The Hindu Business Line : Organisations as wellsprings of talent

What is common to Citibank, Unilever, Sankara Nethralaya, the Oberoi group, RPG Retail and Xerox? Despite the diversity of these organisations, each of them had, at some stage in their history, served as a wellspring of talent that the rest of the industry came to rely upon.

At a time when `war for talent' literally means `invasion into another's talent territory' or `buying talent at a price that the other cannot refuse', it is useful to remind ourselves that not too long ago, there were a few organisations that, instead of engaging in `war', actually chose to serve as wellsprings of talent; creating talent rather than grabbing what was available. Let us examine the drivers, motives and characteristics of organisations that have served as wellsprings of talent. Understanding this will help industry as a whole because it is these little drops of water that make the mighty ocean.

Top-of-mind recall

Take a look at the boardrooms and executive cabins of any of the financial services organisations in India and you are likely to find a Citibanker there. The story of HLL's contribution to business leadership and functional leadership, especially in sales and marketing, has been told several times over. Especially in the 1980s and 1990s, HLL was a sure and safe wellspring to draw talent from.

If you wanted to consult a good ophthalmologist, and found one, chances are high that he or she was trained at the Sankara Nethralaya.

If you were looking for a hospitality professional who would breathe perfection and display the highest professional standards, your search would bring you to the Oberoi.

If you looked at the management team of any large organised retailer, you are sure to find a reasonable percentage originating from RPG's Retail business. For many years, professional selling was synonymous with Xerox — well-trained, thorough and ready for the world. This list is obviously illustrative. As you read on, I am sure there are many other such organisations that come to your mind.

What made them stand out

So what were the characteristics common to these organisations? There are at least three that seem evident.

Visionary zeal

Many of these organisations decided to invest in people development at a scale that was beyond their immediate needs. They were obviously thinking beyond the present and beyond their own personal needs.

For example, the Oberoi group established the Oberoi Centre for Learning and Development way back in 1966! In its chronology of events, the HLL Web site has an interesting entry for the year 1942: "Unilever takes firm decision to "train Indians to take over junior and senior management positions instead of Europeans." The organisation's decision to invest in developing local talent helped it not only to meet its own needs but also others.

Citibank has been developing bankers with a global mindset for well over 25 years by offering them tremendous mobility and opportunities in and out of India — well before terms such as globalisation and global managers were even popular. RPG Retail set up India's first independent Retail Training Institute to train youngsters who had completed Class XII. Inspired by this early exposure, many of these young boys and girls made it their profession and are now in managerial positions across the industry.

High professional standards

Another characteristic of such organisations is the very high professional standards set by their founders, so high that the only way to fulfil them was by taking charge of the professional development process itself. Sankara Nethralaya has, for over 28 years, been acknowledged as a high-performing, knowledge-based institution with expertise and excellence in ophthalmic care, upholding the highest standards of quality.

This distinction would not have been achieved but for the investment in education and research right from the founding days. In fact, Sankara Nethralaya was one of the first to introduce a course in optometry to train technical support staff. The Oberois could not have offered a world-class service experience without the support of educational initiatives.

In his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki writes about how he joined Xerox Corp because it had one of the best sales-training programmes in the US. Because of its high professional standards in selling and its pursuant investment in training, Xerox has ended up redefining professional selling across the whole world.

High mobility

Wellsprings remain alive only when there is a flow. What is common to all these and many other organisations is the fact that their talent was able to move freely, either within the organisation or outside. This mobility helped fresh talent to keep flowing through.

Peace-time activity

Times of war are not conducive for any organisation to serve as a wellspring of talent. Developing talent really happens at a time of relative peace in the labour market.

There is, however, another way of looking at it. If more organisations resolve to act as wellsprings of talent and create abundance, there is little need for this war for talent in the first place!

Remember, this year's Nobel Peace Prize went to a banker, signalling to the world the connection between peace and the removal of poverty. So, if there was an equivalent peace prize for organisations, it should go to those that fight poverty of talent by serving as wellsprings of talent!

(The author is founder and CEO of totus consulting, a strategic HR consulting firm, and co-founder of Executive & Business Coaching Foundation India Limited.

He can be reached at ganesh@totusconsulting.com)

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