Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy
The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer
discounts of up to 90% on
The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers. Check out the link below:
>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers
The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers ReviewI was attracted to "The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers", because of the implied promise in its title that herein lies a confirmation that people really do matter in generating business performance. So much for titles. The content disappoints, as the material is a collection of oft-repeated stories and well-known anecdotes about several long gone CEOs. The focus on GE and Jack Welch is old news. By the way, has the GE model proved to be successful outside GE? Is it still effective at GE today?
Most shocking is a total absence of metrics and hard data. Not even an appendix or a notes section in the book. Why didn't the authors identify numbers that correlate talent initiatives to business performance? Isn't creating shareholder value what it's all about? The real reason Jack Welch became famous at GE is because he grew market cap from $12B in 1981 to $375B when he retired in 2001. Does that mean that Imelt and team have killed the GE talent machine since GE market cap has dropped to $197B today? Or is the mastery of talent an isolated discipline with no direct relationship to business performance? Perhaps business performance is more a function of environment, regulatory issues, competitive landscape, M&A or luck. At any rate, the authors don't weigh in on this one or GE post-Welch.
Also, how did the Goodyear CEO get classified as a talent master? He joined that company in late '00 when the stock was $18.01 / share and left in late '10 with a share price of $10.93 - a destruction of about $1.75B in shareholder value over a decade. Hardly a master of anything.
In "Good To Great", Jim Collins determined through research that in his 11 great companies, of the 42 CEOs that served during the study period, only 2 were outsiders to the company before becoming CEO. Do Conaty and Charan have any thoughts on where the talent that the Talent Masters use comes from? Are they internal or external? The comment by the authors that a "blend" is necessary is not helpful. It seems that in today's environment of mercenary executives, the mix has shifted since Collins' study, but this needs confirmation. It would be interesting to determine performance variations between companies that engage in a continuous cycle of outsider executives versus those that emphasize internal talent for promotion.
One of the few charts in the book (page 216) shows a "Market Focused Business Model" which is an insult to the great corporate leaders who profitably grew their businesses long before the executive tenures profiled in "The Talent Masters". Was converting manufacturing capacity to higher value added capability just invented? Hasn't overhead recovery always been critical for profitability?
The Talent Master Tool Kit (pages 257 - 273) is right out of a basic HR leadership guide from the 70s (if not earlier). These pages reflect nice, common sense guidelines, and little else.
Because this book is a story about the behavior of CEOs in several companies where Conaty has worked or consulted (see inside text on dust cover), the criteria for inclusion in the narrative seems to be driven by "these are the guys I know" rather than a metric-driven analysis of high performance companies where results can be tied to talent factors.
Understanding how talent impacts business performance is a field ripe for detailed analysis, similar to Collins' approach of a full blow research project. Regrettably, the anecdotal orientation and limited scope of "The Talent Masters" adds little to our understanding of the subject
The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers OverviewWant to learn more information about
The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers?
>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
