Book of the Month: The Strength of Talent by Mike Goldman

What does the best-selling book “The Strength of Talent” say about getting your leaders to be high-performing?

In my last 5 Minute Growth Tip, “Are you leaders high performing?”, we dove into the "how-to" of transforming your executive team from just "good enough" to high-performing. We looked at a specific rhythm - Quarterly Coaching Reviews, Personal Assessments, Quarterly Development Plans, and Weekly One-On-Ones - all designed to turn "A-Player" performance from a buzzword into a reality.
​
If you’ve started implementing these, you might want to dive deeper into reading about these practices. I highly recommend The Strength of Talent by my colleague Mike Goldman in New Jersey.

Mike is a fellow leadership team growth coach, and his book provides a powerful framework that speaks more to why we focus so heavily on these developmental rhythms. Here is an overview of what Mike’s book says about how to develop your leaders to become high performing, and some other practices for building an A-player executive team.

The A-Player Definition

A core theme in The Strength of Talent is the uncompromising pursuit of A-Players. Just as we defined A-Players as those who achieve excellence while living the company’s core values, Mike emphasizes that talent isn't just about technical skill; it’s about "cultural fit" and "productivity" moving in lockstep. He reinforces the idea that you cannot grow a great company with "B" or "C" players in key seats.

The Job Scorecard

I’ve talked a lot about moving away from dusty job descriptions toward a Job Scorecard that captures results, accountabilities, and behavioral competencies. Mike is a huge advocate for this. 

In his book, he breaks down why most hiring and performance management fail: we aren't clear enough about what "success" actually looks like. The scorecard is the foundation for everything else we do.

Quarterly Performance Assessments

Mike’s book focuses more on what we call an executive team talent assessment process. This is an exercise where executive team members share their performance assessments of their team members in order to gather the perspectives of their peers to round out their assessments, get input on actions to take with each team member, and hold each other accountable for developing their people (I’ll go over this process in a future 5 Minute Growth Tip on building a healthy culture). 

However, a key input to that process is the leader completing an individual assessment, ie. review, with each of their team members. Just as executive team talent assessments are best done quarterly, so are quarterly coaching reviews.

Quarterly Development Plans

Mike insists that assessments are meaningless without a concrete plan that translates insights into action. He argues that a development plan should focus strictly on the one or two "critical" behaviors or skills that will have the biggest impact, moving away from "death by a thousand goals." Crucially, Mike believes that true growth occurs through high-impact, on-the-job experiences rather than passive classroom learning, which reinforces why we use 90-day Quarterly Development Plans to turn leadership growth into tactical, measurable priorities that keeps your leaders focused on their growth.

The Power of the One-on-One

Remember how I insisted that Weekly One-on-Ones should be "sacred" and focused on the person, not just the leaders’ targets and priorities? Mike reinforces this by highlighting that the strongest companies have leaders who actually coach their people rather than just managing their tasks. His work reinforces the idea that these 20-30 minute sessions are the primary engine for engagement and loyalty.

Other Practices for Building an A-Player Executive Team

While The Strength of Talent focuses heavily on the development of your existing team, Mike also covers the following.

Hiring with Certainty: Mike provides a deep dive into the selection process. While we talked about developing the leaders you have, he offers a rigorous approach to ensuring the people you bring in are A-Players from day one.

The Cost of "C" Players: He doesn't pull any punches regarding the "talent tax" you pay when you keep mediocre performers around. He offers more details on how to identify when it's time to move someone out of the organization

Succession Planning: The book looks further down the road, helping CEOs think about who is next in line and how to build a "talent bench" so the company isn't vulnerable if a key leader departs.

As a CEO of a prairie-based company, you know that the "war for talent" is real. You don't have the luxury of wasting time on leadership development that doesn't stick.

Mike Goldman’s The Strength of Talent is a fantastic read because it makes crystal-clear that the path to a thriving company isn't just a better strategy or more capital; it’s the strength of the people sitting around your executive table.

By applying these people development practices, you aren't just managing a team, you’re building a high-performance machine.

If you’re feeling like your team has hit a plateau, or if you’re struggling to turn "good" leaders into "great" ones, you’re not alone. If you want help implementing Job Scorecards and these developmental rhythms to get your team to that A-Player level, let’s chat.

In the next 5 Minute Growth Tip, I’ll share the story of one of the clients we’ve worked with in this area and others. 

Watch / Listen to the Video

If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.