Why hiring force multipliers will make your entire organisation talent dense

It takes 7 hours to fly from New York to London. 

So in 2020, when a commercial plane took off in New York and landed in London less than five hours later, it broke the record by almost 2 hours for the fastest subsonic flight between the two cities.

Interestingly, the pilots didn’t plan to beat the record. The plane was prepared as usual. The pilots, passengers and crew were all the same. So, what changed?

Tailwind. 

In other words, the wind was blowing in the same direction as the plane, which meant it was riding a powerful jet stream propelling it towards London.

The point of this story is that certain things called force multipliers will get you where you want to go faster than you ever thought possible. Force multipliers exist across many disciplines and fields like aviation, education, technology and human resources. 

And the most potent force multiplier in an organisation is of course, employees. It’s HR’s job to find and create ways to attract force multipliers into an organisation, so like the plane, your organisation can ride the jet stream and make everyone around them more productive. 

And when your organisation is more productive with more force multipliers, you have a rich talent density. 

Talent density 101

Before you Google or use ChatGPT to figure out what the talent density is, it was pioneered by Netflix and defined as:

the quality and density of skills, capabilities and performance you have in your company.  

It’s the concentration of force multipliers within an organisation. It's calculated by dividing force multipliers by the total number of employees.

So, if your organisation has 100 employees and 100% are force multipliers, you’re talent dense. Conversely, you're not talent dense if your organisation has 100 employees and only 20 are force multipliers. 

Sounds simple enough to manage, right? Unfortunately, it’s hard to implement a talent-dense recruitment strategy because it challenges the way organisations and HR teams currently manage recruitment and remuneration, which is using the traditional bell curve concept.

Bell Curve v Talent Density

The bell curve distribution has dominated company hiring and employee performance for decades, but it’s also promoted acceptance and mediocrity. 

It assumes every employee sits across a probability distribution model with a bell-shaped graph and segregates them into three categories: force multipliers (20%), average performers (70%), and low performers (10%). These segments determine how you select people to hire, who will work on what, who will be promoted and so on.

While this is mathematically true in that you can plot any data set across the bell curve, organisations often forget about the low and middle performers. It’s not as restrictive. 

Talent density assumes that every new hire or promotion decision is a force multiplier that boosts the team’s overall capability. It’s based on two fundamental principles:

1. With the proper support and training, every employee can become a force multiplier.
2. Specific force multipliers should be incentivised accordingly.

So before we get into force multipliers and how to get them into our organisation, let’s look at the problem with the bell curve.

The Problem 

The bell curve prevents you from hiring force multipliers because it restricts the proportion of employees rated as ‘top performers’, regardless of how well they perform. This discourages employees from trying to excel because no matter how well they do, they may never get to the top. 

Imagine if the Australian Women’s Football team coach said only Sam Kerr could make the team. Why would the other players push hard to make the team if they know they can’t be number one, two or even three?

Lastly, it’s well known in HR that great managers hire great employees, while good managers hire good employees. So, generally, good managers don’t hire great employees because they’re self-conscious about keeping their position and don’t want to be outshined. 

So, the bell curve distribution can undermine talent density and limit the number of high-impact employees in your organisation. While it’s OK for gauging performance metrics, relying on it exclusively for recruitment and remuneration will hold your organisation back from hiring force multipliers.

Enlightened HR teams now recognise that the quality and performance of employees matter more than team size. In most cases, a small group of employees generates the majority of value.

Building a talent dense organisation

Each employee should evolve, adding more value each month or year instead of merely maintaining their current performance. And with that, the organisation will grow too. 

Netflix wrote the manual for talent density. Since the company started in 1998 as a DVD-by-mail service, it has continuously reinvented itself to what it is today. But what’s more impressive is that the organisation generates double the revenue per employee compared to Google and seven times that of Amazon. 

Netflix focuses on continually hiring force multipliers and promoting top talent. Here are some thought starters so you can start to transform your recruiting and remuneration process to attract force multipliers:

Be honest about your recruitment strategy: It’s not just about putting bums on seats, it’s about building talent dense teams. Push managers to prioritise talent density by hiring candidates or promoting employees who elevate productivity by considering internal candidates first.

Leverage employee's strengths: Every employee, new or old should drive the business forward. Even those outside the “engine room” can impact productivity and be force multipliers. So regardless of their tenure, support and encourage employees to adopt a force multiplier mindset. 

Pay employees more: Organisations miss this human truth—employees want to feel valued. Yet organisations hesitate to pay employees what they deserve because of how it will impact their profit and loss. When good employees feel valued, they’re more motivated, attract other force multipliers, and contribute to a talent-dense team. Just like in sports, budling a force multiplier team sheet means offering above-market salaries to secure top talent.