In The Talent War, former Army officer, George Randle, and former Navy Seal, Mike Sarraille, join forces to share their decades of experience in talent acquisition and management. Randle is a strategic advisor to Sarraille’s EF Overwatch, and VP of Global Talent Acquisition for Forcepoint, a human-centric cybersecurity company. EF Overwatch is an executive search and talent advisory firm. What makes this book unique is that the authors draw on their military experience, particularly that with Special Operations Forces (SOF) - Seals, Green Berets, etc. - to describe how SOFs recruit, assess, and retain talent. They then translate their best practices to show how high-performance teams like the SOFs can be created in the private sector. Organizations must first begin with a talent mind-set. For the authors, they have seen first-hand that it is talent that drives teams forward and when all is said and done, it is talent that wins. Talent at its most basic level is high-potential candidates that are most likely to become high performers. Randle and Sarraille state that the foundation of talented teams begins with character. This is the critical raw material needed to build a highly productive and sustainable organization. “Hire for character, train for skill.” You cannot teach character. Think about the importance of character in your own experience. Reflect on those who exhibited character and how you felt about them. Then think of those who did not. It is the grease for excellence, and it must be embedded in everyone for success. Character is not assessed by looking at a college degree, industry experience, or hard-earned skills....
Read More
