This week’s Friday quote comes from The Alliance, a book written by Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn (and Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh). The book builds off of an HBR article that I wrote about last year, where Hoffman talks about creating “Tours of Duty” for employees, where the employee and employer develop a plan that benefits them both. The quote today points out that the tour of duty concept gives the same attention to everybody else that used to be reserved only for “stars” in the organization (page 42):

Companies have long devoted resources to crafting personalized roles and career paths for their stars. Companies such as General Electric rotate promising young executives through a series of assignments to help them gain experience in different functions and markets.

Yet it is possible–indeed, necessary–to extend this personalized approach to all employees using the tour of duty framework. As the world becomes less stable, you can’t just rely on a few stars at the top to provide the necessary adaptability.