The Talent Game

In the two seconds between the ball leaving Josh Donaldson’s bat, and the first base umpire signalling that would be the Blue Jay’s final out of 2015, I had emphatically killed my TV and threw the remote across the room in one violent motion.

My actions joined a collective anguished scream of thirty million Canadians expressing their agony. The thrilling ride of the Blue Jays World Series quest was over.

I was so crushed I rudely couldn’t make small talk about it come Saturday. Wasn’t interested in analyzing poor coaching strategy, misplayed bunts, and costly defensive decisions. I was neck deep in the unwritten sports rule of a twenty-four hour limit for mourning a loss. Two days later my dark cloud of despair is slowly, very slowly, lifting and allowing for more mature reflective thinking to permeate my thoughts.

As Jays media pundits, sports insiders, and fans began to combine their dissection of what went wrong with speculation about next year, they will all come back to one common denominator. Talent. Who will be around in 2016? Who were the key contributors in 2015? How much was our success the result of the core team built in spring training? Or should all the accolades go to the trading deadline arrivals who seemingly sparked the marvelous run to glory? No matter what side of this debate you fall on, there is no question of the foundation of the debate. Talent wins.

You don’t have to look much further than the Jays or our recent federal election to see the impact of talent on almost any type of organization. As the Tories point accusatory fingers at one another for their historic collapse, the critiques of their campaign management braintrust are almost as loud as the kudos directed to the Liberal backroomers. In overly simplistic terms this election will be regarded as a textbook case where (apparently) one group of very smart people was able to outsmart another group of also (apparently) very smart people. The net result is political history.

You may not be a fan of the oft repeated sports to political machine to business analogies that I have so clumsily added to. But it’s undeniable in my mind. Talent wins on the field, in the boardroom, and at the ballot box. Open any twenty business magazines and the proof is right in front of you. Top 30 Under 30 lists. Best Marketers designations. Top rated CEO in the world research. Each of these three are on the covers of some of the top publications in October alone. Beyond the headlines and covers, there is more emphasis on talent in the business press than ever before.

Go to any conference in the world and I guarantee you will hear more than one speech that starts with a reference to the rate of change or digital impact on the world. Not only is that the go to line of a mediocre public speaker, it masks the real change in the world. The nerds have taken over.

I use the nerd word for impact and it’s rude of me to do so. What I really mean is smart people have taken over. Historically the world has been governed by the biggest people, the bravest fighters, and the most barbaric leaders. Over time that translated to a self-created concept of royalty which then dissipated into a falsehood called democracy, which really was a mask for the rich and powerful to rule as they saw fit.

But today there is a new weapon that is more powerful than brawn and more sustaining than wealth. Intelligence. Competence. Resilience. Talent. The change that the boring speaker you saw last week referred to isn’t in the outputs residing as apps on your mobile phone or drones flying in your warehouse. It’s the creators and innovators behind these products have now been given an opportunity to impact the world. Call them what you want. Geniuses. Serial Entrepreneurs. The next Steve Jobs. Makers. They are here and they have taken over.

Which is a good thing for your organization, your career, the educational choices of your sons and daughters. The old rules of the game are disappearing and the new rules are much like the famous quote from the movie Fight Club. Rule # 1 is there are no rules.

Talent wins. That should be the game plan for your organization just as is it is for the World series finalists.