Blame it on the talent, not having the right talent

I was having lunch with my ex boss the other day and he brought up a project I was working on. I mentioned we(the company) hardly was capitalising on the program, such that it was not truly understood. In summary, no one understood its potential. My ex boss smiled and pulled out a presentation he gave to the government. I looked at in aww and asked "Why arent we doing this?"

His reply, "We didnt have the right person to drive it"

What is talent

When we work in employment, we trade our labour for money. How much we are paid is how much value we can bring to the picture. Sometimes we undercut, sometimes we can charge more. Owners of the company pay employees to help them do things and as such administration or sales. Basically outsource things they should do, to leverage on talent for more money.

As for talent, its subjective. It can exist from hard skills such as coding or production that is easily transferable. Or soft skills that are sales and communication which help smoothen the process. While some are easily tangible, like hard skills competency can be observed and quantify, soft skills are subjective.

Can Talent be trained?

They say hire for attitude, train for talent. Still how many company practice this. Many would find talent and if they can afford them, hire them to do the job. Still what if you are on a budget or you fail to empower the talent?

Based on Kirkpatrick 4 levels of learning, level 3 is behavioural change from learning and thus level 4, results from change of behaviour. Therefore talent can be trained, and not always purchased.

Not all is plug-and-play

I like what they say or said about Singapore Airlines(SIA). That their employees are trained and made, selected for attitude, groomed to become SIA girls. The people they have fit their culture of customer service and thats why SIA is a great way to fly.

Still how many companies are willing to do so. Does training improve the bottom line or should companies just spend on new talents to improve the bottom line.