Are You Winning The Talent War?
This past weekend, football fans across the country celebrated the return of the N.F.L.’s unionized referees after a three-week lockout.
The N.F.L. is the country’s largest and wealthiest sports franchise. And the amount at dispute was only a few million dollars in a sport where annual revenues are counted in multiple billions. So why did the league fight so hard against the referees?
Roger Martin sees sports as a metaphor for life. And he views the battle as part of a larger struggle between capital and labor and an emerging third force – talent.
Martin is the dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He writes:
Talent, in contrast to the more generic labor, is highly skilled and portable. . . . The war between capital and labor became a three-way battle, with talent wedging its way onto the proverbial playing field. The biggest loser has been labor. . . . This is why income inequality is increasing. . . . Talent is extracting more of the pie and getting richer. The gulf grows between talent – the high-earning differentiated workers – and labor, those widget makers who support them.
In Martin’s view, the N.F.L. took a hard line because it wanted to prove that the referees were just labor – low value and easily replaced. But the fans – and, ultimately, the players – felt otherwise and the league was forced to capitulate.
What about your business? Does your success depend just on keeping down the costs of labor? Or does your success depend on developing and maximizing the value of your talent?
The Elkind Group helps leaders develop their own talent and build talented and high-performing teams. For more information on how we can help you build talent in your organization, please contact us for a free consultation.
Read more about The Elkind Group and how we help clients develop talent in their organizations.
Read Roger Martin’s article Talent Shows.