New Blood
"Hey Paul, do you know anyone good?"
This is the most asked question I've had over the last 15 years. Finding good people is difficult. Keeping them is no easy either. In a McKinsey study, 82% of companies felt they recruited poor talent, and only 7% thought they were able to keep their best! (McKinsey, 2017)
We all have our version of this friction-cycle many of us inherit, perpetuate, and suffer from daily. Common remedies include increasing remuneration, increasing responsibility, increasing recruitment advertising spend, and increasing the hunt for that unicorn super star (and answer to all of our worldly problems!) Unfortunately, these routines often lead to the above statistics in two ways. 1) Recruit the wrong people 2) Annoy current staff.
What are we to do? It is the seemingly impossible task. To find the right person/people and integrate them into the team without noses going out of joint. Here are a few tactics I have learnt over the journey to be helpful.
The Pre-Season Run - sporting team's work is done before the season begins. A leader's job when chairing any meeting is done in the preparation. The sales person's work in a pitch is done before the client walks in the room. When leading a team, you are living in 'the today', but thinking/planning next year is critical. I always think of this-time-next-year being what I am truly working on now. This thinking allows for today's problems to become less absolute and helps to set up great decisions that will move the entire team to a better place sustainably. If you are trying to get match fit when the game begins you are going to exhaust, fatigue, and lose. Think about how you can stop the cycle of scrambling when it comes to recruitment. Do some pre-season now and lay the foundations for great recruitment in the coming 6-12 months.
Map the team - I take leaders through a process of mapping development and succession within their team. This becomes a map for everyone to follow with zero ambiguity, complete transparency, and pragmatic accountability. This Team Map, shows the deficiencies a recruit would fill. It is a great way to solidify Role Definition for everyone (including the leader), not only for the present, but is built upon the team's past and creates a narrative for the future everyone can buy-into. If you take action on nothing else in this list, executing this is the best present you can give yourself and your team!
Ask and Agree - Often leaders will find themselves doing a lot of talking in meetings, interviews, and side-discussions. Often this is because the leader is the subject expert, as well as nerves or anxiety increasing the need one feels to talk. My observation is the leader's telling needs to be reigned in. The best leaders, like the late Walmart founder Sam Walton are notorious for being relentlessly curious. Always investigating and deciphering the details and motivations of others. Danney Meyer calls it ABCD - Always Be Connecting the Dots. In your Pre-Season, asking questions of current staff, peers, senior leaders, and potential recruits ensures everyone voices their thoughts, motivations, ideas, and needs. The leader gains all the information required for solid decisions. Agreements on all sides have a chance for good recruitment and integration. Without these understandings it is near impossible to gain quality outcomes. In fact, you'll merely be playing the lottery.
FU FU FU - One of the best bosses I ever worked under told me that leadership is all about Repetition Repetition Repetition. If there was a message you needed people to get on board with then the key is to voice it persistently and with tenacity to send a clear and ever-present signal about our message - WE ARE DOING THIS! I feel this is important when recruiting and integrating a new person into our team in terms of Follow Up (FU). A constant stream of daily/weekly/monthly follow ups is crucial in whichever way is appropriate for your context. A great general practice, but often we feel the job is done when we finally find someone to fill the vacancy. We can relax and take a breather. Diligence around follow up can dissipate - a big mistake.
BONUS TIP: Level Up - The biggest (and most cowardly) mistake I experienced personally occurred about 3-4 times in my career. Imagine your first day/week on the job and your new boss is showing you around, introducing you to others, and takes you through your initial stages of induction. They talk you through standards, protocols, and expectations. So far so good. Over the next few weeks you get to know team mates and discuss how they do things and learn your way around. It is at this point you realise there is a huge variation in what the team do compared to what the leader wants you to do. The leader is trying to change culture through the newbie - the person they can most easily influence. Its a dog move. To this I say level up your leadership. Have the conversations you need to have with your team. If you don't feel confident or know how, then please learn how to do it. This is fundamental to your job as a professional and any leadership position. If not, you'll look silly, feel silly, and lose talent forever more.
A little note to the above tips - they all apply to recruiting new clients, new suppliers, new contractors, and even new tools. Pick one and develop it within your approach. Invest in them. McKinsey's study tells us high-performers are 400-800% more productive than average team members. It's worth investing in your New Blood routines and skills.
