The Battle for Talent

Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First – Ram Charan, Dominic Barton and Dennis Carey – (Harvard Business Review Press)

I recently wrote about a growing emphasis that is being placed by companies on their talent. With the available talent pool shrinking as more and more companies are hiring that focus has become more imperative in some sectors and industries. While there is more and more attention being given to the value of talent as a competitive advantage, there really has not been a go to guide for business to make this shift towards a talent bias.

With good people becoming harder and harder to find, there is a need for direction on how to transition to a talent-based value, hiring practice and avoid just filling holes in your team with warm-body syndrome. Moving beyond all the talk of talent and getting down to the nuts and bolts of it is the new book by a trio of skilled practitioners in the art of talent acquisition and development, Ram Charan, Dominic Barton and Dennis Carey, Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First.

In Talent Wins, the trio make the case that going down this road is not only pivotal in your future success, but that the first step in the process needs to be an organizational paradigm shift at the top; whether that is with the board or with the C-Suite.

The Buy In

Charan, Barton and Carey make the case that there is a proven, verifiable business basis that is at the core of the talent shift that makes the case for this change in direction for many organization. While it may fly in the face of ‘how we always did things” the fact is there is bottom line proof that is demonstrable for businesses that choose this path and do it well.

It shouldn’t be shocking to anyone that there is quite literally an actionable playbook (it is in the title!) that walks you through the process of developing your plan, your team that will lead the organizational shift, getting the internal buy-in, and even how to go about competing for talent and winning. There is even an operational checklist to utilize as you walk through the process. These guys almost make it easy…just kidding. Don’t be fooled, this kind of process will involve some very real world heavy lifting and you will likely run into a pile of issues that you will have to overcome, but in the end, something worth doing, is worth the effort it takes to do it well. Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First, will give you a leg up and a road map to run on going into this process.