Misplaced Talent: A Guide to Better People Decisions

Preface

I spend the better part of my day helping organizations make better people decisions. From redesigning a recruitment process, to running focus groups with leaders to define what good talent looks like or facilitating individual and group development, I am on the front line, working directly with leaders and professional talent managers to improve how their organizations are attracting and retaining the best workers.

What has spurred me to write this book is a feeling that the tools and processes that I help set in motion swim against the tide of how organizations naturally operate. Tendencies like hiring the candidate who feels right or holding that a department really is not like any other in the company (and, therefore, common job definitions don't apply) undermine the architecture that I put in place.

This had led me to question the work that I do. Are the tools and techniques that I promote really cut out for the job? Are there better ways to manage talent than what is accepted as common practice? Is the support that I typically offer inadequate to ensure long-term change?

I have concluded that there is plenty of scope to improve how organizations make people decisions. I believe we are in a state of misplaced talent. At times, we park our best and brightest staff in the wrong places, where they are either not maximizing what they can do or become at risk of drifting away due to lack of interest in the job. At other times, we can forget what really matters to the organization, ...