Square Pegs in Round Holes (A blog for the sports fans)
For those who know me on a personal level, know that I’m a sports fanatic.
So I’m sat at home on Sunday watching England kick-off their Six Nations campaign against France, and I started to draw comparisons with everyday roles. We spend our days in the office providing our clients with solutions to their ERP, by finding the perfect candidates to support their business.
I’m scratching my head trying to understand why Eddie Jones has selected Tom Curry to play out of position for the competition opener. He’s a flanker who has shown in the World Cup that he is an expert at what he does. Yet on Sunday he finds himself at the back of the scrum playing international rugby in a position he rarely entertains, whilst there are players playing this position competing at the top of their game in the league.
It goes further in sport, think Lampard and Gerrard. Arguably two of the best attacking midfielders the country has ever seen. Yet we hear about the debate, how they could never play together. How when one was left off the other excelled. Square pegs, round holes? I think so, playing for their clubs the two excelled but they played in very similar positions. Lampard and Gerrard always had a defensive midfielder behind them; Makelele, Alonso and Essien to name a few, yet for England one of them was expected to take up the defensive role. If a manager would have been brave enough to drop one of the greatest English midfielders around, to benefit the system, would we be talking about the golden era who won an international trophy?
For me there is no better example of this theory than in the Great British Lions Rugby League tour of 2019, coach Wayne Bennett decided to take six half backs and just three wingers. After the first game they were reduced to one out and out winger. Those who followed the tour would possibly agree when I say, it was one of the most disappointing sporting events I have ever seen. The great Lions comeback resulted in losing to Rugby League minnows, Papua New Guinea, as well as suffering a further three defeats to Tonga, Australia and New Zealand. The team was unbalanced, the players were chosen based on form not position, to me it demonstrated the lack of back bone to drop the big names to promote players. Square pegs… Round holes.
How does this relate to what I do daily? So often we speak with customers who have previously made a bad hire, they have tried to fit a square peg into a round hole. They hired someone who applied internally as it was a cheaper option. They hired someone from a different background and hoped to upskill them. Remember, you have alternative options to using expert recruitment companies. Eddie Jones thought there was an alternative option to taking a seasoned number eight. Now he is paying the price, now he is playing catch up. It will be interesting to understand if these decisions will impact his job at the end of the tournament.
If you’ve enjoyed this month’s IFS blog please drop a like and share below. I would also love to hear from my market whether this is Rugby or IFS related so I welcome comments as well!