This article discusses “people challenges,” and is gathered from the authors own research working with both public and private sector businesses. It is divided in two sections: the first addresses the new environment of “doing more with less” and how this affects labor. The second part focuses on the personal and professional characteristics valued by public and private organizations. These characteristics include: tuned, simplified, adaptive, innovative, investor, related, broad, dreamer, results-driven and communicative. A brief description follows.