Latest / On the Subject of Leadership
The $200 Hammer: Why Talent Without Context Is Just Expensive Disappointment
Boards keep buying $200 hammers and handing them to people who have never built anything more demanding than a flat-pack bookshelf. The talent market assumes excellence is portable. The research, and the boardroom evidence, suggests it rarely is. This week's piece asks what we are actually buying when we hire a star—and whether the organisation receiving them deserves what arrives.
Takeaways
The cult of the exceptional appointment is one of management thinking's more durable superstitions, and it survives despite four decades of evidence against it.
Star performance is co-produced by the…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.