A powerful example of how poorly our society`s talent management systems are functioning is to be found in how many people it takes to produce just one winner or successful person. You see … human beings are animals that naturally hunger for praise and recognition. And there is no better praise or recognition than that which comes when you have sacrificed something of meaning to make someone else`s life better.

A society that does not create spaces for people to achieve something with their lives while they live causes itself and its members serious problems. When we deny people the space they need to apply themselves in response to their good inner urges, we prevent them not only from working hard to achieve success that truly belongs to them. We also prevent them from earning legitimate praise and recognition. And that is sometimes worse than death itself.

There must be good reasons why God created hunger for recognition and fulfillment in the human heart and make-up. For one, they push human beings to do good for the world during their lifetimes. When people do good during their lifetimes, naturally God`s world blooms and blossoms. So our society must seek to create the conditions needed for mentors or talent management champions to develop and thrive. At the moment, our society neither produces nor rewards talent management champions.

We currently sit with two types of people in the space supposed to be occupied by mentors. The first group is made up of humble and well-meaning people who can and will do good if the right conditions are created. The second group, which is decidedly sinister, is made up of people who, despite huge individual and organizational resources at their disposal, have done absolutely nothing to help anybody achieve anything. But members of this group are always the first to claim personal credit each time a winner appears on the horizon. True it is not always good or easy to call people`s bluff. But sometimes we must find the common sense to do so. Modesty at the expense of honesty is not always a virtue.

You go to a village or a township, you find the same thing. You go to a home, a school, a sports club or a workplace, you find exactly the same thing. It is even worse within big organizations, where individuals ensconced in incredible luxury completely forget about people existing in the twilight of life right on their own doorsteps. Do a simple survey or exercise and find out what curious thing the head honchos in big organizations have in common.

They have all produced one winner by the same name, same date of birth, same race, same everything. Everybody swears by their ancestors that they have produced successful people and winners. But we cannot see the corresponding numbers in the amount of winners we have. As the turbulence in the financial markets has shown us, we are running this business at a massive loss. And the biggest reason is that it takes too many people to produce just one real winner.

Let the real people development champions stand up. Not only so that they can be praised and recognised. But also so that the charlatans in our society can be identified and expunged from the expensive spaces they fraudulently occupy. The real talent management champions must be given the time and space to direct and energize the nation with lessons from their lives.

Nobody makes or produces a Brenda Fassie or a Lebo Mathosa without sacrificing something of their own that is significant. But people who have never risked or lost anything in their lives will tell you how many stars they have produced. We need to stop the hallucinations – and plain cheating – and start creating stars to carry our society forward.

Gibson Sakong
Executive Chairman – Montshepetja Academy