Winning the Talent Wars: How to Build a Lean, Flexible, High-Performance Workplace

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, friend

Winning the Talent Wars: How to Manage and Compete in the High-tech, High-speed, Knowledge-based, Superfluid Economy is the original hardcover version of Tulgan's workplace classic. His workplace philosophy, "Talent is the Show" is applied to all areas of HR: staffing, compensation, coaching-style management, training, and career paths. The only difference between this book and the recent softcover edition, Winning the Talent Wars: How to Build a Lean, Flexible, High-Performance Workplace, is a new forward and $8.40.

I really hope that companies sit up and take notice of the kind of work place that Bruce Tulgan describes in his book. All I could think the whole time I was reading it was, why didn't we think of that? As a middle-level manager, the book really spoke to me about the things I can do right now to make the workplace a place where the best people will want to come to work, even though there is a lot of red tape at the corporate level. The biggest obstacle for me would be implementing pay-for- performance compensation (we have a rigid pay structure). But maybe I can divvy up part of my bonuses to reward my people for helping me to reach the goals, or maybe figure bonusus in when requesting resourses for a project or find somewhere in the project's resourses to save the money so that I can put that into bonuses. I don't think anyone will fire me for that! A lot of the other ideas are relatively easy to put into use without much resistance from higher-ups, like trying to be a better coach, building a knowledge database, and keeping in touch with old employees to try to get them to come back for various projects. With any luck, word will get out that my department is better to work for and I'll have the pick of everyone else's litter in the company when it comes to department transfers. This book definately left me feeling empowered and renewed my enthusiasm for managing my team.

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.

I enoyed Winning the Talent Wars... Tulgan engages the reader with real life, real-time stories to back up his ideas. I've read a number of bland business books, which are difficult, at times, to relate to my own experience in the workplace. Winning the Talent Wars, on the other hand, hits the nail on the head. More than once I said to myself, "hey, that's me" or "that's how things really should be".