To quote Austin Powers, I’m a man, baby… As a guy, quoting movies is part of who I am… And I can even work it into a HR/Talent blog entry… From Caddyshack:
- Judge Smails: The man is a menace! Cut that off! Music is a violation of our personal privacy! He’s breaking the law!
- Danny: I’ve always been fascinated with the law, sir.
- Judge Smails: Really? What areas?
- Danny: All areas. Personal privacy, noise statutes….I’d planned to go to law school after I graduated, but my folks won’t have enough money to put me through college.
- Judge Smails: The world needs ditchdiggers, too.
- Lacey: Nice try.
Here’s the transition – Does your company look for stars only when recruiting, or have you come to the realization that your world needs ditchdiggers too? Chief Executive magazine cites the growing trend of companies, even elite ones, to go deeper into the talent pool to find what they need. From Chief Learning Officer:
"The essence of understanding the difference between A people and those connected with any other letter is that everybody matters and everybody counts. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in two decades of consulting is competitiveness is not determined by the learning speed of the “fastest few,” but by the learning and execution speed of the “slowest many.” Let me point out that “slow” doesn’t have anything to do with intellect. It means “slow” in being invited to the table to learn what others have already had the chance to assimilate to.
This statement may seem obvious, but if you don’t appreciate its meaning, it can stop your organization in its tracks. Picture it like this: The senior leaders — the A team — of a company are climbing a mountain range. The rest of the people in the organization — the B team — are two peaks behind at the base camp.
Where is the overall position of the organization? It’s not with the leaders. It’s back at base camp. It’s not, “How far ahead of everybody else can the leaders advance?” but, “How fast can the leaders engage others to move the entire company forward?” The success of the organization is defined by the last group, not the first, when it comes to measuring total performance."
My take is that most of us in the Talent sector understand the value of the "steady, yet unspectacular" performer. It’s never more apparent to me than when I have a big block of vacancies for the same role. In the last year, my company has worked to fill 12-13 Account Managers and 12-15 Training Specialists at the same time. Filling a big order like that seems to get me in the "compare and contrast" mode, and appreciate the steady candidate who may not be a star. Invariably, I find the hiring manager, for the block of vacancies, thinking the same way. The rationalization usually revolves around 1) whether the candidate has the skills to do the job and can be projected as a "Meets" performer, and 2) the fact that if you have all stars, you ultimately will have dissatisfaction because not everyone can move up in the organization.
Of course, that rationalization assumes you could get all stars for all of your positions, which is unrealistic.
What about you? Would you take all stars if you could get them, or would you want some steady (hopefully) low maintenance performers on your team who are content with where they are?
Excellent post – I thought I was perhaps on an island, other than the ops mgrs I’ve managed to convert through the years. There are exceptions in which “all rockstars” makes sense and will actually work – but I can not think of many.
My experience in a variety of orgs (work and non-work environments) is that the overwhelming majority of orgs that succeed have the “right” leadership (style, approach, vision, etc..and NUMBER) for their market/niche/objective, and that the key becomes “filling in the rest” with good, solid people who don’t necessarily think they should be CEO/lead singer tomorrow…if ever, but who have capacity and desire to continue to develop and improve. As one of my VP’s used to say, “I want the Tier 3′s [Steady Eddies] behind me in battle. The Tier 1′s want to preserve themselves, and the Tier 2′s want to be the Tier 1′s…but the Tier 3′s and 4′s will follow you and stick with it and get the job done.” If you’re a good leader…
As Exhibit A, why are the Stones still going, with no disruption, after all these years? Cause Mick is the only “Tier 1″ – minimal ego issues. Zeppelin STILL can’t get it together to do anything more than one-offs…Page and Plant, weird relationship (mostly Page).
The defense rests…I’m sure there are other views!
I’ll take the other side here: give me all top tier players.
Why?
“Birds of a feather flock together.”
“You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.”
Give me those winners. If that means that I need to work harder as a leader to create challenges to spur growth and opportunities for advancement, then so be it. If it means that I’ve got to bust my butt for fear of being passed up by my troops, then so be it.
And if it means that more of my job becomes keeping egos in line–my own included–then I say, “What a gift!” I can do that job.
And if I do, the results will be spectacular.
I think the fear many people have when looking at the people who work for them is that they themselves lack the internal motivation to run as hard as is necessary to lead a stampeding horde of capable soldiers/managers/mountain climbers. There is a primal, visceral, speed-of-light quality to that kind of leadership, and not too many people are up to the task. For one thing, you yourself need to be excellent, supremely capable, without ego, and also totally willing to learn… because remember: as leader, you are setting the tone for your followers.
E.g.: If you’re pulling ahead from the pack, then you are emphasizing personal gain ahead of team gain. If you staff up with Steady Eddies, you are emphasizing top-down decision making with a minimum of initiative.
But if you hire people who will challenge you and push you as a leader? Now you are embodying precisely the kinds of behaviors that are going to help your team win at every level.
(And what becomes of those who ignore talent and try to carry the weight all themselves? Inevitably, they can be described by Chevy’s classic line: “Don’t sell yourself short, Judge… you’re a tremendous slouch!”)
Shovel is to Ditchdigger as X is to Analogy
You know that old saying about finding a ‘diamond in the rough’? Well, here’s a post that falls into that category, Hey Talent Diva – The World Needs Ditchdiggers, Too…There are some real issues in this post, such as equating…
I wonder if language is part of the issue here. If you ask me whether I want all “stars,” then my answer is “No.” All-Star teams usually lose to championship teams made up of lesser players. But it you ask me if I want the best qualified people I can find, then, sign me up. For me the difference is more in the attitude than the talent.
Puto te recte dicere. Hats off hominem scientiam superlativum quod tibi de hac re videantur plura in opere … spes tua.
One of the best jobs I’ve ever seen, you can include more ideas in the same topic. I am yet waiting for some interesting reflections on your side in your next post.
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