Talent developers as life savers

Do you see your role in talent development as critical to helping your organization survive?

According to Sydney Finkelstein, professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and author of Superbosses and Why Smart Executives Fail, great leaders help companies survive and thrive because they have the ability not only to find talent but also to nurture it by inspiring others to unleash their creative power. (Liz Wiseman calls leaders like these Multipliers.) They do this by raising the bar and their expectations.

In a recent interview with Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli as part of a series called Leadership in the Wake of COVID-19, Finkelstein tells how “superbosses” in professional sports, fashion, food, software, health care and more have achieved great success by continuously focusing on the talent around them – and nurturing that talent one-on-one.

That ability is even more important although more difficult now, he says, when conditions require “using your time much more effectively and thinking about all the things that we do – what could we actually push offline and what do we absolutely need to be doing face to face? Even though it’s more difficult, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to go away. It just means it’s got to get done,” Finkelstein says, adding:

The managers and the leaders who figure out how to do this more effectively are going to have a competitive advantage.

Read or watch the full interview here:

• Why Nurturing Talent Will Help Companies Survive the Pandemic

Meanwhile, you can learn how to unleash creative talent in our July 30 webinar with Liz Wiseman and Shawn Vanderhoven of The Wiseman Group. They seek your input on what’s most challenging for you right now in talent development. Share your thoughts now and help inform their research and the discussion for our webinar:

• Share my challenges!