Why strengths, not skills, will get us through the talent exodus

When it comes to talent, we’ve got it back to front. We hire candidates based on their skills and capabilities, then we train based on their flaws and failures. As a result, we spend our time focusing on the wrong things. That has serious consequences for them individually, but also for us collectively as an industry, because it means we are not playing to our strengths.

We’re heading into a time of great emotional conflict. On the one hand, all (vaccinated) Australians are looking forward to enjoying greater freedoms, and we anticipate returning to the office to rejoin our colleagues and revel in company culture and the familiarity of being together. On the other hand, after spending the better half of 18 months stuck at home, our teams are understandably hungry for growth, challenges and change.

We are sleepwalking into a significant ‘talent exodus’. Maintaining a short term focus on skills instead of strengths has the potential to decimate our industry over the coming months. In a competitive market, with a limited talent pool, it’s a buyers market. Which is why agencies that want to attract and retain the best talent, need to rethink their approach. For too long, people have been managed by identifying and overcoming weaknesses. Instead, a focus on strengths is leading to a much higher retention rate and diversifying agency capabilities.