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Three lenses on talent

How changing your perspective creates greater value through people

By Tania Lennon

June 2024

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As new technologies optimizing platforms, supply chains and processes become ubiquitous, organizations looking for sustainable competitive advantage are refocusing on investing in talent. AI can execute quickly on repetitive tasks and data analyses, but when it comes to connecting diverse and disconnected ideas to drive innovation and creativity, human minds are vital.

How should you approach talent development and management in order to create value? What must you invest in now, to build the workforce you will be relying on tomorrow? Drawing on research by the IMD Strategic Talent Lab, this white paper explores the nature of talent, in today’s fast-moving, constantly changing and complex environments. If traditional talent management mechanisms are failing to provide organizations with the deep expertise, diverse perspectives and imagination they require to thrive, what could do so?

After identifying the gaps in how talent is currently defined and measured, the author provides a new framework for talent that drives greater value in today’s market. This offers a powerful alternative to the “nine-box grid” approach of performance mapped against potential, both of which are notoriously difficult to define, identify and measure. Adopting the three lenses suggested will enable organizations to deliver the capabilities and innovations that business needs now.

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