Organizations today are increasingly focused on talent as a strategic asset and a competitive advantage for achieving business success. As a result, most major organizations have recognized the need for and outlined a formal process to identify and assess high-potential talent. There is, however, little agreement within or between organizations on the definition and components of the concept of potential. The existing definitions and models of potential are often narrowly focused on only a few select factors and give little attention to the broad spectrum of potential talent in an organization. This article introduces a new integrated model of potential that incorporates previous literature and current assessment practice regarding high potentials, provides a coherent structure of potential, and is reflective of a variety of different talent pools. The model provides a useful method for answering the key question—Potential for what? Three key components of potential are described by the model: (a) foundational dimensions, (b) growth dimensions, and (c) career dimensions. Implications for assisting organizations in more effectively managing their high potential talent for strategic business objectives are discussed.

It is very encouraging to see the stimulating commentaries in response to our article on identifying potential. These essays and the numerous recent published articles and conference presentations on potential reflect the widespread interest, as well as the challenges, of managing high-potential individuals in organizations. Based on our experience, and apparently also on the experience of commentary authors, many organizations and consulting firms are giving significant attention to this component of strategy-driven talent management (see also Oliver, Church, Lewis, & Desrosiers, 2009; Silzer & Church, in press; Silzer & Dowell, in press). Based on their insightful comments, it is clear that many of the commentary authors have been thinking about and working in the area of potential for a while.

Content-oriented validation strategies establish the validity of selection tests as predictors of performance by comparing the content of the tests with the content of the job. These comparisons turn out to have little if any bearing on the predictive validity of selection tests. There is little empirical support for the hypothesis that the match between job content and test content influences validity, and there are often structural factors in selection (e.g., positive correlations among selection tests) that strongly limit the possible influence of test content on validity. Comparisons between test content and job content have important implications for the acceptability of testing, the defensibility of tests in legal proceedings, and the transparency of test development and validation, but these comparisons have little if any bearing on validity.