Tag: talent

Photography and problem solving

Stanley Kubrick, famed film director, once said (edited for clarity):

I had one thing I think that perhaps helped me get over being a school misfit. I became interested in photography.

I started out by getting a camera and learning how to take pictures, and learning how to print pictures, and so on and so on, and finally learning how to sell pictures and would it be possible to be a professional photographer.

And it was a case of over a period of say from the age 13 to 17 of going through step by step without anybody really helping me the problem solving of becoming a photographer.

This particular thing about problem solving is something that school’s generally don’t teach you. If you can develop a generalized approach to problem solving it’s surprising how it helps you in anything.

I think that photography might have been more valuable than doing the proper things in school.

If you didn’t know, Stanley directed “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Dr. Strangelove”, “Eyes Wide Shut”, and other fantastic films. In spite of his fame, he started out a misfit.

Stanley didn’t care for school. If we look at him through a modern day lens, we might not consider him a high achiever. Perhaps we might think he doesn’t sit still and pay attention. If you reviewed Stanley’s early career resume, you might pass over him. Why would you hire someone interested in photography?

Stanley got into photography later. He became fascinated with picture taking — everything from framing, production, and how markets value photographs. Ironic given that his films were often capital intensive.

Looking at Stanley later in life, we see he produced 13 featured films in 46 years… relatively low productivity by a traditional metric. However, if we consider the long run impacts of his work, it’s hard to quantify — Stanley changed the form of film in such a way that many great directors, such as Spielberg, claim Kubrickian influence on their work.

So What

When we look at talent by traditional or conventional metrics — schooling, short run productivity, or other their conventionalness — we may be missing out on the gains from hiring the Kubricks of the world. And there are Kubricks out there and in your industry and function.

As a director, Kubrick became well known for giving the actors a blank page from which to create against. Stanley himself spoke about the nature of talent, letting it express itself, and putting talent in positions that play to their strength.

As an executive, I would love a team that included a Kubrickian manager. And, I would watch the direct reports that report to that manager closely for succession planning purposes.

One Useful Action

In this post I describe my process for hiring people who might not fit the pedigree. Give it a read. It might work for you, and it might be a bit on the margin.

Car parts for resumes.

I read Alex Perry’s piece in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ link) documenting the “The American Solar Challenge“. Engineering students design, manufacture, and race solar powered cars. General Motors started the competition back in the 90’s; it served as a way to identify talent that would play a role in the solar/electric car markets.

These types of events have been around since the late 80s, like The American Solar Challenge, served as a vehicle build a pipeline of talent. Perry writes:

“Such racing events for years have played a key role in training engineers and even laying the groundwork for new technology in the auto industry. A solar car race across Australia in 1987 helped GM develop one of the earliest mass-produced electric vehicles, the EV1. The Darpa Grand Challenge, a race sponsored by the Defense Department in 2004 and 2005, helped accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology.” — click for full WSJ article

My Take

Find creative ways to build a pipeline of talent. These “hackathon”/race style events are not new to the culture. It’s clear that some firms and government agencies utilize this event as a marketplace to identify and retain talent.

I do not use a hackathon event for hiring now. Instead, I give people a data set and ask them to prepare business reviews. It’s not nearly as cool… however… when I’ve designed and executed these events in the past, it’s been through tech/innovation accelerators or schools.

One Useful Action

Identify a talent/startup/tech incubator in your community. Invite them to help you design a challenge that may attract and open the door for talent. It’s my experience that leaders of these groups are creative, and incentivized to help their communities.

What have you to lose?

Useful quotes about talent

From Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross’ book, Talent:

“Don’t underestimate how little people, including your employees and applicants, may think of themselves. There is an ongoing crisis of confidence in many human beings, even in the best of times, and that means high returns from nudging talent in the proper direction… Don’t assume that your best and most productive workers actually know what they are capable of, because very often they do not and need nudging in the right direction to realize their full potential… When you raise the aspirations of an individual, in essence, you are bending upward the curve of that person’s achievement for the rest of [their] life.”

And this one:

“If you believe that talent is the greatest asset of your institution, you also ought to believe that your soft network is one of the greatest assets of your institution. Because that is how you will attract your talent in the future; furthermore, those subsequent hires will help you retain your current talent by making your institution more successful and a more attractive and prestigious place to be.”

10 Questions You Can Ask Talent Before They Decide to Job Hunt

Since 2015, there’s an increase in poaching vacancies — vacancies intended for employed workers. By implication, firms are becoming more competitive by poaching top talent from their competitors. That insight comes from a working paper by Anton Cheremukhin and Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria. I write about the topic here.

Good firms conduct exit interviews when talent leaves. Admired Leadership via their blog, Field Notes, posted 10 Exit Interview Questions admired leaders ask. “Exit interviews are a best practice for an important reason. The best leaders want to know why people really left and what they can possibly do about it.” I think differently.

Customer success managers (CSMs) obsess over why and how customers make decisions. Decisions to adopt an innovation grow, or churn out. They seek to understand when customers make buying decisions and they seek to understand the factors that go into that decision-making process. The goal is to feed insights back via cross-functional channels and help the organization become more intelligent about their customers. Ideally, customer-centric organizations adapt to meet the needs of their customers and growth occurs. Worst case, customers churn. Just like employees.

Skilled managers, like you, are wise to think like a CSM when it comes to retaining their top talent. What if we took the 10 Exit Interview Questions offered by Admired Leadership and reframe them the way we might use them in customer success? They are:

  1. How does the job deliver on your expectations? Are the challenges and growth you expected before starting here being realized?
  2. Is it your intent to start thinking about your next opportunity soon?
  3. What do you like most and least about the work now?
  4. I would love your thoughts. Am I investing in you and supporting your success? How might I be more supportive?
  5. How do you rate the quality of the recognition you receive for your work and contributions?
  6. What makes it difficult to be productive? What gets in your way to achieve high performance?
  7. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about our team culture, what would you change and why?
  8. How about the organizational culture? What might you change if you could change one thing?
  9. If we hire in the future, would you recommend a job on our team to a friend or former colleague? Why or why not?
  10. What do you think we need to do to retain our best talent?

Conducting an interview of this kind with an employee is courageous — for you and the employee. Your questions may cause someone to start looking for a new job. You may only receive positive “everything is great” type responses. You may hear some hard truths. There could be other reactions. I’ve been there, here’s how you manage that.

  1. Listen, and be open.
  2. Actively listen – ask clarifying questions, rephrase what you heard, and ask for the employee to check how well you understood them.
  3. Do not debate. Listen to learn.
  4. Thank them for their time.
  5. Commit to following up so that your employee believes their feedback mattered.

Ultimately, the quality of your answers may be a function of your ability to create open and trusting relationships with your team. It’s the same thing with your customers.

If you find that neither your customers nor your employees will be honest with you, you may have a deeper problem.