Much of the
job of a leader is to become a curator of
talent: to find the talented people who can do their best work in the
environment of your organization.
~ Faisal Hoque
This past weekend, as I do periodically, I went on an art
gallery tour in the River North neighborhood in Chicago. This happened to be one of those very rare occasions
when I was the only person who showed up for the free tour. And I was fortunate enough to have a tour guide
from one of the galleries who I know fairly well. I've done this enough times that I offered to
be my own "guide" so he could go back to his work, but he too wanted to visit
the galleries included on the route for the day, so off we went.
I go on these tours because I'm fascinated not only by the
art but also by the art gallery business.
So I tend to ask sort of unusual questions on these tours about running
a successful art gallery. One of the
things I've learned, is that the more successful galleries are really good curators. They typically represent about 8-12 artists
and there will be a focus or commonality among those artists. For example, one gallery exhibits only
contemporary Asian art, another represents only Russian artists, and some focus
only on modern art, etc. And the gallery
owners are very particular about which artists they will represent in their
galleries. I think it's much like what
Faisal Hoque said, "…find the talented [artists] who can do their best work in
the environment of your [gallery]."
Not too long ago, I asked one of the art gallery owners what
buyers or collectors were looking for when they came to their gallery. Her response, "I think they are typically
looking for a specific color scheme." That was not the answer I anticipated, and consequently that gallery is
no longer in business. They were not
good curators. They had art on the
walls, but had not practiced a great deal of care in the selection of that art
for the environment of their gallery.
In Everything Connects,
author Faisal Hoque says, "The Medieval Latin is curate, a person responsible for the care of souls, or curator, an overseer or guardian. If you walk into an art gallery you will find
yourself in a curated space such that the overall effect of the works in the
room will be greater than the sum of the parts.
There will be, in other words, a synergy among the exhibition's
components and their arrangement; an additional value will be added by the way
the pieces are put together."
One of the trends in HR is to refer to HR as talent
management. I've never really cared for
that terminology and now I think I know why.
Because managing talent sounds
like a leadership style that's focused on "command and control." It also seems almost disrespectful. If employees are truly talent then wouldn't it be much more respectful to care for their
souls like a guardian rather than to manage them?
Sometimes I’m a bit surprised by how quickly some leaders
select members for their leadership team.
This should be something akin to an art gallery owner who has identified
precisely the type of art and artists who will best fit their gallery. Then they painstakingly search the world (I
mean that literally) for just the right fit for both their gallery and
collectors. Now, imagine the difference
between leadership talent that is “managed” and leadership talent that is “curated.”
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