Recruit and Hire Like You're a GM of a Sports Team (Using the Proactive Bottom-up Approach)

“Hiring good people is hard. Hiring great people is brutally hard. And yet nothing matters more in winning than getting the right people on the field” – Jack Welch

“Greatness is not a function of circumstances. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.” – Jim Collins

LESSONS IN HIRING WE CAN LEARN FROM THE SPORTS WORLD

One of the advantages sports franchises have over the corporate world is that before sports executives draft or trade players they are able to know in detail the players’ past performance (stats), strengths, weaknesses, personalities, coachability, and emotional intelligence. In corporate America the past performance and the potential future impact of a candidate is much more difficult to determine, and, unfortunately, only becomes fully apparent well into a candidate’s tenure with their new employer.

Here in Utah we have our Utah Jazz. Last month the Jazz traded three players and two future draft picks for Mike Conley. Because I don’t follow the NBA, I had never heard of Mike Conley before. But when the news of the trade broke my 17 year old son rushed into my home office very excited about the trade. He told me that with this trade the Jazz might be good enough to make it to the NBA finals next year (which would be a significant improvement over their performance the last several seasons). I told him I doubted one player (especially one I had never heard of before) could make that much of a difference, but he assured me that Mike Conley was that good and could make a huge difference in the success of the team. As I paid more attention to the trade during the following days, I found headline after headline confirming my son’s contention that the Conley trade instantly made the Jazz a legitimate contender.

Can one person make that kind of impact on a corporate team or organization? Hypothetically speaking, if a corporate hiring team intimately knew all of the ‘players’ in their market(s), would there be one individual they would be willing to “trade” five of their own team members for? The question sounds almost absurd, but I believe the answer is yes. However, only if the corporate hiring team intimately knew the professional as well as the Jazz executives knew Mike Conley before making the trade.

Why does this hypothetical question sound so absurd? Why are our current sourcing, recruiting, and hiring practices relegated to last minute ‘get to know ya’s,’ and a whole lot of guessing and surmising? To further drive this point home, could you imagine how bad an NBA team would be if they chose to rely on guessing and using the the last minute ‘get to know ya’ approach, like we do in corporate America? 

QUESTION: Is there any way we can better duplicate what sports executives are able to do – by having more knowledge about, and more familiarity with, professionals in our market(s) well before making them offers and adding them to our teams?

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EMPLOYING THE ‘PROACTIVE BOTTOM-UP’ APPROACH TO RECRUITING AND HIRING

So where am I going with this comparison? In rare occasions I have seen hiring executives who have reached out to, gotten to know, and courted candidates many months and even years before they made them offers to join their teams. To make an investment analogy, they have taken a bottom-up approach. Rather than saying, “Hey, we have an open position that needs to be filled, let’s start looking for someone who can fill it…” a few executives have switched their initial focus to “who’s the best talent in our market(s), and how can we court them ahead of our actual hiring needs, or until conditions are right for them joining our team?”

Ideally, the ultimate goal is to develop an entire team of A-Players who, fitting together, become ‘greater than the sum of their parts.’ This is more easily done when you are familiar with as many of the A-Players in your market(s) as possible. 

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REASONS WHY HIRING EXECUTIVES CONTINUE TO USE THE LESS EFFECTIVE TOP-DOWN APPROACH

If studies suggest that hiring success is at around 50%, is it safe to say that our current mode of recruiting, screening, and hiring is dysfunctional? And yet we continue to do what we’ve always done! Below is a list of some of the many reasons why business executives continue to use the dysfunctional top-down approach to hiring, and only considering who they are going to hire when an opening in their organization becomes available:

• “It’s always been done this way, so it must be the right way to do it”
• Although executives know that hiring the right people is paramount to the success of their organizations (and that recruiting and hiring is one of the most important responsibilities they have as executives) – they are continually bombarded by what seems to be much more pressing and urgent duties and responsibilities. Many of these pressing and urgent responsibilities need daily attention, whereas, hiring needs only come up sporadically. So when hiring needs do arise it’s often viewed as a major inconvenience (and an evil necessity)
• Because their hiring process relies too much on subjectivity and gut feelings, and they haven’t been in consistent contact with the A-Players in their market(s) well in advance of hiring needs – many executives have made poor and costly hiring decisions in the past. Because of these past mis-hires, executives get nervous about potentially making more hiring mistakes in the future. So they unconsciously put things off by sourcing, recruiting, and screening candidates at the very last moment
• I’ve also noticed that many hiring managers are in denial of the fact that their staff is, and will always be, in constant motion. As nonsensical as it sounds, many act as if they will never have to let anyone go, that none of their current employees will ever leave, and the makeup of their firm will remain the same as it is indefinitely
• Even if your firm is one of the few “employers of choice” or “Best Places to Work” in your market(s), if you aren’t absolutely convinced you are doing an A-Player a favor by having them join your team – you will most likely postpone the recruiting process until the very last possible moment
• Being reactive is nearly always easier than being proactive

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TWO RECOMMENDATIONS IN ORDER TO INCREASE YOUR ODDS OF BUILDING A TEAM OF A-PLAYERS

RECOMMENDATION #1: Whether You Have Any Openings or Not – Consistently Carve Out Time in Your Schedule to Proactively Identify and Get to Know the A-Players in Your Market(s).

RECOMMENDATION #2: Start Creating and Developing a Mindset That Your Firm is the ‘Employer of Choice’ and You Are Legitimately Building an Entire Team of A-Players.

Whenever I come across executives who are courting A-Players months and years before making them an offer, I’m always struck by their belief that their firm is the best in their market(s) and represents the best possible home for A-Players.

“When it comes to social interaction, what do you deserve? This might be an unusual question that you’ve never really asked yourself. But unconsciously you have a set of beliefs that tell you exactly what you deserve. And socially, as with all areas of life, you get what you think you deserve.”

From the book Not Nice by Dr. Aziz Gazipura

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BENEFITS OF USING THE ‘PROACTIVE BOTTOM-UP’ APPROACH

• Build an emotional link with A-Players well before adding them to your team
• Enjoy a ‘free-look’ over time, rather than having to make a rash decision in the heat of the moment
• A-Player candidates love the fact that they are being courted over time, rather than being recruited to fill an immediate need
• You’re able to show your personality and management style to the A-Players over time. I recommend being honest and transparent about the challenges you and your firm are facing in the coming months and years. A-Players love to help overcome challenges, and they’ll appreciate your candor and transparency
• Obtain useful market intelligence and valuable insights by continually staying in touch with professionals at competing firms
• The top-down approach is designed to identify and source candidates who are experiencing career angst at the same time your firm just happens to have a opened position. A-Player experience less career angst than B and C-Players, primarily because they’re actively engaged in getting the work done (like A-Players tend to do), and they are treated like heroes by their bosses and employers. Getting to know an A-Player over months and years (always getting a feel for where their career angst is at any given point in time) dramatically increases the odds of adding them to your team ‘when the time is right” 
• If people are really the most important variable to success in business in the Information Age, then having solid and lasting relationships with many of the A-Players in your market dramatically sets you apart from all the other executives you compete with who only take the dysfunctional, easy, passive, and reactive approach.
• Recruiting A-Players like a GM in sports disciplines you to work on talent acquisition steadily and consistently, rather than avoiding it and only doing it when hiring needs come up
• Anything that is meaningful in life typically requires well-conceived, disciplined, and consistent actions. Recruiting with the Proactive Bottom-Up approach forces you to be systematic, consistent, and proactive in your recruiting efforts
• Think of the ‘return on investment’ of your time recruiting A-Players using the Proactive Bottom-Up approach!
• Let’s say that you spend six to ten hours in meetings with one specific A-Player prior to bringing them onto your team
• Think of the long-term value an A-Player can make for your firm
• Because A-Players like to work with other A-Player, think of the magnetic draw your new A-Player will have on future A-Player hires
• Think of the fact that because you took the time to get to know them well (and both of you determined it’s a win for both sides) how much longer they will stay with your firm.  

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Summary:   

Although a corporate executive will probably never have as much information about a candidate as my 17 year son has about Mike Conley – this article is designed to inform you that there is a way to dramatically improve how you identify, screen, and recruit A-Players in your market(s), and dramatically improve the odds of building your dream team of A-Players. That’s by using the Proactive Bottom-up approach where you are systematically and consistently identifying and stay in contact with the A-Player professionals in your market(s) – well before hiring needs arise.

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HERE ARE A FEW QUESTIONS THAT MIGHT SPARK USEFUL DEBATE…

• Why are hiring managers generally more reactive than proactive in their hiring process?
• Why do most studies about the success rate of hires nationwide (from entry level to executive level) suggest that only about 1/2 of hires are considered a success 18 months after their start date?
• Is there an underpinning ‘professional agreement’ that one should not speak with employees of their competitors before hiring needs arise?
• Am I wrong in my assumption that most hiring manager haven’t produced a disciplined process of reaching out to, and keeping in communications with, the talent and ‘game-changers’ in their markets?