“Companies always lament there’s a shortage of talent, that there’s a skills gap,” Adler told me. “But really there’s just a thinking gap. If you spend the effort thinking through the contextual details of the job, you’re going to be rewarded.”52 Companies that apply the context principle—companies that attempt to match the if-then signatures of candidates with the performance profiles of the positions they are trying to fill—will end up with more successful, loyal, and motivated employees.
