When asked what factors matter most in retaining talented employees, most of us can name the big ones: pay, advancement, recognition, exciting challenges, the long-term prospects of the organization, the quality of its leadership, and so on. But like other employees, top performers spend most of their time living with the day-to-day decisions of their direct managers. What distinguishes a top performer is that she often has the talent to do her manager's job and a keen ability to assess her manager's choices. That makes her more likely than other employees to seek a change in her work situation if she perceives those small matters as hindrances to her performance, even if the big factors pass muster.

Here are the little things that top performers tend to notice quickly, find irksome, and cite as job drawbacks when they confide in colleagues and when they decide to leave an organization. (The list is not based on systematic research but rather on what I've observed anecdotally, and often, working alongside top performers in a variety of business contexts.)

1. Dropped balls. No one likes when a manager allows important matters to slip through his hands and bounce away, only to be recovered when an employee is bold enough to restore them to his attention. But top performers are especially likely to feel responsible to do that recovery and to be disappointed in the manager whose oversight forced them to it (assuming they're not motivated by one-upsmanship). That's not to say that top performers don't recognize the deliberate selection of balls to juggle as a managerial strength, but when efficiency is compromised because of inattention rather than priority-setting, dropped balls just look like an uninspired mess.

2. Ignoring tough questions. One mark of a good manager is the ability to address relevant questions head on, even if that means admitting there's no clear answer at present. Political deftness (of the honest variety) is a quality that all employees, but especially top performers, respect. When a manager frequently ignores or clumsily deflects important concerns, top performers are particularly likely to be nagged by it, because it seems to reflect the manager's inability or unwillingness to assess matters on the merits. Top performers have a natural stake in meritorious assessment.

3. Lopsided reliance on data over judgment. Sensible analysis of numerical data is an essential component of any manager's job, especially at high levels of an organization. No one likes a decision maker who acts on whim. However, when a manager uses data as a crutch — or lack of data as an excuse for inaction — employees become skeptical about his capacity for good judgment. That's especially troubling to top performers, whose own judgment skills are sharp and whose interest in being evaluated by capable judgers is high. Top performers more than anyone want a leader, not a mere number-cruncher.

4. Unease with leadership skills in the ranks. Great managers are genuinely delighted by the leadership potential of their best people (as they see a bit of themselves in those employees) and enjoy grooming them. And, fortunately, few managers seem to have utter disdain for the truly talented people who report to them. But a fair number of managers are more comfortable with the steady pluggers (employees who produce but don't aspire) than with the highest-potential folks, and top performers detect that sort of complacency right away. That said, show-off behavior must be nipped in the bud — but without stunting the top performer's growth.

What factors have you observed — as a manager, in your colleagues, or as a top performer yourself — that tend to alienate the most talented employees in the course of their day-to-day work?

Authors' note: Each week in July and August, we'll introduce a new trend you have to watch from our HBR article in the July-August special issue. We also invite you to comment on this trend and suggest what trends you think you have to watch.

Crisis or not, it was inevitable that U.S. consumer-spending growth would slow from the 3.4% real annual rate enjoyed since 1985. The 1980s and 1990s were peak consumption years for the now-retiring baby boomers, whose spending spree was financed by a mountain of debt.

For strategists, the question implied is this: If the U.S. is no longer the world's consumption engine, will another country or region assume that role? Here are two possible scenarios:

1. Asia could become the new center of gravity. China and India together have more than a billion people whose incomes are just below a middle-class level. When growth returns to that part of the world and those households achieve more than $20,000 per year in disposable income (adjusted for purchasing power parity), expect a boom in discretionary consumption. If, as some forecasts indicate, China becomes the world's third-largest consumer economy (behind the EU and the U.S.) by 2020, and India the fifth-largest (behind Japan), then three of the five largest consumer economies will be Asian.
2. Alternatively, the map of consumption could become multipolar. Suppose growth continues in China, India, and other emerging markets, but government policies and long-ingrained behaviors keep savings rates high and consumer spending low. The EU, the U.S., and Japan might then retain their positions as the top three consumer markets, but with lower rates of consumption growth. In this case, global consumer-spending growth could stay below pre-crisis levels for years or even decades.

Strategies will hinge on which scenario materializes, but for the moment companies should:

• Prepare for slower long-term growth in global consumption. Companies that have relied on fundamental market growth, especially for mature products, now need to fi ght for market share or compete in new categories.
  
• Shift investment to Asia. Consumption is clearly growing faster in China and India than in developed markets.
• Focus on older consumers. Within five years, more than half of all consumer spending in the U.S. will be by consumers over 50, and the proportion of older households is rising in Europe and Japan as well.
• Find ways to offer luxuries on a budget. Tighter household budgets don't mean lower aspirations. Our research shows that stretched consumers in slow-growing economies will still want to feel that they are living the good life.

Earlier today, there was a small fire at Google's UK headquarters, and the incident (in which no one was hurt, but a tree was reported burned) fairly well illustrated that safety is more important than "greenness."  Still, a new report indicates that a focus on environmental issues can save small businesses money.

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The saga of Wily E. Coyote and the Road Runner trying to outsmart each other has turned out to be useful in my research into cultural variation in management styles between Anglophone and Latino leaders. The cartoons are effective at gauging cultural responses because they are globally accessible cultural icons. Because they're silent, they're mostly free from language constraints, and they've been distributed by Warner Brothers to TV screens across the Americas — and all over the world.
I asked MBA alumni around the world to state which of these two characters they most consistently supported and to explain why. Most Anglophones sided with the Coyote, and most Iberians and their descendants preferred the Road Runner.

Why would this be?

The survey indicated that those who identify with the Coyote respond mainly to the character's perceived "courage. " Though the Coyote routinely loses, he perseveres. Latins, on the other hand, identify more with the joy and freedom they perceive in the provocative Road Runner. These differences hold implications for leaders at today's global organizations: those who sided with one character stated that they would not like to be led by someone who sided with the other. Their discomfort at the prospect of being managed by "the other side" is well illustrated by their view of what organizational role the other side might best perform: Coyotes considered the Road Runner best suited to leading an organization's Human Resources department, while Road Runners saw the Coyote as best suited to being an organization's financial controller.

Of course, the survey did throw up some exceptions. Indian and Australian MBAs, while Anglophones, turned out to be staunch Road Runners. Also, U.S. MBAs fell into two categories: those who self-identified as Caucasian-Americans, sided with the Coyote, while those who self-identified as Hispanic-, Asian-, Jewish-, or African-Americans, or Americans studying at the London Business School, tended to side with the Road Runner, even more consistently than did Brazilian MBAs.

While this is all very entertaining stuff, it throws into relief a serious, unaddressed problem in multinational organizations with large numbers of Latino employees. The problem is that most of these multinationals still don't appoint "Road Runners" — whether indigenous Latinos, Indians, Australians or non-Caucasian-Americans — to run their branch plants. Rather, the Coyote Anglophones at the top of these organizations tend to choose like-minded individuals to run their subsidiaries — even though the Coyote type, whether local or foreign, is patently a cultural mismatch for the organization.

These findings have profound implications for engagement and organizational commitment among employees of subsidiaries, particularly in Latin America. Not only is the managerial style of the indigenous or transplanted Coyote likely to be resented in the workplace, but also the "upwardly mobile" middle management Road Runners in the organization are likely to be aware of the glass ceiling over their heads. And the problem doesn't end here. While the appointment of a Road Runner to lead a predominantly Latino organization would solve the local problem, it's likely to create new tension between the subsidiary and the corporate center. To complete the "culturally appropriate" chain of command, organizations should consider appointing an Anglophone Road Runner to run their international operations and provide a more functional interface between the corporate and branch cultures, than a Coyote from any culture could. Because of their diversity, American corporations have the edge over more Coyote-oriented Anglophone counterparts, providing they make the appropriate cultural matches.

Cultures are slow to change, so these requirements will be around for a long time. The sooner organizations recognize the need to address culture in both geographical and hierarchical terms, the sooner they will guarantee their long term success — and survival. Meep meep!

Alfredo Behrens lectures on Cross-Cultural Management in the International Executive MBA programme of the Fundação Instituto de Administração, São Paulo, Brazil. He has worked in the private and public sector in the Americas, East and Western Europe and Southern Africa. His new book, Culture and Management in the Americas was published by Stanford University Press in April 2009.