Maister on hiring talent

David Maister writes THE books and THE blog on managing professional services firms.

Our specialist web consultancy has always been different to the rest.
Part of that difference is because we believe we are a type of professional service firm, and so have been influenced by Maister's writing.

From his blog today:

On the HBS site, he [Bob Sutton, HBS] announces that “The War For Talent Is Back” (did it go away?) and offers five lessons for discussion:

   1. Superstars are overrated.
   2. Great systems are more important than great people.
   3. Create smaller rather than larger pay differences between “star” employees and everyone else.
   4. The law of crappy people (great people will hire other great people, but mediocre people will hire even worse people because they are threatened by competent people) is probably a myth.
   5. The no asshole rule helps.

Here are some of my lessons / propositions for winning the war for talent:

   1. In hiring, never let the pursuit of volume get in the way of maintaining the highest possible standards.
   2. People want the opportunity to learn and grow: you must actively work to provide a variety of stretching, challenging experiences.
   3. Standards of people supervision and management are as important as standards of product or service quality: they should be monitored and enforced in the same way.
   4. Firms that try to win by hiring pre-existing, already-formed talent will never do as well as firms that are skilled in building talented people.
   5. Talent is over-rated: character and energy count for more.

Be-jeeezus - you know that feeling when someone writes (or draws, or sings) that absolute crystal clear thought or emotion that you had?

Well for me numbers 2,3 and 5 resonate within me like a giant chinese gong being smacked hard with a damn sledgehammer.

2 - We have neglected at Nixon McInnes, through being 'too busy' - but Tom's going to change that

3 - as above.

5 - We have always got right - I humbly believe. We recruit for character and proactivity as much as anything else here at NM towers. We particularly emphasise getting things done, and cheery, funny attitudes. And it works - Patrick is the only junior in what is an unusually senior team. And he gets at least as much done (important stuff too) as anyone and is the walking personification of 'self-starter'. You get back from a week away, and things are better than they were before you went!

What particularly interests me is #4 - the hiring pre-existing talent vs. growing it yourself. We have always brought in superior expertise, me and Tom being cogniscent of our relatively light agency experience and our ambition to be the best agency we can.

But I think we all feel that this balance needs to change. We want to strengthen our team and are finding increasingly difficult to find good people - it's taking longer and longer to get the right person (cos we're picky).

#4 is one for Nixon McInnes to work on.

Great tips and pointers though. Any further thoughts or ideas on hiring and developing talent?