Petrino and Ozzie – You Get What You Hire

Interviewing is easy. Hiring is easy.  Interviewing well and hiring well are brutally hard. It all seems so simple in theory, but it is terribly difficult in practice. There are quantifiable qualifications, verifiable past history, personality tests, in-person meetings, lunches, dinners, hiring committees, but in the end it is about making a decision that is about the future. It is a decision rife with potential pitfalls and based on, at its best, only partial information.

The one good thing about our world of relentless media coverage and celebrity obsession is the opportunity it provides us to watch high-profile hiring and firing. The world of sports tends to offer the best laboratory of study possible – the hiring and firing of managers and coaches is never-ending and almost without fail very public.  And this week gave us two great case studies – Bobby Petrino of Arkansas and Ozzie Guillen of the Miami Marlins.

Bobby Petrino is widely regarded to be a very good football coach.  He is an exceptional coach when it comes to developing quarterbacks.  His record is quantifiable and real – it is easy to capture how well he has done in both wins and losses as well as in various statistical categories with individual players and teams.  The guy wins – no doubt.  However, everyone can also clearly see in his history a pattern of behavior.  Disingenuous, liberal with the truth, willing to conduct himself in a less than forthcoming manner – all fair statements.

Ozzie Guillen is also a recognized winner.  Shoot, he took the White Sox all the way to a World Series Championship.  If you can win a world series with a Chicago baseball team you must be pretty good at what you do.  However, Ozzie also comes with a bit of a colorful personality.  The media loves him because he says whatever pops into his head – as they say, he makes for great copy.

Well, in the last week we have seen Bobby Petrino fired and Ozzie Guillen suspended and clinging to his job.  Neither of these scenarios should come as a surprise to anyone, yet both the University of Arkansas and the Miami Marlins organization’s acted as if they were taken completely by surprise.  There was an absolutely massive and very public record for both Bobby Petrino and Ozzie Guillen – the organizations knew very well who they were hiring.  And that is the issue – you get what you hire.  You get ALL of what you hire.

Interviewing and hiring well is very hard.  The temptation is always there to see the extremes – how well someone has done or how poorly someone has done.  The reality lies in the entirety of the whole person.  It is impossible to just hire the winning coach Bobby Petrino – Arkansas got all of him when they hired him.  Same with Ozzie – Miami hired all of his colorful personality.  Just be ready when you are going to make that hiring decision…ready to get all of the person.

Practice, Bubba and the 10,000-Hours Rule

Golf is an amazing skill.  I have a high degree of respect for professional golfers. Weekend duffers not so much, but the professionals and competitive amateurs – yea, it is impressive what they do.

So now that I have succeeded in alienating a significant portion of the population, let me say it was great to read of Bubba Watson winning The Masters. It is refreshingly amazing – a self-taught, one lesson from dad, successful professional golfer. Now that is impressive. Golf, to those of us outside the golf culture, seems to be the refuge of the gear obsessed, the “students of the game”, and generally the activity with the highest degree of cost to play ratio out there short of polo. Countless publications, tons of different clinics and lessons, coaches, gear, balls, clothing, GPS, carts, and on and on, the list of “factors” that folks focus on seems to never end. And these are your weekend duffers!

So to see Bubba Watson come along and win one of the most prestigious tournaments on the planet, well it just reminds us that the Nike tagline “Just Do It” was more than just slick advertising.  Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers brings to light the 10,000-Hour Rule, the premise of which is that wildly successful people spend a great deal of time perfecting their particular skill.  Bill Gates – ton of time in a computer lab.  The Beatles – ton of time playing gigs in Hamburg.  Skills require practice, and Bubba Watson further reinforces that lesson.  Yes, his equipment mattered, but it is the time he has spent over the years playing and practicing that made the difference.

Certainly there are countless ingredients that contribute to success. However, there is no denying that sweat equity is one of the key elements. It might not be the only thing, but rest assured it is one of the things. One has to practice; to put in the time.  Quality of time also matters, but in the end the time has to be put into the skill or job.

I might not be a golfer, but I am a runner and cyclist, and I can attest, the bike or the running shoes, the GPS or the heart rate monitor, none of the gear or clothing makes you fast.  Sure, it helps, but in the end you have to just go run or ride.  You have to put in the time.  Thanks for the reminder Bubba. Equipment and lessons are nice to haves, but practice is a must have. Enjoy that jacket!

Katniss on Leadership

Yes, I admit it, I read the Hunger Games.  Actually the entire trilogy, and yes I enjoyed it. There seems to be an entire “over 40 male” Hunger Games support network…the first step is admitting you read the books, then one has to admit that we cannot wait to see the movie. Yep, that is where we are today…after having viewed the online trailer countless times over the last 3 months, we finally get to see it all on the big screen. We are a sorry lot!

What has stayed with me the last 5 months has been the example Katniss sets for all leaders.  Interesting really, a teenage girl becomes a beacon of hope to an entire country just by being herself.  It is a great reminder that leadership is at its core, about doing the right things for the right reasons for the right people.  Of course the question is “how is right defined”, for in the world of the Hunger Games, the status quo “right” is not what our hero does or whom she helps.  She actually does the exact opposite of the accepted right from the very opening pages, and in so doing she defines leadership.

Katniss is no leader, at least not in the formal sense.  She is a teenage daughter who does what it takes to quite literally feed her mother and young sister.  She is a loner who is loyal only to her most trusted friend.  She is focused on survival and has no time for the extraneous noise of the world around her.  And when the time comes that a hard, life changing decision must be made, Katniss does the unthinkable and volunteers – immediately.  She steps forward to do what everyone would know in their heart is right, and in so doing certainly goes willingly to her own death.  And from that moment forward she evolves into a leader by continuing to act for others.  Certainly she protects herself, but never just for herself nor at the expense of others…who matter.

The story evolves, and along the way Katniss does many a thing, but never does she forget those who help her.  She goes to great lengths to protect others, and in so doing she earns the respect and support of the masses.  It is a complicated and intense journey, yet she remains true to herself and firmly grounded in reality.  She is decisive, focused, hard working, committed and grounded.  She sees things as they are, not as they are packaged or intended.

Obviously the journey of Katniss is not limited to just one book or film, and there will be many more lessons learned along the way.  However there is no denying she sets the standard early and often.  It was an interesting revelation when I read the trilogy this fall.  Like everyone, I could not put the book, or rather Kindle, down.  Yes it was entertaining, yes it was a look in the mirror for our entire society, but for me it was a reminder that leaders are everywhere.  Leadership is often not a formal, titled, positioned role.  Rather it is a state of mind, a type of behaviour, an example that is set just by doing the right things at the right time.

And for those who have not been caught-up in the Hunger Games universe, give the below a whirl…email for support group meeting details!

Linsanity, the Marshmallow Test and Hiring

From the Wall Street Journal today came a column by Arthur C. Brooks entitled “Obama’s Budget Flunks the Marshmallow Test“. Not to worry, we are not going to take a turn down the path of political commentary. However, what we will borrow is the Marshmallow Test:

In one famous study from 1972, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel concocted an ingenious experiment involving young children and a bag of marshmallows. He put a marshmallow on the table and told each child that if he (or she) could wait 15 minutes to eat it, he would get a second one as a reward.

About two-thirds of the kids failed the experiment. Some gave in immediately and gobbled up the marshmallow; videotape shows others in agony, trying to discipline themselves—some even banging their little heads on the table.

But the most interesting results from that study came years later. Researchers followed up on the children to see how their lives were turning out. The kids who didn’t take the marshmallow had average SAT scores 210 points higher than the kids who ate it immediately. They were less likely to drop out of college, made far more money, were less likely to go to jail, and suffered from fewer drug and alcohol problems.

So what does all of this have to do with identifying, hiring and retaining talent?  Actually everything.  Think about Jeremy Lin and the New York Knicks.  As an organization the Knicks had a choice – bring Lin up from the Developmental League and give him a chance, or shop around and trade for some point guard from another team.  They chose to go with Lin and two weeks later it is Linsanity.

Clearly, it is not always going to turnout that well when it comes to hiring, but there is a lesson to be learned.  It is safe to say that as a child if Lin was given the Marshmallow Test, he would have sat and waited for the reward.  His history indicates he is not an instant gratification person.  He “gets” sacrifice, hard work and patience.  Those are the traits, along with a ton of natural athletic gifts, that have made him successful.

The other side to this scenario is that there were options for the Knicks – there are other guards out there with the physical skills and size.  In this one case the Knicks avoided that classic pitfall of hiring…going with the “qualified” or “experienced” candidate; the safe hire.  The recycling of candidates, the shuffling of people from job to job, company to company, is the single greatest mistake made in hiring.  The philosophy that if someone is in the role currently,  they can naturally fill that role at our company.  Yes, they probably will do okay, but they will probably never be great.

Going with recycled talent in hiring is the path to immediate gratification – it is the “easy and safe hire”.  And based on the Marshmallow Test, immediate gratification is not an indicator of long-term success.  Apply the test to the candidates and yourself next time you have to add someone to the team – you just might find that great hire.

So How Was Your Day

Said it before, it is all about perspective. Good day, bad day.  Happy, sad.  Partly sunny, partly cloudy.  It is all about how you see things and from where you see them.  This afternoon I found a “gift” in my shoe.   On a relative scale, things could have been much worse…

So it is not exactly what any of us hope to find, but then again, it was not as bad as it could have been.  Really, think about what might have been…in form, substance, placement; even the shoe that caught the pass could have been worse.  Oh, as a dog owner I can assure things can be much worse.  And suddenly, what seemed to be such a downer day on the work front was suddenly not quite so bad. And frankly, if that present in my shoe was as bad as it gets today, then things are not quite as bad as it might seem.

Seriously, it made me laugh, and for that I am grateful.  Actually, I am grateful my nose lead me to the discovery before I put the shoe on…now that would have been an entirely different perspective.

Great Moments…

…are born from great opportunities.  It is one of those great quotes and lessons, and now along comes “Linsanity” to remind us that Coach Brooks knew exactly of what he spoke.  Talk about someone earning an opportunity and maximizing it…what a week it has been.

I am not an NBA fan, not even a casual NBA fan.  I am not even a basketball fan.  Sure, March Madness is a blast, and I loved watching the Jordan era Bulls in the finals, but otherwise I am indifferent to basketball.  However, the Jeremy Lin story is absolutely amazing – it is not a Cinderella Story – it is so much more.  Lin is the overlooked grinder, the hard worker, the fighter, the one who battles insane odds clinging to the idea that maybe one day he will get a chance.  Well, he got his chance.

No college scholarship, no NBA draft, repeatedly cut by teams, and above all always discounted.  It is the Rudy story, but it is real, not just a one-off feel good play or two.  Lin is leading a team, both on and off the court.  He is making the sum of the whole greater than the individual parts…in the NBA…the land of egos, guaranteed contracts and figurehead coaches.  It is staggering really.  Who knows how long it will last, but no matter what, Jeremy Lin and “Linsanity” is proof that yes, all it takes is opportunity.

Rocky, Braveheart, The Pursuit of Happyness, Dead Poets Society and “carpe diem”.  Stories, sayings, speeches and other Hollywood sap aside, it is a fact of life – all we can ever ask for is an opportunity.  Yet asking is not enough.  The lesson of Jeremy Lin is that opportunities are not given to those who ask.  Rather, they are earned.  Lin tried, he failed, he tried again.  He practiced, he focused, he fought and he persevered.  He earned his opportunity.  We all know of it because his opportunity to perform came in Madison Square Garden for the New York Knicks, a storied franchise, on the largest stage in the largest media market.  All at a moment in time when there are literally no other sports stories – crazy!

The only thing I think any of us would ask of Jeremy Lin is to not go completely Rudy on us. Your story has been amazing, there is no need to overplay it.

Thanks Eli

Much like most everyone, I too enjoyed partaking in all that is Super Bowl Sunday. Fortunately we seem to be in the midst of a pretty good run of Super Bowl games – competitive, down to the wire, class organizations and players – all that really any casual fan could hope for in a Super Bowl. And of course the drama and hype. The story lines of Brady and his legacy, the Patriots dynasty and Belichick, will Peyton play again and for whom, the Giants defense, and all of the other fodder of websites, talking heads, media moguls and bloggers. Nothing like Super Bowl Sunday.

Yet through all the noise, there stood Eli- quiet and focused, never the center of attention. He was probably the fourth most talked about quarterback in the week before the game. All the focus was on Tom Brady and his chance to join Montana and Bradshaw in the elite-of-elite 4 time Super Bowl Champion club. Then of course there were the Peyton stories – is he coming back, is he healthy enough to play again, will the Colts re-sign him, and of course how will Eli compare to him with his second Super Bowl appearance. And with Peyton comes the Andrew Luck talk. And yet, there was Eli, quietly preparing for the game – the one that will be played on the field.

Eli is the quiet warrior, the leader without ego.  In a market that has a long history of destroying the strongest, Eli has thrived.  New York and its media do not phase him, not with their relentless criticism in times of struggle, nor with their praise in times of greatness.  He is always steady, always calm, and above all always focused.  It is refreshing to see, in an era of flash and hype, statistics and marketing, celebrity in the name of celebrity, that the fundamentals still remain true in leadership and winning.  Focus on what matters and ignore what does not.  Practice, prepare, plan, and execute.  Think long not short-term.  Lead through action, both on and off the field.  But above all, make it about the team, about the organization, and the overall win.  There is always enough glory to go around – always.

Thanks Eli for reminding us all how it can be and should be done.  Your actions and lack of words send a very clear message.