Making talent a strategic priority

Another leading discussion by McKinsey's in 2008... The War for Talent never ended. Executives must constantly rethink the way their companies plan to attract, motivate, and retain employees. Companies like to promote the idea that employees are their biggest source of competitive advantage. Yet the astonishing reality is that most of them are as unprepared for the challenge of finding, motivating, and retaining capable workers as they were a decade ago. Ten years after McKinsey conducted its War for Talent research,1 the 1997 study drawing attention to an imminent shortage of executives, the problem remains acute—and if anything has become worse. Companies face a demographic landscape dominated by the looming retirement of baby boomers in the developed world and by a dearth of young people entering the workforce in Western Europe. Meanwhile, question marks remain over the appropriateness of the talent in many emerging markets. Business leaders are deeply concerned, judging by two McKinsey Quarterly global surveys.

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Harvard Business School Discusses Future of the MBA

For the school that so boldly launched the MBA 100 years ago and went on to become the bluest of blue-chip brands in business education, it seemed only fitting that Harvard Business School should mark its centennial year by examining the future of the degree it invented. "It was our view that you need to think critically about what you are doing every 100 years or so, whether you need to or not," Dean Jay Light wryly observed in opening remarks to an unprecedented campus gathering last March of business school deans, corporate recruiters, and executives. It was a welcome moment of levity given the seriousness of the topic at hand. Some of the schools represented had already implemented major MBA program reforms. Others were considering them. But everyone had one thing in common: Each had assisted HBS professors Srikant Datar and David Garvin in their painstaking research to render the most complete contemporary picture of MBA education.

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Why Don't Managers Think Deeply?

Jeffrey Immelt, GE's CEO, has received a lot of publicity recently for fostering "imagination breakthroughs" by encouraging managers to think deeply about innovations that will ensure GE's longer-term success. He has vowed that he will protect those working on the breakthroughs from the "budget slashers" focused on short-term success. Questions that this effort raises include: (1) Why so much publicity? (2) Isn't "deep thinking" what leaders are paid to do? and (3) Why do these kinds of effort require so much protection? In their new book, Marketing Metaphoria, Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman suggest some answers to the questions.

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The Seven Things That Surprise New CEOs

Most new chief executives are taken aback by the unexpected and unfamiliar new roles, the time and information limitations, and the altered professional relationships they run up against. Here are the common surprises new CEOs face, and here's how to tell when adjustments are necessary. Surprise One: You Can't Run the Company

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Creating a Positive Professional Image

As HBS professor Laura Morgan Roberts sees it, if you aren't managing your own professional image, others are. "People are constantly observing your behavior and forming theories about your competence, character, and commitment, which are rapidly disseminated throughout your workplace," she says. "It is only wise to add your voice in framing others' theories about who you are and what you can accomplish." There are plenty of books telling you how to "dress for success" and control your body language. But keeping on top of your personal traits is only part of the story of managing your professional image, says Roberts. You also belong to a social identity group—

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