Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
Why candidates should expand and prep their references
As headhunters scramble to match candidates with their shapeshifting clients, process and painstaking due diligence rule the day. To some candidates such rigor may feel intrusive or simply unnecessary. It shouldn’t. In fact, rigor should be embraced and used to all candidates advantage. Consider the use of references as an illustration.
Last week I interviewed a senior executive for a specific role. The candidate presented an intriguing combination of capabilities, accomplishments, values, motivation and style that appeared well aligned to my client. But there were a few cautionary flags. The candidate brushed over several questions and was vague on the circumstances around his departure from two organizations. Though my concerns may well have proven to be minor, they needed to be explored and clarified. Thus, on completing the interview I indicated that it would be helpful if I could speak to several of the candidate’s references around these specific time periods before putting him forward to my client.
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
The Unwanted CEO Job …and the one individual who thought otherwise
Several recent articles have lauded the success of Ottawa-based Bridgewater Systems. With skyrocketing revenues, a growing market, and money in the bank, the firm’s prospects have never been better and the street appears to love the story. It was a much more difficult story to sell in 2003, with one notable exception.
Bridgewater was founded in 1997, one of many Newbridge spinouts, a graduate if you will of the Terry Matthews school of stellar startups. The first few years were bumpy as the firm struggled to find its place in the evolving IP telecom marketplace. To make matters worse, in 2000 when its main benefactor, Newbridge, was sold to Alcatel transferring in the process its equity position in Bridgewater. It can safely be assumed that tiny Bridgewater was not atop of the French behemoth’s list of priorities.
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
Hiring Executive Talent: The Sheepish Canadian Startup
Much is written about the state of the Canadian tech startup sector and why it lags the US, Israel and other countries in producing a richer community of world-class companies.
While I am not qualified to comment on many of the contributing factors I am witness to how Canadian startups hire and lever talent at key points in their growth. I would argue that for many of these firms the bar excellence is set so cautiously low that to expect anything but mediocrity is laughable. Let me provide a recent example.
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
To The Candidates I Will Offend Next Week
As a condition of being released from custody, the brilliant yet troubled title character in the movie Good Will Hunting must meet regularly with a counselor. Determined to sabotage the process he torments and is dismissed by a series of psychologists until he is sent to ‘Sean’ played by Robin Williams
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
What it takes to Climb to the Top – The Case for Grit
If intelligence is the best predictor of achievement what accounts for the wide range of achievement among individuals of equal IQ? Professor Angela Duckworth studies this question for a living and believes she has the answer.
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
Why Recruiting from the Best Companies is Perilous
If you long to be taken to Shangri-la, that fictional, mystical, utopian oasis of harmony and love, what kind of person do you hire to help you get there? Do you recruit a lifelong resident, intimate with the ways of the land, or someone trained in navigating the treacherous jungles to the western end of the Kunlun Mountains where it is said to be located?
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
Creativity: Hardwired or A Skill We Can All Develop ?
This week the Globe and Mail published an article titled “How to Shine Again After A Year of Gloom” in which employees as well as candidates looking for jobs are urged to emphasize their creativity as a means of differentiating themselves in the marketplace. This appealed to me as great advice, provided you are one of the few people who actually are creative. For everyone else it is a waste of time.
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
Why Best Practices Can Be So Dangerous
I recently dusted off Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. For those who have forgotten, the book compiles a list of companies that have achieved ‘greatness’ over a period of 15 years and then analyzes them in order to “discover the essential and distinguishing factors at work”. The resulting best practices of these best companies has been a bestseller since 2001.
‘Best practices’ is itself a bestseller, a management technique/tool kit that has become a staple in disciplines such as leadership, education, quality, change management, government, project management and scores of others. Its popularity lies in its promise to take the processes, systems, and approaches that have worked for the successful and distil them into guidelines, rules or dare I say ‘universal truths’ for the benefit of successful wannabes. And given our unquenchable thirst for quick, easy answers to complex questions we gobble it up. Amazon lists over 2500 books alone on ‘best practices’.
Unfortunately like most man-made attempts at unearthing universal truths, the truths embedded in best practices struggle with universality. A few examples illustrate the problems and risks.
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
This Week’s Leadership Changes at OLG and NHLPA
Two high profile firings took place this week. Both shed light on how boards of directors and the big-named international headhunters who advise them make questionable decisions.
The first involved the CEO of Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation who was dismissed along with the majority of the firm’s board of directors. Published reports suggested that topping the list of Kelly McDougald’s purported transgressions was her failure to deliver wholesale culture change at the government run monopoly. If this was in fact her primary mandate, it is reasonable to look at her credentials going into the job.
Robert Hebert
The Talent Jungle
How to Spot Talent
The CEO of a small firm asked me this week for tips on spotting talent. Here’s a quick take on a very generic question.
First, talent comes in a great many varieties, perhaps even more than the 31 flavors at your local Baskin-Robbins store. And this is fortunate for the organizational palate is individualistic, a function of blended factors such as company size, complexity, ownership, location, industry, financial resources, and challenges it faces. ‘Talent’ is not a generic label of excellence that can move effortlessly between any and all companies.