Dear All, The book was insightful to me and hope this summary captures the essence. "Talent Wins" by Ram Charan, Dominic Barton and Dennis Carey

1. Book Summary
Talent Wins
Ram Charan, Dominic Barton &
Dennis Carey

2. Wisdom of 3 Leaders
• Ram Charan , HR Thinker ; Dominic Barton,
Former Managing Partner of McKinsey and Dennis
Carey Former Vice Chairman of Kornferry have
collaborated to bring out this insightful play book
for CEOs, CFOs, & CHROs and all those aspiring
to be one.
• As the blurb says “ This is a definitive book for
reimagining and creating a talent-driven
organization that wins”
• This interesting interview with Dominic Barton
made me read the book :
https://work.qz.com/1259950/mckinsey-co-chief-
dominic-barton-on-talent-management-and-the-
future-of-hr/

3. CEO Drives Talent Strategy
• This book has been targeted at the CEO,
because CEO is the only one who can rally the
entire work force behind a talent first
organization.
• The central premise of talent driven company is :
Talent drives strategy as opposed to strategy
dictating to talent. The Authors say that talent
must move to the forefront of CEO thinking,
before strategy, before numbers and before
anything else.

4. CEO as a Coach
• Being a CEO of a talent led organization, is like
being the coach of a professional basketball team
• CEO job is to help the greatest talent in the
organization to be as creative and successful, as
they can be.
• While CEOs should closely monitor talent , they
should also constantly be thinking about who could
replace the top talent , if there is an attrition.

5. CEO Characteristics
• Successfully leading a talent first company
requires the CEO to have :
- agility
- ability to foster collaboration
- calm decisiveness in the face of uncertainty
- transparency
- faith.
• CEO should have enough ego to be comfortable
with making the hardest decisions and enough
humility to defer to the brilliance of other people.

6. Loose Control Step-By-Step
• Running a talent driven company means, living with
an idea that talent will determine the direction and
strategy of the organization.
• As HAIER’s CEO Zhang Ruimin has said the goal is
to “loose control step by step”

7. Book backed by Practical
Examples
• Filled with examples of forward thinking
companies that have adopted new approaches to
talent (such as ADP, Amgen, Blackrock,
Blackstone, Haier, Tata Telecommunications,
ING, Telenor & VOLVO).
• This book shows leaders how to bring the rigor
that they apply to financial capital to their human
capital thereby elevating HR to the same level as
finance in their organizations.

8. • Forge the
tools of
transformation
.
• Energize the
board
• Design and
redesign
the work of
the org.
• Reinvent
HR
• Scale up individual
talent
• Create an M&A
strategy for
talent
• Drive the
talent
playbook
Playbook for Putting-People-
First
7 Step Process

9. Step -1 : Forge The Tools Of
Transformation
• Forge a “G3” – A group of three people consisting
of CEO, CFO and CHRO. This core executive
group will lead transformations. While CFO is
already a part of core, authors say CHROs also
should find a place on the table.
• Critical 2 Percent - Develop both a Roster of the
top talent in your company and a deep
understanding of those people. The Authors call
them “critical 2 percent”.
• Technology - Put in place “Talent Technology”
software applications that elevate your ability to
identify, recruit and support talent both inside and
outside your company.

10. Step 2 - Energize The Board
“Reintroduce”
Creating a talent first organization is a top down
revolution. Energizing the board is a 4 R process :
Reintroduce ; Reorganize, Reprioritize and Retell
• CEO needs to “Reintroduce” the CHRO and
ensures that the board sees CHRO as a
key partner who drives the creation of
value across the enterprises.
• Gaining the full respect of the board means
that the CHRO is a seasoned executive .
• Taking time to develop a good relationship
between your CHRO and Board makes both
the parties stronger allies in the
transformation journey.

11. Step 2 - Energize The Board
“Reorganize”
• Re-name Compensation Committee as Talent
Committee OR People Committee OR Management
Development and Compensation Committee.
• Such symbolic changes have wider implications in
the way the committee operates.

12. Step 2 - Energize The Board
“Reprioritize”
• Having renamed Compensation Committee as Talent
and Rewards Committee
• Having integrated CHRO into critical board
discussions
• The new agenda for the committee should be :
– CEO succession
– Health of the “Critical 2%” (Top Talent)
– Diversity

13. Step 2 - Energize The Board
“Retell”
• Break the disconnect and talk to the investors
about Talent & Strategy in that order
• Shifting to a story built around talent is a sign of
the times
• More and more the performance or career
peregrinations is having an impact on share prices
• The story is not about stars but stability brought
about by a good talent pipeline
• This story is not only for IT companies but for all
companies in all sectors

14. Step 3 – Design The Work Of
Organization - “Agility ”
• Agility is the backbone of talent first organization
• Creating horizontal and flexible structure connects
and multiplies talent.
• In most organizations - Work, decision making,
compensation, career paths, even who gets best
computer follows a vertical path. But hierarchy
can isolate and bury talent.
• If agility is the physical under pinning of a talent
driven enterprises, platforms are the structural
foundation. In this method traditional hierarchy
gives way to a market place that provides talent
and resources to a collection of teams that cut
across business lines and market segments.

15. Step 3 – Design The Work Of
Organization – “Make Work
Meaningful”
• Make work meaningful
• At both Facebook and Haier employees think
“Solutions” before “Profit”
• Solutions first approach forces company to define
its mission. Mission gives employees a greater
sense of the purpose of their employer
• Gallup has found that 30% of US employees are
engaged and 20% are actively disengaged.
• According to Gallup CEO this desire to find
meaning is the biggest shift he has seen in 30
years
• To make work meaningful , make employees a
central part of your transformation into a talent-
driven organization

16. Step 3 – Design The Work Of
Organization – “New Social
architecture”
• Team work, platforms and meaningful work
triggers a new social architecture.
• Measure specific management behaviour that
define the social architecture of a company.
• McKinsey uses an approach called the
Organizational Health Index (OHI) to measure the
social architecture of a company, and these
measurements are benchmarked against the
responses from over two million respondents at
1,500 companies.

17. Step 4 – Reinvent HR
• If talent is King - finding, recruiting, supporting
and developing that talent is mission critical work.
• True re-innovation of HR is made harder by the
fact that so many people have seen a parade of
weak HR initiatives, come and go.
• Only the CEO can convince that this re-invention
of HR is one that counts and turns the function
into a recruiting, developing, integrating value
creating force that it should naturally be.
• A Korn Ferry study of 7000 CHROs revealed that
83% worry that their HR organization lack the
talent to deliver on strategic priorities.

18. Step 4 – Reinvent HR
According to authors these should be
the characteristics of CHRO
• Excellence in judging people and matching top
performers to the job where they can add the
most value.
• Sixth sense for diagnosing how well or poorly an
organization is functioning ; and an intuitive
fairness that corrects or rewards the people
involved.
• Intellectual curiosity to search relentlessly for
outside talent and compare it with your own
talent.
• Leadership, preferably developed through
assignments in line businesses as well as in HR.

19. Step 4 – Reinvent HR
According to authors these should be the
characteristics of CHRO … (contd)
• The capacity and willingness to contribute as part
of G-3 on capital decisions in which talents can be
the difference between success and failure.
• No desire to accumulate power for prestige or ego.
• The courage to promote extraordinary young talent
over veterans ; to sustain and motivate an
organization in perpetual change, to speak with
candour and dis-agree heartily.
• Acuity and sensitivity to work in synch with CFO

20. Step 5 – Unleash Individual
Talent
Three steps needed to effectively scale up
skills of people:
• Make use of data analytic and new software to
calibrate top talent.
• Re-examine any part of talent developments that
is seen as once a year HR function and replace or
augment it with something that delivers
continuous enlightening feedback (Annual
Performance Reviews, career paths, Pay Scales
etc)
• Re-vamp your systems to keep everyone in the
company learning and updating their skills.

21. Step 6 – Create an M&A
Strategy for Talent
• The war for talent will get more competitive.
• Book talks about Volvo’s strategy for talent – go
outside the company (through M&A) to retool
company workforce for a transformational
initiative.
• Develop peripheral vision for Talent
– Remember the next technology break-through can
come from anywhere
– The delineation between industries is blurring
– Think Global. Recruitment is a Global endeavour now
• Think innovatively to acquire talent

22. Step 7 – CEO Drives Talent
Playbook
The operational check list for CEOs
• Hold weekly meetings with G3 to steer company.
• Stay constantly involved with those in your critical
2%.You should personally know them. You should
personally sponsor them. You should constantly be
looking outside the organization to add / replace,
in case of attrition.
• Put talent at the centre of board agenda right up
there with strategy and risk & compliance.
• When making any strategic move, support with
talent implications.
• Pay as much attention to developing and executing
the talent strategy as you do to product strategy
or competition

23. Book Summary
Talent Wins
Ram Charan, Dominic Barton &
Dennis Carey