Talent Management: Post #1--The Enemy Withing

The Enemy Within. “At most companies, people spend 2%of their time recruiting and 75% managing their recruiting mistakes,” says Richard Fairbanks, CEO, Capital One. Through inertia, we avoid regular reviews of people, even when we know we don’t have the best people around us. Cutting your losses isn’t easy but is necessary to move ahead. We don’t work as hard evaluating insiders as we do outsiders. However, going outside is economically justified only 6% of the time as opposed to 30% for going “inside” for talent. When possible, promote from within after benchmarking to the best external potentials. Despite defined criteria, evaluators are highly influenced by attractive outside candidates and emotions. Create a checklist when selecting people for interviews. Decision fatigue (people make poorer decisions later in the day) affects our  choices. We make better decisions when we are fresh—after lunch or breaks.

It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best by Claudio Fernandez-Araoz (Harvard Business Press, 2014) reviewed by Steve Gladis, January 2015.