talent ‘gravity’

For the past year or so there have been a lot of chatter around talent density, however I think a lot of people seem to not be talking about something potentially more important than talent density → which is talent gravity.

Talent gravity is when an organization has the people who end up being the reason that other people want to join the organization. There are many places where the mission is exciting and is a reason for someone to want to join, but the talent gravity factor is one that is harder to replicate.

I’ve seen this play out many times when a talent gravity person joins a company, and immediately the number of people who want to join that company multiplies, not because people didn’t know about that company, but because the event of the talent gravity individual joining, made the company more attractive.

These people are quite rare to find, but you’ll see that wherever they go, a lot of the same people seem to want to or actually do follow them. It is important to retain these people as much as possible, since their gravity not only comes from them being very very good in their domain and skillsets, but also because they contribute a lot to the culture of the place. Their gravity is not just because people want to work with someone with high craft, but because they want to be around that person every day when they come to the office.