When Ed Eynon was the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for The Cheesecake Factory, he set out to place the right person in every role. Eynon began his journey to create a Talent-Based Organization and has been a long-standing partner with Talent Plus.
Increase Diversity by Focusing on Natural Talents
At his first conference for The Cheesecake Factory, he noticed the room was not as diverse as they hoped. Eynon sat next to the restaurant chain’s founder David Overton.
“Tom Donovan from the Ritz-Carlton was up on stage extolling the virtues of Talent Plus,” Eynon remembers, “David elbows me and says, ‘Have you ever heard anything about these Talent Plus guys?’ I said, ‘As a matter of fact I have.’” In fact, Eynon has been connected with the co-founders of Talent Plus since 1980 and partnering with the company since its inception. The transformation he witnessed during that time gave him the confidence that the Talent Plus Way® works.
Eynon, now Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at KSL Resorts, has seen how using The Science of Talent transforms organizations into diverse workplaces.
“Focus on talent,” says Eynon, “It knows no gender, it knows no ethnicity.” The positive impact of creating a more diverse and talented leadership team at The Cheesecake Factory was almost instant. Soon, they began to jokingly refer to their corporate offices as the ‘United Nations’ because of the representation the organization boasted.
Look Beyond Resumes and Embrace the REAL Approach
Eynon chose our REAL (Recognize, Engage, Accelerate, Lead) approach to select new hires by talent, rather than a resume alone, to build Talent-Based Organizations.
Eynon is convinced of the impact of focusing on talent. “I can testify to the power of a science-backed selection process with Talent Plus because of the dramatic, positive impact it makes on an organization’s culture and bottom line.”
Discovering people through their natural talent gives an organization a more authentic view of who they are than the traditional selection criteria, such as years of experience or education. While those criteria can tell someone what experiences an individual has been exposed to, they cannot predict how individuals will adapt to new environments or how well they perform over time in a given role.
A Complete Picture of Each Person’s Potential
Through the Science of Talent®, an organization can build a complete picture of a person’s strengths and predict their potential across their employee lifecycle.
When focusing on talents, which are innate traits in all of us, your organization can eliminate any costly and harmful bias built into its selection processes.
