Midsized companies are not simply bigger small businesses, nor are they smaller big businesses.

They are their own thing, sui generis, and their challenges—and their advantages—are unique to them, not shared by smaller or larger businesses. Right now, a major challenge confronting all midsized businesses is talent. They are starved for it; they need it to grow, and many simply don’t know how to get or develop it. By the time a company reaches midsized, the people practices it used as a small business are neither adequate nor appropriate, certainly not as a platform for growth. 

The owner or CEO may realize they have to recruit and retain the best talent to compete with larger or smaller businesses, but he or she often has no idea how to make that happen. And leaving positions unfilled is a guaranteed growth killer. Even when midsized companies have exceptional people, their leaders usually are too busy to help them develop. That’s one of the curses of midsized businesses, especially those on a growth trajectory. Also, as the needs of the business increase, its people may not have the skills to keep up with the new demands created by that growth. They usually don’t. Midsized companies' people problems don’t end there. If their best people aren’t learning and growing, and aren’t enjoying a rewarding work experience, they could leave for greener pastures.

Sher maintains there is a better way…by adopting a few key people practices, midsized companies can attract the talent they need in sufficient quantities to grow their businesses. They can keep them happy. They can even lure people away from much larger companies or appealing startups precisely because they’re midsized. That’s one of the blessings of being midsized. Call it the Goldilocks factor—for many people, they’re not too big, not too small; they’re just right. There are three practices that, if done well, will drive a midsized company’s growth. 

These practices are the people drivers for which I’ve named this book. They are not borrowed from larger enterprises, which have more money and bigger human resources departments. Instead, they are the sometimes-overlooked practices that the best-managed midsized companies use to recruit and retain top talent, to develop future leaders, and to create high-performing leadership teams that enjoy working together to grow the business. 

As the book progresses, Sher gets into the how-to aspect of these growth drivers, detailing a leader’s journey from “I”- to “we”-type leadership. He maintains that to thrive, owners or CEOs of midsized companies have no choice but to adopt a team-leadership model to successfully overcome obstacles. This concept of moving responsibilities and tasks down a level to prepare people for their next position is so important that he keeps coming back to it. The book was written for CEOs who live in the real world, not fantasyland—people who understand the importance of developing collaborative relationships with their teams and understand that that’s what drives growth and success.

This book focuses on leaders, but it also covers the people leaders employ. If you adopt these practices to make your own talent strategies even 10 percent better than the competition’s, that difference in your ability to drive growth will be visible and palpable!