My daughter, all of 14, brought home a New York Times best seller the other day entitled,--I kid you not -- "Skinny Bitch: A no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous!" The book is so hot that the authors immediately wrote a follow-on cookbook entitled Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, which, when the feminist in me is done being enraged, I find pretty funny.
So what does this have to do with recruiting? Everything. (Stay with me for a moment.) SB pretty much is a vegan rant that, for a number of chapters, is designed to gross out the reader by comfronting us with the often cruel consequences of eating food with faces -- something we generally don't like thinking about. The authors vividly describe slaughterhouse practices and the vagaries of eating rotting carcasses. In doing so, the extol the virtues of eating vegan . ..how healthy, caring, and skinny one will be if you'd just rule out meat and dairy.
My Katie read passages of the book aloud to me. In response, to encourage her new-found teenage idealism and previously unheard-of commitment to eat her veggies, I agreed to try vegan with Katie with the New Year. A meditation on the theme "we are what we eat".
Which brings me to recruiting. Recruitment is a kind of consumption. Companies that hire great talent that is also good (ethical, caring, inspiring to be around) will attract the same, whereas crummy, unethical, peevish, beady-eyed leaders attract similarly uninspiring talent.
Therefore, search firms ought to decide what team they want to recruit for . . .employers-of-choice (also known as Best Companies to Work For) that do a better job of treating their shareholders, employees, communities, and the planet right . . .or employer that lack distinction.
Of course, we define ourselves by the company we keep. As recruiters, we define companies by the company we keep. One can choose the upward or downward spiral. SB recruiting means you intend to thrive by taking the high road. You'll not only be successful, but in the eyes of those around you, you will look mahrvelous!
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The most important thing
posted 1/14/2008 at 3:38 p.m. PT by Martin Snyder
The longer I live, the more I see that looks are everything ;-)
PS I am a carnivore and thus I don't eat innocent plants.
PPS you can imagine what I look like !
Omnivore's Dilemma
posted 1/15/2008 at 5:25 a.m. PT by Krista Bradford
The utter irony is that last year, I embraced the polar opposite of vegan: Atkins. Generally, I think we humans do okay as long as we forego processed foods. There must be a another recruiting analogy in there somewhere . . .
Recruiting
posted 1/15/2008 at 7:08 a.m. PT by Joshua Kitchen
Interesting Read Krista... My thoughts are to incorporate the SB Recruitment Guide is to identify in one's business plan and mission statement to base your reputation and organization on recruiting for such. If your company will fill w/e order is out there its a different mentality. More of the Eat or be eaten mentality.
- Josh
Hedgehog Concept
posted 1/17/2008 at 11:42 a.m. PT by Robert Dromgoole
Like Josh, I think if you define your hedgehog concept, you'll manifest that vision. I'm pasting a link below:
http://www.jimcollins.com/lab/hedgehog/
In his famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes, based upon an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”2
Read on: Good to Great (English) Chapter 5, pages 90-91
What does all this talk about hedgehogs and foxes have to do with good to great? Everything.
Those who built the good-to-great companies were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. They used their hedgehog nature to drive toward what we came to call a Hedgehog Concept for their companies. Those who led the comparison companies tended to be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage of a Hedgehog Concept, being instead scattered, diffused, and inconsistent.
The essential strategic difference between the good-to-great and comparison companies lay in two fundamental distinctions. First, the good-to-great companies founded their strategies on deep understanding along three key dimensions—what we came to call the three circles. Second, the good-to-great companies translated that understanding into a simple, crystalline concept that guided all their efforts—hence the term Hedgehog Concept.
More precisely, a Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles:
1. What you can be the best in the world at (and, equally important, what you cannot be the best in the world at). This discerning standard goes far beyond core competence. Just because you possess a core competence doesn’t necessarily mean you can be the best in the world at it. Conversely, what you can be the best at might not even be something in which you are currently engaged.
2. What drives your economic engine. All the good-to-great companies attained piercing insight into how to most effectively generate sustained and robust cash flow and profitability. In particular, they discovered the single denominator—profit per x—that had the greatest impact on their economics. (It would be cash flow per x in the social sector.)
3. What you are deeply passionate about. The good-to-great companies focused on those activities that ignited their passion. The idea here is not to stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate.
To quickly grasp the three circles, consider the following personal analogy. Suppose you were able to construct a work life that meets the following three tests. First, you are doing work for which you have a genetic or God-given talent, and perhaps you could become one of the best in the world in applying that talent. (“I feel I was just born to be doing this.”) Second, you are well paid for what you do. (“I get paid to do this? Am I dreaming?”) Third, you are doing work you are passionate about and absolutely love to do, enjoying the actual process for its own sake. (“I look forward to getting up and throwing myself into my daily work, and I really believe in what I'm doing.”) If you could drive toward the intersection of these three circles and translate that intersection into a simple, crystalline concept that guided your life choices, then you’d have a Hedgehog Concept for yourself.
To have a fully developed Hedgehog Concept, you need all three circles. If you make a lot of money doing things at which you could never be the best, you’ll only build a successful company, not a great one. If you become the best at something, you’ll never remain on top if you don't have intrinsic passion for what you are doing. Finally, you can be passionate all you want, but if you can’t be the best at it or it doesn’t make economic sense, then you might have a lot of fun, but you won’t produce great results.
I guess I'm a hedgehog then . . .
posted 1/17/2008 at 12:13 p.m. PT by Krista Bradford
But must I be prickly?
Cheers, Krista
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