Human resources Business Employment
Autonomous cars, smart grids, smartphones, Facebook, etc. How can we come up with the most innovative ideas? How can we detect and encourage disruptive talent?
"They're not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things". This phrase of Apple's famous "Think Different" ad talks about disruptive people: those who think differently and independently, have their own ideas and a huge capacity to be creative and innovate.
Disruptive talent drives a company to success. Detecting and managing it efficiently is a challenge, not only for the professionals of the human resources area, but for the company as a whole, which must provide them with the adequate environment in which they can develop their ideas.
The Innovation & Entrepreneurship Business School (IEBS) gives us a few keys to detect disruptive employees:
Many companies might be reluctant to hiring them because they might generate a certain degree of friction with other workers. Therefore, the presence of a professional coach is essential, to make sure that the talent of these employees does not stray from the company's objectives.
Professional coaching is the process of partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential. Coaching helps people acquire skills to think differently and communicate better. And, even though some people have certain natural skills, the coach must receive specific training to shape and develop empathy, balance, assertiveness, intuition and analytical and synthesis skills, among other skills. According to the ICF Global Coaching study (2016), the professional coach has the following profile:
%
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Working
Not currently working
%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
USD
North America
61.900 $
Latin America and the Caribbean
27.100 $
Western Europe
55.300 $
Middle East and Africa
35.900 $
Asia
37.800 $
Oceania
73.100 $
Global
51.000 $
Source: ICF Global Coaching Study (2016).
SEE INFOGRAPHIC: The professional coach profile [PDF] External link, opens in new window.
The best solution is to create a work team that is responsible for innovation. A pioneering consulting firm that was the first to study disruptive talent in companies analysed the cases of start-ups acquired by large corporations. Those absorbing the new team of disruptive talents incorporated them to their paperwork-laden and inflexible processes, suffocating innovation and obtaining "depressing results". In turn, those that used such talented minds to create or strengthen the innovation unit were capable of launched new successful products and services.
Business management guru Gary Hamel thinks that disruption should be integrated in the company according to these three principles:
Steve Jobs, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Apple declared before he died in 2011: "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people to tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do".
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