Shadowing Practice: The Huge Cost of Always Hiring From Outside - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Sometimes it's best to bring someone in from outside.
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For example: when you need to lead a major performance turnaround, or a culture transformation.
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This is because you already understand the principle that the people who built the house can't renovate it.
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But more often, it's better to grow talent from within.
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you Welcome to Moments with Marty.
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Your short, sharp shot of Leadership Insight
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to help you to stay on track between our weekly episodes of the No Bullshit Leadership podcast.
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Thank you.
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In these days of competitive labour markets, greater employee mobility and increasing recruitment costs,
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our emphasis has to be on growing talent from within.
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This requires a razor -sharp focus on performance, potential and capability development.
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Sometimes it's best to bring someone in from outside.
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For example: when you need to lead a major performance turnaround, or a culture transformation.
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This is because you already understand the principle that the people who built the house can't renovate it.
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But more often, it's better to grow talent from within.
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Why?
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Because you know the individuals you're dealing with.
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Any promotion decision is inherently lower risk You can be more surgical about which skills,
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capabilities and behaviours you need in order to build a culture of performance.
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And, you can motivate your people by showing them that they don't have to go to another company in order
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to advance their career.
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um A systematic talent management process looks at five key components.
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Four of the five components are assessed at the individual level, And the final one is a comparative assessment that rates your internal talent in relative terms.
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The rigorous assessment is generally confined to leaders not individual contributors.
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The first element, is the behavioural assessment.
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An emphasis on behaviour is critical if you want to avoid Talented Jerk Syndrome.
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Everyone watches your promotion decisions.
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If you promote someone who behaves badly, or isn't aligned to the company values and culture, what message are you really sending?
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The second element, is a broad -based assessment against the performance standard for that leadership level.
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for example, team leader or GM or executive.
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This assessment rates a leader's performance in each of the categories that your company deems to be important.
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So most companies would assess their leaders on their commercial and financial performance, of course.
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But in an industrial business, for example, they might also be assessed on their safety leadership.
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The third element is short -term deliverables, which are variously called KPIs or KRAs or MBOs.
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These are normally annual targets that are set to achieve specific outcomes.
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Now this is what most businesses call performance management.
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Did this person achieve their KPIs or not?
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Thank you.
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KPIs are useful, but they have their limitations.
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so they can only really be viewed within the context of the other four talent management components.
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The fourth element is the development plan.
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This is where you help every leader to think about what they need to do to progress to the next level.
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or If they're newly promoted, to attain a level of excellence in their current role.
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People need to know they have a future development path if they have any ambition to progress in your company.
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Now the final element The comparative element is the nine box.
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This is where you map every leader in the business on a grid in order to compare their performance and their potential.
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It enables you to see the relativity of your talent so that you can plan their development paths methodically.
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A key rule here is that there is no potential without first being able to verify demonstrated performance.
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Thank you.
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Nurturing your talent requires deliberate methodical assessment and management of your people.
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But if you're not doing this, What are you doing that's more critical?
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to the long -term success of your business.
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Um, For more depth on this insight, have a listen to episode 231 of the No Bullshit Leadership podcast.
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Talent Management.
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We'll leave a link in the show notes.
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I really hope you enjoyed this moment and that gives you that extra little spark, to be a no bullshit leader.
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Thank you you
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “The Huge Cost of Always Hiring From Outside”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: performance, talent, element, assessment, leader. This video has 57 sentences and 696 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:58. The speaker talks at a steady 140 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| assess verb | /əˈsɛs/ | To determine, estimate or judge the value of; to evaluate; to estimate. |
| renovate verb | /ˈɹɛn.ə.veɪt/ | To renew; to revamp something to make it look new again. |
| turnaround noun | /ˈtɜɹnəˌɹaʊnd/ | The act of turning to face in the other direction. |
| comparative adjective | /kəmˈpæɹətɪv/ | Of or relating to comparison. |
| capability noun | /ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ɪ.ti/ | The power or ability to generate an outcome. |
| behavioural adjective | /bɪˈheɪvjɚəl/ | Of or pertaining to behaviour. |
| confine verb | /ˈkɑnfaɪn/ | To restrict (someone or something) to a particular scope or area; to keep in or within certain bounds. |
| deliverable noun | /dɪˈlɪvɹəbəɫ/ | The tangible end product; that which will be delivered. |
| methodical adjective | /mɪˈθɑdɪkəl/ | In an organized manner; proceeding with regard to method; systematic. |
| methodically adverb | /mɪˈθɑdɪkəli/ | In a methodical manner; with order. |
| nurture noun | /ˈnɜːɹ.t͡ʃəɹ/ | The act of nourishing or nursing; tender care |
| relativity noun | /ɹɛl.əˈtɪv.ɪ.ti/ | The state of being relative to something else; the absence of universally applicable rules or standards; relativism; (countable) an instance of this. |
| variously adverb | In various ways; diversely. | |
| inherently adverb | /ɪnˈhɛɹəntli/ | In an inherent way; naturally, innately. |
| motivate verb | /ˈmoʊ.tɪ.veɪt/ | To provide someone with an incentive to do something; to encourage; to actuate. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are assessed · isn't aligned · be assessed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who built · someone who behaves · deliverables, which are |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: methodical /mɪˈθɑdɪkəl/, methodically /mɪˈθɑdɪkəli/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: limitation /lɪmɪˈteɪʃən/, ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: comparative /kəmˈpæɹətɪv/, capability /ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ɪ.ti/, deliverable /dɪˈlɪvɹəbəɫ/, methodical /mɪˈθɑdɪkəl/, methodically /mɪˈθɑdɪkəli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like assess, renovate, turnaround.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.