The War for Talent

Rating:
Summary: The War For Talent Is About to Begin In Earnest
Review: The War for Talent is a great book for the leaders of an organization to read. Why? They are the ones who can affect the culture of the organization. Most workers, even A Players, do not have the power to drive cultural change.

As a contract recruiter (www.recruiterguy.com), when I go into a company for the first time, I interview the managers and ask them, in their view, "Why would a top performer want to work for this company, in this position, for you?" As the competition for talent begins to gain steam over the next few months, companies who do a better job of addressing the needs of the Gen X'ers will find themselves in the enviable position of attracting the replacements to the Baby Boomers who are retiring or otherwise leaving the workplace. Sure there is still a surplus of workers as a result of the recession. However, companies who do not have a recruitment strategy will soon find themselves spending much more money to attract the best talent.

In The War For Talent, the authors used specific examples of companies who had either a recruiting or attrition problem and then solved it by improving their Employee Value Proposition (EVP). For instance, SunTrust had a problem where they were losing 46% of their branch employees in their Publix supermarket branches in Georgia and 55% of their high performers. The book discusses the steps they took to dramatically lower their attrition rate in a relatively short time.

Unfortunately for the book, it came out just as Enron was spinning into the ground. Therefore, some people have focused more on the Enron EVP and other qualities and possibly not enough on the other companies' qualities. Enron, while it was growing, appealed to a specific group of people who were not afraid to take what now appears to be excessive risks. There are many examples of other companies with other EVP's who have survived and possibly thrived during this recession. They were able to attract and retain the high performers, who generally tend to be more strategic and less tactical than their counterparts.

Just as Brad Smart in his book "Topgrading" focuses on recruiting, developing and mentoring the A Players, the authors of The War For Talent stress the importance of the A players in a company. It is surprising that "The Peter Principle" came out in 1969 and we are still discussing the concept but in different terms.

The War For Talent concepts should be discussed from the boardroom to your hiring managers. Your leaders need to embrace a talent mindset (title of a chapter in the book), develop a winning differentiation for your company, and develop recruiters who have the ability to attract A Players.

Read this book if you want to win "The War For Talent." .........

Rating:
Summary: The War For Talent Is About to Begin In Earnest
Review: The War for Talent is a great book for the leaders of an organization to read. Why? They are the ones who can affect the culture of the organization. Most workers, even A Players, do not have the power to drive cultural change.

As a contract recruiter (www.recruiterguy.com), when I go into a company for the first time, I interview the managers and ask them, in their view, "Why would a top performer want to work for this company, in this position, for you?" As the competition for talent begins to gain steam over the next few months, companies who do a better job of addressing the needs of the Gen X'ers will find themselves in the enviable position of attracting the replacements to the Baby Boomers who are retiring or otherwise leaving the workplace. Sure there is still a surplus of workers as a result of the recession. However, companies who do not have a recruitment strategy will soon find themselves spending much more money to attract the best talent.

In The War For Talent, the authors used specific examples of companies who had either a recruiting or attrition problem and then solved it by improving their Employee Value Proposition (EVP). For instance, SunTrust had a problem where they were losing 46% of their branch employees in their Publix supermarket branches in Georgia and 55% of their high performers. The book discusses the steps they took to dramatically lower their attrition rate in a relatively short time.

Unfortunately for the book, it came out just as Enron was spinning into the ground. Therefore, some people have focused more on the Enron EVP and other qualities and possibly not enough on the other companies' qualities. Enron, while it was growing, appealed to a specific group of people who were not afraid to take what now appears to be excessive risks. There are many examples of other companies with other EVP's who have survived and possibly thrived during this recession. They were able to attract and retain the high performers, who generally tend to be more strategic and less tactical than their counterparts.

Just as Brad Smart in his book "Topgrading" focuses on recruiting, developing and mentoring the A Players, the authors of The War For Talent stress the importance of the A players in a company. It is surprising that "The Peter Principle" came out in 1969 and we are still discussing the concept but in different terms.

The War For Talent concepts should be discussed from the boardroom to your hiring managers. Your leaders need to embrace a talent mindset (title of a chapter in the book), develop a winning differentiation for your company, and develop recruiters who have the ability to attract A Players.

Read this book if you want to win "The War For Talent." .........

Rating:
Summary: Now here's useful help at last!
Review: The War for Talent not only makes a leak-proof business case around the significance of talent, it provides step-by-step instructions of how to win. As the President of a very small company the relevance and immediacy was clear to me, even though the book provided examples from very large corporations. I will re-visit this book time and again as I work to improve the talent in my company.

Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Source on Cultivating Human Capital
Review: The War for Talent takes a fresh look at the increasingly competive battle for human capital and its increasing importance to the success and viability for businesses. Leaders and managers will need to understand The War for Talent's basic doctrine to be successful in the new and old economies.

Rating:
Summary: Useful, but ... a certain energy company?
Review: This book has many interesting things to say - although the selection of case studies is somewhat unfortunate. A cynic might say that by following the suggestions of this book, your company can be as successful as ... Enron. I, of course, am not that cynical.

Rating:
Summary: Good theory but doesn't work in the real world.
Review: This book is a good theory and in an ideal world it would all work out that way: the highly talented and highly skilled would get the promotions, good jobs, and plum assisgnments. But unfortunately, more often than not, the pie isn't divided so nicely. There are often other reasons, not work/talent related, that a person gets a promotion or a job. The classic example is the boss' son getting handed a top job in a company, which still happens today. Also how do you fit Affirmative Action into the equation? AA is not based upon talents, only gender & race. Personally I wish more management would read this book and use the basic idea but it probably won't happen. Companies keep talking about "needing good talent" but they don't walk the walk.

Rating:
Summary: Read this book before your competitors do!
Review: You can no longer be satisfied with "C" players in your organization. To compete in today's world, you need a powerful team of "A" players-top talent. Every savvy employer knows this fact, at least intuitively. Incredibly, relatively few act on this knowledge, satisfying themselves instead with "warm bodies." And they wonder why they aren't more profitable. (Shake your head in disbelief here.)

Produced by three consultants from McKinsey & Company, "The War for Talent" is based on five years of in-depth research on how companies manage leadership talent. [The research is explained in the book.] From what they learned from surveys of 13,000 executives at more than 120 leading companies and 27 case studies, the authors propose a talent-based approach to recruiting and holding management employees. The concept is simple: emphasize a deep conviction that competitive advantage comes from having better talent at all levels. Execution of that talent is more difficult, requiring total commitment and consistent action on the part of all leaders throughout the organization.

The authors have limited their focus to managerial talent, ignoring the tremendous contribution made by non-management employees. Their contention is that if you have highly talented managers, everything else will work just fine. I had a problem with that concept, feeling that it takes strong talent at all levels to achieve corporate success. As I read the book, I found myself mentally extending the authors' approaches and recommendations to all workers.

The book begins, aptly enough, with a chapter explaining the War for Talent. Wake-up call statements include recognition from 99% of the companies surveyed that their managerial talent pool needs to be much stronger in three years. At the same time, there is an understanding that the pool from which companies will recruit that talent will shrink. Therefore, competition for talent will become more like a war. In the first of many interesting comparison boxes in the book, we learn that the old reality says people need companies and that jobs are scarce. The new reality is that companies need people and that talented people are scarce. These comparison boxes deliver valuable, thought-provoking insights throughout the book.

The authors explain that most companies are poor at talent management. This situation must change. Executives who read this book will be in a more advantageous position to do something about this problem-if they take action based on what they read. The book is filled with action stimulators.

The second chapter shows readers how to Embrace a Talent Mindset. It's a way of thinking that drives the whole process. In chapter three, we learn how to Craft a Winning Employee Value Proposition. This is an essential part of the book, emphasizing the relationship between the management employee and the company. It talks about what managers are looking for in a job-in an environment, and how to give it to them. Included are culture, growth opportunities, compensation and much more. It's the total experience that makes a company so attractive to the kind of people it seeks.

With a clear idea now that your company is different, much more oriented toward giving talented managers what they need to achieve, chapter four explains how to Rebuild Your Recruiting Strategy. You'll shift from chasing all over trying to get people to work for you to becoming so attractive that talent gravitates to you. Recruiting becomes more targeted and takes place over a longer period of time. You're growing your future workforce by engaging with people even years before it's time for them to join you.

Chapter Five captures a trend which is growing in America, but not nearly as fast as it needs to: the personal development of high potential talent. The authors describe in page after page how coaching, mentoring, and bosses with high expectations can propel a talented person to greater heights and greater performance in much less time. Candid feedback enables people to stretch and grow in ways that hold them with the company so they can do more. We know how important growth is to talented people, so the ideas and illustrative stories in this chapter will be eye-opening for many readers.

In the next chapter, the authors present the concept of differentiating among employees. Workers are ranked as "A,", "B," or "C" players, in consideration of their performance and their potential. This chapter shows "how to invest in the most capable people (A players), grow the solidly contributing middle (B players), and act decisively on the low performers (the C players), and put the spotlight on all three in a rigorous talent review process." D players-the clearly incompetent or unethical-are not discussed since they shouldn't even be there anyway. The plan is to Differentiate and Affirm Your People. When high performers are appreciated, they become even more productive. They develop a pride which drives them to greater heights . . . and pulls others along with them.

The final chapter, Get Started-and Expect Huge Impact in a Year, presents a process for implementing the authors' concepts in your organization. Of course, you won't see immediate results. However, if you're serious about the transformation, results will come. Expect huge impact in the first year, the authors encourage; set the bars high. It can happen. It must happen if your company is going to be a high achiever, a winner in the ongoing War for Talent.

Roger Herman, co-author of "How to Become an Employer of Choice"

Rating:
Summary: Read this book before your competitors do!
Review: You can no longer be satisfied with "C" players in your organization. To compete in today's world, you need a powerful team of "A" players-top talent. Every savvy employer knows this fact, at least intuitively. Incredibly, relatively few act on this knowledge, satisfying themselves instead with "warm bodies." And they wonder why they aren't more profitable. (Shake your head in disbelief here.)

Produced by three consultants from McKinsey & Company, "The War for Talent" is based on five years of in-depth research on how companies manage leadership talent. [The research is explained in the book.] From what they learned from surveys of 13,000 executives at more than 120 leading companies and 27 case studies, the authors propose a talent-based approach to recruiting and holding management employees. The concept is simple: emphasize a deep conviction that competitive advantage comes from having better talent at all levels. Execution of that talent is more difficult, requiring total commitment and consistent action on the part of all leaders throughout the organization.

The authors have limited their focus to managerial talent, ignoring the tremendous contribution made by non-management employees. Their contention is that if you have highly talented managers, everything else will work just fine. I had a problem with that concept, feeling that it takes strong talent at all levels to achieve corporate success. As I read the book, I found myself mentally extending the authors' approaches and recommendations to all workers.

The book begins, aptly enough, with a chapter explaining the War for Talent. Wake-up call statements include recognition from 99% of the companies surveyed that their managerial talent pool needs to be much stronger in three years. At the same time, there is an understanding that the pool from which companies will recruit that talent will shrink. Therefore, competition for talent will become more like a war. In the first of many interesting comparison boxes in the book, we learn that the old reality says people need companies and that jobs are scarce. The new reality is that companies need people and that talented people are scarce. These comparison boxes deliver valuable, thought-provoking insights throughout the book.

The authors explain that most companies are poor at talent management. This situation must change. Executives who read this book will be in a more advantageous position to do something about this problem-if they take action based on what they read. The book is filled with action stimulators.

The second chapter shows readers how to Embrace a Talent Mindset. It's a way of thinking that drives the whole process. In chapter three, we learn how to Craft a Winning Employee Value Proposition. This is an essential part of the book, emphasizing the relationship between the management employee and the company. It talks about what managers are looking for in a job-in an environment, and how to give it to them. Included are culture, growth opportunities, compensation and much more. It's the total experience that makes a company so attractive to the kind of people it seeks.

With a clear idea now that your company is different, much more oriented toward giving talented managers what they need to achieve, chapter four explains how to Rebuild Your Recruiting Strategy. You'll shift from chasing all over trying to get people to work for you to becoming so attractive that talent gravitates to you. Recruiting becomes more targeted and takes place over a longer period of time. You're growing your future workforce by engaging with people even years before it's time for them to join you.

Chapter Five captures a trend which is growing in America, but not nearly as fast as it needs to: the personal development of high potential talent. The authors describe in page after page how coaching, mentoring, and bosses with high expectations can propel a talented person to greater heights and greater performance in much less time. Candid feedback enables people to stretch and grow in ways that hold them with the company so they can do more. We know how important growth is to talented people, so the ideas and illustrative stories in this chapter will be eye-opening for many readers.

In the next chapter, the authors present the concept of differentiating among employees. Workers are ranked as "A,", "B," or "C" players, in consideration of their performance and their potential. This chapter shows "how to invest in the most capable people (A players), grow the solidly contributing middle (B players), and act decisively on the low performers (the C players), and put the spotlight on all three in a rigorous talent review process." D players-the clearly incompetent or unethical-are not discussed since they shouldn't even be there anyway. The plan is to Differentiate and Affirm Your People. When high performers are appreciated, they become even more productive. They develop a pride which drives them to greater heights . . . and pulls others along with them.

The final chapter, Get Started-and Expect Huge Impact in a Year, presents a process for implementing the authors' concepts in your organization. Of course, you won't see immediate results. However, if you're serious about the transformation, results will come. Expect huge impact in the first year, the authors encourage; set the bars high. It can happen. It must happen if your company is going to be a high achiever, a winner in the ongoing War for Talent.

Roger Herman, co-author of "How to Become an Employer of Choice"