Dive Brief:

• Bryan Gardener, who writes for Wired, shares the story of Ron Johnson, former Senior VP of Retail for Apple – a superstar employee who was credited with the idea for the Genius Bar, but whom was wooed away by JCPenney. But his plans there ultimately failed...and he took the company down with him.

• Then there’s the experience of several other rising stars, like Marissa Mayer, the former Google-protégé who is now selling off Yahoo in it’s last days of its existence; and G. Richard Thoman, a rising star and the former CFO of IBM, who bombed in this same role at Xerox. Gardener explains, “These accomplished executives didn’t fail up, they succeeded down—succumbing to an oversimplified and unrealistic view of what a superstar is and what they can accomplish.”

• Gardener advises recruiters to stop worshiping so-called superstar employees and instead focus on “black holes” or those who have potential that’s being ignored. He cites a Harvard Business School study conducted by professor Dylan Minor that it’s much more cost-effective to fire or fix a toxic employee than to hire a former superstar – by as much as a $7,000 difference.

Dive Insight:

It doesn’t necessarily mean success when a superstar A-player gets convinced to move from one company to another. Yet, too many recruiters are eager to steal this type of candidate rather than focus on improving internal employees that may be bringing down the workplace.

Star talent may merely be stars due to the environment. Change this and the results can be disastrous. Stanford University professor of Organizational Behavior, Jeffrey Pfeffer says that, “People’s performance is a function not just of their individual abilities but also of the systems in which they work.”

Sourcing internal candidates has been a recent topic of discussion in the field, thanks to technology that is making such sourcing easier to do.