A talent system for builders. Touch all four bases.
Hiring is an event. Talent is a cadence. The DART Diamond turns the four quadrants of talent management — Direct, Attract, Reward, Teach — into a loop you run every month, so the right people are always on the right work for the strategy you have now.
See the booksThe DART model organizes everything a leader does with talent into four base-paths. You start at home with the strategy, and the circuit brings you back to home plate more ready for the next pitch — because the next pitch is always coming.
Set the strategy, then derive the seats: what work must be done, what knowledge, skills, and abilities carry it, and who stands where.
Find and choose the people who want the stage you are actually on — and assess with structure, because sparkle lies.
Build a fair package that makes joining rational and the right work natural. At small scale, everyone knows everything; fairness is the weather.
Grow people into the jobs the strategy needs next. Development is the second-period payoff — the run does not score until someone crosses home.
A run only counts if you touch every base. The quadrants multiply; they do not add. Sprint from hiring to home without touching Reward, and the run is nullified. Everyone has watched it happen.
You do not score until you cross home. Hiring gets you on base. Teaching scores the run — and leaves you at the plate, more ready for the next pitch.
At ten employees there is no organization to absorb a bad hire. The first ten are the company. A founder's system for jobs one through ten, and the monthly loop that keeps the right people on the right work.
Visit the book pageScaling past the founding team: layers, managers, succession, and the ninth-inning truth that even founders need to retire. The same diamond, with more runners on base.
The Seat Map, the Stage-One Scorecard, the Package Grid, the Teaching Plan, and the Monthly Review — the five tools from the books, ready to run with your own team.
Biweekly episodes for founders and leaders of small organizations: short solo episodes that walk one base at a time, and conversations with founders about their first teams — what they would redo, what they would never trade.