Talent Management is no Voodoo

This morning in the Knowledge@Wharton Newsletter I read an interesting article about Peter Cappelli's new book. The article - 'Talent on Demand': Applying Supply Chain Management to People does a spectacular job of conveying the need for a disciplined and regimented approach to developing talent. One that the engineers and the analytically oriented applied on the supply side in minimizing uncertainty. These are the same processes and tools that helped record tremendous productivity improvements by eliminating waste and establishment of calculated and measured processed to avoid surprises.

Organizations like P&G demonstrated this could be done on the demand side with the right consumer marketing centred processes. It is not about the individual, although he or she is responsible for making the change, building the capabilities and ensuring their indoctrination into the organization. Hunter Hastings at the EMM Group have written two books on this topic.

The Book - Talent on Demand, seems to conveys the same concept on the talent side the only grim and unfortunate part is the comparison of an individual to non-living resources. It is a shame we have to think along these lines to convey a such a simple and powerful concept? Anyway... I am just happy to see some value in the analytical and structured approach to managing talent!