Talent is what makes us unique: interview with Silvia Guarnieri
The concept of talent he is one of the most interested in the field of psychology research. No wonder: their presence or absence have to do with the degree to which we perform in a given task, so this factor has a decisive impact not only on the development of self-esteem given a given context, but also in the world of work and organizations.
That is why, currently, one of the challenges faced by projects that involve several people coordinating in teams is the management of the talents of its members.
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About talent: the perspective of Silvia Guarnieri
To learn more about the nature of talent, this time we spoke with Silvia Guarnieri, writer, teacher and Master Coach specializing in learning processes in the field of organizations, among other things. Guarnieri is also a founding partner and academic director of the European Coaching School (EEC), one of the most important Coaching training entities. Today he answers our questions to make more understandable the need to go beyond quantitative logic in organizations, so that qualitative aspects such as talent development can be addressed.
It is said that with enough training time practically anyone can develop extraordinary abilities. However, for this situation to occur, persistence is needed. Is motivation a more mental capacity, or does it depend fundamentally on the context and the degree to which someone is motivated?
When a student starts the Certification Program in Executive Coaching in EEC, the first thing he hears from the teachers is an idea that is repeated throughout the Program: we all have a talent, sometimes hidden, waiting to be revealed.
Most of us spend our lives connected to different topics that have been marked by context, culture, family, etc. , leaving unexplored other professions or activities that could grow our different talents more exponentially.
Not everyone is lucky to have excelled in something as children, such as being able to play the violin, and then practice would be enough to be a virtuoso of music. That this happens to us is like the lottery. I myself spent a stage of my life writing stories, it literally seemed like someone was dictating them to me. One day I ran out of inspiration and there were no more stories in my life. What caused one thing or the other to happen, if the only thing that happened differently was the passage of time?
They have made us believe that we are unique and that our talent is also unique. The truth is that our abilities and interests change also throughout life. For example, medicine in one moment of our lives could have taken all the hours of study and dedication and it may happen that, at a given moment, we are fed up with the profession (with all the right in the world) and want to dedicate ourselves to writing books or macramé. The word that comes to me is freedom: talent and motivation come on when we feel free to choose, make mistakes and choose again.
At the same time, motivation, that motor to do something, comes to us for different reasons that are difficult to identify in a single event or event. The truth is that many times we discover our talent by opposition: that is to say something in our body, in our emotion tells us that "enough is enough" or "up to here" and that is where the real search begins. We connect with desire, with motivation and we give free rein to the imagination to explore the unexplored.
Therefore doing a continuous personal work to know what motivates us today, where our interests, desires or needs pass is of vital importance to identify our hidden talents and, besides, by the way, to find happiness in new ways.
Would you say that, as a general rule, Spanish companies are skilled at detecting in their own teams workers with untapped potential?
Spanish companies are immersed in a changing context in which, of course, the possibility for their employees to grow and develop goes hand in hand with the company's results.
Personal and professional growth comes in several forms: taking on new responsibilities and functions, seeking motivation and, above all, challenging or challenging the skills of the company's members. Nothing motivates us more than knowing that we have resources, facing a challenge thinking "I do not know how I'm going to get out of this" and suddenly see how we find the value and the resource of our own and succeed.What we learn from these experiences is that if we have been able to meet this challenge, we will be able to do so with the following ones, since there is nothing left to put in front of us. The company that manages to generate this emotion in its workers will be a company that grows exponentially.
What common mistakes have you noticed that companies make when it comes to managing the talent among the members of the organization?
Perhaps the most common is to pre-retirement talent. When the time comes for "coffee for all" and early retirement for workers who have more than many years, I think we are looking at the short term and losing in the long term. When this happens, companies are left without history and without history we are left without an identity. It is prioritizing a mere mercantile exercise, a high salary for a low one, without seeing the loss that this decision means.
From your point of view, what forms of talent will become increasingly important in the labor market in the coming years?
Without a doubt, flexibility. Not to stick to what we do to the products or services we have created. The books are full of examples of companies that have not known how to release their star product on time and have ended up closing. This has to do with human nature itself, which struggles on the one hand to grow and on the other hand it costs to pay the cost of that growth.
Knowing that we are not what we do today, that what we are capable of doing today is only part of our infinite capacity.
In relation to the previous question ... what types of leadership do you think will gain importance as these new talents emerge in the organizational environment?
The leader is no longer defined as the driver, but who influences. Current companies need fewer leaders and more shared, collaborative and participatory leadership. On the other hand, we must not forget that we are all leaders. Networking, for projects, agile methodologies, intrapreneurship ... the professional does not have a single boss, but he is involved in many projects and in some of them he can even be the person in charge of the team ...
Every time are the most trends, tools and ways of working that allow the majority of employees to be leaders of their own project.
Do you think that the company is an environment in which it is easy for the worker to internalize limiting beliefs, or are these coming rather from before, personal life?
I think that people do not have beliefs, but that beliefs have us trapped without being conscious. Each workplace has a culture that is its own and that is transparent to those who live in them.
When we have the opportunity to travel we realize the customs rooted in beliefs are transmitted from generation to generation and if nobody reviews them or puts them into judgment, they simply repeat themselves.
In the company the same thing happens: we realize that a behavior does not work when we do it and again and again and we do not get the desired result.
One belief is only changed by another. Come from the environment and from inside our heads the stories we tell ourselves are full of powerful and limiting beliefs.
When we review the story (whether it's the staff, the team, the company or the family) and we change it for another that gives us greater capacity for action, we have already changed. The story has the force of law for our hearts
And I also think that each one of us should be able to take the liberty of choosing the place where we want to work according to our values and beliefs. A place that in some way responds to our needs and interests.
Finally, and broadly speaking, what strategies of self-knowledge would you propose to tear down those limiting beliefs?
Think that belief changes a behavior and it changes the system where we move. When a member of the family changes the whole family photo changes.
Therefore, changing a belief has a significant personal cost. When we see the light at the end of the tunnel the change of belief usually enchant us, but along the way we usually doubt whether such a transformation deserves or is not worthwhile.
Therefore, coaching processes in their broadest sense assist in the learning of new ways of doing aligned with the new stories and beliefs that we have been able to construct. The coach and his client pursue from a human and vital connection the start-up towards fulfillment, the illusion and the personal and professional development of the client.
