Can you text Hollywood Henderson and ask him?

This post probably is silly and doesn't have a relevant point or connection back to anything, but I don't really care, it was interesting to me.

Here's the backstory. On a cross-country flight recently I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, the Adam Carolla show.  Adam had on as a guest the sports and entertainment broadcaster Pat O'Brien, who has had a long career hosting various sports telecasts and entertainment-themed shows. As Adam's show generally bounces around seemingly at random from topic to topic, at one point in the conversation with O'Brien, Adam wondered aloud whether or not the former Dallas Cowboys football player Hollywood Henderson had actually won the Texas State lottery on two separate occasions. The general consensus was that Henderson had definitely won the jackpot once, but Adam was sure he had heard at some point that Henderson has won twice.Do you have his number?

It probably would have just ended there, maybe someone off mic would have Googled for the answer, and that would have been that. But after a minute O'Brien asked 'Do you want me to text Hollywood and ask him?'

Adam was kind of dumb struck at that point - 'You actually have Hollywood Henderson's number?'

Note: for non-sports fans, Hollywood Henderson is not really a household name. He had a brief run of success in the NFL, but then burned out quickly, and all that was at least 30 years ago.

O'Brien replied kind of matter-of-factly - 'Sure, why not? I hosted sports shows all over the country for years. It's my job to know people and to be able to find information.' O'Brien then did text Henderson, and Hollywood even responded. It was all pretty funny and then the show and conversation moved on.

But I couldn't stop thinking about the entire exchange between the two. About the really obscure nature of the question - 'You have Hollywood Henderson's number?' and the assuredness of the reply.

I wonder if that kind of situation, or a version or variation thereof, would make sense in more traditional interview scenarios. Mostly when interviewees are asked to solve a problem, they usually just talk about solving it, or describe a time when they actually did attempt to solve a similar problem. Sometimes in technical interviews, candidates do have to demonstrate a 'live' problem solve, but for most of the rest of us, it is not usually done that way. I mean, if you were interviewing for an HR job, the CHRO generally doesn't make you do a live employee intervention to see how you handle it.

Well, I suppose I am meandering on about nothing (shocking) but something about the story resonated. I think the next time I find myself interviewing someone I am going to try and pull a 'Henderson'. I'm going to think of a person that the interviewee really should know, that would be a valuable resource to them, and that is just famous or well-known enough to be a little bit of a reach, but not so famous as to be unreachable, if that makes sense.

Then I will ask them flat-out, 'Can you text Tim Sackett and ask him?'

Stars and Rockstars

The other day on the Brains on Fire blog in a piece titled, 'Leave your ego at your feet', I read this:

“We should lose the term “rock star” from our vocabulary.”...  if you create rock stars, you create an ego driven company (look at us, look at us), instead of a one that is driven by heart and soul. A company that promotes rock stars runs the risk of getting focused on themselves instead of their customers.

The main point of the piece was that organizations and the 'stars' inside of them can get way too arrogant sometimes, can take on too much of air of 'we are the experts, we know everything'.

And if that happens if becomes really easy to get lazy or complacent or out of touch to some extent.

Customers, employees, partners, and the community at large all have incredible amounts of knowledge, insight, and value to add and that often can get obscured by the 'rockstar' glow.flickr - Kevin Cole

There are 'rockstars' in every organization, surely. These people are of course necessary and indispensable, (and unless you are really fortunate, will certainly leave)  but at times the organization can come to over rely on them, and face a significant problem when (and it is when) these stars take their game elsewhere.

Yes, the organization needs stars.  To use a (tired) sports analogy, it is generally understood that in the NBA a team can't win a championship without two bona fide All-Stars.

But the teams that actually do win also have several complimentary or role players on the roster that perform those essential tasks that may not be glamorous, may not lead them to huge contracts, and may not make them household names, but are absolutely necessary to have a winning team.

So yes, your company needs a few 'rockstars', but you likely also need support, input, and solid day-to-day contribution from regular 'stars' and likely even some role players for long-term success.

Professional sports like the NBA are about winning right now, so giving the ball to your star player at the end of every close game really is the only strategy that makes sense. But when that player decides to leave for the big money or bright lights somewhere else (please LeBron come to New York), the team can easily be left lacking, without having invested energy or commitment to building the next star player.

Think about it this way, if your very best employee walked out tomorrow would you be prepared to give the ball to someone else at the end of a close game?

Who do you call?

Dali or Gauguin, whichever you like
Dali
Originally uploaded by steveboese

This Wednesday, February 25 I have the great honor of presenting a Webcast for HR.com on Workforce and Succession Planning, titled 'Understand your workforce today, so you can plan for tomorrow'

In part, the presentation will cover the more or less traditional, or generally accepted steps in designing and implementing a Succession Planning process. To paraphrase Abe Lincoln, it is altogether fitting and good that I cover these  concepts in the webcast.

But as I did the research and preparations for the webcast, I came across some really interesting research that has the potential to alter the idea of 'best practices' for Succession Planning programs.

Namely, the idea that 'who you know' may be as significant as 'what you know' when making a determination of which employees
are likely to demonstrate success and high achievement in a new role.

The common sense reasoning behind this is likely very familiar to most, in the classic example say a Senior Manager position is vacant, and the 'best' performer from among the Manager's direct reports is promoted into the role.

The promotion may be 'deserved' on the basis of past performance in the former job role or based on seniority. The new Senior Manager may even have demonstrated most of the key competencies the organization has determined are necessary to perform at a high level.

But one essential element is missing from typical succession planning, namely the identification and analysis of the former managers key personal network, those colleagues, mentors, friends that he or she has relied upon for aid in decision making, determining strategy, navigating new responsibilities and gaining deep organizational knowledge.

Let's call the departing Senior Manager Jane. Jane, over the years, developed a deep personal network that she drew on to support her in the successful performance of her duties. Specifically, she relied upon different components of her network to support different aspects of her role. For example, the people and resources she relied upon for budgeting and forecasting help, were not the same people she called upon for employee relations and motivation concerns.

This distinction in personal network segregation or specialization is an important one. So often when junior employees are promoted into more senior roles, or placed in managerial roles for the first time, they bring with them very developed practical and technical skills and networks that while still important to their new managerial role, are not always the most critical in predicting success in the new, more complex role. It is quite likely the new manager's skills and perhaps more importantly their current personal networks are centered around those 'old' skills and capabilities.

Let's call the newly promoted manager Jake. Jake was the top engineer and formerly a good designer. The first time the Jake is called on to participate in a complex strategic planning exercise with his new peers, will he perform below his potential at least partly due to the lack of a mature valuable personal network in which to support him in that function? If Jake keeps trying to draw on his 'old' network of designers and engineers, most of whom are not involved in strategic planning, he is in a position to struggle.

How can the HR leader identify and address these situations?

One method is to develop a process to identify the key or top performer's personal networks and the roles those network actors perform. So for Jane, have Jane identify the three or four most important skills or competencies that she needs for success, then identify the key individuals she relies on for support, advice, and guidance. This categorized personal network can then be compared to Jakes', and it is quite probable it will reveal that Jake has not yet developed relationships with many of the KEY players that he will need to count on to be a success in the new role.

Plans can then be put in place to ensure personal introductions and/or meetings are arranged with Jake and these new individuals that he will need to start building his relationships with. This kind of intervention can be a key factor in how quickly Jake adapts to his new role, and quite possibly if he ultimately succeeds at all.

A by-product of this kind of personal network analysis is that in can reveal much about the 'hidden' stars or key cogs in an organization. If analysis of the personal networks of your staff of senior managers reveals that all or most of them call upon a key individual or two somewhere down the hierarchy for advice and counsel, the organization would be well served to to make sure those key influencers are happy, and that adequate succession plans exist for them, even if they are considered on paper to not be critical or 'high-potential'.

Who employees turn to for help and information is a incredibly valuable piece of organizational intelligence.

Who do you call?