HBR's 10 Must Reads on Talent (with bonus article "Building a Game-Changing Talent Strategy" by Douglas A. Ready, Linda A. Hill, and Robert J. Thomas)

Making Business Personal

by Robert Kegan, Lisa Lahey, Andy Fleming, and Matthew Miller

TO AN EXTENT THAT we ourselves are only beginning to appreciate, most people at work, even in high-performing organizations, divert considerable energy every day to a second job that no one has hired them to do: preserving their reputations, putting their best selves forward, and hiding their inadequacies from others and themselves. We believe this is the single biggest cause of wasted resources in nearly every company today.

What would happen if people felt no need to do this second job? What if, instead of hiding their weaknesses, they were comfortable acknowledging and learning from them? What if companies made this possible by creating a culture in which ...