Latest / Edan Haddock - Total Talent / Stop Policing Talent. Start Empowering It

Transcript

Stop Policing Talent. Start Empowering It · Edan Haddock - Total Talent

• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's begin 2026.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, and welcome back to Eden Haddock Total Talent.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Eden Haddock, your host.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am Head of Talent and People Experience at Movember.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And today Today feels different.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Today feels a little bit like walking onto a stage, plugging in the guitar, hearing that low hum through the amp before that first note is played.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: That moment, that moment where nothing has happened yet.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: 2026, I'm back.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing has happened yet, then everything is about to.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because today I want to talk about something that's been sitting inside me for a while.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Something I've been watching.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Something I've been feeling.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Something that doesn't quite sit right.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, if I'm being honest, it's been bothering me.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not in an angry way, but in a protective way.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because I love this industry.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love talent.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love the people in it.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I love the creators, the builders, the experimenters, the weird ones, the brave ones.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: The ones trying things without knowing if if those things will work.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the magic lives.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel that's where talent has always lived.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not in perfection, but in courage.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But something has changed.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk about it.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think we are drifting quietly, subtly, away from courage and towards something else.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Something safer, something quieter, something blander.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I want to talk about critique.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And why I believe we have too much of it, particularly now.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know something about rock and roll?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was never built by critics.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Was built by misfits.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: By people who didn't know the rules.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: By people who broke the rules.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: By people who didn't ask permission.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, nobody audited Jimi Hendrix's guitar technique.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody mystery shopped David Bowie's stage presence.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: No one ranked where the Nirvana's sounder, you know, sound aligned with best practice, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: These are game changers.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: These are fearless musicians.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: They just played.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: They created.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: They experimented.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: They failed.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: They learned.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: They evolved.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly how talent should work.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But somewhere along the way, we seem to have forgotten that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Over the past few years, I've watched something emerge: a pattern, a behavior, a shift.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that shift, it has been away from building and towards auditing.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Away from experimenting and toward critiquing.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: If I look right now, you know, we have career-side audits happening.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have mystery shopping of candidate journeys.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have public scoring of recruitment processes.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have public rankings of HR tech.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing public critiques of EVP videos.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing public critiques of employer brands.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And again, on the surface, this can look like progress.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like improvement.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like raising the bar.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But underneath something more dangerous is happening.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: We are creating fear.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And not loud fear.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're creating what I feel is quiet fear.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of fear that makes someone think, maybe we shouldn't try that.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we shouldn't launch this yet.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not good enough.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe someone will critique it.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when fear enters, creativity leaves.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you a story.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because Movember's EVP, do good work for Movember?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was never designed to win awards.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was designed to tell the truth.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't sit in a room asking, what will thought leaders approve of?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We asked, what is real here?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: What does it feel like to work here?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: What does it actually feel like?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not the polished version, not the fantasy version, the real version, the messy version, the human version.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what emerged was something authentic.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's connecting.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not perfect.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not engineered.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not optimized for approval.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's optimized for truth.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that truth is resonating.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because truth always resonates.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are three words that quietly damage talent more than anything else.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Best practice says.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll repeat it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Best practice says one more time.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Best practice says.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Best practice according to who?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Based on what?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: In what context?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: For what organization?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: With what culture?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: With what leadership?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: With what reality?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Best practice is not universal.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is contextual.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: It is local.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it is human.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Your EVP does not need to be perfect.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be honest.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Honest.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: If your EVP is filmed on an iPhone when you're translating to employer branding, but it's real, it will outperform something that is filmed on a high-quality camera that feels fake.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because look, let's face it, we know these candidates are not stupid.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: They can feel truth.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: They can smell performance.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: They know the difference.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Always have, always will.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the best albums ever made, they were not perfect, right?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Looping it back to musicians.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They were human.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: They had imperfections.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Breath between lyrics, fingers sliding on the strings, voices cracking.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's what made them real.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what made them connect.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And really, talent works exactly the same way.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: We need to think about that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: We need to think about the artists, the creators.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there really only are two groups you need to listen to.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's really simple.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your people and your candidates.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not thought leaders, not rankings, not what everyone else is doing, not what your competitors are doing.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not auditors.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's your people, your candidates.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because they live your reality.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: They experience your truth.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: They know what works.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: They know what doesn't.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Survey them.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to them.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to them.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where your signal lives, right?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is just noise.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you need to focus.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And start small and listen and evolve and grow.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do not wait to see best practice and to roll out your version of best practice because it will fail.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: But failure.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love failure.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I always have.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Failure is not the enemy.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Failure is rehearsal.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Failure is signal.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Failure is growth.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every great band had bad gigs.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Every great album has rough demos.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Every great talent function has experiments that didn't work.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not weakness, that's progress.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So bringing that back to waiting for best practice and trying to have perfection before you go to market, that's going to fail anyway.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So fail in an authentic way, fail small and evolve and grow and bring out that authenticity.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: The critique economy teaches you to avoid failure.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But avoiding failure means avoiding growth and it leads to failure.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: You see where I'm going?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then the real risk at the end of the day isn't even failure, right?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: The real risk is becoming bland.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because when organizations become afraid of critique, they copy each other.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: They look the same, sound the same, feel the same.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when everyone looks the same, nobody stands out.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when nobody stands out, talent becomes invisible.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want that to happen.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: So build like nobody is watching.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's as simple as that.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you do, your candidate experience, your career's website, the technology stack that you select, and select on a short contract experiment, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't lock yourself into anything.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to remember that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Build like nobody is watching.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need permission.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need approval.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need validation.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: You only need truth.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Your truth.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your people's truth.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your candidates' truth.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Build from there.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Experiment from there.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Fail from there.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Learn from there.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because talent, like rock and roll, was never meant to be safe.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was meant to be real.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And real, quite frankly, real is enough.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is Eden Haddock.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me again.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And please join the Eden Haddock Total Talent community on Rubberband.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: The link is embedded into this podcast episode.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to seeing you next time.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Stay real.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Fail hard.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.