This is a good book. If you are responsible for developing “high potential” employees, this book should give you much to think about. It is up-to-date; it covers a lot of ground and it is very well researched and referenced. I would recommend it. But there are a few caveats.
The book's authors are Ian MacRae and Adrian Furnham. Ian is a psychologist and writer. He researched the personality of High Flyers whilst at University College London. He was supervised by Adrian, Professor of Psychology and co-author of this book. Adrian has written over 1,000 scientific papers and 70 books. He lectures across the globe, is a newspaper columnist and a regular contributor to radio and television shows. So, these two certainly have the credentials to come up with a cracking book.
The topic of the book is high potential, or more specifically, high potential at work. Many large organisations look to recruit and develop talented employees, preparing them for work at senior levels. This book looks at how to select the right people for such investment, how to best develop that potential once it has been identified and how to increase the chances that the people so selected remain at the organisation long enough to see that potential come to fruition.
Some of the early concepts in the book are fundamental. For example, they look at what potential and high potential means. For them, potential is “a probability or likelihood to behave in a particular way”, and high potential therefore as “a high probability to be successful at a particular type of work”. They also are keen to stress that for them potential is not just about leadership; it could be about potential to become a high performer in a technical aspect of work. They ask the question (and come back to it throughout the book) – “potential to do what?” This is important as unless you know the ultimate destination, it is difficult to recruit those most likely to reach it, and harder to know how to develop them along the way.
A good two-thirds of the book covers the area of what high potential looks like, how to spot it and how to recruit those with it. There is lots and lots of useful information in this part of the book, based on detailed research. Readers are introduced to discussions in factors such as intelligence and personality. Probably no big surprises in that intelligence is important and that there are certain personality traits that are common amongst those who are judged to have high potential. The authors build on the work of others and suggest their own High Flying Personality Inventory.
In another chapter, the authors consider the importance of experience (“the most brutal of instructors”). Experience can be a useful indicator of potential. In a further one they examine style, beliefs, attitude and values. These are complex concepts, and much more difficult to use in spotting potential.
An interesting chapter is one in which they consider “the dark side and derailment”. They look at why things go wrong with high potential employees. They look at the signs that can be spotted to indicate when this is more likely to occur, and thus warn the readers of how to spot these troubles before recruitment of high potentials. They give guidance on what to do to manage the situations for those already in the organisation.
So far so good. The authors then move on to discuss assessment techniques which can be used to find out more about those being considered as having high potential, and specifically about how they can be recruited. Their summary of popular selection methods is enlightening, showing how many companies rely on interviews and references, which turn out to be the least reliable ways to spot high potential!
Chapters follow on development and retention. These cover the ground well enough, although there is less new or interesting material here for the seasoned professional. The final chapter is titled “strategy and potential”. Although there were links to the topic of strategy and potential, for me this was the least satisfying part of the book.
As indicated, there is much useful material in the book for those charged with the recruitment and development of those of with high potential. Now the caveats.
The first is that the book is heavily tilted to the “spot” rather than the “manage and develop”. This is okay, and the authors (both psychologist) have a lot to say about the factors that help one to do the spotting. However, if you were looking for fresh insights into managing and developing those with high potential you may be a little disappointed. The second is that, in my humble opinion, the book could have benefitted from a different editing and proofing. Conclusions to chapters sometimes introduced new thoughts rather than followed on from the material. Some diagrams were inaccurate or too small to be read easily. And I was left wondering about the High Flying Personality Inventory, which could have been better packaged within the book, both for the reader and the benefit of the authors.
So for me, a four out of five. I would recommend the book as a whole and the earlier part in particular. It should give the reader lots to think about and some good guidance about the topic. Definitely shows potential!
