I had the opportunity to have dinner with two great people the other night, Jack Cartwright and Emmanuel Toutain.   As I listened carefully to them discuss their passions, motivators and goals, their similarities came to mind.  Both have an MBA; one from McCombs and the other from Wharton Business School.  Another striking parallel was their love of stretching themselves to consistently reach their potential and competitive natures.  As Ironman triathletes, when not at the office, they spend their free time training and participating at various races. As a talent professional, I loved listening to their stories!  The importance of culture surfaced to my mind.  By culture, the meanings that people attach to their actions. Next, was the beauty of their shared attributes and strengths.  I carefully listened to them share their upcoming race plans and discuss their goal setting.  They spoke of their past race experiences and inquired with each other about various mental and physical stresses and adaptability.  They shared their accomplishments and their methods for capturing the analytics related to their performance and lessons learned for future endeavors.  They shared stories about the importance to prepare for the unknowns on the race course, and ways to prepare and overcome, their natural problem solving skills were highlighted.  Resiliency and perseverance surfaced as I listened to them describe what it was like to stay calm under pressure, how to control their impulses so they didn’t over cook it in one segment of the race and have negative consequences to another segment (an Ironman race consists of 2. 4 mile swim, 112 mile bike followed by a marathon).  Additionally, the importance of optimism, mental strength and support were discussed related to their ability to succeed. The parallels were so vivid when I considered talent and performance management as I diligently listened to them engage. The two also shared core leadership traits. Some of the traits which occurred to me were confidence, commitment, positive attitude, intuition, ability to inspire others (they both shared coaching and volunteering), and strong interpersonal Startfinishcommunication skills. For talent managers and hiring managers, the starting line and finish line begins with you.  Do you know the behaviors,  competencies or attributes you want the successful candidate to demonstrate?  Can you identify the desired performance?
 

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