Winning the Talent Wars

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Summary: What a great management tool!
Review: "This is a fun book to read. With so many interesting and real-life examples, I found myself reading some sections of the book over and over again. What separates this book from others, is that it is not filled with silly platitudes or quick fixes...instead, Winning the Talent Wars is savvy and it offers strategies that have been proven in the trenches. Our management team will definitely benefit from this book!"

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Summary: This opened my mind
Review: I read Winning the Talent Wars in one evening... I couldn't put it down. At first I was taken aback, a little scared... I think Tulgan will make a lot of people out there a little nervous. The workplace is changing and Presidents, CEOs, owners and managers alike need to open their eyes. Winning the Talent Wars paints a realistic picture of the new economy utilizing a real insider's point of view. It's as if Tulgan has tapped into the minds of the most forward thinking in corporate America; he's coined the new slogan for every major player in this crazy economy, "...be a change leader".

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Summary: Curious about the "other side"
Review: I would recommend this book to managers and employees alike. A lot of the changes in the workplace today, this book sheds light on in a whole new way. Each chapter is structured in a similar way. Each one starts out with a question, actually two questions: The question everybody is asking (the wrong question) and the question you should be asking. So from the beginning of each chapter, you are thinking about the problem in a new way already. Then, right away, there is an anecdote at the beginning of each chapter and each anecdote makes you think. Then you are already into the chapter and you get into the nuts and bolts. It seems like the book is always one step ahead of you as you are reading. The book anticipates questions as they arise and answers them. It's a good balance between inspiration, nuts and bolts how to, and good anecdotes.

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Summary: Curious about the "other side"
Review: I'm an educator who teaches in various independent and unconventional settings.I read Winning the Talent Wars because I loved Work This Way, and I wanted to hear what Tulgan was saying to "the other side"-- the managers and administrators. My first reaction to Tulgan's strategies for managers was to think, "I want to work for someone who's taken one of these seminars!" My second reaction was to approach my administrator about some changes I wanted to make, and I was well-armed with logical reasons from this book. Tulgan's style is immensely readable, and I wish I could quote some of his common sense and good humor, but I showed the book to a friend of mine who's in management; he won't stop reading it and won't give it back. Which is, I guess, another recommendation in itself.

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Summary: The Shaman Speaks
Review: If any written word can shake corporate America's middle management from its "do it the way it's always been done" stupor, "Winning the Talent Wars" is that word.

Tulgan recognizes the intertwined realities of a new workforce psyche, the technology-driven acceleration of information flow and the intense competition for knowledge resources. Unlike other authors attempting to demystify this subject, Tulgan is not content with a colorful analysis of these forces. He offers a host of innovative "rubber meets the road" techniques that can be applied almost immediately with little or no cost. Tulgan's book is a recipe for change, but the ingredient list within may be too tough for some middle managers to stomach. If you want to be a new economy chef, internalize this book. If you are a burger-flipper, don't even bother.

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Summary: Change is coming
Review: In Good to Great, Jim Collins and his research associates learned that the great companies "...first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats -- and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage 'People are the most important asset' turned out to be wrong. People are not [italics] your most important asset. The right [italics] people are."

The right people share the same values and, together, sustain their organization's commitment to those values. If involved in their organization's recruiting and interviewing process, as they should be, they will help to ensure that the right people will be hired (i.e. allowed on the "bus"). Obviously it is important to get talent and task in proper alignment. It is equally important to keep an organization's values in proper alignment with its objective.

Tulgan's important book is even more relevant and more valuable now than it was when first published about two years ago. As its subtitle correctly indicates, he explains "how to manage and compete in the high-tech, high-speed, knowledge-based, superfluid economy." That is to say, he wrote the book for decision-makers in all organizations (regardless of size or nature) to help them determine HOW to get "the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats"...and then keep them there.

All of the companies which Tulgan discusses (e.g. Johnson & Johnson and J.P. Morgan Chase) demonstrate one of Tulgan's core concepts: "In the new economy, every term of employment -- schedules, location, assignments, coworkers, pay, and more -- will be negotiation, whether you like it or not. The most valuable talent will have the most negotiating power. Every employment relationship will last exactly as long as the terms are agreeable to all parties." There is a new set of organizing principles for employing people in the new economy:

' Talent is the show.

' Staff the work, not the jobs.

' Pay for performance, and nothing else.

' Turn managers into coaches.

' Train for the mission, not for the long haul.

' Create as many career paths as you have people.

Tulgan devotes a separate chapter to each of these principles, explaining with meticulous care how to apply each to his reader's specific business situation. Note how these principles apply to any organization which competes for available talent and then is challenged to keep its best people who, more easily now more than ever before, can leave the "bus" whenever and wherever they wish. This situation is as common among the great companies whom Collins discusses as it is among the local merchants from whom we purchase various products and services.

Extensive research indicates that only one in 28-30 dissatisfied customers ever complains to the provider of the given product or service. All others simply never do business with that provider again...while continuing to express their dissatisfaction to family members, friends, and business associates. More often than not, customer dissatisfaction is the result of an unpleasant personal experience rather than because of a product defect. To extend Collins' metaphor, customers are among the "passengers" and can also get off the "bus" whenever and wherever they wish. Much has been written about the power of BUZZ (i.e. word-of-mouth) and the importance of creating "customer evangelists." From my perspective, winning the "talent war" is essential to winning the competition for customer's repeat business. A careful implementation of the strategies and tactics which Tulgan recommends in this book will help to achieve that ultimate objective.

Otherwise, not having "the right people on the bus...and in the right place," the "bus" will either never reach its destination or in the highly unlikely event that it does so, arrive with few (if any) "passengers" aboard.

Rating:
Summary: Winning the Talent Wars is great
Review: My whole career I've experienced managers who didn't care and treated their subordinates like peons. If I knew years ago about free agents like I know now, I would've been in a much better position to make a positive career move. Thanks to the author I now know how to act as a free agent and I intend to market myself in an effective way in the year 2001. Thanks again to Bruce Tulgan for a great book. I highly recommend it.

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Summary: HARDCOVER version of Tulgan's workplace classic
Review: The book vividly described the fundamental shift in employer-employee relationship in new economy. This is not something new by now, and concepts like performance-based rewards, knowledge management have been talked a lot already.

But if you did not pay much attention at human resource (HR) matters before, and want to have a general overview of recent HR concepts and practices, this book shall still help you. There are also interesting debates like instrinic vs. extrinsic values.

As an employee, this book can help you to understand better the background of some HR policies. For example, you may understand and get convinced why managers are more accommodating to "talents" demands. It can convince you to be more realistic about the old career ladder model

There are plenty of companies examples.

Rating:
Summary: Change is coming
Review: This is a no none sense view of precious talent. Tulgan does an excellent job of showing managers don't have to just let their talent walk out the door. Sometimes the solution to keeping good people is a simple change of schedule of 30 to 60 minutes. This book has good ideas that don't cost money!