What if your talent strategy wasn’t based on engagement scores, org charts, or compensation bands? What if it was based on clarity? Precision. Focus.
That’s exactly what Dan Eberhard, founder and CEO of KOHO, proposes in the latest episode of What the FTE?. Dan is not interested in talent strategy as usual. He’s done with engagement scores that average out signal, remote culture by default and leadership programmes that don’t touch the people who actually set the tone.
His answer is the KOHO 50: a system to identify and invest in the 50 most critical roles in the business. Not by title. Not by tenure. By impact. And for HR leaders tired of bloated org charts, quiet politics and headcount theatre, it might be the most practical thing you hear all year.
What is the KOHO 50?
The KOHO 50 is a dynamic of the 50 most important roles in the company right now.
❌ Not the most senior people
❌ Not the loudest voices
✔️ The jobs that really matter to where the business is going.
If those jobs are done well, everything else gets easier. If they’re done badly, things start to fall apart. So KOHO puts more time, support and attention into making sure the right people are in those roles, and that they have what they need to succeed. That’s it.
Why It Works
This isn’t just an interesting idea. It’s backed by real-world data on talent investment and planning:
- Gartner’s 2025 HR Priorities show that only 15 percent of companies are doing true strategic workforce planning. Most are still managing headcount rather than targeting high-leverage roles.
- The Talent Strategy Group’s 2025 Critical Roles Report found that while 86 percent of organisations say they know which roles are critical, only 57 percent align their high-potential talent accordingly.
- McKinsey’s HR Monitor 2025 reported that just 12 percent of companies look more than one year out when planning for future capabilities. In short, most talent systems are reactive, political and generic. KOHO is none of those things.
What KOHO Gets Right (And You Can Steal)
1. Focus Beats Fairness
KOHO doesn’t pretend every seat holds equal strategic weight. The KOHO 50 receives concentrated investment because of the leverage those roles hold. Think staff engineers, senior product leads or the compliance team managing a banking licence application. This isn’t about status. It’s about impact.
2. Remote Is Expensive. And Worth It.
“Remote isn’t cheaper. It’s more expensive,” Dan admits. But they’re very clear about one thing: It’s not a money-saving strategy.
In fact, the company spends significantly more on in-person offsites than they did on their old Toronto HQ. KOHO’s executive team meets every six weeks in person. Teams are expected to meet 5 to 8 times per quarter.
Why? Because strategy needs space. Relationships need oxygen. And distributed trust doesn’t happen automatically. KOHO can hire from anywhere. But they know that presence still matters, and they plan for it.
3. Coaching as Infrastructure, Not Intervention
KOHO employs three full-time coaches who are available to everyone. But coaching at KOHO isn’t about conflict resolution or burnout recovery. It helps people develop leadership range, emotional clarity and career self-awareness. Dan’s view is simple. Coaching isn’t a perk. It’s infrastructure. You wouldn’t run a high-performance system without reliable power. So why would you run one without reliable feedback?
4. Performance Over Popularity
New managers often want to be liked. It’s understandable. Leadership is a huge leap. But at KOHO, they’ve learned the hard way that being liked doesn’t scale. Being respected does.
Here’s what often happens: if someone on your team is underperforming, and you avoid addressing it, your high performers feel it first. They pick up the slack. They absorb the mistakes. They stay late to get things back on track. And they start to resent you for not fixing it.
That’s what Dan means when he says leaders are responsible for setting the “peer bar.”
At KOHO, managers are expected to address performance issues directly and early. They don’t outsource it to HR. They don’t wait for review cycles. They deal with it. Because if they don’t, someone else is quietly doing two jobs. And that’s how you lose your best people.
Dan puts it simply. “If you don’t build the right peer group, your stars will carry the burden. That’s on the leader.”
Final Takeaways for CHROs and Talent Leaders
This isn’t a “best practice.” It’s a design principle.
If you’re still managing through averages, this might feel uncomfortable. That’s the point.
The KOHO 50 is a challenge to design your organisation around clarity, not coverage. To put your highest performers in your highest-leverage seats. To invest disproportionately in what matters most. And to have the courage to say what doesn’t.
If you’re ready to stop managing averages and start designing for impact, this episode is your blueprint.
🎧 Listen Now:
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