The AmLaw 200 vs. the Fortune 500: Talent Wars

Juxtaposition can be deadly.  Something which, viewed in isolation, seems explainable or understandable, can, placed next to its drastic opposite, seem utterly obtuse and even mildly absurd.

So this weekend we have The American Lawyer's release of its annual survey of mid-level associates, and Business Week's cover story on "how to recruit, train, and hold on to great people."  The survey, with responses from nearly 6,000 associates, can be summed up thus:

"[it provides] a glimpse of what upper management and youngish associates think of each other. Sometimes it's not pretty."

"'There are very few companies that feel they have an excess of talent,' says Paul Rogers, a partner at consulting firm Bain & Co.  At the same time, business has gotten tougher, and companies are counting on their people to be flexible enough to move at today's accelerated pace, yet creative enough to excite consumers around the world..."

Indeed.  And so corporations are doing everything they can—spending $50-billion a year, one estimate has it—to uncover, nurture, reward, and promote talent.

As hierarchies flatten, corporations become more global, and competition intensifies, who can afford to skimp on developing talent?  Yet these are some of the things associates had to say:  A mentor delivering "feedback" "just yells at me."  "It is easier to hack into the CIA computer network than to learn about executive committee decisions that affect everyone."   After pulling all-nighters, one's reward is to have partners demand immediate changes to the work without explanation.

Can the associates be partly to blame for not taking the initiative?  Consider:  "One Proskauer Rose midlevel brought to her last semiannual review a wish list that included requests for more writing and deposition experience and a mentor for business development skills. They kind of laughed and said, 'You shouldn't be worried about [these things]' at my level. It was frustrating: It was like talking to dead air,' she says."

The Business Week piece, by contrast, painstakingly recaps the heroic steps companies such as Schlumberger, Dell, IBM, Johnson + Johnson, and, inevitably and famously, GE, take to identify, nurture, and reward talent.   But if I can leave you with one and only one take-away, it's in this graphic, "What Not To Do," and especially the toxic habit of assuming that management of people means criticizing their shortcomings rather than reinforcing their strengths.  Study after study has shown that the best managers spend 80% of their time trying to amplify people's strengths rather than mending their weaknesses.  As BW puts it, "Copy them."