第1章 Introduction

Increase the caliber of your players and you increase your chances of winning.

Because this principle is universally understood, finding and keeping the best people has become a preoccupation for many leaders. However, convincing talented people to join our organizations has only become more difficult in recent years.

Our never-ending quest for the most talented people has been made even more difficult by changing demographics, fluctuating employment statistics, increased competition, and shifting expectations. These forces have left many organizations with a critical shortfall of people. The effect: a virtual war for talent. The research, and the book you now hold were born in this context.

Given the growing need for talented people, my team wondered: What is really required to attract “Top Talent?”

What do you do when you have a question? You Google it. What do you do if Google doesn't know the answer? You either put your question in the “too hard pile” or find the answer for yourself. That's where we found ourselves. The answers at our disposal were somewhere between inadequate and nonexistent.

Our next step was to contact global thought leaders in the area of human resources—surely, they could tell us what attracts Top Talent. We were shocked time and time again after being told, “No one has done the research to answer your question.”

Finally, with no credible answers readily available, we decided to commission the work ourselves.

After a ground-breaking, quantitative study focused specifically on what attracts Top Talent, combined with hundreds of face-to-face interviews with top performers and on-the-job ethnography, the chief insight, among many:

What attracts and keeps Top Talent is different from what attracts and keeps typical talent.

This book will not only clarify these differences; it can serve as a mirror for you and your organization. Are you really offering what Top Talent wants? If not, why not? And, don't be surprised if, along the way, you are challenged regarding how you see your role as a leader.