Talent is what makes us unique: interview with Silvia Guarnieri

The academic director of the Escuela Europea de Coaching talks to us about talent and its management.

The concept of talent is one of the concepts that has generated most interest in the field of psychology research. No wonder: its presence or absence has to do with the degree to which we perform in a given task, so this factor has a decisive impact not only on the development of self-esteem in a given context, but also in the world of work and organizations.

That is why, currently, one of the challenges facing projects that involve several people coordinating in teams is the management of the talents of its members.

On talent: the perspective of Silvia Guarnieri

To learn a little more about the nature of talent, on this occasion we spoke with Silvia Guarnieri, writer, teacher and Master Coach specialized in learning processes in the field of organizations, among other things. Guarnieri is also a founding partner and academic director of the European School of Coaching (EEC), one of the most important entities in coaching training. Today she answers our questions to make more understandable the need to go beyond quantitative logic in organizations, so that qualitative aspects such as talent development can be addressed.

It is said that with sufficient training time virtually anyone can develop extraordinary abilities. However, this situation requires persistence. Is motivation just another mental capacity, or does it depend fundamentally on the context and the degree to which someone is motivated?

When a student begins the Executive Coaching Certification Program at EEC, the first thing he or she hears from the teachers is an idea that is repeated throughout the program: we all have a talent, sometimes hidden, waiting to be revealed.

Most of us spend our lives connected to different topics that have marked our context, culture, family, etc., leaving unexplored other professions or professions. leaving unexplored other professions or activities that could make our different talents grow more exponentially.

Not all of us are lucky enough to have excelled in something when we were children, such as being able to play the violin, and then practice would be enough to become a virtuoso musician. That this happens to us is like winning the lottery. I myself spent a period of my life writing stories, it literally seemed as if someone was dictating them to me, and one day I ran out of inspiration and there were no more stories in my life. One day I ran out of inspiration and there were no more stories in my life. What made one thing or the other happen, if the only thing that happened differently was the passage of time?

We have been led to believe that we are unique and that our talent is also unique. The truth is that our skills and interests also change throughout life. For example, medicine at one point in our life could have taken all the hours of study and dedication and it can happen that, at a given moment, we are fed up with the profession (with all the right in the world) and want to dedicate ourselves to writing books or macramé. The word that comes to mind is freedom: talent and motivation are ignited when we feel free to choose, to make mistakes and to choose again.

In turn, the motivation, that engine to do something, comes to us for different reasons that are difficult to identify in a single event or fact. The truth is that many times we discover our talent by opposition: that is, something in our body, in our emotion tells us that "enough is enough" or "this is it" and that is where the real search begins. We connect with desire, with motivation and give free rein to the imagination to explore the unexplored.

Therefore, doing a continuous personal work to know what motivates us today, where our interests, desires or needs are, is of vital importance to identify our hidden talents and also, by the way, to find happiness in new paths.

Would you say that as a general rule Spanish companies are skilled at detecting workers with untapped potential in their own teams?

Spanish companies are immersed in a changing context in which, of course, the possibility for their employees to grow and develop goes hand in hand with the company's performance.

Personal and professional growth is obtained in several ways: taking on new responsibilities and functions, seeking motivation and, above all, challenging or challenging the skills of the members of the company. Nothing motivates us more than knowing that we have resources, facing a challenge thinking "I don't know how I'm going to get out of this" and suddenly seeing how we find our own worth and resources and come out on top. What we learn from these experiences is that if we have been able to meet this challenge, we will be able to meet the next ones, that there is nothing that can be put in front of us. The company that manages to generate this emotion in its employees will be a company that grows exponentially.

What common mistakes have you noticed that companies make when it comes to managing talent within the organization?

Perhaps the most common one is to pre-retire talent. When it's time to "coffee for all" and retire employees who have been with us for more than a few years, I think we are looking at the short term and losing out on the long term. When this happens, companies are left without history, and without history they are left without identity. A mere mercantile exercise is taking precedence, a high salary for a low one, without seeing the loss that this decision means.

From your point of view, what forms of talent will become increasingly important in the labor market in the coming years?

Undoubtedly, flexibility. Not being attached to what we do to the products or services we have created. The books are full of examples of companies that have not known how to release their star product in time and have ended up closing down. This has to do with human nature itself, which on the one hand strives to grow and on the other hand struggles to pay the cost of such growth.

Knowing that we are not what we do today, that what we are capable of doing today is only a part of our infinite capacity.

In relation to the previous question... what types of leadership do you think will gain importance as these new talents emerge in the organizational environment?

The leader is no longer defined as the one who leads, but as the one who influences. Today's companies need less bosses and more shared, collaborative and participative leadership. On the other hand, we must not forget that we are all leaders. Networking, project work, agile methodologies, intrapreneurship... the professional does not have a single boss, but is in many projects and in some of them can be himself, even, the team leader...

There are more and more trends, tools and ways of working that allow most employees to be leaders of their own project.

Do you think that the company is an environment in which it is easy for the employee to internalize limiting beliefs, or do they come from before, from personal life?

I think that people do not have beliefs, but rather that beliefs have trapped us without us being aware of it. Each workplace has its own culture that is transparent to those who live in it.

When we have the opportunity to travel we realize that habits rooted in beliefs are transmitted from generation to generation and if no one reviews them or questions them, they simply repeat themselves.

The same thing happens in the company: we realize that a behavior does not serve us when we do it again and again and again and we do not reach the desired result.

A belief can only be changed by another one. Coming from the environment and from inside our heads, the stories we tell ourselves are full of powerful and limiting beliefs.

When we review the story (whether personal, team, company or family) and we manage to change it for another that gives us greater capacity for action, we have already changed. The story has the force of law for our hearts.

And I also think that each one of us should be able to take the freedom to choose the place where we want to work according to our values and beliefs. A place that somehow responds to our needs and interests.

Finally, and in broad strokes, what strategies of self-knowledge would you propose to break down those limiting beliefs?

Think that belief changes a behavior and this changes the system in which we move. When one family member changes the whole family picture changes.

Therefore, changing a belief has a significant personal cost. When we see the light at the end of the tunnel, we usually love the change of belief, but along the way we tend to doubt whether or not so much transformation is worth it.

That is why coaching processes in their broadest sense assist in learning new ways of doing things aligned with the new narratives and beliefs we have been able to build. The coach and his client pursue from a human and vital connection the setting in motion towards the fullness, the illusion and the personal and professional development of the client.