Tedded - Business Book Review

“In business, you are who you hire.”

“Who: The A Method for Hiring” by Geoff Smart and Randy Street (of ghSMART) is a book on recruting or hiring. During the global economic crisis, hiring is not less significant, it is more significant than ever. As the authors addressed that the who mistakes are pricey, most organisations are still implementing the voodoo hiring methods (the book says there are ten; pretty scary and they are true). The authors wrote the method, A method, that ghSMART (the authors’ company) implemented with hundreds of clients and, as they claimed, the method has worked for them.

Contents (The A Method)

-Scorecard: A Blueprint for Success

It’s a bit ironic that the authors always say “Who, not what” but the first step of the A method is the what. Anyway, the scorecard needs to have clear “Mission” rather than vague job descriptions we normally see. Specific and tangible “Outcomes” are also necessary together with critical “Competencies”. The scorecard will be the blueprint of the recruiting process. We need a person that can get the job done, not an all-round athlete with a perfect resume but hangs around doing nothing.

- Source: Generating a Flow of A Players

This chapter tells us how to have more and better candidates. The best method that the book suggests is “Referrals” from friends, partners, employess, etc. The distant second and third are from recruiters and researchers.

- Select: The Four Interviews for Spotting A Players

Interview processes are “almost a random predictor” of job performance. That’s the case with “traditional” interviews, author stated. They wrote a series of four interviews; screening interview, Topgrading interview, focused interview, and reference interview. This is the best part of the book.

- Sell: The Top Five Ways to Seal the Deal

The authors elaborated The Five F’s of Selling; Fit, Family, Freedom, Fortune, Fun and the Five Waves of Selling  or the phase that you can convince the candidate.

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Now, I’ll try to compare this book, Who, to the ideal business book or a book that is “easy to understand, distinct, practical, reliable, insightful, and provides great reading experience.”

Ease of Understanding: 8/10: “Who” is easy to understand. The subject is very focused, “how to get the A player?”. The subject is adequately explained and the contents are in order, Scorecard, Source, Select, and Sell.

Distinction: 6/10: I have to admit that I do not read much on recruitment but things like scorecard is not new and we all know that referral is among the best methods of getting great candidates. Nevertheless, the critical distinction of the book is how things are put in nice and simple order.

Practicality: 9/10: Forget rocket science theories on motivation and high intellectual psychology, this book cuts the waste and put you straight into action. It tells you how to do the scorecard, how to source, how to conduct the interview, and how to convince the candidate. A point is taken because the method will probably work best with the top-ranked hires rather than new graduates. If we are going to hire for the lower-rank candidates (that’s the majority of the population by the way!), we have to simplify the method by ourselves.

Credibility: 7/10: The author stated that the A method works and it works with hundred of clients. From the experience and quotes by clients and success stories; the method sounds credible. However, the success, as the author claimed, of the method is very sentimental; it is measured mostly by customer satisfaction, I believe. It will be great if we have the data of the new recruits that actually outperform the scorecard, but measuring that will be tough.

Insight: 5/10: Because the book is destined to be very practical and straight to the point, you will not see highly detailed information of those topics. They are mostly “what it is, why it should be done, how it must be done, and examples or quotes” and move on to the next topic.

Reading Experience: 6/10: It is like reading a recruiting manual (a good one). There are stories all over the book but they are in glimpses and flashes. Having more stories of clients will be more fun and engaging but I believe that’s not the point of “Who”.

Overall: 6.8/10: If you are going to work alone for the rest of your career, skip the book (and you won’t be reading this review anyway!). If you are hiring or going to hire someone in the future, this book is a must buy. Personally, I am sure that I will come back to this book many times in the future. I agree with the author when they wrote “you are who you hire”. Since I do not want to be a B or C player, I’ll be looking for only A and The A Mothod sounds right to me.

“The HR Department is the most important staff group”

Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage by Edward E. Lawler III is another book on talent management and HR in general. The key content of the book is the four types of organisations. Hierarchical bureaucracy or low-cost operator (Struture-centric approach) and high-involvement organisation or global competitor (HC-centric, HC is Human Capital). Lawlar describes the current state of most organisations and how to move forward.

Contents:

1. Talent Matters

Talent matters due to the changing business environment in the world and the world is more competitive than ever before.

2. Making the Right Management Choice

This chapter describes the four types of organisation mentioned above and their advantages and disadvantages.

3. Designing Organizations

Lawler adapted the classic five star model of an organisation design including the elements which are People, Structure, Rewards, Processes, (Competencies, Capabilities, and Strategy), which are all related. While Identity is in the middle of all. Lawler describes effect of those elements to the organisation.

4. Managing Talent

The author wrote on how to get the right talent and how to retain them in depth.

5. Managing Performance

Chapter on performance management, full stop.

6. Information and Decision Making

I seriously think that this chapter is unnecessary, Lawler wrote about the information sharing. knowledge management, and technology.

7. Reinventing HR

To sum up the chapter, HR should not only do administration but also business support and strategy development and implementation.

8. Governing Corporations

The chapter talks mainly about the boards of directors (?!).

9. Leading

Typical leadership topics.

10. Managing Change

Typical change management topics (seriously)

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Now, I would like to compare this book to the ideal business book; or a business book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 7/10: Although, as you can see from the contents, the structure of the book is straightforward, there are some repetitions. Descriptions of HR tools and theories are well written but they can be a bit too overwhelming.

Distinction: 4/10: This is a typical HR or people management book. The colourful front cover might be a bit deceptive; there is nothing particularly new about the contents apart from a model tweak and some updated (cannot really say new) concepts here and there.

Practicality: 3/10: This book is very acedemic. The author wrote beautiful and refined concepts with a few examples but there is no such thing as “do this, do that, do it, now!”. This book will be practical when I construct an HR checklist of activities that are needed to be done. But if I want to actually implement those activities, I will find good methods elsewhere.

Credibility: 9/10: As an acedemic thesis, this book deserves an “A” without a doubt. Researches are sound and a list of references is longer than many textbooks. Anyway, an experience of Ed Lawler should be credible enough.

Insightful: 8/10: Following a long list of sound references, the author wrote each topic thoroughly. Explanation between and within chapters is clear.

Reading Experience: 4/10: I am not going to lie here, this book is quite boring. This book is pretty much like a textbook, an HR textbook. I think that is enough for you know how will you feel.

Overall: 5.8/10: For HR managers and officers, this book might be useful but it is likely that you already know them all in general. For others, this book might be too detailed without straight and practical method. However, if you need to be an HR guru, the book is compulsory and check out the list of 98 references for your next stop towards an enlightenment in human resource management.

I’ve been blogging for less than 2 weeks and I find that Seth’s Blog is getting better everyday, I admire his work he has done for years.

The reason I post about him so much is because I admire his thoughts so much that they are worth discussing.

His latest post, “The sad lie of mediocrity”.

I agree with the post but I have one question:

Question: “How do you measure mediocrity?”

When you say your employees are mediocre, how do you measure them?

Do you measure them with your company’s standard or do you measure them with the industry or world standard?

If you have vigorous recruitment process and training program, your “average” employees might be “excellent” compared with you competitors and everyone else. On the other hand, if your process is lousy, your “top” employees might be less than mediocre in the same industry.

In sum, I believe that every organisation will have “higher than average” and “lower than average” but mediocrity depends on you.

It’s not abnormal that I find Seth’s Blog a pool of idea but I find it interesting that Seth’s ideas always make me wonder and think of arguments and supports; I have yet to find another thought-provoking blog like his. And his latest post made me think hard.

The 90/10 rule of marketing a job

“It only takes 10% as much effort to hire someone in the bottom 90% of the class.

And it takes the other 90% to find and cajole and retain the top 10%.”

Question: “Are your top 10% worth 90% of your effort?”

From the classic management belief; The Pareto Principle or 80/20 Rule

In an application, 20% of your employees contribute to 80% of your outcome (or Seth’s 10/90 which will be a bit more to the extreme).

Does it mean that we should put an equal effort (80% or 90%) to the top 20% or 10%?

Nobody knows the most suitable percentage of effort but I have an interesting anecdote from Jack Welch in his book, Winning.

I’m not saying that Jack knows best! But people management practice from G.E., the talent machine, is worth noticing.

He divided them into, as you know, Top 20%, Bottom 10%, and Middle 70%.

I believe that, in the process of “hiring”, there is no compromise, we need to put 100% percent of our effort to select the top talent only. There’s no room for anyone less than the top to join the company.

And if your hiring process is good enough, there will be no chance for the “lousy” 90%. They must be good, very good, but just not as good as the top.

Surprisingly, I, personally, do not believe that G.E., or Jack Welch from his book, put 50% of effort on top 20%, let alone 90% for top 10%.

To paraphase an excerpt from his book: You need stars, the top 20 percent, to win. We stroke and reward them in outsize way. But stroking can backfire, A star’s ego can be a dangerous thing.

As for the bottom 10%, we need to part ways but it must be “no surprise” and must “minimize humiliation”.

However, the middle-70 is the hardest to manage and sometimes talented middle-70 leaves because they are in an “awful kind of limbo” not knowing which way to go. We need to train, share, push, and fight good fights with the middle-70. They are the heart and soul of the organization. We need to push them to the top 20%.

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So, back to my thoughts, I believe that we should treat Hiring and Retaining in entirely different ways that is; we should spend 100% of our effort on hiring the top class employees, never spend a percent on hiring mediocre.

On the other hand, retaining is totally different that we must put most effort in the largest middle group by coaching, pushing, and guiding them.

Rewarding the top and firing the bottom are much more straightforward than your effort in the group in the middle.

I agree with Seth Godin on the hiring part, by investing in marketing your job. But on the retaining part, I am not quite sure.