By Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan
Have you ever heard about Ferdinand Waldo Demara? And do you know how he ended up on the front page of Life magazine?
But he wasn't anything famous like an actor, politician, elite athlete or astronaut. Oh, no.
He was probably one of the greatest impostors ever lived.
During his 23-year career, starting after he left school at 15 without qualifications, Ferdinand's career was rather eventful.
He was a doctor, a professor, a prison warden and a monk.
Robert Crichton, Demara's biographer noted in 1959 that since his client's goal was to do good deeds in the world, he justified any means to achieve that, including but not limited to faking expertise (Guided by a textbook, he even amputated a man's leg while serving in the Navy), claiming credit for other people's work and forging documents.
I've mentioned this interesting factoid because many IT service firms often use impostor type business development talent acquisition techniques, claiming that represents their cultures the best.
A short while ago, I was working with a great team of five business developers in a 39-person custom software development firm, and had the opportunity to poke my big nose into the recruitment process for a new project manager. The main criteria, besides project management, of course, were military service and programming experience.
When I'm asked, I always recommend military service because those people understand accountability, commitment and a sense of getting shit done. You know the real hard stuff that is virtually impossible to teach.
But there was a problem. The firm hired a talent agency, which assigned a talent consultant for the project. He was G, a young guy only freshly (two years) out of college and barely six months of "talent consultant" experience.
I'm not an HR expert in the traditional sense, although, I often work on recruiting business development people, but it was clear to me that young G would make a hire/reject recommendation for a strategic position without having the faintest idea about strategy or business development.
Many firm leaders, blaming the lack of time, hire talent agencies, hoping those HR experts can hire better people than the firm leaders could. Sadly, it hardly ever happens.
I tend to disagree with that notion.
Over the years, I've had plenty of discussions with highly experienced IT people both on the technical and the business sides of the profession, and one of their pet peeves is that they get interviewed by inexperienced people 10-20 years of their junior who base their decisions on answers to touchy, feely and increasingly more and more politically correct questions.
What can be more aggravating for accomplished, middle-aged (hence bloody experienced) professionals than sitting down and trying to behave "properly" as being interviewed by a "kid" (the ink is still wet on his credentials) half of their age and smile in a friendly way when the kid states that this top-notch professional doesn't fit into the firm's personality profile, which the kid has concocted from his HR textbooks based on dubious pop psychology methods.
No, the problem is not with the HR kid, but with his boss who's put him in that position without the relevant experience.
They don't have time to discover how their fiercest competitors can find and engage top-notch people.
No time to keep their fingers on the pulse of the latest talent trends in their industries.
No time to develop new ideas, perspectives and solutions to climb higher in their industries' pecking order and become more profitable.
No time to initiate and build new relationships with key people in their own and complementary industries.
No time to peep into the competition's cards and gain some strategic advantages.
Oh, no. They are far too busy doing the most idiotic work in their firms: Billable project work.
There are already 10 people on the project, but they jump in to be the 11th.
Why? No one knows.
So, what is the neglected side of attracting and retaining top-notch people?
Simple.
Top-notch people don't want to be interviewed by some junior intermediaries from some third-party HR agency.
In fact, top-notch people don't want to be interviewed at all.
They want to have peer-to-peer business conversations with real decision-makers with budgets and profit/loss responsibility.
People whom you hire should understand that that their paycheques come from the revenue that the firm generates, and that every single person in the firm is part of the revenue-generation process.
What's the difference?
While interviews are full of posturing, business conversations are much more honest.
It is the difference between asking people how many press-ups they can do and asking them to show how many they can really do.
The problem is that job interviews are about building superior-subordinate relationships. The dynamic is different.
First, at job interviews, interviewers and interviewees discuss a rigidly developed job description and whether or not the interviewee fits into the job description.
Wanted: World-class tank driver. Must have a at least a Master's Degree in tank driving from a leading Canadian University and must be a certified and licensed tank driver by Canadian Tank Driver's Association. Also, must have minimum 100 hours of tank battle experience. Must be able to handle fast-paced situations where you are outnumbered by the enemy.
Candidate: I quit high school at 15 and have never driven a tank. I've never seen the inside of a tank. My secret sauce is that I sneak into the enemy's camp the night before the planned tank battle and retire (a.k.a. kill) all the generals and tank commanders. My approach is so unorthodox that no one expects it to happen, thus no one is prepared for it. So my track record is 100% success.
HR: Well, based on what you've told us, you're clearly not qualified for the job. Go away and don't waste our time.
General: Hang on a moment! This is better than a tank commander. This is the guy we need. This guy can help us to avoid tank battles altogether, which are always high in casualties and expensive in damaged hardware, even for the winners. We could actually win all battles without firing one single shell. You're hired, boy!
HR: But what about his resume. He has no tank experience. And he has no Master's Degree in tank driving. He's a high school dropout.
General: But he can win battles, and that's what counts.
HR: But he doesn't fit my job description.
General: The job description is to win battles.
HR: No, the job description is to fit my job description with a Master's Degree, as I've prescribed.
Pragmatic general: Shove your job description and get lost.
Politically correct HT person: Fuming and tearing his hair out, he storms out of the room.
People hardly ever walk away from job interviews. In most cases, they accept the offered jobs.
Business conversations are drastically different. In those situations, firm leaders and candidates discuss how candidates can contribute to firms' long-term success and profitability. The job descriptions grow out of those conversations.
So, the kind of talents you want to hire are interested in only business conversations. And most top-tier talents have very quick triggers in their walk-away muscles. That is, they get up and walk away very easily. They know they are good and they also understand what Peter Drucker wrote in 1993 in his book, Post-Capitalist Society...
"Knowledge workers are volunteers who own the means of their performance, and whether or not they remain with any one company is totally volitional. Just like most investors, they will go where they can earn a fair economic return-measured in wages, fringe benefits, and other pecuniary rewards-as well as where they are well treated and respected, the psychological return. In the knowledge society, the most probable assumption for organisations - and certainly the assumption on which they have to conduct their affairs - is that they need knowledge workers far more than knowledge workers need them."
Boutique (low-volume, high-margin) IT service firms are boutiques because they have different business models (low-volume, high-margin specialists) from IT "factories" (high-volume, low-margin generalists).
One of the differences is that boutique firms don't have HR departments because talent attraction and retention should be firm leaders' top priority.
Remember, the competition can have your technology, offices, equipment, but NOT your people.
A business developer with responsibility can either skyrocket or nosedive his firm's bottom line.
In today's complex economy, there is an increasing role for business development people because they are the key to an IT service firm's long-term success.
Buyers are less and less accessible than even just a few years ago, so business developers have to be on their toes, maybe even on their fingers, to initiate contacts and follow up.
The problem is that in many firms, they are rated much lower than the technical people, based on the notion that, "We're a tech firm and we value tech knowledge the highest".
Firm leaders often overlook the fact that without good business development people, the tech people would be sitting all day being busy navel-gazing and trying to figure out where their next pay cheques will come from.
One important point that firm leaders have to understand is that good business development people can easily decide not to engage with any specific firm but, to put up their shingles and sell their expertise to several clients in the same vertical. Some of their clients can be direct competitors.
So, the question is what it is worth to firm leaders to prevent their business development people from helping direct competitors.
There is only one way to assure that: By engaging them on a full-time basis and treating them with utmost respect and dignity.
At this point, it may be worth re-reading the above quote from Peter Drucker and taking it to heart.
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It's all well and good, but to apply it all, you need to know how your target market perceives your firm.
Is it a fungible IT vendor or a respected IT authority?
It's the market that hangs your brand around your neck based on the outside perception of your firm.
But you can also influence the outside perception by tweaking your firm's inside reality, that is, your culture, by consciously transforming your firm from vendor to authority.
In this peddler quiz, you can check whether your firm is more of a fungible IT vendor or a respected IT authority.
[1] Yes, the notorious confidence trickster, past president of the Galaxy, inventor of the dreaded Janx Spirit-based Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and the winner of the "Worst Dressed Sentient Being in the Known Universe" award seven consecutive times. Continue where you've left off... (top of screen)
In the meantime, don't sell harder. Market smarter and your business will be better off for it.