Good news, kids: We’re no longer complex creatures. We’re neither cryptic nor complicated. Anfractuous behavioral lines are now — if not perfectly straight — at least malleable. Outcomes are predictable. That’s right. We have experience maps.
An organization called The Talent Strategy Group (WARNING! INFOMERCIAL!) purports to reduce all the complex vagaries of humanity, behaviorology, job training, and leadership to just three simple tenets:
First, we know that better quality talent – in key roles – delivers better business results … Second, we know that our customer – the executive team – wants talent that’s proven effective and available now. Third, we know that experiences accelerate development and demonstrate a leader’s capabilities … Those combined facts suggest a rather straightforward solution to improve talent development: To get our customers better quality talent faster, give key talent powerful experiences using the most efficient possible process. Simple.
When you look at it that way, you realize the scientific, academic, and organizational communities have whiffed on this thing for centuries. It beggars comprehension that so many of us have been so unable to fathom human nature and its attendantly capricious cachets for so long. All we had to do was wait for the technology and create the map. Simple.
Imagine: On the second day of your vacation, you’re on the beach in the Bahamas. As you reach for the thermos full of Bloody Marys, Screwworm from HR calls. You answer cheerily: “Good morning, Screwy! I was just thinking about you.” In his usual amiable tone, Screwworm says, “Cut the crap, Shmidlap. Ya know that clown, Murfwhiffle, you assigned to run marketing? He’s never even been on a creative team before. We gotta get this yo-yo in shape before The Big Guy finds out.”
You calmly reply: “No sweat, Screwy. I’ll re-map Murfwhiffle’s sorry keister through Marketing Training. We’ll have him back in charge so fast we won’t even have to change his title. The Big Guy’ll never even know. If our revenue numbers dip in the meantime, we’ll blame it on the maps Needleman created for his deadwood in Sales. Don’t worry, Dude. Vespucci’s got nothin’ on me.” By the time Screwy asks, “Who’s Vespucci?” you’ve already ended the call, opened your map app, and re-routed Murfwhiffle through Marketing Training. Then you lie back in your chaise contentedly and slurp your Bloody.
Don’t have the time or resources to find the best talent? No problem. Map ’em to productive perfection. Want to use a transactional web or mobile app to recruit, process, and hire candidates online, sight unseen, without all the muss and fuss of … you know … actually meeting and getting to know people? Not to worry. Map the wheat from the chaff after you we get ’em on the payroll. Favor nurture over nature in the perennial behaviorological debate? Cool. Who cares who they are or where they came from? We can map ’em till we scrap ’em. After all, we can’t keep even the best-mapped leaders forever, right?
By reducing people to binary data, we have the capability to make perfect leaders. All our employees can become those leaders. And we can do it all with our toes in the water, our snoots in adult beverages, and our heads in the clouds.
Why not? It’s science.
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Image by geralt, courtesy of pixabay.com.