It’s a cold Monday morning as Suzy sips her first cup of coffee for the day and reflects on her surprise when Bob turned in his notice last Friday. Being that Bob had been around for 5 years, Suzy asked herself what led him to start thinking about outside opportunities. Further, who would really be so interested in Bob in the first place? His performance ratings were barely middle of the road, he didn’t graduate from a Top-25 Business School, and was consistently passed over for the Leadership Development Program. He definitely wasn’t tearing up the racetrack, by any means. “No big deal”, Suzy tells herself. And sure, she understands she could have kept Bob around through Christmas, but why bother? It’s not like she wanted word getting around, so when she asked him to pack up his things and leave the building before lunch, she was just looking out for the best of the firm.
To Suzy, her thinking is perfectly logical.
Our industry has taught her to see Recruiting, and the broader issue of Talent Management, as a “Supply-Chain.” She’s attended several industry conferences over the last 18 months that were dominated by this kind of linear thinking. She endured hours of training on linear concepts like Lean, Six-Sigma, and Total Quality Management. Further, she’s a big believer in ever-traditional practices such as the 9-Box and Performance Ratings.
Yep, Suzy has it all figured out. Except she really doesn’t. Her phone begins to ring as Employee after Employee, Partner after Partner, Customer after Customer, call with the question, “What happened with Bob?” Suzy asks how this could be possible. She goes back and reviews everything she can on him in the Talent Management system – again, no big deal. Bob was a middle-of-the-road Guy. So why all the concern?
To Suzy, Bob is replaceable like a peg in a car while playing the game of Life. Words like ‘automate‘, ‘process‘, ‘controls‘, ‘waste‘, ‘re-engineer‘, etc. tell her that her company is a huge assembly line in a broader Supply-Chain. In her mind, the Ghosts of Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor collide with visions of the Industrial Revolution, giving her confidence that all she has to do is hire someone and pop them in Bob’s vacated role. Simple. Easy. Linear. The faster she can put a name in the (now) blank box on the OrgChart, the better . . .
The truth is though that Suzy doesn’t really get it. Her organization is dependent on tacit knowledge transfer and doesn’t manufacture anything, yet she slogs along with ideas that barely worked during our period of rapid industrialization. While she likes to call herself an “outside the box” thinker, the truth is that her way of looking at the world is the “box” itself. Her straight-line, point-A to point-B, Supply-Chain thinking keeps her in the dark. To Suzy, Bob was just a single producer… and the Human-Capital lens she sees through focus only on what Bob’s past performance ratings were, along with what his past Managers considered to be his potential moving forward.
She doesn’t ask herself about the nature of Bob’s connections, such as who he interacted with, and why. Did he participate in discussions about new products and innovation? Was he involved in client-facing activities? Did others rely on him to help solve Customer challenges? Who did Bob go to lunch with and socially connect with? After all, it’s these connections, relationships, and interactions that truly create value… but until Suzy wakes up and sees that the Human-Capital box is not only holding her back, but also her Organization and its ability to deliver on its value proposition, she’ll continue to live on in her monochrome world of seeing only 10% of the big picture.
Suzy couldn’t rationalize that losing Bob was more than just losing Bob – also lost are all Bob’s relationships and connections within the overlapping and simultaneous array of networks that define how business gets done. The Human-Capital lens says Bob was just a guy, a peg in the OrgChart . . . while the Social-Capital lens says you just lost more than Bob, you also lost his 17 relationships and ties within the firm.
Don’t be a Suzy.
As we move into 2011, the biggest leap we can make as an industry is to start thinking less about what’s within individuals (i.e. “Talent”) and more about what’s between them (i.e. “Connections”, “Interactions”, etc.). After all, ‘between‘ is what Social is really all about. If you respect Human-Capital thinking, but are open to the notion that Networks (Social-Capital), or the way we connect and interact, are where value truly unlocks, you might just be surprised at what you’ll start seeing. Will you join me?
Great reminder that employees aren’t cogs and may surprise you if you treat them like cogs. I like to call my hypothetical employees Bob, too.
I will join you. Right on the money.
Excellent post – I’m dealing with too many people both in and out of HR that think this way.
As I mentioned the other night when we met I love your stuff. I hope you looked at the link I sent you. It helps get the social stuff. I would encourage you to read some of Mckay. He got it too, as does Keith Ferrazzi.
I am on the team, so count me in.
Hi Josh
Really enjoyed this. Guessing Bob and Suzy no relation to Dylan and Suze Rotolo (sorry, big Dylan fan)? Hooked me in even more either way. Anyway, serious point, think you’re spot on on looking at what lies between people. I think you can also analyse this as between people and the environment in which they work to check out the organisational culture, or between the employer and employee in terms of the psych contract. Where you look is key, and just because it’s hard doesn’t make it not worthwhile. I’m with you, anyway. Good post.
fabulous post Josh. With a manufacturing background deep in lean I have seen this happen in marketing and service organizations as well. I look forward to your future posts.
If only HR specialists, recruiters and talent hunters would/could remember to check LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts of the employee they would like to terminate as well as the ones they are about to interview and hire. It is not just how large the number is, it is about who they are connected to and what groups they belong to. All those connections are a clue to the connections a person has when they discuss/represent the company as well. I have seen really talented assets be given a pink slip or not hired because of a misconception or “missed” perception of the connections.
Everyone looks for everyone to be over achievers now days. If that is the case, isn’t everyone average now? You can only work so hard and do so much in any given day. Bob sounds like the guy who got things done but wasn’t appreciated, watched the rear end kissers move up and get raises, etc. while he didn’t. THAT is why Bob, the middle of the road guy left. Good article. Wish more companies would read this and stop looking for the next management tool that doesn’t work. Six sigma, 7 habits, tqm, don’t always work in a construction environment where it is not an assembly line and everything can’t be controlled. When the economy comes back, and it will, the middle of the road guys will be demanding huge salaries as they are the ones with the knowledge to get things done.
Even factors to be considered in the recruitment area are comparable to social media…nice article by the way.
Wow. As someone who tends to be a “Bob,” this article is a revelation. Josh, you really seem to “get it.”
Bobs aren’t flashy, Bobs aren’t shameless self-promoters and Bobs don’t busy themselves with the latest corporate buzzwords. But,as you point out, day after day Bobs work internally with Accounting and Marketing and externally with vendors and customers to get various functions done more efficiently than they otherwise would be.
I certainly hope other managers and HR professionals follow your advice to look more carefully at the value Bobs bring to organizations.
If you aren’t God in a bottle at minimum wage it’s See Ya, Bye when you leave. It is an employer’s world the rest of us are just living in it.
I like the idea of “between” because it shows that a person isn’t just one entity. It’s who they are connected to and their personal network. There are plenty of stats out there to prove turnover is costly, but according to this, it’s much more than just financial.
Great perspective on the power of inter-connectedness in the workplace. An article every manager should read.