The Information Age is OVER – The Talent Age is upon us!!!

American business is about to face a level of competition that exceeds most people’s imagination and for the first time will be experiencing a talent shortage of gigantic proportions at the management level. So says Alan Guarino, CEO of the executive search firm Cornell International and author of a soon-to-be published book that urges U.S. companies to pay more attention to “academic underachievers” in their recruiting efforts in order to have both the quantity and quality of management talent that is necessary to succeed in today’s world. Some of the best CEO’s have come from the ranks of academic underachievers. There are real reasons for this.

In his book, Smart Is Not Enough: The South Pole Theory and Other Powerful Talent Management Secrets (Wiley, March 2007), Guarino observes that countries like India and China, while growing their own talent, are very much in the hunt for graduates of American institutions. He points out that this talent grab has contributed to a shortage of qualified recruits at a time when job requirements increasingly call for exceptional workers.

“With lesser-developed countries continuing to build viable economies in which there are real white collar jobs and real career paths, U.S. companies will have to compete in a global marketplace for not only goods and services, but also for talent,” he explains.

The stakes for talent were never higher than they are now, Guarino says, noting that the Information Age has given way to the Talent Age, where people have emerged as the most valuable resources in business today. “Whereas financial capital was once considered the most important asset in building shareholder wealth, human capital is fast becoming the key differentiator among businesses, especially in the service sector where superior talent and competitive advantage go hand in hand,” he says.

What can be done about the looming shortage of talent? Well, for starters, Guarino suggests that academic underachievers represent an underutilized special pool of talent that can help keep a company operating at its peak effectiveness. He calls these academic underachievers “South Polers,” owing to their position in the bottom half, or southern pole, of their classes.

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“In the bottom half of every class are some of the most brilliant, driven, innovative people on the planet, who can take your business to the next level,” says Guarino. “But the catch is, they’re not easy to find.” The book discusses various tools and processes that can be used by companies to evaluate talent, create a human resources organization that will optimize it, and provide the leadership and work environment necessary to nurture it.

Guarino admits to being a “South Poler” himself (he graduated in the bottom half of his class at West Point) and says that he was accepted by West Point because of some early leadership accomplishments that had nothing to do with academics. “I was never really motivated to study,” he reveals in his book, while adding that he was attracted to and distracted by other things. “My grades, like those of many other ‘South Polers,’ were not an indication of what I could do.”

Judging from other notable “South Polers” who are cited in the book—all of them successful in their own right—the author is in very good company. The list includes military leaders like Generals Ulysses S. Grant and George S. Patton; business leaders like John D. Rockefeller, Wayne Huizenga, Barbara Corcoran, David Neeleman, Richard Branson, and Paul Orfalea (founder of Kinko’s); scientists like Werner von Braun (he failed 9th grade algebra) and Masatoshi Koshiba (the 2002 winner of the Nobel Laureate in Physics was said to be the worst student in his university class); and news and entertainment icons like the late Peter Jennings and Stanley Kubrick.

“Academic brilliance, in other words, isn’t the most important measure of potential success,” Guarino writes. “Sometimes success just takes sheer hard work, getting your hands dirty, and having the savvy to know intuitively what to do. It takes perseverance to stay the course, the judgment to modify that course, the communication skills to sell the plan, and the savvy to execute—none of which are classically measured by a person’s college grade point average.” Guarino observes that “South Polers” typically succeed with little assistance from the organization that hired them.

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What special qualities should an organization look for when it sets out to recruit “South Polers” into its ranks? Guarino says five attributes in particular stand out:

• They are persuasive communicators.
• They have learned to cope with adversity.
• They have stood out in some way besides academics.
• They are passionate about what they do.
• They will almost always challenge conventional thinking.

Although he acknowledges that selecting “South Polers” is anything but an exact science, Guarino maintains that most individuals who fall into this category possess a mix of intelligence (both academic and emotional) and savvy to drive innovation, stand up to challenges, and ensure business success.

While it takes a certain amount of skill to be able to evaluate and hire talented “South Polers,” the author cautions that a company must also have in place a system for developing and leading its talent—not to mention a Human Resources department that is equal to managing this critical task. As Guarino puts it, “Human Resources can be viewed as the mission critical provider of talent, developer of talent, deployer of talent, predictor of talent needs, and keeper of the corporate culture.”

For Human Resources to shine, Guarino maintains that it has to execute against a talent management model that begins with adopting the organization’s business strategy and forecasting its talent needs. It must then be able to attract the additional talent needed for this strategy both from within and outside the organization. And then it has to effectively deploy (assign the talent to the field with clear deliverables and measurable outcomes), evaluate (measure performance against metrics, requirements, desired outcomes, and deliverables), develop (provide skills training, knowledge exchange, and mentoring), and retain (create an appealing culture through rewards, opportunity, and collegiality) that talent. The book provides practical advice as to how

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this can be done in organizations of all shapes and sizes, as well as some downloadable forms and tools that they can use to operate a successful talent management model.

Here’s how Guarino sums up the current state of affairs in what’s become a worldwide battle for talent: “For too long, American business has focused on academic achievement as a measure of a person’s likelihood of succeeding while ignoring the talent that can be found in the ‘South Pole.’ But with the looming talent shortage, it can no longer afford to do so. It must begin to mine the ‘South Pole’ as part of a complete talent management strategy.”

To learn more go to www.Thetalentmanagementforum.com and click “The Book”

For more information, contact Pat Pollino at 781-237-7276 or Patrick.Pollino@verizon.net.