Leadership: Unlocking hidden potentials through talent discovery

Leaders are to use the opportunity of their position to discover the hidden talents in their team members. Most of the time, a lot of people are not aware of the potential they possess. It takes a leader to discover this in his team members and make such visible. When Ed Catmull joined Pixar, he noticed a quiet animator named Pete Docter who rarely spoke in meetings. Instead of dismissing him as disengaged, Catmull created opportunities for Docter to express his ideas differently. Today, Pete Docter is Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer and the director of acclaimed films like “Up” and “Inside Out.” Team members must not be dismissed based on their actions not meeting the leader’s expectations. We must be very sensitive otherwise we will lose great talents.

One of Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s greatest achievements was the spotting of talent in Susan Wojcicki in 1999. People relate them with just technology, but they were more than that. They were able to spot talent in an unconventional way. Susan Wojcicki was a doctoral student in economics at the University of California at the same time when she was renting her garage to these co-founders of Google. They recognized her intelligence, business acumen and work ethic. This made them offer her a job as the 16th Google’s employee and first marketing manager. She became a key player in the company’s development, and later became CEO of YouTube, transforming it into a global powerhouse.

Great leaders must be able to spot talents. The carrier of talents may not even be aware of the enormous deposits in him or her,but a leader should notice, identify and nurture such potential. Leaders must have the ability to unlock capabilities. Great leaders are also great talent managers. The ability to spot talents and develop them makes you a great leader. When Shantanu Narayen became CEO of Adobe, he implemented a “hidden gems” program where managers were trained to look beyond obvious high performers to identify employees with untapped potential. This led to the discovery of numerous innovators who helped transform Adobe from a software company to a digital experience leader.

Points to note for leaders who are interested in identifying and developing talents:

• Look Beyond the Obvious: At Microsoft, Satya Nadella revolutionized talent development by focusing on “growth mindset” rather than just current capabilities. This approach helped identify leaders who might have been overlooked in traditional assessment systems. Organizations must focus on the potential of their team members rather than achievements.

• Create an environment where team members are comfortable to express themselves: Allow employees to work on projects that align with their personalities. LinkedIn’s “InDay” gives employees time to pursue passion projects. Embark on a mentorship program and innovation challenge. Create opportunities for talent expression.

• Regular Talent Reviews: Goldman Sachs’s talent review process includes discussing not just performance but potential areas of unexplored capability.

• Avoid Premature judgement and a fixed mindset: Nokia’s decline was partly due to leadership’s inability to recognize and develop digital talent within their ranks, sticking instead to traditional telecommunications expertise. Talents are most times covered with trash. You need to avoid a fixed mindset to discover them

• Job rotation: IBM’s practice of rotating promising employees through different roles helps both the company and individuals discover hidden talents. This is common among multinational corporations. I have seen an IT expert become a supply chain director in a multinational organization. When you move employees around different job functions, they can discover what they never knew they had capacity for

A great talent manager must be open-minded as he must not be someone who condemns his team members. He must not use himself as a yardstick for measuring his team members as his area of competence may not be their area of competence. Every Steve Jobs needs a Steve Wozniak, and every Walt Disney needs a Roy Disney. Your role as a leader is not just to direct talent but to discover and nurture it. Great leaders are like gardeners, they don’t make plants grow, but they create the conditions forgrowth. This includes identifying people with potential and supporting them to grow. They recognize that every team member has unique gifts waiting to be discovered and developed.

Companies that excel in talent discovery and development have higher employee retention rate, higher innovation rates, well grounded and diverse leadership teams and a robust talent pool for succession pipelines.

Your challenge is not just to manage the talent you can see, but to uncover the potential that lies beneath the surface. In doing so, you not only build stronger teams but also create lasting legacies through the people whose talents you help discover and develop.

Oluwole Dada is the General Manager at SecureID Limited, Africa’s largest smart card manufacturing plant in Lagos, Nigeria.