Observations and experiences with "The Talent War" book

[ Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with The Talent War Group (TWG).]

My hiring and development practices have been greatly influenced by the book, The Talent War.? Authors Mike Sarraille and George Randle (of The Talent War Group, or TWG) propose that Character is a better predictor of performance than Skills and Experience.?They describe a disciplined, methodical approach to assessing, selecting, and developing talent.?They further define character in terms of nine foundational traits.

Assessing and selecting using The Talent War

The Talent War resonated with my intuition about talent.?I evaluated dozens of former and current employees through the lens of The Talent War attributes.?I considered outstanding performers, employees that had been unsuccessful, and people in between.

The results were striking.

To a person, high performers had a strong combination of drive, team-ability, effective intelligence, and humility.?Some had strengths in additional attributes; no one significantly lacked in any attribute.

I also found low performance was mostly a result of mismatching people and roles.?For example, someone with low adaptability on a project with many unknowns and frequent changes led to a frustrated person who performed poorly.?Conversely, that same person excelled when leading a straightforward off-the-shelf software rollout with little surprises.

These findings reinforced that matching skills and experience to success is necessary, but not sufficient. Most of us know the refrain, "Hire for attitude, train for skill."?The Talent War provides a subtle alternative: "Hire for character, train for skill."

Job descriptions

Job descriptions are more than documents that allow you to assess an employee once a year or determine how many boxes someone checks.?It represents a thoughtful examination of what a person will need to succeed in a specific role – and in your company.?These needs are a blend of attributes and skills.?Starting here, I introduced a few changes to job descriptions.

Each job description begins with the nine attributes.?I refer to this as "who you are as a person." The nine attributes are tailored for every role based on the essence of what is needed.?The level of investment to create a job description is now greater.?In fairness, and if I'm being honest, part of that relative increase is due to the small amount of time I historically spent. The results, however, are superior.?

Top attributes for the role are identified and each attribute is distilled into its essence.?For example, a Chief Architect requires a lot of effective intelligence and curiosity, while a call center rep needs emotional strength.

This is not to say other attributes don't matter.?It is a matter of emphasizing certain ones that have a higher bar for a specific role.?Certain attributes are non-negotiable for all roles. In other words, I don't care how intelligent you are if you possess no humility.?

Interviewing

My interview process has also evolved.?Significant practice changes were:

• Identify a consistent interview team based on the role.?Some roles interact with other groups frequently, so include someone from outside your department for a different perspective. The interview team remains the same for all candidates for a specific role.
• To simplify scheduling, use a panel interview format.?This also allows candidates to see the team interact with each other (a window, if you will, into real culture).??Panelists observe the same questions asked and each candidate's answer.?The team quickly calibrates to what "good" looks like, allowing better comparison across candidates, and provides checks and balances against extreme interpretations of answers.
• Scripted questions for each attribute are developed by the interview team.?Like the job description, we tailor each question based on the attribute and the role.?It starts with knowing what we expect in the role, based on the job description.?This also turns out to be a great way to gain alignment on success factors for the role. Lastly, this ensures consistency from candidate to candidate.

?Additional recommendations

• Do this as a team. Recommend (don't require) reading The Talent War to your team.?It will help you learn together.?It is also a window into their drive and curiosity.
• Stay curious. When I was stumped on how to interview for the attribute of Integrity, I dug into the TWG podcast archives.?In one episode, author George Randall described his approach for this attribute.?I played the snippet with the team, and we brainstormed how to tailor for our environment.
• Start with job descriptions. The interview process was addressed first.?In turn, that highlighted inconsistent understanding among the interview team regarding role requirement.?Subsequently, we improved the job description process. Developing job descriptions as a team led to alignment of role expectations and needs.
• Partner with HR. Share what you are reading and doing with your HR business partner. They likely have more than just your department to support, and they will want to have consistency in practices.

Keep in mind this is a very brief overview. I encourage you to grab this book and subscribe to the TWG podcasts. And if possible, engage TWG directly.

Thanks for reading…

-Neal

#talentwar #recruiting #character #leadershipdevelopment