David Coldwell
Have you ever wondered if the labourer mowing your lawn or the cleaner of your office might have been an engineer, a scientist or a successful business person had they had access to a good education?
The question may be a little cliched and the same could certainly be asked in New York or London, but the idea takes on a special poignancy when viewed against the background of the wanton human capital wastage generated by apartheid in South Africa.
Despite political change and the drive for social and industrial equity, wastage of human capital is likely to continue in South Africa unless more care is paid to its early identification.
Moreover, to address this problem it is no good to simply go through the motions of providing a solution; to seek form without substance.
In this regard, the employment equity Bill emphasises providing the means for attaining the redistribution of employment opportunities to reflect population demographics more accurately.
The Bill focuses on providing the “correct” numbers or the “form”, as it were, while tending to overlook the “substance,” which is to identify talent and stem the wastage of human capital in disadvantaged groups.
Perhaps this is the only path such legislation can take, but it cannot in itself provide a solution to our national woes of poor productivity and lack of international competitiveness.
Similarly, training for training’s sake is not sufficient, nor is creating employment opportunities.
Without the identification and nurturing of talent as a core management priority, very little worthwhile can be achieved.
Bosses in Europe and the United States are becoming increasingly involved in identifying talent as a strategic resource for maintaining corporate success.
As Steven Johannsson, director of career services at Cornell’s business school puts it: “Managers have said getting good people is strategic, and more of them are actually acting like it is strategic.”
In South Africa, the importance of the identification of talent, particularly in disadvantaged groups, takes on additional significance – here it is not only a strategic necessity, but an ethical and political imperative.
It is ethical in the sense that it is necessary to redress the imbalances and injustices created by the apartheid system.
And it is a political imperative. The new democratic order is expected by the majority of the electorate to “deliver the goods” by implementing changes that will address inequities in employment and wealth.
Strategically too, it provides the seedbed for corporate success and sustained economic growth.
Apart from company bosses becoming more actively involved in acquisition, how can the identification of people with talent and potential be effectively realised?
There is no single answer to this question. Even in the best of all possible worlds, some talented people will always escape the identification net.
Recent research at the department of business administration, University of Natal, focusing on affirmative action management trainees, or “affirmees”, suggests that the selection criteria must be reliable.
There should be a training programme to equip such affirmees with practical, implementable skills.
But without individual motivation to embrace a managerial role and a supportive organisational climate, optimum individual performance will not be realised.
In other words, the identification of managerial potential and its development through training may not be enough to ensure corporate success.
Employers should take at least four criteria into account when identifying management trainees:
l instruments to assess trainee potential, such as AppleB from the Human Sciences Research Council, which indicates the ability to process information, learning and reason;
l training must be honed;
l the organisational environment must be nurturing and supportive;
l and the trainee must have the will or motivation to take on additional responsibility, autonomy and the grind of the management role.
Success is born not only by identifying people with wings and training them for flight, but also by such individuals having the will to fly.