Vocabulary, Intimidation, and Recruiting

WARNING: Another sports-related post follows...

There was a terrific piece by Dan Wetzel from Yahoo! earlier in the week on the recent rise to prominence of the Stanford Football program and that featured an in-depth interview with the team's head coach David Shaw. If you don't follow college football and are not familiar with Stanford's team, the essential bit of information is this - after many years as a middling to unsuccessful program the team, under former coach Jim Harbaugh (now the head coach of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers), and current coach Shaw has had a recent and remarkable run to national prominence, posting a 35-5 record over the last three seasons, and sending a steady stream of players on to the NFL.

All this success has transpired while the program contends with what have been traditionally seen as disadvantages in big-time college sports - Stanford is a really tough school to qualify for academically, and once enrolled, the academic demands the school places on its students, (football players too), often rule the school out as a choice for the kind of elite football prospect that a major college program needs in order to compete with the likes of Alabama, Texas, or South Carolina. So getting enough talented players that are good enough for Division 1 play AND that can qualify academically AND actually want to attend Stanford - well, you see what kind of a recruiting challenge that faces Shaw and his staff.

So beyond validating a potential recruits' interest in Stanford, reviews of their high school game tapes, verification of the academic transcripts, and ensuring their SAT scores are suitably impressive - what else does Shaw do when determining if a player would be a good match for the Stanford program?

He evaluates a player's vocabulary. Yep, their vocabulary.  Check this from the Yahoo piece:

Superior academics are mandatory for admission and success at the elite university. Great athletic ability, strength and speed are a necessity to play for the reigning Pac-12 champions. Character, leadership and motivation are highly valued intangibles.

And then there is something unique Stanford coaches evaluate when meeting with a prospect, something that few would think predicts football success.

"Vocabulary," Shaw said.

Vocabulary?

"Yes, you look for vocabulary," he said. "Can this kid express himself in a way that befits a Stanford man?

"You walk around and talk to our kids, they look you in the eye," Shaw continued. "And we play that way. We are going to play right at you, in your face, 'Here is who we are, here is how we play.' There is a one-to-one correlation. There is no doubt about it to me. The inability to be intimidated by a person or a situation is something that is significant.

Really interesting spin on the recruiting evaluation process - particularly in a job where 'success' is complex and multi-dimensional (probably similar to the roles in your organization).

Sure, 'success' as a college football player entails excellence at some significant physical levels - speed, strength, etc. But at a place like Stanford, 'success' also means excelling in a demanding academic environment, one where a player almost certainly will not be the smartest person in the room, and where there status as an athlete probably doesn't afford them any special treatment greater than someone who is a great scientist or developer or entrepreneur.

Look again at the last line in the David Shaw quote above - "The inability to be intimidated by a person or a situation is something that is significant." It is pretty easy to tell who is or isn't going to be intimidated on a football field, but in business and in life - well, it is not so easily discerned.

Can a person's vocabulary be a good proxy for that rare quality - the ability to not get pushed around a conference room or in a meeting, or to use a recently trendy term, to 'lean-in' even when it would be easier to withdraw?

No matter what we think, it seems to be working for Shaw and Stanford.

On teamwork and a busted out tooth

With the NCAA's March Madness basketball tournament underway I wanted to share a little story from the world of college basketball before I come back to my senses and realize once again that the college game is inferior in every way to 'real' basketball, i.e. the NBA.

A week or so ago, during the West Coast Conference's post-season tournament, the team from Saint Mary's University found itself in a tough game versus conference rival San Diego. Late in the game during a scrum for possession of the ball, San Diego big man Jito Kok managed to separate Saint Mary's forward Brad Waldow from one of his front teeth.

Undeterred, and as you can see in the GIF below, Waldow reacted like most tough competitors would, with the knocked-out tooth in hand he proceeded to head over to the bench to find someone to relieve him of said chiclet so he could continue playing in the still undecided game. But take a look at what happened as Waldow looks to the sideline for some help with the tooth:

Thanks - Business Insider

Did you catch what happened as Waldow approached the bench and looked for someone to take the tooth from him?

First Saint Mary's head coach Randy Bennett leans back in a 'no 'effin way I am taking the tooth' manner, and delegates down the bench to his assistant. The first assistant coach then coolly points to the next assistant down the line. And once that assistant refused to help a brother out, Waldow just tossed the tooth on the floor in order to head back into the contest.

Waldow, the player, the guy out there on the front lines taking shots to the mouth, loosing teeth, bleeding all over the place couldn't get any of the suits on the bench, the organization's 'leaders' to give him an (admittedly gross) hand when he needed it. And all Waldow wanted to do was to continue playing, to keep putting it on the line for the team.

Sure, the natural reaction just about anyone would have in that kind of a circumstance would be similar to the Saint Mary's coaches - I mean, who the heck wants a handful of someone's bloody, busted-out tooth?

But their reaction is also instructive I think, because when their player was in need, no one stepped up to help, they let their first reaction overcome their roles as leaders. They ask players like Waldow to make all kinds of sacrifices in the name of the team. It would not have killed one of them to make a little bit of a sacrifice themselves and help him out when he needed it.

This may be a goofy, insignificant example but I think it serves as a good reminder for any of us that have a leadership position. We ask the people we are leading to give up things all the time. 

What are we prepared to give up for them?

Have a great weekend!

Employee Tracking Data and the Inevitable Pushback

Last week I had a piece about the development of a new set of technologies that are effectively designed to collect, aggregate, synthesize, and help management interpret every interaction, activity, and action that employees take in the workplace. The idea being that this ocean of data about employee activity - who they meet with, for how long, how many emails they send and to whom, even how often and where they take smoke/coffee/Instagram breaks - can be mashed up with other more traditional workplace measurements about productivity, revenue, performance reviews, etc. to arrive at a more enlightened if not optimal set of recommendations, (and possibly rules) to optimize work and worker activity.

Of course collecting this level and type of data about employee activity, if it indeed catches on in the workplace, will inevitably collide with employee notions about privacy first, and then once most if not all employees accede to this nature of data collection, (perhaps under threat as a condition of employment), to concerns about the 'fair' or proper interpretation of the data. What employee actions and activities are 'good' or 'beneficial' to overall performance of the organization as opposed to the individual's own performance will also be a bone of contention - it really is a big data version of the classic 'results vs. how those results are obtained' conundrum.

It is hard to say how these issues will develop in traditional workplaces, but to catch a glimpse of how it might work out, (and the potential for management vs. employee conflict), I naturally look to the world of sports, in this case NBA basketball.  In the league these days the collection and use of more and more advanced statistics and data about player and team performance are changing the way teams and fans evaluate player performance and attempt to optimize the use of their talent to improve results.

The specific example I want to call out is about David Lee of the Golden State Warriors. By traditional and historical measures, (points, rebounds, assists), Lee is a superior player - as evidenced by his selection to the NBA All-Star team earlier this season. But to those who closely observe the league, and supplemented by more advanced statistical and player movement video technology, Lee's poor play on defense all but cancels out his fine offensive performance - essentially rendering him about an average player on balance.

Lee, to his credit, admits his defensive play has not always been stellar, but his comments about the recent attention being placed on the use of newer data sets and analyses to question his overall contribution is interesting and perhaps a bit instructive -

“At this point I could care less. I’ve worked hard to improve my defense. I think I’m a much better defensive player today than I was a year ago and definitely to start my career. There’s a lot of different numbers to support a lot of different things. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say me putting up 20 and 10 doesn’t matter because ‘numbers don’t matter,’ but at the same time, ‘charts at MIT matter.’ You can’t have it both ways.”

And that part of the quote in bold above - 'You can't have it both ways' - is really at the heart of the problem for the Big Data in the workplace movement as it marches inexorably into the future, (and as in the NBA, the present), of the workplace.

Having more data about employees doesn't necessarily make us any smarter or able to understand that data, and how it might be applied to improve workplace performance. And it definitely doesn't make us any wiser as to how to handle the inevitable employee pushback when our interpretation of performance, backed with the data we think is important, doesn't align with theirs.

With more data we can tell more stories, but we can also find data to justify any story we want to be heard.

David Lee wants us to emphasize the data the paints him in an All-Star light - 20 points and 10 rebounds a night. His detractors want to point out that he is an ineffective interior defensive player - and can point to a new, hardly understood set of charts and graphs to back that up.

The truth is probably somewhere in between, along with one other truth - more data about your employees probably won't make your job as a Talent pro any easier.

Have a great week!

Off Topic: When you run out of interview questions

Time for my semi-regular 'I have not done a sports post in a while, and I need to make sure the 2013 of The 8 Man Rotation E-book will have lots of SFB content.  Did you catch that, Matt 'akaBruno' Stollak? 

Any by the way, please congratulate The Professor and his family on the recent birth of twins - Mia and Micah!

Back to the point - or what will pass for a point on a Friday.

Book, can, drum, mirror, door. (I will come back to this later, but try and remember this list).

Recently, the National Football League, (where they play....... for pay), conducted its annual Scouting Combine - a several day long series of events, interviews, feats of speed and strength, etc. designed to give its member clubs a chance to assess and evaluate lots and lots of potential draftees, (job candidates), in one place, and under consistent and controlled conditions.Gary Hume, Girl Boy, Boy Girl

The hopeful candidates run 40 yard dashes, do the broad jump, perform bench presses, and in addition to these physical tests, (again, which provide a really solid way to compare the performance of players), also undergo some mental and cognitive assessments, (most notably the Wonderlic test).

But having the same information as all your competitors, (40 times, bench presses, etc.) doesn't really help a team gain a recruiting advantage - none of the information is powerful since it is completely open and free. For a team trying to decide which players to draft - they need to get past the size and speed and test scores, and really get some unique insight into the player. What motivates him, does he have passion for the sport, is he likely to be a 'good' teammate, and not be a 'me-first' prima donna.

And if you are the Cincinnati Bengals, you also want to know if the player can remember five random words in order. 

Check this excerpt from a recent piece on Deadspin, on the Combine experience of draft hopeful Lane Johnson - 

"One thing caught me off guard. I was meeting with Cincinnati, and I went in there and they told me to remember five things. They just listed five things like a bear, a flower, a tree, a man and like a dog. And they told me to remember those terms, at the end of the meeting to see if I could remember them. And from that point on, they listed numbers. They said, like, 9167, and then told me to repeat them in reverse order. So that was probably the weirdest meeting I've ever been a part of."

Nice. And classic Bengals in a way as well.

Now there could be some real validity in asking a question like this - a check on a player's concentration, their short-term memory, ability to pay attention to instructions, etc. that might have some validity and value in the assessment process. Maybe the performance on a question like this is highly predictive of future success as an NFL player. 

Or maybe it's just a random question, full of weirdness and confusion, signifying nothing. But if you do find yourself at a loss for any more clever interview questions the next time you have a candidate in for a chat maybe you can try it out and see what happens.

Remember the five things?

You call it 'culture' - to the talent it might just be 'policy'

Fresh off last week's launch of The 8 Man Rotation, 2012 Season free Ebook on all things Sports and HR, I am stocking the pond for the 2013 edition with another dispatch from the sports world - but one that I promise has more broad relevance and applicability.

In baseball, and perhaps in all of North American major professional sports, the New York Yankees are the most famous, most successful, and most storied franchise in history. Legendary players, achievements, 27 World Series championships, and the occasional bit of controversy have been the hallmarks of the team throughout its long history.

With this long history comes tradition certainly, and traditionally the Yankees have continued to reinforce elements like their uniforms, which are the same design, more or less, as they have always been, and with no player names on the back, only numbers. The Yankees shun most of the other 'entertainment' elements that have become a fixture of professional sports - they have no costumed mascots or cheerleaders. They try for the most part to project a sense of professionalism in how they play the game, and how their players, (employees really), also project themselves when they are representing the team.

For players this means (among other things), an 'appearance' code - uniform shirts buttoned and worn a certain manner, and curiously enough still in 2013, a ban for players on facial hair.  Yep, you read that correctly. If you want to play for the Yankees that means no mustaches, beards, goatees, Van Dykes or facial hair of any type.

The Yankees ownership obviously feels, and has for a long time, that the facial hair ban helps to ensure and support their company brand and culture - professionalism, attention to detail, and very 'corporate' in nature. To them surely this 'rule' really is not so much a rule or a policy, but an outward manifestation and expression of that culture.  And it is entirely up to them as an employer to feel that way.

But one man's (or company's) culture is another man's policy - and in some cases this culture/policy has the effect of deterring otherwise 'top' talent from the organization. The latest example of this in action for the Yankees - check these quotes from the Tampa Bay Rays' pitcher David Price. Price is one of the best pitchers in the league, and when he becomes a free agent in a couple of years, would be precisely the kind of talent the Yankees would pursue. 

Here's what Price has to say about the Yankees and facial hair:

"If I ever did hit that free-agent market, there would be teams I wouldn't sign with simply because of the stuff that I've heard -- every rule they have."

Taking note of his beard, I told Price he'd have to shave if the Yankees traded for him.

"I wouldn't stay there very long then,” he responded. “I wouldn't sign a long-term deal there. Those rules, that's old-school baseball. I was born in '85. That's not for me. That's not something I want to be a part of."

Sure, you can get a little cynical here and tell me - 'If the Yankees offered him $10M more than any other team, he's shut up and sign the contract and shave the beard.'  That could very well be true, but that isn't really the important point to me. 

One man's 'culture' is another man's policy. Sure in this case maybe the culture/policy is having its desired effect - preventing what would possibly be a bad hire. Price, if he went to the Yankees would bristle over the facial hair ban, and probably lots of other culture/policy issues as well.

Not judging anyone here - the Yankees have been really successful for a long time doing it their way, and Price has an absolute right to his opinion and his desire to be treated as a professional.

Not judging, but just reminding that living up to and reinforcing your culture means sometimes turning away some fantastic talent that doesn't see your culture the same way you do.