Assessing Individual Potential
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How do you recognize an individual with potential? In other
words, how do you know that someone has the potential to be pro-
moted? And, given the importance of talent and how quickly things
move in the business world, potential should be recognized as soon
as possible—not in years but in weeks.
WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN ASSESSING POTENTIAL
Perhaps it helps to begin by describing what not to do. About 60
percent of U.S. companies have no specific way, beyond perform-
ance management systems, to rate an individual’s current work per-
formance or assess an individual’s potential for promotion.
Managers in these organizations assume ...