The Alliance
Managing Talent in the Networked Age
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3.7 • 16 Ratings
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times Bestelling guide for managers and executives.
Introducing the new, realistic loyalty pact between employer and employee.
The employer-employee relationship is broken, and managers face a seemingly impossible dilemma: the old model of guaranteed long-term employment no longer works in a business environment defined by continuous change, but neither does a system in which every employee acts like a free agent.
The solution? Stop thinking of employees as either family or as free agents. Think of them instead as allies.
As a manager you want your employees to help transform the company for the future. And your employees want the company to help transform their careers for the long term. But this win-win scenario will happen only if both sides trust each other enough to commit to mutual investment and mutual benefit. Sadly, trust in the business world is hovering at an all-time low.
We can rebuild that lost trust with straight talk that recognizes the realities of the modern economy. So, paradoxically, the alliance begins with managers acknowledging that great employees might leave the company, and with employees being honest about their own career aspirations.
By putting this new alliance at the heart of your talent management strategy, you’ll not only bring back trust, you’ll be able to recruit and retain the entrepreneurial individuals you need to adapt to a fast-changing world.
These individuals, flexible, creative, and with a bias toward action, thrive when they’re on a specific “tour of duty”—when they have a mission that’s mutually beneficial to employee and company that can be completed in a realistic period of time.
Coauthored by the founder of LinkedIn, this bold but practical guide for managers and executives will give you the tools you need to recruit, manage, and retain the kind of employees who will make your company thrive in today’s world of constant innovation and fast-paced change.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fresh off the success of 2012's The Start-Up of You, LinkedIn cofounder Hoffman and entrepreneurs Casnocha and Yeh return with an extended version of Hoffman's Harvard Business Review article "Tours of Duty." This packed book focuses on "rebuilding trust and loyalty through an alliance" between employees and employer; the old model is "based on a dishonest conversation," which promises loyal employees guaranteed lifetime employment. Downsizing and layoffs have ended that model. Employees are now expected to think more like entrepreneurs, and companies and their staffs must find new models to build trusting, mutually productive relationships. Hoffman and his coauthors suggest that companies create "tours of duty" to foster employee growth and development. The three tours are "rotational," during which entry-level employees can learn the business and find their place; "transformational," during which the mid-career employee can do something substantive; and "foundational," for long-term employees who serve as stewards of the mission. This approach is heavily based on fast-paced, competitive world of Silicon Valley, and, at times, the emphasis on LinkedIn makes the book feel like an ad campaign. Nonetheless, the specifics on helping employees network and aligning employee and company goals and values will help all employers create an engaged and self-actualized workforce.
