Regardless of what your definition of “manager” is, one thing is clear: managers manage. In the days of Adam Smith and mercantilism managers managed things. Then the industrial revolution hit and managers managed machines and people. And then mass production came around and the large corporation was born, and managers started managing outcomes. In other words, people were paid to be responsible for other people producing things which other people needed.
While “manager’s manage” changed over time, one thing remained the same: capital. It didn’t matter whether a manager was managing hats, or looms, or accountants, they were all just different manifestations of the same thing: money. The manager’s job was to manage money in the form of goods, services or assets and make sure that however much those things cost, they could yield more (profit).
Money is easy to understand. You can count it. Everyone wants more of it. You know where to find it and where to put it. It is no wonder that our entire business structure is based on money: it’s easy.
At various points in the last 30 years people have predicted that someday this would all change. That money didn’t make money: people make money. And in order to make more money you would need better people. When people finally started to realize that better people make more money, then the whole role of management would change.
That day has arrived. Manager’s manage talent. Every line manager who is directly responsible for financial results is in fact a “talent manager.” Being a Talent Manager is a fundamentally different job than being a money (or capital) manager.
In fact, there has been an inflection point in our whole economy over the last 20 years or so. We saw a major leap forward during the bubble, where people started to grasp that they are in fact Talent Managers. But the bubble burst, capital regained its place at the pinnacle of corporate worship, and the concept of “Talent” once again became the kind of fuzzy, feel-good word that HR throws around when it is trying to create a new mission statement.
Yet while “Talent” as a term may have been damaged by weak definitions, overly generous applications and the occassional over-zealous system vendor, the fact is that “Talent” is what business in the 21st century is all about. Talent is what creates content, designs products, delivers value: in short, Talent makes money. And managers must now manage talent first, and money second.
While this may be easy to agree with it is incredibly difficult to define. Talent is not easy like money. You can’t count it, trade it, arbitrage it, move it or earn interest on it. Talent doesn’t assess cleanly, doesn’t get deposited in bank accounts to be drawn down later. And the fact is that the more you try to quantify talent the way you quantify money, the more likely you are to miss its essential elements, the pieces that are needed to return real value to shareholders.
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If you or if you know of a good managing company that would be suited for my self I would appreciate your guidance , thank you for your time and help .
Craig Jensen.
Posted by: Craig Jensen | November 27, 2006 at 01:38 PM