Back when tech stocks were booming and long before the bubble burst, someone noticed that Warren Buffett didn’t have any of those hot stocks in his portfolio. Since everyone wants to have the kind of investing success that Buffett has enjoyed, someone was bound to ask about issue.
Buffett’s reasoning was simple. He knew there were some great values among the new tech stocks. But, said the Sage of Omaha, he didn’t know how to figure out which stocks would perform well for the long term.
I think about that whenever I read a statement about high potentials (HiPos) like the one Derek Murphy made in his recent article, “High Potentials: You Need to Feed Your Stars or Kiss Them Goodbye.” Here’s what caught my eye.
“Let’s first talk about in plain, simple terms what it means to be a high-potential, or HiPo. Generally speaking, high-potentials are employees who can develop into leaders, rather than those who just do the job. Research by the Harvard Business Review shows high potentials represent the top 3 to 5% percent of a company’s talent.”
I’m sure those people are out there. But like Warren Buffett and tech stocks, I’m not sure we can identify them early from anything besides performance.
That’s why I like talent development programs that offer lots of people lots of opportunities to show their stuff. Some of them will deliver great results. But those aren’t “high potentials,” they’re “high performers.” And high performers have earned the right to step up and meet more demanding challenges.
