The term `Talent' dates back to ancient
times where it was a high denomination currency. Wars were paid for by
Talent. Maintaining two hundred rowers in a
trireme in the Peloponnese War cost a talent for a month, whilst for ordinary skilled work
a talent would account for nine man years and twenty man years of work by an
`ordinary' person. King Solomon's infinite wisdom
by comparison accrued six hundred and sixty six talents a year.
Somehow talent has lost that `mundane meaning' and `show me the money'
reality of being paid for what you physically do
and are seen to be worth.Talent is anointed with a mystique that carries cachet and
kudos. There's an inflated feel good (or bad if
you're not talented) factor associated with talent as a gift, something associated with
the ultimate prize of recognition and reward for heroic achievements. It's classed as
special; the more you have, the more you usually earn.
In the workplace, The Economist defines talent as `Brainpower, the ability to
solve complex problems or invent new solutions'. Yet paradoxically whilst talent in the
work context is concerned with `brainpower', and intellectual capital, it is an emotive
topic subject to neither rational nor rigorous discussion. The problem is talent can
be `objective', observable in action and impact. At the same time it is subjective,
and contextual, open to interpretation, `retrospective coherence' and hype.
Cheer leaders in academia and authors add to the confusion by falling under the spell of
talent and exaggerating its' impact. How many thought leaders waxed lyrical about
the transformation of Enron but fell silent when all was revealed it was based on fraud? What
British historian AJP Taylor once said about history as creative imagination rings
true. As he wrote, "we take the charades of
the past too seriously. We take our hero's too seriously. We manufacture hero's
because they occupy great positions…most great
men of the past were only there for the beer - the wealth, the prestige and grandeur
that went with power." |
