1.1.1. The forgetting of an “ability to think” attitude

Over the last two months, the human resources departments of two companies have been verbalizing a problem for which they do not know how to “get out” of or how to “think” about it. In both cases, this issue might have seemed trivial, as it was inserted into a broader discussion of talents and skills. However, if we look at the latter from a strategic point of view, we detect weak (but increasing) signs that allow us to draw a correlation and consequently a trend.

The first company – with more than 180,000 employees – finds itself stuck in its jobs “site” because of years of technical and declarative writing related to the organization’s professions. None of these professions, like all the companies that we know of in France, including those run by foreign parent companies, address the question of the abilities and skills (in the operative sense and not the “human qualities” sense) underlying competencies. Blocked by semantics rationalized by decades of concepts of “suitcase expressions” and (meaningful) words without (meaningless) observable principles, this company, like so many others, finds itself caught up in the meshes of its model, like a fisherman, falling then drowning in his own nets, unable to untangle himself. The HRD we met told us: “the repository is more focused on technical definitions than on capabilities [...]; the importance of semantics leads us to clarify this... But how? [...]; we are obligated to start over from scratch [...]”.

The second company – with 2,200 employees in the world (and more than 50 nationalities) – is radicalizing the subject. It does not want any more “market” concepts, exhausted by semantics that do not “mean” anything anymore and clutter the mind: “we don’t like the words of the market”, they say, “this requires us to reinvent talent”; so how can we “tackle the HR process without falling back on the tools that the “solutions” of the market offer?”

The corporate crisis – its problem (problema) – is neither economic, nor human, nor even linked to identity: it is a thought crisis. When we say thought, we imply cultural “thinking”, in other words, from where do we think about our daily lives? This crisis can manifest itself in an endemic inability to re-create and re-energize our language; this may be the reason why corporate operators “zap” concepts once they are exhausted by the colonization of inappropriate ideas. To put it another way, when a word can re-energize the company, a conquering intellectual interference unfolds and systematically colonizes its resources through a dictatorship of truth (aletheia). Six Sigma, lean management, leadership, coaching, manager-coach, agility, emotional intelligence, talents, high potential, mentoring, empathy (etc.), are just a few examples of systematic occupation-conversion by the ontological (science of being, nous) and rational (logos-mathesis) models.

NOTE.– We can note a form of similarity with the invasion of the Inuit by the southerners called qallunaat in the 1950s. In less than 50 years, a century-old people who have lived for thousands of years in a difficult, flexible and adaptive environment, speaking a syllabary language, found themselves “seduced” by a commercial, bureaucratic, linguistic and religious model.

In a work from 1836, misplaced by time, it is possible to read: “There comes a time when languages are no longer enriched, because the true richness of languages consists in providing thought with all the instruments it needs, and this need has limits [...]” [NOD 36]. By producing tools and milestones, the company’s language, and perhaps a few others, has become sedentary and consequently stopped enriching itself; additionally, as the same authors state: “It [the French Academy] left a large part to the fruitful lexicographer industry that grew with all the others, a large part to neologism and fantasy [...]”. It seems to us that the word “talent” has been widely explored by this fruitful lexicographic industry.

1.1.2. A background of thought focused on ontology and mathesis

The thought model of enterprise, but also of education, overwhelmed by this consummation of ideas, leads them to agony. It is not that the latter is “bad”, but it is now negative, because it has been exhausted by decades of linguistic rationalization, abstract concepts and verbal marketing: the latest concepts are, for example, agility and talent. If “bad” refers to a moral judgment, “negative” refers to a situation. In terms of thinking about the company, its “talents” are negative because it creates a gap with the original intentions and, consequently, with the expected result. In both cases, we observe a common ground of understanding: success, development, performance, empowerment, finding the meaning of one’s life, betterment, efficiency, innovation, creation, happiness, etc. The word talent thus found itself besieged by the referential of Being (ontology) and that of agility (efficiency). Talent and potential are sustained by a language of truth (aletheia), that is, a true discourse pronounced “by right and according to the ritual required” [FOU 71, p. 17]. Decorated with its initial base of agreement, they are made to say what makes “business” more convenient. We will come back to that later. This is how we sway the “right”, under the pretext of a few professional-university legitimacies, in order to define it on the basis of “one’s opinion”, justifying it by “the latest” research in neurosciences, or by some ambiguous analogies. Thus, like the literacy of society in the Early Middle Ages overseen by the clergy (owners of knowledge oriented by the glory of God), the aim is to make the message of the Holy Scriptures (Talents, Intelligence, Potential, etc.) accessible to the illiterati.

He who masters the “knowledge” of words has power over those who do not. The case of the word “talent” or “potential” is similar to that of literacy for illiterates. This method of invasion has been tried and tested:

• – enter a new word with potential;
• – “fill it up” with old standards, old ideologies;
• – define it according to a translated process, that is, by operating an analogy not related to the initial rule;
• – write a book to legitimize the subject matter/opinion/model;
• – replace the resource provided by the word with its own template and language that is “acceptable” to the reader;
• – create new abstract words/concepts – through the use of neologisms – consolidating intellectual “occupation”;
• – train and certify operators to lock the market that the promise and potential of the “word” offers;
• – control the “word” and its market by creating institutions based on power.

This colonizing process uses the Trojan Horse trick. At the height of the war/crisis (the problem), the conqueror proposes an apparently “peaceful” solution to the people who have been invaded; then he identifies the most telling “symbol” for the latter. He then infiltrates the “symbol” with his ideas – soldiers. Once the horse is in the city – in the company – he frees the conquering ideas and lets them spread through the city. He thus ensures a rapid conquest by conversion of the people in place. The initial word dissolved by the conquering ideas is now an empty shell.

The challenge – here the opportunity and not the risk – for the company is to reshape its resources by reinvesting its language; whoever knows how to name (by word or sign) what he observes can unambiguously communicate his idea, his project, his strategy, his vision. It is our intention to propose a resource from which operators of the company can work and make their own tools to think. If they have to acquire it from the outside, they will be able to look “inside” at what is in it.

We propose two parts for this. The first presents the theoretical and epistemological resource (study of knowledge), from which the second part (practice) can be used by professionals. Theoretically, we specify what field observation and experimentation suggest as useful knowledge. The theory differs from the concept, in that it is biodegradable, evolutionary and hypothetical (agreed to evolve or “die”). The concept, on the other hand, can be immutable. It most often refers to a general idea that synthesizes scattered notions. “Skill” is a concept, just as “gifted”, “talented” or “high potential” is. We specify two types of concepts, the abstract concept and the operational concept:

• – the abstract concept, like an “object” of thought, is not intended to favor a concrete application, nor to understand an observable principle; it explains a “state” or “phenomenon” through the use of a sum of ideas. Its modality is explanatory (explicare), in other words, it poses knowledge on a situation: what to do, say, understand (intelligibility) and know. This model responds to the “what it is”, the “what”. The explanation places the risk of locking up the “reality” in a decorated signifier of said reality. This is what we observe in the field of talents, many abstract concepts using many words (superlatives, adverbs, qualifiers), but few favor a factual (and therefore scientific) observation of what is called “talent”;
• – the (functional) operational concept is constructed from an explanation modality, that is, one which begins with a situation to make useful knowledge (utilis) visible and available. For example, let us take two operational concepts developed by François Jullien: Les transformations silencieuses [JUL 09d] and La propension des choses [JUL 92]. The latter, enriched by a tension between Chinese and Western thought, explains modus operandi, complex principles, without locking the reader in. Through the use of simple examples, precise (unambiguous) semantics, Jullien makes accessible what words can “show” to the mind. It is from this “between” one another that the operational concept is realized; in other words, it becomes effective. Our book proposes theory and operational concepts that are useful for understanding (inherent in observation) and practicing in a positive way, that is, so that the result achieved, in relation to the expected one, is close and/or acceptable.

The first part aims to clarify what the word “talent” implies as active and observable principles: there is “talent” only if there is something observable. We will use Sino-Western material for this purpose. Hence, the use of Chinese thought (its substance) will share the place occupied by Western thought (its substance) in our work equally. In order to enable the reader to understand the book, its usefulness and its purpose, we propose specifying the method and the rules that we intend to follow:

• – etymology: clarifying the etymology allows us to understand where we pose our thinking (paradigm) as well as our thought. Although Détienne can rightly point out that etymology is not infallible, it makes it possible to specify from where one thinks and how the use of an initial term can be modified and transformed over several hundred years. In the Introduction necessaire to the work Vocabulaire de la langue française [NOD 36], we can read: “Etymology, following the roots of its name, is the truth of the language; and one can wonder what interest men have found in tracing more and more back to the origins of their word, in order to become aware of this mystery that they will never know. Etymology, the reason of language, has therefore necessarily occupied good minds, and its study has so many attractions for inventive and curious intelligences, that it is not surprising that it has misplaced many of them”. It is therefore important not to be fooled by a written language whose principle is to think and abstract by using semiotic ideas and principles (signs and meaning);
• – Chinese and Pinyin characters (Grand RICCI): our transdisciplinary and transcultural work calls on Chinese characters to understand the cultural gap necessary to re-create our evidence and certainties. We relied, to a large extent, on the Grand dictionnaire RICCI de la Langue Chinoise [RIC 01] to understand the accuracy and history of Chinese characters. For the notion of che (situation potential), both shi and che characters will be used;
• – tables (structure): our tables are intended to summarize the notions that may require long development. For paintings referring to the Chinese language, we will specify the pinyin, the wade (the Romanization), then the character;
• – method: the method of writing is explicit; in other words, it seeks to make the “evidence” contained visible in everyday ideas and words. It is meant to be figurative, that is, it makes images of reality accessible to the mind; thus, we may not “understand everything”, but we can perceive what is said. We will therefore use (very) few abstract concepts, but many (functional) operational concepts. This book can be read as the reader wishes. If the theoretical and epistemological aspect is “discouraging”, although it seems fundamental to us to develop strong skills, it will be possible to directly go to the parts that interest the practitioner (the field person). Theory (theoria), is what the researcher (traveler) constructs and elaborates from travel and experimentation. We point out, however, that many rules of writing are addressed in the first part of our work, for example, the et in italics which refers to the Chinese particle “er”. A large part of the book (about 70%) is theoretical – therefore practical – but the practitioner, familiar with the tool and method, may think – wrongly – that it is useless. Regardless of the discipline, the foundations are essential for learning to work with precision. They are so as not to let themselves be invaded by concepts or tools, mistakes in skills and knowledge. Hence, the second part of the book is devoted to a concrete investigation of natural operating methods, then to their possible applications and treatment in companies;

• – glossary: we present a collection of notions and functional concepts (explicated) to understand the “universe” related to the observation, evaluation and potential of “talents”;
• – rules of writing: 1) we often correlate two verbs separated by a hyphen to bring nuance and dynamism to the advanced idea that one word alone may not have. For example, the viewing-scanning pair implies that in the gesture activity inherent to viewing, scanning indicates a sustained and localized attention stemming from a wider movement. Thus, instead of writing, “it will be necessary, in the viewing process, to favor scanning, that is, the way in which the gaze lingers, stares, unfolds the sequence in progress”, we note viewing-scanning; 2) we regularly specify the Greek, Latin and Chinese terms in brackets. In doing so, we specify the first signifier¹ to which we refer in the idea set out above; 3) we often punctuate our sentences with brackets in which we insert, specify and add a short development. With this choice, we want to avoid footnotes as much as possible. Readers’ preferences vary. For this work, we have chosen to reintegrate the subject as much as possible in the text; 4) the use of italics is intended to underline a specific meaning. Thus, when between is in italics, it specifies that we support the concept and the dynamic principle to which it refers and it is not just a word laid down to organize our sentence; 5) we will often write the word “talent” in quotation marks in order to keep in mind that the latter is a concept, not a reality. The same goes for “intelligence”; 6) we might use the page notes to specify a reference or an aspect to be developed and for which the relevance in the text does not seem to be useful to us.

1.1.3. What is true is not necessarily real

NOTE.– Just because a speech is true does not mean that it expresses reality.

It is a rule of scientific thought here; indeed, if science, as Peter Medawarest says, is “essentially an imaginative incursion into what might be true” (in [RAM 05, p. 9], it will ask for clarification of speculation, assumptions and predictions that can be verified through experimentation and observation; it should also – it forgets it sometimes – remember in what language it develops its theories and truths. Speaking of “experimentation”, our experience leads us to say that it “isolates” the person from a process which, as a matter of principle, is part of a much broader temporality. Therefore, there is a big difference between talking about experimentation in the laboratory and starting from real and natural situations as a principle of experimentation. While physical (Euclidean) principles are certainly replicable, the same cannot be said of operating procedures, whose key principle is adaptation to situations. A laboratory experiment must be confined to the mind (culture) of those who conduct it. Hence, knowing where we think and how we think seems to be a key principle to preserve vigilance and humility to us, in order to avoid the pretense of “knowing” what a talent “is”, thus referring to this intellectual atrophy generated by the inbreeding of ideas and models (becoming milestones and ideologies).

So what promise does this book make, and what does it propose?

This book promises to provide the reader with theoretical subject matter and a method that is applicable and conducive to the acquisition of “basic” knowledge and skills for assessing and updating “talents”. This work aims to avoid any “psychomorphic” diversions. It will remain in the factual and operative field. This book combines two ambitions. The first, organized in the first part, is to explain complex principles inherent in the concept of “talent”. This will be done through scientific and practical work, developed over the last 13 years. The second, in part two, is to propose a rich resource of examples, and the method whose use and utility make it possible to observe–perceive and assess–value what we now call “talent”. We say “now” because we will use the acronym MO.O.N. (Modus Operandi Occurring (Operating) Naturally), more suited to the observation principle and expected accuracy. This work is pragmatic – in the sense of William James – that is, the point of entry is the action and not intelligible knowledge. Let us recall his comment on pragmatism: “its principle is that an object is never the pure object of a speculative conception, but first engaged in human action” [JAM 96, p. 31]. However, rather than “action”, we prefer the term process (in the Chinese sense), because it implies a process as well as a specific operating principle. Non-action (wuwei), as an efficient principle, is the active process (in the Chinese sense of process) through which actualization can deploy. This is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.

The second part, after having described the natural operating modes (MO.O.N.) in detail, otherwise known as “talents” or “forms of intelligence” (Gardner), proposes an explanation of the observable capacities and principles of the said operating modes. Every MO.O.N. is detailed by taking, as examples, well-known personalities, people and professionals, contemporary or past, but also animals and plants whose observation and evaluation have provided us with an “acceptable” study material, in other words, material that can be used as a coherent study for our current project.

In addition, the second part presents a subject that makes it possible to work and train the skills of observation, evaluation and actualization of “talents” and “potential” in companies. Based on the basics laid out in the first part, it is easy to use this material to explore and present useful methodology in terms of “talent development”. This second part proposes useful rules and methods for: writing a “performance sheet” (TalentAbility), evaluating people in situations, preparing the recruitment of a person with the required abilities/skills, thinking about the potential of talents in the company, etc.

We point out that this work, the result of a desire for transdisciplinary and transcultural research and practice, has led us to produce unconventional work. Indeed, language, concepts and theory itself are set apart from (and not in contrast to) the “classics”. Professionals like to point out on social networks, most often quoting Einstein, “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”. This book will take this saying literally. Thus, while wanting to remain understandable, we make it clear that the semantics and concepts used require special attention when they deviate from conventional concepts. We cannot help but think of Nodier and Ackermann’s comments [NOD 36] about the moment when languages no longer become richer because of the rational boundaries determined by the (possible) limits of our intelligence.

We remember an exchange with Jean-Charles Pomerol, as we discussed the possibility of this work at the end of 2015; during lunch, he said to us: “the more of an expert you are, the more you make mistakes with confidence”. This spontaneous sentence aims to remind us that our (Western) knowledge is, above all, hypotheses about the world; hence, everything we are going to say is a priori true, but nothing proves that it is real.

Finally, can we emphasize that our ambidextrous ability, that is, as both a manager and a researcher, leads us to apply and practice the principles discussed in this book on a daily basis within our company and those of our clients. It is therefore acceptable to say that every aspect of this book is a daily practice with measurable and assessable evidence.

1.2.1. Is Western talent worth it in China?

What is a talent? This is the question that this book will not ask. The reason for this is simple: conditioned by a model of thought driven by reason (logos) and knowledge (episteme-logismos), we will soon be caught up in a bottleneck posed by the evidence of our language, that is, what is hidden between phonemes and sounds, is not/no longer thought of, but explained (explicare), like an iron that flattens the folds of a shirt. By systematically affixing concepts, neologisms, categorical errors and a few convenient translations, the explanation flattens out the “wrinkles” of complexity. In addition, undertaking a question of this type follows on with the assumption that the ensuing answer will be the definition, yet we will see in section 2.3.4 (defining the definition), as we attempt to develop a definition of the word talent for multicultural and multidisciplinary use, that defining a definition requires method:

“It must be acknowledged that what is meant by “definition” is already far from clear [...] Do we even know what is defined by a definition? Is it one thing, one word, one concept? [...] A definition cannot be what it defines; it cannot have properties, effects, flavor and aura!” [POU 07, pp. 9–10].

NOTE.– The word as much as the concept of “talent”, subjected to ill thoughts, which leads to the simplification of the thought denounced by Morin in his Ethic of thought, and this by the immoderate use of a psychomorphism of ideas, reduces the fruitful resource that this term offers. The question of what a talent is can only lead to an answer produced by the semantic and conceptual edifice resulting from our culture. Thus, the word “talent”, reduced and simplified by a certain “erosion” of primary sources of Greek thought, generates so many “opinions” on the issues induced by the classical question: what is “that”?

Everything is said (a priori), since one knows little or no history of the word since antiquity to the present day (it seems). However, the desired scientific approach for this book cannot be initiated by “what is” comfortable, but rather by what can we observe when the word talent is used. What happens so that the result is worth being called “talent”? In what time-space, what the Chinese call shi-wei (time-position), does the underlying process of “talent” unfold? Where does what is called “talent” come from; from near, far, high, low, an angle? Is what we call “talent” in the West of the same worth in China? China, which invented neither philosophy (in the Greek sense), nor logos, nor mathesis (not even in the ancient treatise of The Nine Chapters), nor the soul (psuchê), let alone the mind (nous) or the beautiful. Even the concept of intelligence did not germinate, and if there is a similar character (ling, 靈), its content has “nothing to do with it”. To begin the hypothesis of an issue that makes it possible to apprehend “talent” in companies, it is first necessary to remember from where we think. How do we think? How do we think we look at it when, in fact, most of the time we “see” through our ideas (idein)? For if everything that is written on talent seems “true” – always in the Greek sense, aletheia – justified by this convenient term of “science”, nothing proves that it is real, let us emphasize again. If we want to define a word in a dynamic sense, then it is necessary to explain what it refers to in an observable and operational way (what we will be led to achieve).

Admittedly, the beginning may appear “rough”, but it does situate the degree of discipline that we have imposed on ourselves over the past 13 years, in order to develop an acceptable theoretical hypothesis concerning an approach to the actualization of “talents” in the business world, as well as in all areas where the word “talent” may prove useful (utilis) or be identified.

1.2.2. Deconstructing: laying down the stones of the edifice one by one

For 13 years, our approach has been based on scientific and practical heterotopy. By heterotopy (Foucault), it is necessary to understand we mean some place (location) where we can operate and think of ways of practicing distanced from our own. In Nepal, just as in China, the concept of Being does not exist (in the ontological sense); hence, we went there to encounter-explore this “distance” in this thinking, in order to reshape our Western evidence.

These physical and intellectual journeys lead us, for this work, to deconstruct the “evidence of thoughts”, those to which we no longer think of anymore and which by comfort, and sometimes by laziness, lead us to “hear ourselves” implicitly: it is not necessary that we repeat what you and I already know since, overall and at its “core”, we agree.

By deconstructing, it is necessary to understand not “destruction”, but rather the renewal of what exists by an attentive and patient observation and study of it. We underline the nuance: indeed, “destroy” refers to a brutal, violent and immediate action. “Destroy” aims to eliminate in a definitive way, to turn to “dust” with radical intention, old by new, trees by concrete, flexibility by requirement, etc. In destruction, there is the intention to erase – and consequently forget/no longer remember – which leads the mind, the memory, to forget with disconcerting speed: “what was it like again?” Destruction erases as much as it dissolves with a flick of the wrist (disappears quickly). It is indifferent to how long it took for this antique to be made, stone by stone. The former “beautiful” is considered outdated, useless, a has been. We see it, but we do not look at it anymore.

NOTE.– Deconstruction is not destruction. It works patiently the opposite way. It starts from the simple assumption that there is usefulness in the old. Deconstructing makes it possible to revist by reverse-process the path taken by the first builders. In deconstruction, there is a form of archaeology, a way of working between the stones, an ancestral way of operating, an ancient metis – this assurance at a glance (eustochia), as much as this dexterity of the gesture (euchéreia) that one acquires after so many repetitions, adjustments and memorization. Deconstruction suggests recovery, as it can still be used for another purpose. Destruction crumbles to dust what exists, then throws rubble where deconstruction carefully organizes, and cooperates between old and new, useful and necessary.

This is our approach, deconstructing and not destroying. To deconstruct the process by which “talent” has become this evidence that (almost) no one thinks about anymore, in order to renew the word and its practical use (how is it used to assess/observe?). So there is not the destruction of existing models, but a specific process to make the “apparent” edifice visible.

Such work will prevent us from slipping into the slope of psychomorphism, which, following the example of anthropomorphism as defined by Leibniz, the “tendency to study, describe, consider any phenomenon in human terms” (1710), is the tendency to study, describe and consider any human, animal or even botanical activity through the prism of Being. Psychomorphism has become a cultural phenomenon of thought that is omnipresent in the literature (regardless of its format: paper, digital). This model aims to pass through the (conceptual) filter of Being all human activity by assigning multiple superlatives, adverbs, neologisms and qualifiers whose categorical family is the ontology (science of Being) to it. We can perceive an example of this by taking an excerpt from Siaud-Facchin’s words when the ““lessons of elementary logic” are evoked to summarize the principles of the gifted: 1) knowing who you are is a prerequisite to understanding what one becomes. This is the basis of being gifted; 2) to be a gifted adult is to live with a personality built on atypical forms of intellectual and atypical functioning. To know them is to have the possibility of living in self-consciousness; [...] 4) a gifted child will become... a gifted adult [...]; 6) a gifted child can become an adult of remarkable talent. Or not. There is no mandatory cause in either direction. We all have our own way. What matters is that there is a path” [SIA 08, p. 71]. Let us continue with the concrete example of Temple Grandin, an autistic individual, when in her book, Ma vie d’autiste, she writes: “As a child, instead of psychotherapy, I should have benefited more from speech therapy sessions. Exercising with recordings of my voice that I would have listened to again would have been more useful in order to improve my social life, than to delve into my psyche in search of dark secrets. I wish one of these psychologists would have told me that I had a voice problem rather than worry about my self [...]” [GRA 00, p. 123]. It is not a question of criticizing the contribution of psychotherapeutic discipline, but of emphasizing the tendency to systematize this way of thinking about all human “problems”.

NOTE.– If the big family of psychology turns out to be a plausible option for certain problems of Being, it cannot be the systematic entry to the human being.

1.2.3. Our language shapes our way of “seeing” “talent”

When we want to evoke what “intelligence” and “emotion” are, our language system and our culture are filtered by ontological thought and all the disciplines that flow from it, as if we were looking at the world from a camera with a fisheye lens; regardless of the filters used, the world would always appear panoramic and warped by high distortion (180°). Our project intends to go back to a simple 50 mm lens in order to look at reality (what we call it) with a minimum amount of distortion.

As to the second part, it presents a methodological and practical resource. However, as soon as the model and concepts, that are themselves driven by new theoretical options, are proposed, semantics and the resulting principles can be “disruptive”, as they lead to a break off from a routine of thinking.

We remain close to the work of James (psychologist), Ramachandran (neuroscientific), Trewavas (botanist), Levi-Strauss (anthropologist and ethnologist) or even Lorentz (ethologist) and Jullien (sinologist, philosopher), to name but a few. Like these thinkers, we prefer to “analyze” observed (assessable and, where appropriate, measurable) and observable phenomena, rather than analyzing, through the use of semantic inventions (neologism and abstract conceptualization, leading to the addition of explanations that we pose on people) or abstract concepts, conceptual data in order to produce a general rule induced by an ideology of Being. It is here that our proximity to these researchers is strengthened, in fact, any attitude of thought aimed at generalizing data (derived from concepts) in order to produce a human norm or “abilities” to develop a moral and social model participates in strengthening all processes that generate intolerance, injustice, human tension and, consequently, stupidity. We specify that to evoke proximity with an author does not induce an integral sharing of his thoughts.

William James was influenced by Darwin, in particular by his theory that “natural selection has produced human organisms capable of making choices that run counter to the biological law of “survival of the fittest”” [MEU 10, p. 96]. These works, among others, like those of the botanist Anthony Trewavas, or the study of the Traités d’Oppien (Fishing Treaties), written by one of the first great naturalists (poet and philosopher), born in Sicily, have led us to hypothesize that the human species, as an “extension” of Nature, develops-actualizes a sum of natural operating modes enabling it to be useful, that is, to participate in producing a result which is favorable to an overall equilibrium. We have come to the conclusion that “intelligence”, as praised by the West, is more of an “accident” from humanity’s journey than a natural evolution in coherence with Nature.

In other words, in keeping with the principle of the diversity of living things, humans develop-actualize according to geographical and climatic configurations; the potential offered by these configurations are natural and useful operating methods capable of producing a favorable and positive result, with a “regulatory” vocation. Hence, we were able to observe and note, for example, that the Nepalese from the Himalayas possessed naturalistic and observational abilities, as well as a kinesthetic way of moving, specific and coherent with the Himalayan configuration (placement of the reservoir, legs and feet in such a way that limits stress to the body, a lower weight and height than Westerners, attention focused on tracking, when possible, traces of animal because of the natural choice of the latter preferring safety to economy).

The issue of “talent” seems to be more of a Western epiphenomenon, born in Europe (in Ancient Greece), but of a universal “truth”. Men are not equal before Mother Nature. It seems to have succeeded in deploying a principle of equity for humans, animals and plants. This has led us to hypothesize that every species develops a sum of unique skills-abilities enabling it to move, develop and participate in the global equilibrium in its own way, in the configuration in which it evolves.

Then one day, the species named Platypus came into existence... showing how “playful” Nature is.

The observation and evaluation of approximately 2000 people around the world, including the observation of animals and plants, have led us to distance ourselves from the idea of a unique “intelligence”. The study of the work of researcher Anthony Trewavas reinforces this premise. Although we depart from Gardner’s work in some respects, we nevertheless maintain a proximity to his theoretical postulate; in other words, the observable existence of several “forms of intelligence”, to take up his concept. Finally, these years of study led us to another hypothesis: researchers have theories of their natural operating mode(s). That would explain why there is so much variation and discussion on talent and intelligence issues. Freud could not produce what James thought, Einstein could not actualize what Newton proposed, Gardner could not theorize what Sternberg conceptualized, let alone the distance between Gardner and Piaget.

Our theoretical proposals and our methodological bias embody this hypothesis. Hence, we could not propose anything other than our theoretical tendency, despite the study of many other studied currents, because we are naturally “attracted” to what concerns the real and the operative. The “activities” of the mind that have fascinated Freud or Jung have never “spoken” to us (dreams and the unconscious neither emulate nor arouse any intellectual interest or attraction in us), just as mathematics remains a mystery to us (mysterium). We understand the usefulness of it, but we are unable to think as a “mathematician”. Any equation or notion that flows into the world of ideas, or rises to the rank of object(s) is, to us, the equivalent of falling into zero gravity without any possibility of support.

In this respect, we are closer – in the operating mode of the scientist (focused on reality through observation) – to the anthropologist, biologist, ethnologist and ethologist, than to the intelligible “thinker”, able to use an “object of thought” to extrapolate it to the world, regardless of its form or medium. We believe that this can be explained by the fact that the modes of operation, due to the principle of natural diversity, do not make any human being “equal” (Greek invention), but put them in a position of efficiency (utility-necessity) according to the terrain in which they evolve. It is this assumption, supported by a bundle of accumulated “proofs” during these years, which guided the writing of this book. We have arrived at the possible conclusion that the theoretical propositions from a large number of researchers are fundamentally true, or even “indisputable” – in terms of logos (reasoning-analysis). In fact, these propositions and affirmations are activated and produced by the correlation between these natural operating modes, the geo-climatic configuration in which they evolve most of their life, the whole of their potential coming to influence their MO.O.N., their different mnemonic and sensory abilities, the object of study/interest having attracted the said abilities-skills, and the cultural, social and family impregnation by and in which the said researchers have deployed.

In simple terms, although we do not share the same biases from Freud’s point of view, we think in absolute terms that everything he has produced is from his unquestionable (intelligible) point of view; hence, while he could not go into “our” field (of operation and evaluation), he also evokes it in his presentation of himself: “the analysis cannot say anything that sheds light on the problem of artistic gift, just as the updating of the means with which the artist works, that is, artistic technique, does not fall within his/her competence” [FRE 84, p. 1]. The same is true of Robert Sternberg’s biases about compartmentalized intelligence and his triarchic model. Although these, from the intelligible point of view, seem indisputable, we cannot go along with it for the same reasons that our fondness for Freud’s or Piaget’s work is weak.

The professionals of the company may (possibly) be astonished at the angle taken, but is not the company plural, entangled by and in the world, both multicultural and multidisciplinary? Is it not in mutation-transformation (continuous), or even diluted by a reality whose operating forces compel it to “adapt”? Do not companies – or rather the “big ones” – call on experts of all kinds to “see things differently”, to “take a step back”? It is in this step back (in the distanced sense) that our work presents itself to be realized.

1.2.4. Western side talent (remarkable), China side talent (appreciable)

The word talent belongs to those families of terms whose meaning seem so obvious, that it does not come to (almost) anyone’s mind to question it. In its common sense, talent refers to a set of remarkable abilities valued by a social body. This common assertion, accepted by the greatest number of people, is not a definition, but rather an idea that has been “socially” accepted since the beginning of the 17th Century (1624 to be precise). This period undertakes the twilight of the Renaissance, not as an “end”, but as the actualization of new artistic, scientific, literary and intellectual developments.

NOTE.– The evidence is what we no longer question, what we no longer think. It is the process by which an idea, a situation, a word dissolves into the model of cultural thought: talent, obviously, is “remarkable”. Thus, talent refers – in an equally obvious way – to the idea that the latter rhymes, in one way or another, with giftedness or any other equivalent concept: high potential, gifted, genius, brilliant, endowed, hyper-intelligence, hyperemotivity (HYPIE), hyperesthesia, etc., themselves leading in turn to the neologisms that make it possible to “identify” them, such as being skilled or talented.

Therefore, if we wanted to try to define the word talent, it would be “logical” and obvious to use classical questioning: “what is talent?”, “talent, what is that?”. This logic of thought could then unfold the intellectual spectrum elaborated by certain fields of psychology as it has been called since its semantic actualization in 1575 (psuchologia), itself organized and settled, just like this geological process that has been happening for more than 2000 years, by philosophy.

This semantic elaboration poses another obvious question, one from which we want to distance ourselves right now; to write “what is a talent?” alludes to the idea that talent is an “object” that can be defined by what is known (logos-logismos), what is definable, that is, a set of concepts, quantities or ideas from which it is possible to reify the word from the subject to which it relates: the person (their personality). Talent, then “object” (res), becomes a property of the person that can be organized, rationalized and explained by the use of a sum of intellectual models, a semantic construction, or a use of mathematics to “prove” the subject. Thus, there would be those who “have” talent, and those who “don’t” have it, or less. But the worst thing, it seems to us, is to elevate less widespread natural abilities, or simply less mobilized ones, to the rank of an “extraordinary”, a “formidable”, a “hyper-something”: “talent is a rare combination of these rare skills. Talent often refers to someone who brings together skills whose combination is not self-evident. He is the highly skilled technician with a very high level of diagnostic skills, who combines a great ability to listen and teach with his clients, he is an educational researcher, he is an excellent operational manager” write Dejoux and Thévenet [DEJ 15, p. 45]. The study of some literature on the topic of talent can show the Greek influence on the issue. For example, take the definition of talent proposed by Pierre Mirallès in his book Le management des talents: “talent = excellence + difference” [MIR 07, p. 130]. In addition to the ambition of elevating an (apparent) conceptual definition to the level of an equation, and this, through the use of mathematical signs, the author seems to us to be trapped by his logical model (logismos). He then justified his equation by referring to researchers such as Le Moigne [LEM 77]. Thus, he raises the word to the level of an object, and then, in order to “understand talent”, it is necessary to: “define an object, that is, what ‘is’ (from which it is constituted), what ‘becomes’ (its origin and destiny), and how it ‘works’ (what it does and how it does it)” [MIR 07, p. 131]. This modus operandi summarizes, as it seems to us, the way in which the Western mind works (and perhaps the French in particular), that is, through a logical-mathematical and linguistic tendency (abstract – conceptual – ideal). The reification of talent, justified by the “model”, can then deploy its “content” throughout the book.

Let us resume in summary: in antiquity, the word talent designated a unit of mass of an amphora, then a monetary value (bronze, silver and gold). Let us keep in mind that this great period saw the foundation of Western thought and the beginning of the founding philosophical trends organized. Plato extends Pythagoras, Thales and Solon (mediator, ambassador of Athenian political struggles and “man of the center”) to elaborate the principles relating to “perfection”, “method”, “mathematics”, “ideas” and “truth”. This conceptual whole helps to elaborate the foundations (cultural ground) of our culture: morality organized with the righteous and the good (agothos). It is also through him that the “leader is right” principle started – always active in companies and administrations – given that as an engineer, he knows (logismos-logos). The Laws of the Cosmos, the Laws of the City and the consolidation of the concept of Democracy promoted, among others, by Solon and Anaximander, the way in which the Greek language (alphasyllabary) organizes and “structures” the mind (the brain?) of the time, carried by the idea of a harmonious cosmos, a form of human wisdom (sophia) and a Truth (aletheia), unfolding in an irreversible manner. Let us keep in mind that we are at the dawn of the Olympian Gods, the very ones who offered their “chance” (virtu) or “misfortune” to humans. Soon Plato and Socrates, by their recurrent sarcasm and their demonstrationargument relating to Truth and Morality, supported by the “young” but powerful Greek Intelligence, would relay Homer, Odysseus, Mentor and the metis to “oblivion” by humiliating their last defender, Hippias. Moreover, in this space-time, “talent” – the monetary value – was evolving towards a conceptual transformation.

In a few centuries, when philosophers liberated the Man of the Gods of Olympus by offering him the power of Intelligence, thanks to the meticulous elaboration of autocracy (autos-kratos), that is, the all-powerful (kratos) mind (nous) concerning things, the monetary “value” of “talent”, by semiotic slip (of the signs), became the value of man (Being). It confirmed its “omnipotence”, but it also began to justify the differences between humans (races, religions, cultures, social origin, gender). From then on, there can be geniuses, “non-standard” people and “others” (general, average, “zero”, the rest). At this period, Aristotle the Moderate invented ontology (the Science of Being). This invention, combined with the ideas – now the “reality” – that man is all-powerful gives “talent” all the latitude to become a part of “self”, an inherent property of the person. Talent (thus) becomes “potential”. There is “in him” (self), something that can be activated, but on the condition of discovering it (this gift), on the condition of working on “oneself” (from a knowledgeable position), so that the knowledge acquired makes it possible to make it “visible” and “measurable” in the eyes of all.

It is through this skillful game that the religious category is offered (and not the metaphor), by way of a master who offers his servants “talents”, and then, sometime later, takes note of the use and gain that each one has made of it. This category implies that talent is given by the Other – hence the “gift” – that it is appropriate to use it and make it thrive, to incur the risk of being “bad” and being fully responsible for it (the guilt?).

NOTE.– In just over 1500 years, the monetary value became (by process) the human value. The translation as a semiotic principle is “remarkable” (the translation designates an analogical thought proceeding from individual to individual, unrelated to the initial rule. Transduction is insensitive to contradictions). Talent, as a monetary value, shackled to religious category and then sustained by the emergence of psychology (1575–1590), definitively consolidates, a priori, that man “has” talent, and, for some, that it is a “gift” received from a higher power.

This is how a historical process becomes a social “truth” for some people and a “science” for others, and sometimes a divine touch for the latter. We can say without irony that this is a rather “remarkable” intellectual coup. It is from the 17th Century onwards that the European “definitions”, or “etymological meanings” should we say, settle the concept with the principle/rule that talent would be a “particular ability in an activity appreciated by the social group”, or, in its absolute use, the idea that talent is a “remarkable ability in the artistic or intellectual field”.

The definition, as Pouivet points out, “cannot be what it defines; it cannot have properties, effects, flavor and aura!” [POU 07, pp. 9–10] it cannot be declarative or inductive, so to say “talent is ‘that’” is, by definition, a non-definition. The problem of these last two “meanings”, in addition to the transformation of the concept into Truth, is that it implies the obligation of an “other” for the “self” to “possess” talent. Without anyone (possessing a knowledgeable “authoritative” person) to see what could be achieved, who can say “I have” talent? The second definition is more boring. In fact, it idealizes the human being and attributes the possible possession of a (vertical) superiority from him towards others by some “gifts” or “abilities” making him gifted, brilliant, hyper, etc. By associating the phrase “remarkable”, not with its original meaning – commend (1376), a word used to describe a person who notices something when he or she stops looking at it – but with subjective value that implicitly implies “beautiful”, and then by rationalizing (by breaking down and dividing) the artistic aspect of the intellectual by the use of the “or”, the model in which enterprises but also education are locked in is finalized (eidos). However, few know it, but the word talent, in French, knows other “meanings”, for example: 1) avoir en talent, desire; 2) dire son talent, give one’s opinion; 3) faire son talent, to act at will.

Beginning this book with this process of explanation (bringing visibility to the implicit contents under/behind the words) allows us to shed light on the evidence, for which we will try to avoid any stagnation. The purpose of our book is not to talk about talent in companies through evidence, old models and daily clichés, nor will it be a question of “preaching” what talent is, nor will it be a question of speaking as if talent is “something” obvious. It is not. The purpose of this book is to deconstruct the meaning given by popularization, to find what it produces from an operative point of view. Therefore, we will not say: “the truth is, everyone has talent and you have to keep in mind that you have it, and the evidence is the latest scientific studies on the brain. It is by doing a thorough work on you, on yourself, that you will understand why you do not use the full potential of these talents. That is why you’re by definition singular, unique and wonderful”.

Our project is to visibly show and make available to the professionals of the company – and perhaps even outside of it – the way in which what we call talent shows, above all, a sum of initial conditions from which a result called “talent” begins, develops and is then actualized. Talent therefore does not exist as a reality. This word has known a semiotic evolution in the West since ancient times (its meaning and image). To quote Gardner‘s expression of intelligence, it is a useful fiction for naming what “speaks to us”, but that we cannot apprehend.

In Table 1.1, we propose to understand the conceptual evolution of the word since antiquity. This will then allow us to investigate its Chinese side.

Although it is easy to trace the historical thought of the term talent in Western history, it is quite different if you place yourself on the Chinese side. In fact, since the common ground is not (ontological) Being and consequently the number “one”, from which everything starts thanks to the power (kratos) of ideas, then the question of talent cannot be thought of in terms of “remarkable” or even in terms of the gift received from a “creator”. On the Western side, “talent” is an object of thought for which it becomes possible to do what seems “good” to us, and this, until there is something “poetic” about it. On the Chinese side, talent is neither an “object” nor a status, let alone the praise of an all-powerful (kratos) Being of the world. The question of talent, like intelligence (ling 靈, is imbued with a principle that is never far from the “path”, that is, the process of “things” (dong xi, East-West) by which the world becomes actualized, unfolds between Heaven (qian) and Earth (kun), between “mountain(s)-river(s)” (shan chuan). Man (the thousand beings), not having been decorated with the course of events, the sum of simple and compound characters approaching the notion of “talent” and “intelligence” implies nuances that escape our representations of Westerners. Hence, when a company wants to think of “talent” from an international (multicultural) point of view, but without abandoning its view of the West – its truth (aletheia) – on the one hand, it denies realities other than those which it poses on its own (and which suffocate it), and on the other hand, it dissolves the formidable potential (passary lyricism) at its “disposal”.

On the Chinese side, the concept of developing talents (zai zhi, 栽植) is inseparable from the principle by which a plant grows; which dynamically refers to the principle of non-action (wuwei): to no longer do, but so that nothing is done. The 才 cai character expresses talent not as a “gift”, but as a natural emergence. Hence, talent is inseparable from a natural talent that needs to emerge, or which, like the old swimmer observed by Confucius (see section 4.1.4), modernizes himself to become skilled in a configuration where necessity shapes the said operational mode. Back to the compound character 才識 (cai zhi). It refers to the penetration of the mind and clairvoyance, principles for which a Western proximity is less observable nowadays, except in ancient Greece with the metis, and, in particular, the agchínoia (the way in which things are deeply anchored in the “mind”, in order to ward off events), itself correlated with the notion of eustochia (the certainty of the glance). 才識 does not propose clues relating to Intelligence “G”, itself supported by logos and mathesis, but an ability to follow the course of events by the continuous impregnation (mnemonic, operational, situational, etc.) of the slightest roughness (indices, tendencies, correlations, process, etc.). But are these not the abilities expected of the “leader” of the company, the high potential? These specific operating modes, which are not found in an “isolated” part of the brain at a “T” moment, are combined in time and matured by the ability of conjecture (tekmairesthai, another operative ability that is inherent to the metis), so that the act matches the reality.

In Table 1.2, we briefly discuss some Chinese notions of “talent”. We say “briefly” because the nuances are such that all of them would be useless. However, understanding the gap between our cultures will enable us to make the best use of the contributions from each of them. This material will allow the professional to sharpen his gesture, since the latter claims to “develop” and “potentiate” talents.