Week Nine - Hiring and Recruiting

"If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won't require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external."
Stephen Covey

The end of the semester is here, and I have enjoyed the past nine weeks of self-discovery more than words to paper could ever convey really. I keep hearing U2 playing “…but I still haven’t found what I am looking for…” in my head, but I do think I am one step closer to it. This week, one of the best testaments to my growth this semester was on our team presentation. Usually I feel that I have to email, post, track down, and do the final review of what we submit so that I can make sure it is up to “my standards” and what I did instead was just create a template, post my slides, and let the whole thing just ride. I am sure part of that is just the deep mental and physical exhaustion setting in…and the overwhelming stress of my two upcoming final classes. But none the less, I am going to take it as one small victory!

After watching Schmidt’s video, I do think that his description of the Google culture makes sense at the very basic level; your culture starts with the people you hire, and that should be considered very carefully, regardless of the level this person is on your team. Spending time on the core values and how these recruits fit into your ideal vision of the culture of the company is definitely worth the time given and spent on the front end. This allows their “driven” personalities to come alive and meld with others whom have independently taken it upon themselves to work towards collaborative goals with meaning and purpose and passion. Recruitment should inherently focus on compatibility…it’s not enough to have the credentials and education behind you. That may get you in the door, but not keep you around (McKinsey Quarterly, 2011).

I don’t think it takes courage, I think it takes trust. Trust in your team, trust in your departments, trust in the culture that you breed and contribute towards…without security and fluent understanding of your team, the culture they breed, as well as their varying viewpoints, courage doesn’t really help any manager I can think of. I agree with Schmidt that you do always need a certain amount of discourse and deadlines to make things happen; with uniformity there can be no innovation, and we all have learned how detrimental groupthink can be for our organizations and teams (McKinsey Quarterly, 2011). Additionally, as Schmidt mentions, checks and balances in dealing with pressure is important for all levels within an organization. No management should be allowed to hire their friends – there is usually no room for nepotism either. Multiple interviews are important, and should include a varying degree of levels of management and areas. For example, according to Forbes.com, the best elements to look for in hiring for your organization include finding someone who is not only competent, capable and compatible, but also someone who is symbiotically committed, has character, and also has the ability to influence and reflect your company’s culture (Hall, 2012).

Where I could see this approach backfiring would be that if your culture wasn’t as sound or on track as you thought as a leader; if you are not hiring those that meld well with your current system, or the system in which you are trying to breed within your culture, then you risk a negative disruption towards what you are attempting to accomplish. Additionally, another area in which I disagree with Schmidt is that everyone has to be of the same level of formal education, and then you can work on getting them to learn to be team players. In my experience, with the “right” candidate, they can learn almost anything…so if they haven’t finished the level of education you think they should, but they happen to be the “right” fit personality-wise and in the other softer areas of management, you shouldn’t exclude them from your culture. Far more damage and drama comes from those who are hired that can do their job well, but cause issues due to personality conflicts. As our reading uncovered this week, “The success of future organizations, then, depends on how effectively the needs of individual members can be integrated with the vision and goals of the organization” (Brown, 2011, p. 224). This entire semester, we have focused on learning what impacts to what systems are caused by not embracing the leadership skills required to navigate through conflict, challenge, and differing perspectives. The psychosocial system that houses the social relationships, norms, behavioral patterns and communications is a delicate fabric (Brown, 2011, p. 224); one “wrong hire” with a lot of education behind them could be the beginning of the downfall of the team. Moreover, you are tending to place judgment on those who didn’t achieve the same level as yourself; education is important, but not always the only way to determine what type of people you should consider letting into your organization. We need diversification and differences to make things work, and cultural and team impacts are no different.

I think that this model, along with Schmidt’s take on emphasis of proper recruitment from the start, are areas I can use immediately. Because the whole purpose in finding the right fit for everyone is usually undervalued, more emphasis should be placed on the peer interview process, as well as observing how the energy and the ability of the individual compliments or enhances the current culture in which we work in.

Until we blog again…thank you for such a wonderful grouping of opportunities this past semester!

References

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organizational Development, Eighth Edition. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Hall, A. (2012, June 19). The 7 C's: How to Find and Hire Great Employees. Retrieved from forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alanhall/2012/06/19/the-7-cs-how-to-find-and-hire-great-employees/

McKinsey Quarterly. (2011, May). Eric Schmidt on business culture, technology, and social issues. Retrieved from mckinsey.com: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/eric_schmidt_on_business_culture_technology_and_social_issues