O
D
Catalyst | Diversity
ptimising the talent available to organisations
is one of the holy grails of performance and
competitive advantage: if people really are an
organisation’s biggest asset, then it makes sense
that their talent is acknowledged, developed and
celebrated. The sheer weight of research – and
the industry – around talent management is
testament to its centrality as a core component
of modern HR practice.
Inevitably, this has led to debates around
what constitutes talent in the first place and,
with limited budgets and the need to maximise
returns, how it is recognised and nurtured for
greatest effect.
In recent years, received wisdom has placed a
strong emphasis on the people with the highest
potential (HiPos) – those individuals destined
for senior management who will also, the theory
goes, raise the performance of others around
them. With return on investment firmly front
of mind, this might seem like a smart choice:
after all, the Pareto principle tells us that we
get at least 80% of returns from just 20% of our
investment, right?
The arguments for a focus on HiPos
are certainly seductive. In a 2014 paper,
Star Performers in Twenty-First Century
Organizations, Herman Aguinis and Ernest
O’Boyle Jr. focus on the ‘superior’ production of
these elite performers. They argue that changes
in global information flows and more organic,
non-hierarchical structures have meant that, in
increasingly knowledge-based economies, the
‘vital few’ drive growth more effectively than
the ‘necessary many’.
And the closer these ‘stars’ are to the strategic
core of any organisation, the more significant
their influence can be. Their research leads
them to suggest that “leadership in the new
economy requires the investment of a manager’s
limited pool of resources… into improving the
Issue 4 - 2020
53