Rules Successful Companies Use to Attract and Keep Top Talent

2. Play “Win-Win” with Your Employees (and Allow Them to Be All They Can Be—for Self and Company)

Business leaders at every level must build a work environment that enables each employee’s preferred self to emerge at the workplace through an alignment and balance of the employee’s personal attributes and needs with the organization’s goals.

Sounds a little academic and even Mary Poppins-ish, doesn’t it, this talk of preferred self? It’s a term that even seems to lapse over into—arghhh!—guru or consultant’s speak! But a preferred self is something that’s literal and a part of the opportunity for workplace productivity, and it’s a state of being that you have probably experienced—at work, at home, or more likely at play—though you may have called ...