The Talent War: How Special Operations and Great Organizations Win on Talent

by Mike Sarraille, George Randle, Josh Cotton (Contribution by)

Overview

Foreword written by New York Times bestselling author and retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink.

A must-read for any business leader looking to build elite teams and win on talent.

Talent is the foundation of every success story from Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Main Street, and even on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's the hidden asset that never shows up on the balance sheet, despite being the driver for a company's true value. And now, in this hypercompetitive business environment, the war for talent has never been more important, or more complex. Of eight hundred CEOs and six hundred C-suite executives polled in 2019, the overwhelming majority cited the ability to attract and retain top talent as their number one concern.

For your organization to win, you need to attract and retain the best talent. But without the right strategy or mindset, you won't be able to do so--and you won't be able to compete. After all, your people, not your product or service, are your strongest competitive advantage.

When it comes to winning on talent, no one does it better or more consistently than the US Special Operations community. Their success comes down to their people and a widely held foundational belief: Talent + Leadership = Victory.

The Talent War explores how US Special Operations Forces assess, select, and develop their world-class talent. You'll learn how to adopt a talent mindset, the single greatest weapon you can possess in the war for talent. When your organization reflects this mindset, you will hire, train, and develop the right people, and put them in the best positions to make decisions that allow you to retake the advantage and win the war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781544515564
Publisher:	Talent War LLC
Publication date:	11/10/2020
Pages:	294
Sales rank:	341,394
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Mike Sarraille is the Founder and CEO of Talent War Group, a leadership development and executive search firm, and head of the Men's Journal Everyday Warrior Initiative. He is a former Recon Marine, Scout-Sniper, and retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer with twenty years of experience, to include the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

George Randle is a Managing Partner and Co-Director of Talent Advisory at Talent War Group, an executive search and talent advisory firm, and a former US Army Officer. George has more than two decades of experience as a talent acquisition and HR executive at Fortune 100 and Fortune 1000 firms.

Dr. Josh Cotton is an expert in talent assessment and employee effectiveness. He has designed scientifically valid candidate selection practices for the US Navy SEALs and Fortune 100 companies, and has advised leaders at DuPont, Omnicom, CSX, and Flowserve.

Editorial Reviews

2020-12-18
If a company wants to win “the talent war,” it should take a cue from the military’s special operations recruiting process, according to this debut business book.

When it comes to finding—and molding—the best talent, few organizations are more effective than the United States special operations forces. Those who become Navy SEALs or Army Rangers have gone through a rigorous, battle-tested assessment process to identify high performers who “share a common set of attributes” (including drive, resiliency, and humility) that position them for success. In their laser-focused work, Sarraille, a former Marine and Navy SEAL; Randle, a one-time Army officer; and Cotton, a senior management consultant, draw on their diverse experiences to make a persuasive case for why companies large and small should rethink outdated, ineffective hiring practices and embrace an approach similar to that used by the special operations forces. When hiring managers narrowly focus on hard skills or fail to look beyond the basic facts of a candidate’s resume, they may not see talent that is hiding in plain sight, the authors argue. And when they don’t nurture talent where it already exists, they risk losing it to competing organizations. In three sections, the authors clearly outline what most businesses get wrong about hiring (and what special operations forces get right); explain how to create a “talent acquisition plan” to engage and retain the best people; and offer guidance on the nuts-and-bolts of recruiting. One innovative idea: temporarily take “A-players” away from their regular duties and put them on “the front line of the talent war.” Nonmilitary folks will learn plenty about special operation forces’ surprising approach to candidate selection, where the focus is less on brawn and more on brains and character. While the authors readily admit that no company can (or should) re-create the SEALs’ infamous “Hell Week,” they draw on their experiences as consultants to show how other tests can identify candidates most likely to drive a business forward. A mix of war stories and insider military information separates this effort from the average business book. But there’s no shortage of practical, actionable advice in these pages, whether readers are CEOs or midlevel managers tasked with filling empty positions.

This must-read for business leaders provides a fresh perspective on transforming the hiring process.

Kirkus Reviews