Engaging people starts with an organisation’s culture, values and leadership, it does not depend on an individual’s educational or professional background. The current education system rewards people on their ability to learn, assimilate and feedback. We have absolutely no evidence that the best people to lead organisations in the future are those who have firsts from leading universities. Success in these terms tells us nothing about a person’s empathy with the world, nothing about their capability to work with people and motivate people. But currently there is no entry system to the world of work unless you conform to a certain model. We constantly sift different people out when we should be finding ways of sifting them in, otherwise we risk losing their potential and our competitive advantage. In the future talent must focus not just on developing products and services but developing an empathy for the environment in which they will be delivered, for example developing products that flourish in a lean energy economy. This will create the value economy that will supersede the so called knowledge economy: how can we build an economy on something that is ubiquitous and free?

HR people like me often talk a lot of nonsense about wanting to recruit the 'best' people, when half the time we mean the most convenient people, those who look like the ones we already employ, because we know how to attract, recruit, motivate and reward them. BT looks outside the organisation in order to extend the search for suitable employees beyond the conventional or the convenient. We reach out to new communities of potential workers even if they don't always have a conventional qualification. At BT we are creating eco-systems aligned to communities furthest away from the labour market through which we are able to reach directly in to many, often ignored, communities whose talent has been overlooked for too long. Difference is often hard to accommodate, hard to listen to but the unique perspectives it offers create value. Historically, many employers have ignored people who do not conform to their image of the perfect employee. Many of BT's people and leaders come from unconventional sources, yet everyday they bring their unique experience of the world to help us understand our customers better. By reaching out in this way and making BT more accessible to this new talent we believe we are making our organisation stronger now and for the future.

There is an assumption that some people are talented, but we have no single global definition of talent, so what on earth do we mean when we search for talent on a global scale? I believe the simplest definition is someone who is able to acquire, assimilate and re-use skills to create engagement and value. At the moment skill is seen as a one-dimensional thing limited by whether you have a degree or an MBA. In the new context it is even more essential that the skills and credentials we value are not simply academic but also about life skills and our ability to interact positively with colleagues, customers, neighbours and the environment in which we live.

Leadership is the magic product that develops when skills, talent and engagement are aligned. When this happens you create a workforce that is cheerfully pro-active, that has a sense of belief in what it does, commitment to the goals of the organisation and empathy with customers. At BT we understand leadership doesn't just happen at the top of an organisation, it happens at every level, every day, leadership is common practice. What is rare is inspirational leadership. To have a truly engaged and motivated workforce we must also have inspirational and inspired followers each of whom believe they are vital to the success of the organisation and an important part of their communities. This is the new context for business and for talent. It is also about being able to lead across cultures. Already, at any one time up to 55% of BT's workforce is serving a customer or colleague from a totally different background.

Sustainability has to be the key to the wheel, talented people engage their peers so that we see much more rapid development and a true meritocracy where value is created through the coming together of free ideas. This is the critical outcome for organisations of the future and it requires a fundamentally different vision of talent and business outcomes.

Caroline Waters is the Director of People and Policy, BT