Off Topic: Cruise v. Hanks

I am on record as stating Tom Cruise is the finest Amercian actor of the last 30 years.

I am also frequently mocked for holding this position. 

Recently, in a fascinating Twitter group discussion, (well chronicled here by Lance Haun), a Mr. Tom Hanks was proposed as at least a rival to Mr. Cruise in this regard. I stipulated that Hanks deserved consideration.Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full

So for today's Off Topic post, I am breaking down the filmography (selected) of both of these venerable actors, to determine once and for all who deserves the title of 'Greatest American actor of the last 30 years', (admittedly a meaningless title that I made up). And since this is my meaningless title to bestow, I have created an equally meaningless basketball-themed model to frame the assessment.

So here we go:

Hall of Fame Caliber - the three greatest films for each actor

Cruise - Top Gun, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire

Hanks - Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Cast Away

Advantage - Push. Gump is a legendary film, but over time Cruise's work is holding up well. And all three Cruise films still resonate with quotes, catch phrases, etc. Only Gump registered in the American psyche in that way.

All Star - the next three best films

Cruise - Minority Report, Born on the Fourth of July, Risky Business

Hanks - Philadelphia, BIG, Sleepless in Seattle

Advantage - Cruise, but it is close. Risky Business clearly head and shoulders above anything Hanks did in the first few years of his career as well.

Solid Starter - films that are not necessarily great, but are eminently watchable AND re-watchable

Cruise - The Last Samurai, Mission Impossible, Collateral

Hanks - The Green Mile, A League of Their Own, Apollo 13

Advantage - Hanks, but close. I wanted to go with Cruise mainly on the strength of Collateral, but from top to bottom Hanks' depth and quality rates the edge.

Rotation player - films that will do in a pinch, like if your cable goes out but you find an old DVD lying around

Cruise - Rain Man, The Color of Money, Cocktail

Hanks - Splash, The Money Pit, You've Got Mail

Advantage - Cruise, easily. All three Hanks films are forgettable, while both Rain Man and The Color of Money are very solid, could even be higher on the chart type works.

Rookie - their early films, a sign of future potential

Cruise - Taps, The Outsiders, All The Right Moves

Hanks - Bachelor Party, The Man With One Red Shoe, Volunteers

Advantage - Cruise, and it isn't close. Bachelor Party is a classic, but it is the only memorable film of the bunch. All the Right Moves is very underrated.

Draft busts - the worst or most disappointing films in their catalogue

Cruise - Vanilla Sky, Eyes Wide Shut, Rock of Ages

Hanks - Joe Versus the Volcano, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Terminal

Advantage - Push. These are all horrible, horrible films. 

The Overall Winner?

CRUISE, in a fairly close contest. 

And sure, I was a little biased coming in. And yes, I did not include 'voice' parts where Toy Story might have factored in Hanks favor. But I think the depth of Cruise's work gives him the decision. Feel free to disagree in the comments.

So that is it. As far as I am concerned this case is closed.  And probably should never have been opened.

Have a great weekend!

But he was great in the interview...

This post probably will take 500 words to get to the point which is this: As a talent pro, or more specifically, as someone that has responsibility and obligation to make a career-defining hire, be very wary of a 'great interview' that can cause you to take short cuts in your process, unnecessarily cloud your thinking, and frankly, to make a hire today that if you had given it at least a couple of more days of consideration, you might not have made.

So here is the backstory and yes, I am starting my official 'I am going to continue to write about sports and talent in 2013 campaign' with this post.Stretch

The Monday immediately after the end of the NFL season is known as 'Black Monday', named as such for the normal purge and firing of anywhere from 5 -10 head coaches, (and their staffs) by losing or otherwise disappointing teams from across the league. This purge also sets off a bit of a frenzy of speculation, posturing, interviewing, and hiring by these same teams as they all seem to be pursuing many of the same individuals from what is (generally) a small and highly sought after candidate pool.

One such NFL team caught up in the coaching game of musical chairs (again), was the Buffalo Bills, a team caught up in a decade-plus funk, and owners of the league's longest streak of missing the post-season playoffs. The Bills released their prior coach Chan Gailey on Black Monday, and led by newly empowered team executive Russ Brandon, (this coaching search and hire would be his first BIG decision and will likely define his tenure), set about what Brandon described would be 'exhaustive' and 'leave no stone unturned'.  

This exhaustive search lasted about three days, and resulted in the hire of Syracuse University Head Coach (and former NFL assistant), Doug Marrone, who in four years at Syracuse had won exactly as many games he had lost, (25-25). Depending on your point of view, the decision to hire Marrone, certainly not considered to be among the most desirable of the head coaching talent available, was described as 'curious', a 'stretch', and with 'Who?'

The great sports site Deadspin ran a piece that compiled reactions to the Bills' hiring of Marrone, and I wanted to call out the pull quote from the Sporting News take on the decision:

When Marrone interviewed, he must have been extremely impressive. Marrone wasn't even the hottest college coach on the market

Ouch. And there were other similar kinds of reactions from various media outlets and Bills fans - a mix of surprise, disappointment, and rationalization that a .500 college coach was the right person to tap to rebuild and transform a moribund NFL team.

Obviously, only team executive Russ Brandon and perhaps a select few other team officials know what was really asked and said in Marrone's interview that was 'extremely impressive' enough for the team to conclude its 'exhaustive' search after three days and offer Marrone the position, which for him, represents a huge step up in pressure, expectations, and compensation. But Brandon has to know his own performance, (and likely his employment), is largely riding on whether or not Marrone ends up succeeding as Bills coach - and as a talent professional well, that is quite a bit of stock to put into what must have been an 'extremely impressive' interview.

Maybe it's just me, but I worry a little bit, or am just a bit leery when I hear of coaches, heck any other candidates that are described as being 'great interviews'. It strikes me as just a half-step above being a 'snappy dresser', and we all know how much that helps win games.

Happy Tuesday!

Great places to work are like great sports franchises

The nice people over at Glassdoor.com released their 'Top 50 Best Places to Work for 2013' list today, and as usual it is an interesting collection of all kinds of organizations - large and small, high-tech and old-school, and relatively young to long lasting.

The full list can be found here, as well as on the image to the right, (click the thumbnail for a larger view).Click to expand

The important aspect of the Glassdoor 'Best Places' list, unlike any of the other, similar types of lists that are around, is that it is determined not by some kind of expert panel of thought leaders, judges, or academics; but rather it is calculated from the company reviews and ratings about the companies that have been left on the Glassdoor.com site.  So these ratings are the closest equivalent to say, the Amazon.com book review or the Yelp restaurant review for the workplace.

But since I like to compare, evaluate, and assess just about everything through the prism of the world of sports - rather than give you a (lame) take something along the lines of 'Facebook is the Best Place to work again, I wonder what lessons you can learn from this', I thought I'd make it fun, (for me at least), and cherry pick a few big names form the list and juxtapose them with the big time sports team they seem the most like.  

Why do this?

Why not?

Here goes:

2. McKinsey & Company - Easy, these guys are the New York Yankees.  Big name, big reputation, have a kind of mystique about them and have had it for a long time. The name that the rest of the market compares themselves to.

4. Bain & Company - Again, pretty easy. If McKinsey are the Yankees, then Bain are the Boston Red Sox. Also have a big name, have had some success, but will always be looking up at the big dog on top.  It is fitting that McKinsey came in a couple of notches above Bain.

11. Careerbuilder - Not as obvious as the McKinsey and Bain comparisons, but I will go with the basketball's San Antonio Spurs.  Consistently good, with some legendary performance in the recent past. But also consistently overlooked and sometimes underrated despite their pedigree. Finally they both have a bit of 'I can't believe they are still relevant after all these years' kind of feel to them.

24. Trader Joe's - I will go not with one team with which to compare the eclectic grocer, I will go with an entire league - the National Hockey League (NHL), currently not playing their current season due to a labor/management dispute.  Like the NHL in sports, Trader Joe's is kind of a niche player in the grocery business, has a kind of weird appeal, but if it was gone hardly anyone would really miss it. Think about it - does anyone really need a Trader Joe's?  Or the NHL?

35. General Mills - Time for a football comparison. Let's go with the Green Bay Packers.  Midwestern organization, been around forever, everyone can recognize them by their brand, and kind of hard not to like, even if you don't care about cereal or sports. Feels like they will be a part of the landscape forever.

50. Starbucks - I'll go international on this one and call them Manchester Uniited from English football soccer. They are both ubiquitous, have a global presence and instant brand and name recognition, and both have the most annoying fans/customers that you will ever encounter.  Man United fans and Starbucks customers are really similiar - smug, kind of annoying, ('Quad-soy-no whip-light foam-hazelnut-extra shot'), and somehow think being a fan/customer grants them some kind of unearned social status.  Disclaimer: I am a Liverpool/Dunkin' Donuts person. 

That's it - I need to stop there, but I am sure you have your own ideas. There are 45 more companies on the list that need a sports team equivalent assigned to them, have at it in the comments!

Step stone or destination? If you are not sure, the talent will let you know

In my continued examination of the intersections between Sports and HR, Talent, and Recruiting, there may be no better spectacle and opportunity for examination than the Winter 'silly season' where American college football teams and coaching talent undergo their annual period of firing, resigning, and hiring to re-set the (rarified) talent pool for head football coaching positions.

There are generally three reasons that a head football coaching position becomes available, and they are pretty similar to the reasons any executive, well-paid, position opens up in any organization:

Performance - There are always a handful of these each season. Whether the football team under performed, or there is a true mis-alignment between management expectations and the reasonable likelihood of those expectations being met - either way the 'performance' termination is a common and generally straightforward situation.

Retirement - Head college football coach is an outstanding job. Heck, if you can have any degree of success and tenure in a position, it is a multi-million dollar while enjoying the love and adoration of the fan base and community life.  So naturally, the men (and that is not a sexist take, these jobs are ONLY held by men), that have these jobs tend to hold on to them for a really long time.  But once they hit 75 or 80 or so, (not entirely kidding), they often have to hang up the whistle.

Better gig somewhere else - This one, where the coach, (or for your shop, the Director of Marketing, or the VP of Sales), leaves to take the same or similar job elsewhere, is the most interesting scenario at least in the college football talent pool. Because in football, the 'job' itself is the same one everywhere, so the evaluation of whether or not the next opportunity is a step up, a step down, or a lateral move is completely reliant on other criteria.  Some of these are objective - like salary and bonuses, others are subjective - the 'prestige' of the job mostly driving this.

And the tough part of situation three, when your coach or executive ditches you for what you think is at best a lateral move, is often it takes this kind of high profile resignation and move to make you and your leadership realize where you stand on the industry desirability pecking order.  Make no mistake - the talent, their choices, and the decisions your competitors make do more to 'place' you on the attractiveness scale than most of the things you can do, at least in the short term.

Net-net of this?  It helps to understand where you 'rank' in the eyes of the talent, particularly for those key positions that do not have an enormously deep talent pool.  Your gig can be a starter job, you can be a step along the way for a high-flier, or you (sometimes) can be a true destination.

It's better to know what you are than have the talent surprise you.

Have a great week!

In the interview, talk about your talent plan

Cool story from (Shock!), the world of sports, in this case professional basketball.  The National Basketball Association, (NBA), is not unlike most competitive businesses in that strategy and leadership, while important, will only take an organization so far. To win, heck, to even compete for NBA titles, a supremely talented and thoughtfully assembled roster of players is mandatory. And even then, since almost all the teams possess top talent, you'll never be guaranteed of success, for the teams that usually win rely on two or three superstars - ultra-rare talents that all teams need and compete for.Like a young Lance Haun

So last summer when Los Angeles Clippers executive Neal Olshey was interviewing for the General Manager job with the Portland Trail Blazers, he, in his words, spent almost the entire interview with Portand owner Paul Allen talking about talent - specifically how the Blazers biggest talent need was at the point guard position, AND the team should address that need by selecting a college player named Damian Lillard in the upcoming player draft. 

From a piece on SI.com on the Blazers, Olshey, and Lillard:

In the first week of June, Olshey left the Clippers, a team stocked with point guards but devoid of prominent draft picks, for the Trail Blazers, who had no reliable point guard but two lottery picks.

During his interview with Blazers owner Paul Allen, Olshey talked about Lillard almost as much as himself. "It was basically the whole interview," Olshey said. "The biggest need was clearly point guard and Damian was the guy. There was no question he was the guy." The Blazers wanted to draft him at No. 11, but feared, for good reason, that he would be gone, so they snagged him sixth.

So far, about a dozen games into the NBA season, and Lillard's career, Olshey's talent assessment has been right on the money - Lillard leads the Blazers in scoring, assists, and has impressed fans, rivals, and teammates with his outstanding and heady play.

The larger point I think this story illustrates is how having a talent plan, not just a 'business' or 'strategy' plan was to both Olshey's successful candidacy for the General Manager job, but also the ultimate success of the team, and by extension, Olshey's job performance.

It is fantastic in an interview setting if you can talk confidently about the target company's industry, competitive situation, opportunities, and challenges. It is great to be able to confidently describe how your skills and experience can help the company solve problems or operate more effectively. But if you can talk about talent - the needs, gaps, where to find talent, what kind of talent you'd recommend to bring into the organization, and how you will bring them in - then I think you have the advantage.

And if you can, like Mr. Olshey has so far in his tenure, execute on your talent plans, then you win.