PTE真题：The war for talent（人才之战） Part2

Talent is never explicitly defined in the book, though the Preface notes, "A certain part of talent elude description: You simply know it when you see it." (p. xii) After several further caveats, the authors go on: "We can say, however, that managerial talent is some combination of a sharp strategic mind, leadership ability, emotional maturity, communications skills, the ability to attract and inspire other talented people, entrepreneurial instincts, functional skills, and the ability to deliver results." (p. xiii) The authors offer no outside support for this assertion.

A 2006 article in The Economist, which mentions the book, notes that, "companies do not even know how to define “talent”, let alone how to manage it. Some use it to mean people like Aldous Huxley's alphas in “Brave New World”—those at the top of the bell curve. Others employ it as a synonym for the entire workforce, a definition so broad as to be meaningless."

The 'War for talent is seen by various sources as becoming irrelevant during economic downturns. However, there has been highly visible talent poaching by solvent firms of others who have economic hardship (e.g., JP Morgan was raided by a European firm in March, 2009)