The myth of talent at work: critical analysis of the use (and misuse) of the term in business
They were a harmless measure of weight. They have become, as the Economist writes, "a synonym for the entire workforce, a definition so broad as to be meaningless". And for many young people they are yet another mountain to climb
A few days ago I was in the classroom of an HR Master's degree course giving a lecture on internal communication. In front of me were fifteen students aged between 24 and 32, with at least a bachelor's degree but in most cases also one or more master's degrees. Some had already tasted the world of work, in the form of an internship, collaboration with a company, or voluntary work. All in all, a group of prepared and motivated young people. At some point, the word 'talents' appeared in our conversation (understood in its contemporary-managerial meaning of 'young workers', we'll get to that now) and it happened...
All Matteo's fault...
First, a few steps back. The word talent has Greek origins (τάλαντον) and indicates a measure of weight, usually applied to precious metals. The semantic shift begins with the famous parable of the talents in Matthew's Gospel: in short, before setting out on a journey, a rich man entrusts five talents to one of his servants, two talents to another and one to a third. The first two servants make use of the talents and double them, while the third servant, out of fear, buries it (today we would say that he deposits it in his bank account). On his return, the master rejoices with the first two, while he punishes the third with cruelty, taking the talent back to give it to the one who already had ten and banishing him into the darkness where, for the avoidance of doubt, 'it will be weeping and gnashing of teeth'. The meaning is clear: gifts - and in particular the gifts of God - must be put to good use, used with courage and generosity. Here, we said, begins the long semantic journey of this word, which from a simple measure of weight takes on a new meaning of gift (of God) and then, with a new metamorphosis, of attitude, of innate ability.
... or McKinsey's?
But the journey is not over: between the 17th and 18th centuries, the meaning changes again, or rather expands. By metonymy (i.e. exchange, in this case between the content and the container, or between the abstract and the concrete) 'talent' begins to indicate not the quality, but who possesses it. Already at the beginning of the 18th century, the use of the word 'talent' to indicate a person, especially in theatrical language, is attested in England. 'Recently the city has produced no new talent,' wrote the London newspaper The Tatler in 1710. From there, the word 'talent' as a synonym for a person endowed with great gifts spread rapidly, especially in the fields of art and sport. And in the second half of the 20th century it would land in the world of work, to become popular thanks to a 1997 McKinsey study entitled The war for talent. And if in the beginning the search for talent (or talents) might have even made sense, designed for 'knowledge-intensive' sectors, i.e. which have no other competitive factor than the quality of their employees, we soon arrive at the situation where, as the Economist notes with its usual wit in a 2006 article, 'others use it as a synonym for the entire workforce, a definition so broad as to be meaningless'.
Now we can go back to a few days ago and the master's class. When the word 'talent' was pronounced, a cloak of concern descended in the classroom: 'In the world of work,' the girls and boys remarked, 'there seems to be room only for the talented, the outliers: and we don't think we are. It was an epiphany: I saw this word through the eyes of the boys and fully understood its absurdity, for at least three reasons.
We are not all Sinners
First reason. There are very few talents: even in artistic and sporting circles, which are already the result of very strict selection, we are very cautious about using the word 'talent'. Leo Messi (or the more contemporary Lamine Yamal) is a talent, but not all of his teammates are (and they remain excellent professionals, not surprisingly overpaid). Paul McCartney is a talent. Jannik Sinner is a talent (let's now avoid addressing the sacrosanct question of how much the social, economic and cultural context influences talent, otherwise we'll never get out). Even if we look into the world of work, can we think of any real 'talents' among the people we know, i.e. without saying 'Steve Jobs'? And how many? However, we demand that all new employees (or even all employees, as the Economist prophetically wrote) recognise themselves in the definition of 'talents'. This is clearly false, objectively impossible (there are few 'talents' by definition), unfounded from every point of view. By doing so, i.e. by misusing this word, we only widen the gap between the signifier and the signified (I say "talents", I mean "candidates"), between words and reality, a reality that is already complex in itself, difficult to understand, constantly changing. Not a good start. Which brings us to the
