You need global top talent - then don't expect normalcy.
In today's world, the top talent is approximately 10x more productive than your internal average talent. Suppose your business strategy involves cross-functional initiatives that would take three years to complete. If you took 10 percent of the average talent working on the project and replaced it with top talent, how soon would you achieve the desired impact? It would take less than fifteen months. If a competitor used 20 percent more top talent in similar efforts, it would beat you to market even if it started a year or two later.
Every CEO, founder, CxO wants such talent to be part of their teams, however it is not as easy as it sounds. The top talent live life outside the box, they color outside the lines, they define their own way, they frequently question the status quo, they catch flaws that hide in everyone else’s blind spot and they improve the odds of success. They consciously don't follow the rules, or have great difficulty doing so. They represent a threat to a leader who has a command-and-control mentality. They act in peculiar ways to reach their aims -- they "break, transform, and create." They are not afraid to drop the dogma for something that can get the same results faster, and with fewer resources. They are obsessed with making the best even better, and they revel in a sense of accomplishment from raising the bar even higher.
Some of the world’s most innovative companies — Uber, Google, FB, Tesla, MS, Sprinklr (especially their tech and sales talent), SpaceX etc designed their workplace that attracted and enabled these talent to succeed. These companies thrived and disrupted the market precisely because the top talent at the helm rebelled against the norm, dreamt big, and did things differently.
Now the ugly truth - Most leaders and People/HR departments often struggle with them. The top talent are misunderstood, they’re the black sheep that can’t follow the rules. They flout the norms, they get into heated debates that can spiral into arguments. Top talents are often let go because they don't fit the so called 'culture' of the company.
Normal/dependable is what most companies look for. But is “Normal” enough? Companies built solely on a dependable workforce will stagnate and vanish into oblivion. Classic examples - Yahoo, Kodak, Nokia, Blackberry, MySpace, PanAm, Compaq, GM, etc
The first aspect to look at while attracting and retaining top talent is to reduce bias - culture by definition is the biggest bias according to me. Don't solely focus on your culture fit, look at culture add and cultural contribution. A top talent need not fit your culture to the 'T' - they may actually challenge your culture and that's fine. What a company needs to focus on is to make sure that your core values are not violated by them.
The second aspect is to have transparent systems, however unfair practices. So for example your compensation system & philosophy need to cater to the top talent. You cannot expect the top talent to be satisfied with a 30% - 50% annual hike, because they are 1000% more productive than your average talent. You would have to look at a 400/500% hike for them and they deserve it. However it is important that all the employees in your company comprehend the definition of 'top talent' and clearly understand the difference between average talent and top talent in terms of work output. You should also have a process in place so that the average talent is given all the encouragement and push to turn into top talent.
The third and the most difficult aspect is to turn the workplace into an innovative one, because top talents are attracted by innovative companies and remain because of innovative work places. Companies like Google, FB, Tesla, etc have been able to succeed because they continued to take big risks. To invent you have to experiment and if you know in advance that it's going to work - it's not an experiment. You need to have a workplace that can systemise failures - fail fast, learn quickly and move on to the next problem.
Every company that wants to remain relevant in business needs to have at least 1% top talent and aim for 3% top talent to remain relevant in the future.