If talent is the leading indicator of whether a business is up or down, a success or a failure (and it is) . . . do you know how to accurately judge raw human talent? Understand a person's unique combination of traits? Develop that talent? Convert what supposedly are "soft" subjective judgments about people into objective criteria that are as specific, verifiable, and concrete as the contents of a financial statement?nThe talent masters do. They put people before numbers for the simple reason that it is talent that delivers the numbers. Success comes from those who are able to extract meaning from events and the forces affecting a business, and are able to look at the world and assess the risks to take and the risks to avoid.nThe Talent Masters itself stems from a unique combination of talent: During a forty-year career at General Electric, Bill Conaty worked closely with CEOs Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt to build that company's worldrenowned talent machine. Ram Charan is the legendary advisor to companies around the world. Together they use their unparalleled experience and insight to write the definitive book on talent-a breakthrough in how to take a business to the next level:nn- Secrets of the masters. The specifics on how companies regarded as world-class-GE, P&G, Hindustan Unilever (and others)-base their stellar performance decade after decade on their systems for finding and nurturing leadership talent.n- Intimate and systemic. Why deep knowledge and intimacy with your talent and a systemic rhythm of reviews are the foundation for creating a steady, selfrenewing stream of leaders for all levels of an organization-from first-line supervisors to the CEO.n- The competency that lasts. Financial results, market share, brand, and legacy products all have a half-life that seems to grow shorter by the year. Talent is the only competency that endures.n- What to do Monday morning. The Talent Masters tool kit provides the specific guidelines for assessing and improving your company's talent mastery capabilities.
"Enduring principles and powerful practices combine in this must-read human resource manifesto for leaders at every level."n-Jack Welchnn"...The definitive guide to the art and science of talent development."n-Andrea Jung, chairman and CEO of Avon Productsnn"...Practical, readable and very actionable ..."n-A.G. Lafley, retired chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamblenn"Knowing how to spot top talent and where exactly to place it is at the crux of this marvelous book, The Talent Masters. Its pages provide a vivid recounting of many true-to-life leadership dilemmas in contemporary organizations that reveal just how critical it is to make good, sound judgments when choosing from amongst the talent of an organization."n-Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The Leader in Me
BILL CONATY, long recognized as a world leader in his field, recently retired as senior vice president for human resources at General Electric, the company consistently ranked as without peer in developing world-class leaders. The management development and training programs that Conaty engineered provided GE with one of the world's most talent-rich management benches. Conaty has served as chairman of the National Academy of Human Resources and was named as a Distinguised Fellow, the organization's highest honor. He currently serves as a personal advisor to the CEOs of companies around the world, including P&G, Boeing, Dell, Goodyear, LG Electronics (Korea), and UniCredit (Italy).nnRAM CHARAN is a highly sought after business advisor and speaker famous among senior executives for his uncanny ability to solve their toughest business problems. For more than thirty-five years, Dr. Charan has worked behind the scenes with top executives at some of the world's most successful companies, providing advice that is down-to-earth and relevant and that takes into account the real-world complexities of business. Dr. Charan is also the coauthor of Execution, The Game-Changer, and Confronting Reality and the author of What the CEO Wants You to Know, Know-How, and Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty.
Chapter 1nnTALENT is the EDGEnnNo Talent, No NumbersnnIf businesses managed their money as carelessly as they manage their people, most would be bankrupt.nnThe great majority of companies that control their finances masterfully don't have any comparable processes for developing their leaders or even pinpointing which ones to develop. No matter how much effort they put into recruiting, training, and assessing leaders, their talent management remains hit-or-miss: governed by superficial criteria and outdated concepts, dependent as much on luck as on skill. These are the companies that wake up some morning suddenly realizing they need a new CEO but don't know where to start looking. More pervasively, by repeatedly putting people into the wrong jobs, they waste both human and financial capital when those people don't perform.nnHow did this come to be? After all, it's clear enough that people make the decisions and take the actions that produce the numbers. Talent is the leading indicator of whether a business is headed up or down. Everyone agrees that it's a company's most important resource. But a spreadsheet full of numbers is a lot easier to parse than the characteristics unique to a human being. You can control what you're doing: the numbers are unambiguous, the outputs are clear. People, not so much. Better to leave that to the HR staff or search firms, particularly since the pressure to make your numbers quarter after quarter is so great that there's no time to waste on the soft stuff. And of course the law requires financial reports.nnYou've no doubt noticed, however, that making money has gotten harder. It will remain so for the imaginable future. In the fast-changing global marketplace, all of the familiar competitive advantages are constantly at risk: market share, brand, scale of a business, cost structure, technological know-how, patents, and all the rest. The half- life of core competencies grows ever shorter.nnTalent will be the big differentiator between companies that succeed and those that don't. Those that win will be led by people who can adapt their organizations to change, make the right strategic bets, take calculated risks, conceive and execute new value-creating opportunities, and build and rebuild competitive advantage.nnOnly one competency lasts. It is the ability to create a steady, self- renewing stream of leaders. Money is just a commodity. Talent supplies the edge. We can't put it any better than Ron Nersesian, the head of Agilent Technologies' Electronic Measurement Group: "Developing people's talent is the whole of the company at the end of the day. Our products all are time-perishable. The only thing that stays is the institutional learning and the development of the skills and the capabilities that we have in our people."nnManaging people with precision is without question harder than managing numbers, but it is doable and gets easier once you know how. Companies such as GE, P&G, Hindustan Unilever, and many others analyze talent, understand it, shape it, and build it through a combination of disciplined routines and processes, and something even rarer and harder to observe from outside: a collective expertise, honed through years of continuous improvement in recognizing and developing talent.nnThese companies have disproved the myth that the judgment of human potential is a "soft" art. Their rigorous, iterative, and repetitive processes convert subjective judgment about a person's talent into an objective set of observations that are specific, verifiable, and ultimately just as concrete as the analysis of a financial statement.nnThey have embedded in their culture the habits of observing talent, making judgments about it, and figuring out how to unleash it. They draw from their large toolboxes and creative imaginations to accelerate each leader's growth. Their executives are expected to make developing, deploying, and refreshin
Über den Autor
BILL CONATY, long recognized as a world leader in his field, recently retired as senior vice president for human resources at General Electric, the company consistently ranked as without peer in developing world-class leaders. The management development and training programs that Conaty engineered provided GE with one of the world's most talent-rich management benches. Conaty has served as chairman of the National Academy of Human Resources and was named as a Distinguised Fellow, the organization's highest honor. He currently serves as a personal advisor to the CEOs of companies around the world, including P&G, Boeing, Dell, Goodyear, LG Electronics (Korea), and UniCredit (Italy).
RAM CHARAN is a highly sought after business advisor and speaker famous among senior executives for his uncanny ability to solve their toughest business problems. For more than thirty-five years, Dr. Charan has worked behind the scenes with top executives at some of the world's most successful companies, providing advice that is down-to-earth and relevant and that takes into account the real-world complexities of business. Dr. Charan is also the coauthor of Execution, The Game-Changer, and Confronting Reality and the author of What the CEO Wants You to Know, Know-How, and Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty.
Klappentext
If talent is the leading indicator of whether a business is up or down, a success or a failure (and it is) . . . do you know how to accurately judge raw human talent? Understand a person's unique combination of traits? Develop that talent? Convert what supposedly are "soft" subjective judgments about people into objective criteria that are as specific, verifiable, and concrete as the contents of a financial statement?
The talent masters do. They put people before numbers for the simple reason that it is talent that delivers the numbers. Success comes from those who are able to extract meaning from events and the forces affecting a business, and are able to look at the world and assess the risks to take and the risks to avoid.
The Talent Masters itself stems from a unique combination of talent: During a forty-year career at General Electric, Bill Conaty worked closely with CEOs Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt to build that company's worldrenowned talent machine. Ram Charan is the legendary advisor to companies around the world. Together they use their unparalleled experience and insight to write the definitive book on talent-a breakthrough in how to take a business to the next level:
• Secrets of the masters. The specifics on how companies regarded as world-class-GE, P&G, Hindustan Unilever (and others)-base their stellar performance decade after decade on their systems for finding and nurturing leadership talent.
• Intimate and systemic. Why deep knowledge and intimacy with your talent and a systemic rhythm of reviews are the foundation for creating a steady, selfrenewing stream of leaders for all levels of an organization-from first-line supervisors to the CEO.
• The competency that lasts. Financial results, market share, brand, and legacy products all have a half-life that seems to grow shorter by the year. Talent is the only competency that endures.
• What to do Monday morning. The Talent Masters tool kit provides the specific guidelines for assessing and improving your company's talent mastery capabilities.
