Yesterday saw the launch of the Tomorrow’s Global Talent report at BT Tower – designed to kick-start a practical debate on how we can unleash ‘latent’ talent that sits, disengaged, inside and outside most organisations.

It’s an impressive vision, linking the issue of talent and sustainability in new ways: New types of talent will be needed for emerging industries, including ‘green’ technologies. New sources of talent will be uncovered, especially niche groups who don’t fit the traditional mould, don’t work traditional hours and may be located anywhere in the world. And new approaches to managing talent will also be needed, so people can “bring their whole selves to work” including their desire that their work should have a positive impact.

So far so good. But we should not underestimate the challenge of making this grand vision real ‘on the ground’ around the world. This was brought home to me shortly before the launch when I was speaking by phone with the head of Talent Management for one of India’s hugely impressive (and enormous) family-owned conglomerates.

They’re professionalising their approach to talent, he said, “using the GE approach”. He spoke with professional pride but evident personal discomfort. “We’re imposing a common approach across their diversified group, and introducing forced ranking for all, to drive out ‘over-liberal management’. This way, they will ensure they can bottom-slice the organisation each year and lose the losers.

Performance rating systems - especially forced ranking - are controversial and widely unpopular even in the West. Critics suggest that the more aggressive of these approaches lead some employees to cut corners, possibly contributing to some of the defence-contracting scandals that have plagued GE. Others point to Enron which was held up as a role model of McKinseyesque performance management that focused on an organisation of stars, rather than a star organisation. More recently the issue of executive pay in the financial sector has again put the spotlight on the individualistic ‘star’ approach (as this FT article illustrates).

The problem is, there are few solutions that companies can take “off the shelf” to achieve sustainable high performance. It requires a thoughtful approach to creating a culture of performance and development, rather than copying GE.

So I sincerely hope we can encourage companies in India, China and elsewhere to stop copying Western practices and do the hard work needed to build approaches that make the most of the strengths of their less individualistic cultures: For example, by focusing on the kind of conversations that get results, and the team-based context in which great performance occurs.

Jonathan Winter is Director of The Career Innovation Group and co-author of The Conversation Gap.