Those of you as old as me will remember the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places where two wealth businessmen have a bet over whether a man’s achievements were due to his DNA (nature) or the environment in which he was brought up (nurture). As well as being a great Eddie Murphy movie, this question should be asked when you are building a company of highly talented people.
The nature approach says that you do not develop your own, rather you go and get the most highly talented recruits on the belief that it is better to bring in greatness rather than nurture it.
The nurture approach would support always looking internally and being 100% confident that you can grow your own talent.
In the sporting world there are good examples of where each approach has been applied with equal success.
Take the 2018-9 Manchester City Premiership winning football team. Under 30% of their title winning team were with the club before their 21st birthday. No one can argue that this club have had massive success built on a talent management approach of always going out and buying the best. Some might question the commercial sustainability of this model but not its success.
You can counter this with the Saracens 2018-19 rugby team that won the European Cup who have built a team around its academy and the philosophy of creating an amazing culture of togetherness. Over 60% of the squad that played in the final had joined the club before their 21st birthday. Interestingly similar questions have been raised as to the commercial viability of this model as the wages paid to retain the talent become a challenge. But this blog is not about a commercial model but a talent model.
Two very different approaches, both delivering unrivalled results. So, which is best?
Neither approach is necessarily right, and each has its pros and cons.
By always recruiting new talent you have an increased risk of personality clashes and conflict as you fail to build your own culture in the business and everyone wants to be the top dog. Your people become transient, with little loyalty and retention becomes an issue (in a true nature approach, high staff attrition rates is not as issue as the business always wants to bring in fresh talent).
In an organisation that has a purely nurture based talent management plan the challenges are very different. In the company that only develops from within you generally find a lack of fresh ideas, where the processes and practices have not evolved over the years. The ‘product’ of that organisation is solid and reliable but lack imagination and innovation.
The type of industry sector in which you work will be an influence on which approach you take. In Burrows, we adopt a mixed approach. We certainly acknowledge that we must bring in the best talent that we can, but we are also very committed to developing our own talent.
One of my strategic goals for the business is ‘to develop, retain and recruit the best talent’. It is deliberately written in this order.
As we strive to stay ahead of the innovation curve we are recruiting great technical minds as we drive our push into realtime visualisation and cloud-based asset creation. These are our scientists. As the technologies are very new these people are often not long out of education, so we are able to nurture them, develop them and watch them grow along with our business. There is nothing more rewarding than to see someone grow with the business and become the best possible version of themselves. At the same time, we can take people from our more traditional, craft-based teams and encourage them to develop skills in the newer technologies. These are our Artists.
By having a talent management approach that combines developing current talent along with recruiting fresh new talent, Burrows has been able to build a team of the most talented, driven and fun to work with bunch of guys and girls I’ve ever worked with!
by Richard Wright
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