sense than the search for talent. That is why we plead for the introduction of a new term: Potential Management.