Building a Talent Magnet: The Power of Effective Strategy

For many organizations, the people situation is bleak.

• Increased recruiting costs

• Low quality applicants

• Slow time-to-hire

• Poor-fit employees

• Lousy employee engagement

• High turnover rates

Believe it or not, these issues are directly tied to your organization’s strategy.

Red pill, blue pill.

Put yourself in the shoes of an employee or future hire. Which scenario would get you most excited to come to work and do big things?

• Option A: With more than 300 products to date, we’ll continue to expand and diversify lines of computers and peripherals to capture the broader market while expanding Mac OS licenses to third-party manufacturers to capture marketshare against Microsoft Windows.

• Option B: Sell dreams not products by focusing on simplicity, functionality, and appeal through 2x2 categories: desktops and portables for consumers and desktops and portables for professionals.

While neither of these were the actual written strategy of Apple before and after Steve’s return in 1997, they’re a decent simplification of what leadership was communicating.

I think it’s clear that option B telegraphs to every employee, top to bottom, what they should focus on, and how. This is the aligning power of strategy.

But what we don’t discuss enough is how this alignment makes employees feel.

A clear, focused, and bold strategy will provide energy, ideation, and action that a bland strategy just never can.

Work the problem backward.

Let’s start at the problem and dig to the root…

⬇️ Top-shelf talent is attracted to other people doing big things.

⬇️ Because those people are making waves in the market.

⬇️ Because they’re an active part of their organization’s growth.

⬇️ Because they’ve been enabled by leadership.

⬇️ Because leadership gave them a clear vision.

➡️ Because a clear strategy was developed.

Do you see how a good strategy can do so much more than point the way?

The strategy/talent nexus.

A wise leader once told me: The sale is a sample of the engagement.

This bears true for people who are “buying” a future employer. What happens on the outside is a hint of what will happen on the inside.

So if you’re struggling to find and keep great people, look deeper than salary, benefits, and culture… inspect your strategy.