The Truth about Talent: A guide to building a dynamic workforce, realizing potential and helping leaders succeed - Hardcover

Davies, Jacqueline; Kourdi, Jeremy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470748826 ISBN 13: 9780470748824

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2010

Synopsis

In this new book, Jacqueline Davies and Jeremy Kourdi argue that organizations are failing to realize the simple truth about talent: they are misunderstanding their people, making flawed choices and allowing the true potential of their workforce to go unused and unfulfilled. Understanding the truth about talent in all its forms is a vital step in developing an organization and ensuring long-term, sustainable success.

A core part of their thesis is that organizations should recognize that people at different stages of their career and with different experiences and aspirations need to developed and engaged in different ways. The book provides a practical guide explaining how to segment the workforce, why, what to expect when you do, and how to ensure that this approach succeeds.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Key themes in the book are:

1. You can't manage talent: it is mercurial, easily bored, opinionated and often lost.
2. The talented few are the overwhelming priority: while there is a top 10% of high performing employees – people who look good, work the system, attract the best investment and get to the top – focusing your attention exclusively on the top 10% while neglecting the rest is clearly flawed. Invest in your core, the talent right under your nose.
3. Getting people to fulfil their potential is a global challenge: if you don't invest in your people's skills, someone else will, and they are on the other side of the world. India and China continue to develop and their growth is no longer about cheap labour, outsourced call centres and mass manufacturing. Their economic model is shifting with more consumers, a growing middle class and more millionaires, scientists, research and development. The growth is sucking talent from the West.
4. Technical specialists matter as much – or more – than generalists. Why do we still lavish our attention on elite general managers? Specialists are invariably a firm's source of differentiation and competitive advantage. It's time to take them out of the backroom and onto the catwalk.
5. Talent, development and people management are part of the same issue: we need to find new ways of adapting to engage our people and help them to succeed.

About the Author

Jacqueline Davies is a highly experienced and respected executive with significant, in-depth experience of leadership development and talent management issues. Past roles include Global Head of Learning and Development with Lloyds TSB/HBOS, Head of Learning and Organizational Development at the Royal Bank of Scotland, and as an executive with HSBC.

Jeremy Kourdi is a writer and business consultant. His experience includes commercial leadership, writing and publishing expertise gained with leading brands, professional institutions and business schools. Clients include The Economist Group, KPMG, HSBC Group, London Business School, IMD, PwC and the Chartered Management Institute. Jeremy has held the post of Senior Vice-President with the Economist Group, leading international teams based in London and Vienna and expanding the conference business of this premium-value brand. He has also work as Head of Publishing and Research at the Chartered Management Institute and has established several successful publishing imprints.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0470748826
• ISBN 13: 9780470748824
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272