It's Not the How or the What but the Who

{7}

The Other GDP

Back in 2006, I worked with Nitin Nohria, the current dean of Harvard Business School, and my Egon Zehnder colleagues, to complete a big study on talent, gathering detailed data and interviewing CEOs from forty-seven companies with a combined market capitalization of $2 trillion, revenues of over $1 trillion, and more than 3 million employees.¹ Representing all major sectors and geographies, these firms were all successful, with strong reputations and solid people practices. And yet we found alarming signs that all were about to face a massive talent crunch over the following decade, as a result of three factors—globalization, demographics, and pipelines (I’ve taken to calling them “the other GDP”)—that were dovetailing to create ...