Attracting talent isn’t enough: what’s needed is an ecosystem that nurtures and grows it. The article explores how companies can move beyond simple hiring, investing in culture, internal development and tools such as Talent Win Rooms to multiply the potential already present within the organization.
Authors: Marco Giachino, Elisabetta Peracino
Absolute stars.
Talents that send shivers down the spines of large companies — and especially of their CFOs’ wallets.
People were talking about this well before Cristiano Ronaldo was signed by Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia for 200 million euros.
Corriere della Sera devoted a two-page spread to it: Meta, Microsoft and Google are offering multi-million-euro packages to artificial intelligence engineers, to win the competition of this new algorithmic era.
Sensational cases aside, trying to secure the best talent to turn them into champions for one’s own company is not an attitude found only among big football clubs or Big Tech.
And yet, it wasn’t always like this
Pelé, one of the greatest footballers in history, never earned anywhere near the astronomical figures of today’s stars. Was he perhaps less “extraordinary” than Messi, Neymar or Mbappé? Not necessarily.
He simply played in an era when football was not yet a global business: no satellite TV, billion-euro sponsorships, or social media able to multiply the value of talent. Cristiano Ronaldo, on the other hand, has been able to express his qualities within an ecosystem amplified by technology, which has made it possible to turn individual talent into a global economic phenomenon.
So what? Are we destined for an endless chase for talent driven by astronomical pay, or are there other factors at play?
Before answering that, it’s worth pausing on a fundamental question: who is actually a “talent” within an organization?
Who is a talent?
If we agree with a widely used definition (McK et al., ed.), in business, talent refers to people who possess an excellent (sometimes unique) combination of abilities, skills and potential that allows them to make a significant contribution to an organization’s success. This goes beyond mere technical skills and includes traits such as creativity, adaptability and leadership. And, as McKinsey reports, highly performing employees are up to eight times more productive than others. To quote the late Steve Jobs, Apple’s iconic leader, talent is essential: “go for the best of the best. A small team of A+ players can outperform a giant team of B and C players.”
It’s true: outstanding individuals do make a difference.
But how many A+ players are there? Authoritative sources agree that talent within organizations is far more widespread than common wisdom suggests. We are not talking about a mere 1-2% of the “chosen few”, but a substantial minority — often between one tenth and one fifth of employees — who excel or have the potential to do so.
This quantitative evidence has a logical consequence: the need to invest in widespread development. Knowing that 15-20% of the workforce can be defined as “high-potential” implies that companies should expand talent development programs, rather than limiting them to a very small few. In other words, talent is not just something to hunt for at a premium on the market: it can be cultivated and multiplied within the organization itself.
Talent management is a challenge every company must know how to respond to, which, in a way, shows that, however few, talents are not “the” rare pearl — there may well be more than one, and an organization that knows how to manage them can… increase their number (not least because it knows how to hold on to them).
The paradox of missing talent
In 2025 the European labor market remains solid: employment is rising and unemployment is at historic lows. And yet imbalances between supply and demand are not easing — if anything, they are set to persist. Demographics (aging), technological acceleration, the green and digital transitions, and the low appeal of some professions leave gaps in entire sectors, while elsewhere supply is excessive.
This is not truly a contradiction: it is the classic skills mismatch. The people available on the market don’t always have the skills companies are looking for, and companies are seeking very specific, high-potential profiles.
And this is where the problem arises: to fill critical roles, most organizations continue to look outward, neglecting the talent they already have internally. According to McKinsey, in fact, two-thirds of positions are still filled through costly and often inefficient external hiring — direct sourcing, headhunters and external providers — while internal mobility remains underused.
Beyond hiring: engaging and retaining them
If looking outward isn’t enough and internal mobility is underused, the real differentiator is what happens after the contract is signed.
According to McKinsey, in 2024 only 56% of candidates accept a job offer and, even when the hire goes through, nearly one in five leaves during the probation period. In more than 60% of cases it is the company itself that ends the contract, showing just how much cultural fit and performance expectations weigh, more than the mere availability of skills.
The numbers in Italy are even more critical: against an already low acceptance rate (just above 50%), more than a quarter of new hires leave or are let go within the first few months. The result: hiring success at 6 months stands at around 40%, the lowest figure in Europe.
Once again: the challenge doesn’t end with “landing” a talent, but lies in knowing how to engage and retain them within a context that makes the most of their potential. Without cultural alignment and prospects for growth, even the most expensive hire soon proves a failure. Hence the need for operational tools that help organizations decide better and faster: this is the ground on which Talent Win Rooms are born.
Talent Win Rooms
With this in mind, to tackle the mismatch, some companies have chosen to innovate their processes with so-called Talent Win Rooms: cross-functional spaces where HR, managers and stakeholders come together to decide quickly and in a coordinated way how to fill critical roles.
The idea is simple: don’t let recruiting remain a slow, fragmented process, but turn it into a control room based on data and clear KPIs (time to hire, offer acceptance rate, internal mobility). Shared dashboards make it possible to spot bottlenecks and act immediately, while artificial intelligence supports operational tasks such as creating job descriptions or screening CVs, freeing up time for strategic decisions.
Talent Win Rooms make the process faster and more efficient. They are, however, an accelerator, not a cure-all: the risk is stopping at emergency management, focusing on how to hire the few without addressing the culture and context that allow them to grow, stay, and truly deliver.
Changing perspective
Let’s get to the conclusion. Talent isn’t discovered: it’s built. It’s not enough to sign and pay whichever “Cristiano Ronaldo” comes along: what’s needed are systemic choices — vision, development, organizational culture.
In a world that seems to reward only the outstanding few, the real challenge instead is to create corporate ecosystems capable of bringing out widespread potential in a sustainable, continuous way.
In summary:
- Align talent management with business strategy: anticipating the skills that will be needed tomorrow, not just those needed today.
- Reduce recruiting bottlenecks: activate Talent Win Rooms for quick, coordinated decisions in identifying critical roles.
- Assess cultural fit alongside skills: avoiding hires that end quickly due to poor alignment.
- Invest in continuous training and development: targeting at least 15%-20% of the workforce with focused programs to multiply internal talent.
- Create an ecosystem that nurtures performance: because talent alone is not enough — it needs a context that amplifies it (made up of cultural, organizational and technological resources), just as Ronaldo was able to express his value to the fullest in a global football world, while Pelé — extraordinary as he was — played in an era that did not offer the same ecosystem.
The role of HR is to steer this course. Not just toward the paycheck, but toward a context that allows every talent to truly perform at their best.
- MASSIMO GAGGI, “Caccia ai talenti” — Corriere della Sera, Economia — July 21, 2025 — pp. 2-3
- THOMAS PUEYO — “When will AI take your job?” — 2023, Uncharted Territories
- McKINSEY & COMPANY, “What is talent management?” — May 22, 2023 | Article
- MICHAEL MANKINS, “The Best Companies Don’t Have More Stars — They Cluster Them Together”, 2017, HBR
- ERIC GARTON, “HR’s Vital Role in How Employees Spend Their Time, Talent, and Energy”, 2017, HBR
- THE TALENT STRATEGY GROUP, “High Performer and High Potential Development Report”, Research, 2024
- EURES, “What is the current state of labor shortages and surpluses in Europe?” — July 2025
- HR professionals interviewed in Europe by McKinsey state that two-thirds of filled positions were hired externally through direct sourcing (37%), headhunters (14%) and external service providers (12%).
- McKINSEY & COMPANY — “HR Monitor 2025”. Chapter 2: rethinking talent acquisition, p. 15 — 2025