CIOIN

The Talent Masters: Why Smart People Put People Before Numbers

By Bill Conaty & Ram Charan

Published by Random House Business.

Rs 700

Journalists typically have little use for HR departments and their trappings. Veteran editor Pritish Nandy once remarked that as far as he was concerned the bunch had only two functions—ensuring that salaries were paid out on time and that the loos were kept clean. An extreme view, no doubt, but one that I have heard echoes of in my many conversations with CIOs.
The idea of a department that does more than paperwork, I suspect, is as alien to newsrooms as it is to IT departments.
Indeed, most editors that I have worked with recruited and groomed stars, based on old world wisdom, seat-of-the-pants management, and a whole lot of faith. I’m no exception to this philosophy; however, I have seen enough great teams self-destruct to know that there ought to be a better way of going about the talent game.
The Talent Masters aims to nudge us in that direction. Indeed, the opening lines of the book read: “If businesses managed their money as carelessly as they manage their people, most would be bankrupt.”

I found myself buying into many of the book’s ideas, and forming a healthier respect for the souls tasked with HR than before. Read on for excerpts from reviews of this book from two of your peers who recommend it more heartily than me:
The book is one of the greatest path lighters about the principles and practices of fostering human resources that I’ve come across. Through their analyses of real world examples from organizations as diverse as GE and Goodyear; Hindustan Unilever and LG; Apple and HP, the authors have put forward their hypothesis, in simple yet relatable terms. I was specially impressed by the parallels that they have drawn between financial management and talent management.

Both class and experience shine in this book and I unequivocally subscribe to their belief in creating a performance-driven meritocracy as also an organization which fosters problem-solvers rather than problem identifiers. Neither is an simple task, but with this book as a guide makes
it easier.

Without doubt this is a valuable book. I would go so far as to call it the ‘Bible’ of leadership development.
Overall, The Talent Masters offers a valuable window into the skills of talent development—from what a talent master does (succession planning and leadership development); to the special expertise of such masters (growing the talent pipeline and building capacity through experiences); to becoming one (setting the right values and behaviors, as well as getting the right talent management process in place); and, finally serving up a tool kit of things to get the ball rolling.
Real life examples from global organizations, and the compilation of rich experiences by the authors whet my appetite and made it an interesting read.