By avoiding pay-per-performance bonuses you can offer higher base salaries and retain your highly motivated employees. All this increases talent density. But nothing increases talent density more than paying people high salaries and increasing them over time to assure they remain top of market.
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Build up talent density by creating a workforce of high performers.
Introduce candor by encouraging loads of feedback.
Remove controls such as vacation, travel, and expense policies.
Strengthen talent density by paying top of market.
Increase candor by emphasizing organizational transparency.
Release more controls such as decision-making approval.
Max-up talent density by implementing the Keeper Test.
Max-up candor by creating circles of feedback.
Eliminate most controls by leading with context not control.
We learned that a company with really dense talent is a company everyone wants to work for. High performers especially thrive in environments where the overall talent density is high.
Our employees were learning more from one another and teams were accomplishing more—faster. This was increasing individual motivation and satisfaction and leading the entire company to get more done. We found that being surrounded by the best catapulted already good work to a whole new level.
But people are less creative when they don’t know whether or not they’ll get paid extra. Big salaries, not merit bonuses, are good for innovation.
In order to fortify the talent density in your workforce, for all creative roles hire one exceptional employee instead of ten or more average ones. Hire this amazing person at the top of whatever range they are worth on the market. Adjust their salary at least annually in order to continue to offer them more than competitors would. If you can’t afford to pay your best employees top of market, then let go of some of the less fabulous people in order to do so. That way, the talent will become even denser.
To achieve the highest level of talent density you have to be prepared to make tough calls. If you’re serious about talent density, you have to get in the habit of doing something a lot harder: firing a good employee when you think you can get a great one.
One of the reasons this is so difficult in many companies is because business leaders are continually telling their employees, “We are a family.” But a high-talent-density work environment is not a family.