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Talent = Aptitude x Opportunity
June 16, 2011 | POSTED BY: Congregation Partners | Comments: 6
By Matt
Talent = Aptitude x Opportunity
Aptitude – the innate or acquired capacity to do something
Opportunity – an appropriate or favorable time or occasion to do something
It’s a familiar story and one that graces the pages of the advertising trade press around the world – Digital Tyro X leaves Advertising Agency Y ‘by mutual consent’ but why do ATL creative agencies still continue to struggle when it comes to delivering creative work outside of their usual channel remit? And, perhaps more importantly, why do so many ‘digital’ practitioners apparently fail to make the grade when they join these agencies?
Individual failures broadly fall into two categories – the rubber balls and the damp squibs.
Both types arrive to the fanfare of publicity generated by the host agency’s PR machine.
The rubber balls bounce in, in a flurry of energy, only to bounce straight out again with a similar velocity, usually within 6-9 months. Like lord Lucan these short tenures frequently vanish from people’s CV’s and do little lasting damage to either party.
The damp squibs are another matter. Squibs arrive with the latent promise of show-fireworks only to exit 18-24 months later with the limp splutter of indoor fireworks.
Neither party can brush a two-year failure under the carpet nor off the CV for that matter and in the case of the squib the damage to both the agency and the individual is much more pronounced. Confidence and credibility are severely tested.
But why does it happen? How can people who months earlier were feted as the future fail so completely and so quickly?
Sometimes it is the fault of the individual, a flawed interview process, occasionally an insurmountable cultural barrier – but these are the exceptions and in the majority of cases it is opportunity, or more precisely, the lack of it that is the root cause of failure.
Let’s get one thing straight – these people are genuinely talented. They are smart, creative and strategic, diligent and hard working which is the reason that you employed them in the first place.
The trouble is talent remains inert without the context of opportunity. It becomes the solution to a non-existent problem and as a result is quickly redundant (literally in many cases).
The ridiculously high failure rate is down to the sheer number of otherwise intelligent people ‘joining companies without a job to go to’. In many cases the individual’s first role is often to try and write their own job description (really). How can you hire someone for a six-figure sum with no idea of what they will actually be doing? It’s madness and the idea that it might remotely succeed as a strategy requires a level of blind faith that is traditional remit of religious zealots or the mentally ill.
The other enormous elephants in the room are the clients.
There is often a huge disparity between what agencies feel they should offer their clients and what those clients are prepared to pay for. If there is no client buy-in then the business-case seldom stacks up long enough to sustain the level of investment required to generate new clients.
Of course there are other contributing factors – lack of investment for one, lack of a common language, lack of knowledge and fear of failure all play a part too but these are minor-league compared to no actual job and no real revenue potential.
So what’s the answer? Well there are two answers really. If you are an agency considering a shiny new digital hire and you can’t say what said person will actually be doing on a day-to-day basis and what that activity will subsequently be worth in revenue terms then DON’T HIRE THEM.
Conversely if you are a digital practitioner considering a shiny new role at a big advertising agency and you don’t have a job description (that they have written) and no one can tell you what success looks like, or how it will be measured then RUN AWAY NOW.
6 Responses to “Talent = Aptitude x Opportunity”
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…..bugger, i thought i had lost page 312 of ‘The Life and Times of Richard Hale’, can i have it back now please.
Run away now you say…your words not mine.
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