Recommended Resource – The Executive Guide to High-Impact Talent Management

/in , , /by

The Executive Guide to High-Impact Talent Management: Powerful Tools for Leveraging a Changing Workforce
by David DeLong and Steve Trautman

About the Reference

The Executive Guide to High-Impact Talent Management: Powerful Tools for Leveraging a Changing Workforce by David DeLong and Steve Trautman provides a complete talent management program blueprint covering:

  • Diagnosis of talent related organizational risks
  • Evaluation and measurement of talent management initiatives
  • Acceleration of leadership development
  • Transference of individual and organizational knowledge

This blueprint provides the details needed to institute each of these programs and achieve real, measurable results.

Benefits of Using this Reference

StrategyDriven Contributors like The Executive Guide to High-Impact Talent Management because the blueprint provided is implementable, actionable, and based on many of the practices endorsed by StrategyDriven. These practices focus on continuous programmatic assessment and performance measurement to drive superior results. If we had one criticism of the book it would be that the solutions presented appear too academic and unaltered by the realities of the business world.

The Executive Guide to High-Impact Talent Management provides a thorough, implementable talent management program based on sound principles of accountability; making it a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Recommended Resource – Soup: A recipe to nourish your team and culture

/in , /by

Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture
by Jon Gordon

About the Reference

Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture a business novel by Jon Gordon illustrates the significant impact senior leaders have on setting and nurturing their organization’s culture. Jon goes on to reveal how culture, in-turn, drives performance and ultimately an organization’s success.

Benefits of Using this Reference

StrategyDriven Contributors believe leaders at the top set the tone and tenor of the organization’s performance; that the workforce will, over time, embody a set of beliefs aligned with senior management’s decisions and actions.

StrategyDriven Contributors like Soup for the way in which the relationship between senior leader decisions and actions, organizational beliefs and work ethic, and overall company results is illustrated. Through the story of Soup, Inc., Jon reveals the nuances of decisions and actions by a CEO and how these effect those immediately around her and are then translated throughout the workforce. These easy-to-relate-to interactions follow closely with our own experience with personnel reactions in the workplace; making Soup‘s lessons both real and applicable.

The lessons in Soup go one step further; illustrating in an implementable step-by-step fashion how to positively impact and change an organization’s culture.

Soup‘s insights and implementable actions on how to constructively improve an organization’s culture makes it a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Recommended Resource – The Talent Masters: Why smart leaders put people before numbers

/in , , /by

The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers
by Bill Conaty and Ram Charan

About the Reference

The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers by Bill Conaty and Ram Charan provides unprecedented insight to the people development programs of several legendary organizations including General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, and Novartis. Conaty and Charan illustrate in great detail the specific programs these organizations use to develop talent and plan for and execute on succession plans; including the behind-the-scenes consideration of organizational, cultural, and operational impacts such changes incur. They also share their experience-based insights on the critical personal traits and organizational supports needed for succeeding leaders to excel in their new positions.

Benefits of Using this Reference

StrategyDriven Contributors like The Talent Masters because of its in-depth, behind-the-scenes insights to the talent management practices of globally recognized ‘leadership factories.’ Many case studies highlight the mechanics of these organizations’ programs but Conaty and Charan present the intimate executive discussions and thought processes on personnel development and succession that only insiders possess. This book captures the nuance of thought that makes these processes work so well at creating some of the world’s most sought after leaders.

The in-depth real-world business experience of leading companies presented in The Talent Masters makes this book on personnel development a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Recommended Resource – What I Didn’t Learn in Business School

/in , , /by

What I Didn’t Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real World
by Jay B. Barney and Trish Gorman Clifford

About the Reference

What I Didn’t Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real World by Jay Barney and Trish Gorman Clifford reveals the shortfalls of the principles learned in the idealistic academic environment when applied directly to the messy, unpredictable and politically charged business world. Through a storied approach, Jay and Trish reveal the inadequacies of modeling to fully predict business outcomes and the challenge of creating alignment among leaders with differing points of view and personal agendas. They go on to illustrate the power of moving leaders past the limits of these barriers and their own collective experience to gain significant marketplace advantages and organizational prosperity.

Benefits of Using this Reference

StrategyDriven Contributors like What I Didn’t Learn in Business School because it so clearly illustrates the premise for our website, namely, that while highly beneficial, academic principles must be adapted from the ideal environment of the classroom to the unpredictable environment of the shop floor in order to provide real value to any organization. Furthermore, no single model or performance measure can adequately portray a given situation in such a way that a definitive decision can be made. Rather, multiple models and measures should be employed to create a complete picture of performance from differing perspectives to enable robust decision-making.

Its well supported, fully illustrated assertion that strong business performance is achieved through the application of sound academic principles tempered by real-world business experience makes What I Didn’t Learn in Business School a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Recommended Resource – Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage

/in , /by

Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage
by Scott Keller and Colin Price

About the Reference

In Beyond Performance, Scott Keller and Colin Price reveal that achieving organizational excellence is a combination of performance – the delivery of financial results – and health – the ability to perform year after year. Both are shown to be measurable and achieved through the five frames of:

  • Aspire: Where do we want to go?
  • Assess: How ready are we to go there?
  • Architect: What do we need to do to get there?
  • Act: How do we manage the journey?
  • Advance: How do we keep moving forward?

The findings presented in Beyond Performance are founded on extensive research and empirical data. This underlying evidence gives Beyond Performance a level of credibility few other business books have been able to achieve.

Benefits of Using this Reference

StrategyDriven Contributors like Beyond Performance because it provides a method for achieving organizational excellence that is founded on the real-world performance of top companies. Additionally, Beyond Performance provides insights to the role of organization leaders in fostering ongoing performance excellence.

The analysis behind the actionable performance enhancement method is presented in such a manner that it gives the reader a clear understanding of how excellence might be similarly fostered within his/her organization. Use of organizational characteristic models and definition tables further enhances this clarity. Enough detail is provided so that the reader can create performance metrics to measure for the existence of enabling organizational characteristics and performance improvement when the journey for excellence is undertaken.

Beyond Performance‘s method for achieving organizational excellence is well aligned with that recommended by StrategyDriven; making it a StrategyDriven recommended read.