Charles and Blake were meeting weekly to discuss their talent crisis. Blake knew from experience: focused leadership energy creates impact. Besides, this was his organization's most pressing issue. Where else would he want to invest his time?
“Good morning,” Blake said. “Any updates or insights?”
“I've been thinking about how to move this work along as quickly as possible, and because we're both huge fans of benchmarking, I think we should visit a few companies known for having outstanding people. Maybe we can learn from their experience. If we can discover some tactics that have helped them attract Top Talent, it could accelerate our efforts.”
“I can support that. You find them, and we'll visit them.” Blake said.
After some research, Charles's team found several organizations who had solid reputations for outstanding people. Each company they contacted agreed to allow a visit.
Blake and Charles were set to make their first visit with Clare Fremont, the chief people officer of a midsized company with a predominately hourly workforce.
Focused leadership energy creates impact.
“Clare, thank you for agreeing to meet with us. We've heard so much about your company over the years,” Charles said.
“We've heard about you guys, too. We don't usually allow visitors from other companies, but with all you've done to help your people create a high-performance organization, we thought a visit would probably help us more than it would help you.”
“Thanks. We've realized, in the complex world in which we live, the game is changing and we're trying to change with it,” Blake said.
“I have a lot of questions about your approach, but I will let you go first. Your message indicated you want to talk about talent,” Clare said.
“Yes, for all the strides we've made as an organization over the last few years, talent—specifically, finding enough Top Talent—has proven to be a huge challenge.”
“Welcome to the club!” she said with a smile.
“We want to know how you attract so many amazing team members. I've met several of them. They are phenomenal.”
“You are kind. But, it's not really as you described it.”
“Which part?”
“We don't attract a disproportionate share of talented team members.”
“You don't? You could have fooled me.”
“We may have fooled you. I hope you're not going to stand up and leave when I tell you the truth about our amazing people. Are you ready?”
Hesitating, Charles said, “I guess.”
“Let's go back and establish two things. One, we do have phenomenal people. Two, we don't attract more A players than anyone else.”
“That's where I'm confused. So, how do you do it?”
“I call it ‘panning for gold.’”
“Panning for gold?”
“Yep, that's our strategy. The idea was inspired by the way gold was often found in frontier days. The miner would begin by sifting through a lot of rock and rubble; when he found something that looked promising, he would wash off the mud and see if there was gold underneath. If not, he tossed the stone aside and kept searching.”
“Okay, tell me how that translates to your people strategy.”
“We hire everyone we can get our hands on. We hire with little regard to any predetermined criteria. We hire people every day if we can. Then, we fire quickly.”
“How quickly?” Blake asked.
“Sometimes on the first day, often at the end of their first week. I know it sounds harsh, but we can usually tell in a week.”
“And, this is your strategy for people?” Charles asked in disbelief.
“Predominately. We do some light leadership development, but we're really panning for gold there as well. We prefer to find leaders who get it without much help from us.”
“Wow. That gives us a lot to think about.”
The truth: both Blake and Charles knew they had no further questions about Clare's approach. They did not believe a “panning for gold” strategy would give them the sustained results they were pursuing.
