THE TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR TALENT MANIFESTO

1. We each have untapped talents and opportunities for greater satisfaction. Satisfaction corresponds closely with how much of our talent we put to use. Experience shows that even hardworking people who are the best and brightest people in their field typically have 30–40 percent of their talent untapped. We have a wealth of opportunities to contribute to the world and improve our personal well-being. We just need help to figure out how.

2. Accessing our hopes helps us to get out of our own way and stimulates better results. Our brains work both to protect us and to help us grow. When we are in a hopeful frame of mind, we engage the parts of our brains that specialize in creativity, insight, and development of alternatives. We need all these faculties to tap our talents and enjoy them more fully.

3. We can be Talent Catalysts for one another to generate new ideas and precipitate action. With carefully targeted questions, generous listening, and a focus on action, Talent Catalyst Conversations help us to look at our careers and lives from a new angle. We can readily learn and share these conversation skills with others.

4. Abundant resources are available to help us realize our deepest hopes. Each of us has access to far more resources than we may think. Indeed, a useful talent is learning how to identify and attract the resources we need.

5. We can get the time we need to pursue our hopes and take charge of our talent. One of the biggest blocks people cite as getting in the way of their talent development is a lack of time and focus needed to pursue their hopes: “I could do it if only I had time.” We can be like surgeons and slice through overwhelming workloads to do what’s most valuable.

6. The self-organizing culture of talent development creates enduring assets and fulfillment for individuals and organizations. Pumping up the troops with inspiration from the top brass or from outsiders can feel good but is often short-lived. While inspiring leaders can give us a jump-start, we need to be running off our own batteries to stay engaged. Truly sustainable motivation rests within each of us. Trusting people to engage their hopes and giving them permission to pursue what’s important to them produces results in many ways. We feel more responsible for our organizations because they become ours, as we helped to create and foster the talent that fuels them.

7. Everyone can participate because the “See one, do one, teach one” approach supports a culture of accessible and self-organizing talent development. Talent wants to flow freely. Indeed, the movement to take charge of your talent can go viral in the positive sense that it is a highly constructive and contagious process. As one participant learns the process, serves as a Talent Catalyst, and then teaches someone else, that person can serve and teach others. The process builds a network of learners and teachers such that talent emerges within us and all around us.