Part of making things happen in your career, as a company or as an individual, is taking a hard look at things and saying, "These are my flaws. These are my shortcomings. These are my self-defeating actions where I've shot my success in the foot." Any person or company who says they've never done those things is hindering their success, ruining their achievement, and unwittingly keeping themselves stuck in the middle. The unwillingness to do a hard current state assessment is a barrier between getting what you want and continuing to lack what you need. Finding that progress gap is the secret ingredient in the magic formula for understanding what it is that you need (not necessarily what you want) and then taking the steps to get that result (which leads to what you want). Talent management is indeed a business imperative to build and grow a successful organization ... but more importantly it is also a personal imperative for professionals to build successful careers. When people don't employ personal talent management in the way of owning their own succession plan; when companies and organizations don't build and sustain an integrated talent management strategy; they remain stuck in the middle; somewhere between who they are and who they want to be. How to get unstuck, how to break free from the middle is what individuals and organizations often don't understand. That critical understanding (and ability to take action on it to improve your situation) is what you'll find in this book as told through the eyes of a member of Generation X. About the Author: Dr. Curtis L. Odom is Principal and Managing Partner of Prescient Talent Strategists. He has over 15 years of experience in talent development, performance consulting, training, and instructional design as a practitioner, researcher, author and speaker. Curtis has an earned doctorate of education from Pepperdine University and has been industry certified as both a Human Capital Strategist (HCS) and Strategic Workforce Planner (SWP) from the Human Capital Institute. His 10 years of military service in the United States Navy serve as a solid foundation of his practical expertise in organizational development, change management, and integrated talent management strategies to maximize organizational investments in human capital. Dr. Odom is a member of the Human Capital Institute (HCI), International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), Phi Delta Kappa International Honor Society, and American Mensa. Curtis was honored with the distinction of being selected as a member of the Boston Business Journal Top 40 Under 40 Class for 2010.

Stuck in the Middle A Generation X View of Talent Management

Business & Money

Odom, Curtis L.

Management & Leadership

Booknology/Adducent, Inc.

I do not profess to know everything. I know a lot about a few things, which makes me open to learning something I have never heard of before. That, to me, makes learning fun! When I am in my professor role on campus, I bring my 20-plus years of knowledge, skills, ability, and experiences to teach content by placing it into a real-life context. What makes the writing of this book so beautifully ironic to me is you will be reading the career learnings and lessons of someone who barely made it out of high school but who found their personal definition of success as a business owner and full-time faculty member at a top business school in Boston. In the following pages, you will find over two decades of professional insights, lessons learned, and personal experiences as captured by a student in my class who gave me the greatest gift of my career: a transcript of me putting my entire career's worth of context into the content of academic lectures taught over a fall semester in a college classroom. This engaged student distilled the insights heard in what I said-as his professor-into simple statements that most impacted him. Clear proof that words matter. --Curtis L. Odom, Ed.D.

Things I Heard My Professor Say: Insights From My Favorite Business School Class

Education & Teaching

Higher & Continuing Education

Booknology

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