The Talent Powered Organization: Strategies for Globalization, Talent Management and High Performance

It would be difficult to find a corporate senior manager who would disagree with the statement that the accelerating pace toward a global marketplace has changed the value proposition for most businesses. That foundational shift is a reality for most organizations. Until recently, much of the market value of a corporation was locked within its hard assets, physical plant and manufacturing infrastructure. But according to the authors of the book The Talent Powered Organization, the true organizational value is contained within intangibles such as worker knowledge, intellectual property, customer service and propriety processes. This obvious but understated truth is why Soundview recommends this book. The authors write that the reliance on individual talent and team alignment, coupled with positive progression for both, are at the heart of creating a competitive advantage. The book also reinforces the need for tactical development of new work styles; career tracking and mentoring to enhance the performance of an organization. It's hard to argue against the critically important contribution that the human factor plays within any success formula.

While many books written by consultants tend to be a prolonged sales pitch and badly written this book does not fall into this category. It's fairly practical and well written. The central tenet of the book is that talent is the central asset of the organization and the recruitment, development and retention of talent is central to long term growth. Also, again a given, the marketplace for talent is now global - however much organizations (or employees) may wish it were not. It would be fair to say that this book doesn't reach any new or innovative conclusions. Even new strategies. At best it does provide framework for analysis. However, how many organizations that may pay lip service to such basic principals put them into practice? The Talent Powered Organization is a good primer. It's not an academic text, it is well written and practical.

First, I'll note that the book has flaws, and I can't disagree with many of the reviewers. The first chapter in particular is repetitive, and Accenture pops up too frequently in the examples. Also, it's interesting to note that an assumption built into the book is that we live in a global economy, where corporations have not inherent loyalty to the country which spawned then. Extrapolating to the future, when American companies draw their talent and make their sales overseas, are they American in any meaningful sense? But I digress. I ordered this book with a specific purpose in mind, and it filled that role for me. I wanted to make the case to the management of a very large medical organization for which I work that the way it looks at recruiting and retaining medical staff should be adjusted to account for talent. The book was useful for examples of how key staff can have a disproportionate impact on an enterprise, and for how a focus on talent can enhance the "engagement" of those key staff. ("Engagement" is the degree to which an employee self-identifies with a company, sort of loyalty-with-bells-on) In my opinion, my organization has historically taken an attitude that employees are interchangeable. Not coincidentally, it has had trouble recruiting and retaining the best and the brightest. I think The Talent Powered Organization was helpful to me in making that case. Bottom line - the writing on the book will not fire you up. It's not THAT kind of business book. However, if you are looking for concepts and examples that might be useful in crafting a management strategy that looks at hiring the best individuals in your field, then I think you might find this useful. 3.5 stars

Although by three Accenture executives and informed by their experiences there, this is not promotional material for Accenture: it has general value. Not that you may not want to contact Accenture after reading it (or that you may not want to work for Accenture after reading it), but it's a useful, comprehensive guide to the challenges globalization has rapidly introduced for corporations employing knowledge workers. Although non-executive knowledge workers (the "talent") may find some value in this book, it is not targeted to them. Want them smart and productive? Global competition will increasingly demand them smarter and more productive while making them harder to attract. Want them affordable? Global competition will increasing challenge your ability to keep their costs down. Want enough of them? Global competition will increasingly frustrate you. If you aren't as savvy as possible, your competition will be hiring the people you need ... including perhaps many now working for you. This survey of the issues globalization brings seems to also contain enough useful details to make it worthwhile for some of those details alone. Do you provide rotating mentors to your programmers as Microsoft does? Provide a way for your employees to continuously share performance concerns instead of just in an annual review? There's an entire chapter on engagement, something many companies stuck in old style thinking may not realize the importance of. Something Google and Yahoo are expert in (not that Google stock options haven't helped) Can you tap into the initiative of your knowledge workers? Leverage talents you may not even know they have? Give them the freedom to run while nevertheless planning and achieving corporate goals? Do you realize the importance of your line managers? They are, after all, the ones closest to the majority of your knowledge workers. It's the line managers who can bring out the best in your people and they and those workers need time and nurturing. That the authors, Accenture executives, understand in such detail, the value of human capital, impressed me. I suppose it is precisely why Accenture makes money. The authors suggest finding new ways to value your people rather than standard accounting might provide: something better than laying off people whose salary reaches a certain level without recognizing that they just might be outstanding performers. The authors also seem genuinely concerned about burnout among the troops and about the real value of ongoing training, something Accenture apparently really practices. Hopefully that's substantive training and not a two hour online class on using Microsoft Excel once a quarter. I read that Accenture has, at the moment, more employees in India than in the U.S. But if the authors are reflective of Accenture, it may be worth seeing what U.S. opportunities they have...while they last. Meanwhile, if one is a "grunt" knowledge worker, one may want to wait until enough executives

It is no secret among people who work in large organizations that the disparity in capabilities between different people holding the same jobs can be enormous. In programming, the only area where I have any data, the figure most commonly given is that the best programmers are twenty to thirty times more productive than the lowest level of people that earn their living via programming. Others have suggested that the disparity may be even wider. Given that the behavior of people possessing specialized skills tends to be similar, such wide disparities no doubt appear in other areas. Therefore, the key skill needed for organizations to succeed is talent. Unfortunately, it is one of the most poorly managed assets that companies have. The aim of this book is to help change this inexcusable condition. The authors lay down detailed and realistic mechanisms whereby organizations can: *) Understand that talent is the most important asset they have *) Understand how to make the recognition and development of talent a fundamental part of your business strategy *) Understand how to recognize what new talents your company will need in the future *) Understand the best ways to motivate and utilize your company's talent, for underutilized talent is an economic crime and an inexcusable business blunder The days when companies could simply rely on positional and political advantages to secure success are gone. Increasing globalization means that the fact that you are located in one country means nothing, work and capital moves across political borders with an ease never seen before. International treaties between governments that once could be counted on to pass laws for the legal protection of their domestic industries forbids any such action. Which means your business either succeeds or fails based on what you do and there is little room for complaint if things go wrong. Therefore, leveraging and expanding your assets is the only thing that you can do to be successful and this book will show you how you can effectively manage what is most certainly your most valuable resource. The talent of your employees.