Whenever Pink performs somewhere in the northeast inevitably in my Facebook news feed someone posts a video of her performing her 2009 hit "So What". We’ve embedded a version of it below to give you the full effect, but the performance is probably like nothing you’ve ever seen in a concert before. It is like some crazy collision of a Las Vegas Cirque Du Soleil show, ‘90s Madonna, and 80’s Joan Jett. It is emotionally raw, tantalizingly engaging, and downright thrilling. Most of all, however, it encapsulates the essence of who Pink seems to be as an artist, reinforcing the seriousness with which she approaches her craft and illustrating what appears to be her continued effort to elevate what she gives to her fans.
This current live performance of "So What" appeared in her current Truth about Love Tour promoting her 2012 album of the same title, and the acrobatics are something that seem to have evolved over the past three to four years. In her 2010 Grammy performance, for instance, Pink took to the air lifting off in the middle of performing Glitter In the Air (we embed that one to as it is an equally impressive performance).
What is the talent acquisition hook here? What is the point of all this analysis of the native suburban Philadelphia rocker? What can we learn about how we should go about engaging the talent communities that matter most to our business? Three things really – for your consideration.
Seek to Uncover the Full Scope Complimentary Talent
The reason that we don’t see this sort of integration of acrobatics and rock-n-roll is probably because there are two decidedly different skill sets at hand that we normally would not associate with one another. But here with the two together. . . wow! The question for us and our talent acquisition efforts is this: What are the seemingly unrelated skills that our talent community might posses that radically compliment the core skill that we seek? We have to creatively think about what they may be and then put a process in place to begin to identify where those combinations exist in the talent community.
Enabling Hidden Talent Discovery
I wish I knew how Pink came to inject acrobatics into her performances. Was it her idea? Her choreographers’? A manager’s? My guess is she didn’t just wake up and say ‘hey I’m athletic I should incorporate my fitness and athleticism as a part of my show!’ So assuming that someone on her team was a catalyst here, then we in our talent acquisition and talent development must act as enablers. We must continuously and creatively help both our employees and our targeted talent communities to dig deep to identify their ‘other’ talents and how they can be used to compliment their day to day professional performance.
Help Connect Complimenting Skills
If we are enablers of discovering talents that complement one another, than we must also be willing to invest in helping our employees and talent communities connect these talents. We can do this by first ensuring that we have the appropriate resources needed to nurture the ‘hidden talent’ and then by creating steps necessary to make it easy for employees to naturally use the two talents to better perform their jobs.
Taking this approach requires commitment. Not only in how we engage our current employees, but how we extrapolate our desire to leverage unique skill sets to improve our talent acquisition efforts. Ultimately, if well executed, then our reputation in the talent communities we serve will encapsulate the essence of who we are as employers and reinforce the seriousness with which we approaches our craft.
