Why Hire the Best, When You Can Hire the Rest?

Matt Homann from the non-billable hour catches a story about the futility of hiring only "A" candidates.  The story comes from Bob Sutton, and it's titled Crappy People versus Crappy Systems.  The basic argument is phrases like The War for Talent create a people-centric hiring frenzy based on the idea that the best people produce the best results, and the worst people produce the worst results.

"This tendency to look for individual goats – and heroes – isn’t just a problem that permeates the world of sports. It is reflected in many misguided ideologies and management practices, which focus excessive energy on hiring stars and weeding-out mediocre and poor performers, and insufficient energy on building a great system that enables most competent people to succeed.

I agree – and can show you evidence – that there are huge differences in individual skill and ability in every occupation. BUT we’ve also got a lot of evidence that ordinary people can perform at top levels in a well-designed system, and even a superstar is doomed to fail in a bad system. "

Is it the people or the system is a fundamental question affecting every corporate recruiting department.  Issues of pay, promotion, recruiting, and hiring practices revolve around some system, and that system either tends to be people-centric (the best get all the favors), or system-centric (everyone is lumped into groups and treated the same).  Both systems have their flaws, and in fact, most companies have parallel systems in place that fast-track some people and treat the rest like cattle.

In the war for Talent, there is a sense that somehow merely finding and hiring the hottest talent is the key to winning the war, but just as in sports, it isn't the case (just look at the New England Patriots to prove the case).

Eventually, you're forced to choose your hiring strategy - the great unwashed at a good price or the best and brightest at a high cost.  It's very difficult to do both (which is one reason that Third Party Search Firms are still around - 30-50 placements of above average people a year versus 150-500 on a wide spectrum by internal recruiters.

Think of hiring as a relationship.  Do you know the one common factor in every relationship you've had?  You bring yourself along.  For companies digging for talent, they should remember that the one common factor is the company's system.  Recruiting is only half the battle.

Comments

[Nick Roy]

Here is another example using sports building a team. The Florida Marlins had the lowest payroll at $15 million, and this team overachieved. The team was in the playoff up until the last week of the season.

I was actually routing for the Marlins to try make the playoffs. Everyone was wondering when this team would get off its magic carpet ride, and let the real teams into the playoffs.

Job performance obviously doesn't matter in sports, as their manager fired after only one season. The reason. Ownership and the manager were butting heads. The players loved him. Top brass couldn't stand him. "The same day" the hired the Brave's third base coach to be their new manager. My question now is, what effect will this have on the players for next season? Will the attitude be one of animosity against ownership?