Three stories you should be able to tell candidates

One more take based on the recently concluded NFL Draft, that annual and remarkable spectacle of talent assessment, evaluation, and management that plays out live, and on TV each spring.

This year, my alma mater, the University of South Carolina was represented exceedingly well at the draft, with 2 players selected in the draft's first round, and a total of 6 players selected overall. For South Carolina, this was by far the most players it has ever had selected in a single year at the draft, and also serves as a kind of reward and validation of the last college football season that saw the Gamecocks finish with a school-best 11 victories, punctuated with a fantastic win over Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl.

For schools that play at the highest levels of college football, the number of their players that are selected in the NFL draft has several implications. At the surface, it is a measurement of the quality of last season's squad, the more players selected by NFL talent evaluators, the better. But second, and for the colleges perhaps more important for the long term, having players selected for the NFL draft serves as a powerful recruiting tool. For many of the very best and in demand high school players that have plenty of options in where to play their college ball, the track record and history of a school for preparing and placing players in the NFL is an important and powerful factor in the decision process. Put simply, if a school has a history of success in preparing players for the NFL, (Alabama, Ohio State, Miami, LSU, etc.), the more likely it is that top high school talent that sees the NFL as their goal will choose those schools. And a virtuous circle is formed - the school sends players to the NFL, more top prospects that have the NFL as a career aspiration take notice and attend the school, they in turn progress to the NFL, they help the school have success on the field, and on and on. 

In college football recruiting the 'stories' are easy to see. Players move from the school to the NFL in a highly public manner. But inside organizations, these kind of success stories are often harder to envision and describe to candidates and prospects. While in the recruiting process, the organization typically talks to the fantastic opportunities that await candidates should they choose to join, it can be difficult for the candidate to appreciate or even accept these stories as more than another part of a recruiter's sales pitch. In that light, I think there are three kinds of success stories that HR or Recruiting ought to be able to articulate to these top players, the ones that have lots of other options for their next career move.

One - Come here, and here's what incredible opportunities are possible if you decide to make a long-term career here. Take a look at Joe Bloggs, he came in at about your same age, at a similar job, and now he is the head dude in charge of XYZ Division.  In fact, I'd like you to meet Joe, let's set up a lunch for you two to talk.

Two - Come here, and build the skills that you can take anywhere you'd like to go in your career. Do you know, (insert name of the most famous company alumni you have), he/she spent three years here back in the 90s and now they run their own company. In fact, we still work with him/her from time to time and I am sure we can arrange a call if you'd like to learn more about how working here really set them up for their future success.

Three - Come here, and build the skills that you can take anywhere you'd like to go in your career, leave if you think you need to, but come know that we will welcome you back somewhere down the line. Here's where you tell the story of a high-profile re-bound hire that illustrates the possibility and flexibility that makes choosing your company more attractive to the candidate. The sports world is certainly full of these kinds of tales, of players that left a team only to return later in their careers.

Bottom line, when selling your opportunity, whether it is to a top athlete deciding on a college, or a top technical developer, both who have plenty of options, being able to paint a compelling and realistic picture of all the possible career scenarios, and how your organization can best help the candidate make the most of them, offers your side the best opportunity to land the talent you need.

And don't forget, being open and accepting of what the candidate might want to do after he or she leaves your organization might be just as important as what they can or want to do inside your organization.

Should you give the assessment if you don't care about the results?

Last week America's second most popular sporting spectacle took place. No, not the beginning of the NBA playoffs, but rather the annual National Football League player draft, an incredible three days of televised talent assessment, evaluation, and selection. The NFL draft, once a largely behind the scenes administrative event, has grown over the years into a multi-day, multi-media extravaganza, with an entite cottage industry of draft 'experts' and advisors seemingly making a really good living not actually evaluating players for the actual teams, but rather appearing on TV to inform and share with fans and viewers their opinions of draft-eligible players, offer their speculation on which players will be selected by which teams, and comment more generally on how well or poorly each team's talent evaluators did in making their player selections.

Making the 'right' selections from among the large pool of eligible talent, (almost all American college football players that have graduated from school, exhausted all of their college eligibility, or have declared themselves 'eligible' to be selected), like talent selection in any business, is challenging, complex, and incredibly important. On a good year, anywhere from 10-15% of a team's total active roster can be supplied via that year's draft. 'Hitting' or making the right picks, like finding a rare or overlooked talented player in later draft rounds, or avoiding 'missing', by bypassing players that later turn out to have unsuccessful playing careers often eventually means the difference in overall organizational success or failure.

All the teams know how important the draft process is, and thus, over the years more and more steps and components have been introduced to the pre-draft player evaluation process. From intense study of college game video, to a battery of physical tests and measurements, and more recently, even formalized tests of a potential player's cognitive and reasoning capability, in the form of what is called the Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic consists of 50 questions to be answered in 12 minutes, and is meant to give teams a general feeling for the overall thinking and reasoning capability of a player, as well as provide a means of comparison with all the other potential players who also take the test.

Most years the draft process ensues without much mention of the Wonderlic test as a part of the player evaluations, except only, and as happened this year, when a particularly high-profile and anticipated top draft choice caliber player gets a really low Wonderlic score. This year Morris Claiborne from LSU, regarded as one of the Top 10 available players in the draft reportedly scored a 4 (out of a possible 50) on the Wonderlic. A score of 4 is really, really bad, according to ESPN it was the lowest reported score in more that 10 years, (for comparison, an average score is about 21).

Despite the alleged poor score, Claiborne was indeed selected by the Dallas Cowboys with the 6th overall selection. So apparently the disastrous Wonderlic score did not impact Claiborne's standing and attractiveness as a candidate for the NFL. In fact, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones stated the test score was 'not an issue at all', and Cowboys coach Jason Garrett remarked, 'We talk about the test scores, but we also talk about 'What's his football IQ', also seemingly dismissing the value of the Wonderlic as a means to predict future performance as an actual football player.

Now of course the Cowboys reps might be trying to defend their selection of Claiborne and downplaying the significance of the Wonderlic score is certainly in the team's self-interest, but the ESPN story linked above also refers to Claiborne's view that the test was essentially meaningless and not at all important in determining his ability to actually play football at the highest level. He is quoted as saying -  "I mean, I looked on the test and wasn't nothing on the test that came with football, so I pretty much blew the test off."

Sort of an odd situation, the player, (candidate), and the team, (employer), both essentially admitting that one of the common if not primary assessment tools given to all players doesn't have anything to do with the actual job, and as soon as the assessment results don't fit with what our more traditional and time-tested evaluations tell us, (like actually watching the candidate play football), they will essentially be discarded from consideration. Seems like a big waste of eveyone's time.

Now sure, you can argue with me that Caliborne, as a top player in this year's draft was not ever going to be impacted by his score, (good or bad), on the Wonderlic, and that the test is really meant for use as a supplementary measure or data point for players whose football talents are more questionable, and that it can be used to help make decisions between closely related prospects.

But the league made Caliborne, and other 'top talent' take the test. And I bet, if you look closely at your organization's recruiting practices as well, you might find similar examples of making 'top talent' run through hoops or perform silly, eventually meaningless, exercises because 'that's just our process.'

Claiborne didn't really have an option to decline the test, the NFL has an effective monopoly on professional football in America. But any 'top talent' you might be recruiting? Well they likely have plenty of options. You probably want to make sure your process understands that.

Regretful Turnover and Saying Goodbye to the NJ Nets

Yesterday the NBA's New Jersey Nets played their final game in their soon to be former home court in Newark, New Jersey. Next season the team moves to its latest new home, this one a brand new arena in Brooklyn, NY, where they hope their fortunes will improve, the basketball hotbed of New York City will embrace them as the 'other' NYC team, (NYC will always be the Knicks town), and more highly prized free agent stars will be more likely to want to play for the team.

In the USA, professional sports franchises are usually seen as community assets, and when new franchises become available, either through league expansion or the occasional team relocation as in the Nets' case, you typically see cities trying to one-up each other for the chance to have one of these pro teams call their city 'home'. While the long-term economic benefits that accrue to a city or even a neighborhood from having local professional sports are certainly debatable, that usually has not stopped cities from making concessions, raising local taxes, funding arena construction and committing to infrastructure improvements and the like, in order to attract or in some cases retain a pro sports team for their city.

But not all locals or more specifically local government officials feel the same way about pro sports teams, at least not every sports team. In the case of the Nets' exodus from New Jersey, Garden State Governor Chris Christie offered these remarks among others (emphasis mine) :

''My message to them is, goodbye,'' Christie said at an afternoon news conference at Newark Beth Israel Hospital where he signed a bill to promote organ and tissue donation. ''You don't want to stay, we don't want you.''

''That's one of the most beautiful arenas in America they have a chance to play in, it's in one of the country's most vibrant cities, and they want to leave here and go to Brooklyn?'' he asked. ''Good riddance, see you later. I think there'll be some other NBA team who may be looking to relocate and they might look at that arena and the fan base in the New Jersey and New York area and say, 'This is an opportunity to increase our fan base and try something different.'''

Christie could be forgiven for not expressing any sadness or disappointment at the loss of the Nets, given their 35-year history playing in New Jersey has been mostly unsuccessful, uninspiring, and uninteresting. Apart from 2 appearances in the NBA finals in the early 2000's, the Nets have largely been a forgettable bunch, (this player being the exception).

But even still, Christie's ripping of the Nets and their decision to leave New Jersey offers us a chance to think about what we do and say in our own organizations when faced with a dissapointing resignation of an employee that we truly need, one that we fought hard to land, and that for we perhaps even made some concessions in our own hiring and business processes to secure.

Big giant flame-out resignation letters (or blog posts or videos), on the employee side often make the news. It is always fun to read about the dirt and dysfunction of organizations we know and sometimes admire. Usually, unlike our pal Christie, employers take the high road, refrain from commenting publicly, and go on with their business hopefully addressing any truths or lessons learned as needed.

Bashing someone on the way out, for making the best career decision for them, seems like an incredibly petty and short-sighted approach to handling regretful turnover. Unless you can honestly say you were deceived or can prove you have been played, (neither true in the Nets' case), then I think you'd be much better off wishing the departing employee well, taking actions to stay in touch, and working your angle as 'This is still a great place to work' as you walk the person out the door.

Sure sometimes that can be really tough. And sure it is much, much easier to bark 'good riddance', but aside from giving you about 30 seconds of hollow satisfaction, how does that really help your cause?

And all this spoken as a New Jersey native who never cared one bit about the Nets!

How many bad decisions can you get away with - motorcycle crash edition

How many bad decisions can you get away with and hold on to your job?

My working theory right now is that there is an inverse relationship between how many bad, foolish, or reckless kinds of decisions one can make and one's relative position on an organization's hierarchy and pay structure, with a 'success' corollary and an 'ease of replacement' factor baked into the equation.

What am I talking about?

Just the latest episode in the ongoing 'Powerful, successful, rich men behaving badly at work' saga, this one from the world of sports, (shock), the news of University of Arkansas Head Football Coach Bobby Petrino's recent motorcycle accident, and the subsequent string of deception, fabrication, and simple bad judgment that has subsequently been brought to light.

In case you missed the story this week, the gist is as follows: (with my snarky comments in bold)

• Last Sunday, Petrino is taken to the hospital following a mototcycle accident. He suffers four broken ribs and a cracked neck vertebra. Ouch
• Petrino fails to mention to his boss at Arkansas, Athletics Director Jeff Long one key detail about the accident, that he wasn't alone on that motorcycle. He had in fact lied to Long about this nugget, and the athletic department put out a press release on Monday morning repeating that lie on Arkansas letterhead. Not good.
• Petrino's passenger was a woman. So what?
• She was not his wife. Uh-oh.
• The woman, Jessica Dorrell, is an employee of the Arkansas athletic department. What is the number for the HR hotline?
• Petrino hired Dorrell, who had previously worked in the athletic department's fundraising arm, to the football staff last week. Get my lawyer on the phone.

Now, as you would expect, the AD Long has launched a 'review' of the situation and the circumstances surrounding the accident, the deception by Petrino immediately following the accident, and (let's hope), the details surrounding the hiring of Dorrell by Petrino, who it would seem were conducting some kind of relationship while maybe not illegal, was almost certainly inappropriate. 

Complicating matters for Long is the recent success of Petrino and the Arkansas football team, with a 21-5 won-loss record in the last two seasons, and the team's best finish in the football rankings in ages.

Petrino, now with no other realistic options, has basically thrown himself at the mercy of his employer, and has apologized for his actions, issuing a statement that read in part - "I will fully cooperate with the university throughout this process and my hope is to repair my relationships with my family, my athletic director, the Razorback Nation and remain the head coach of the Razorbacks".

It will be up to Arkansas, and AD Long to decide what to do with their highest profile employee, (and highest-paid state of Arkansas worker), and to determine if success on the job weighs more heavily than a series of bad decisions off the job.

I have no idea how this will turn out, but the realist in me thinks that twenty-one wins in two seasons in the most competitive college football conference in the nation has a way of glossing over even the most obvious flaws in judgement and character.

What do you think - should Petrino be shown the exit?

Have a Great Weekend!

Value, Pricing, and Early Retirement

When this piece, about Chicago Bears running back Marion Barber announcing his retirement from football at age 28, popped up recently I decided to bookmark the story, although I was not entirely sure why. After all, while Barber was considered a solid NFL player for just about all of his seven year career, his particularly bruising style of play, combined with the typically short useful life span of NFL running backs, make his retirement from the game at what is a young age for just about any other vocation not terribly unusual or surprising. NFL players don't last long, and only the most durable and successful NFL running backs have careers much longer than Barber's seven years.Marion Barber, retiree

NFL and other professional sports teams talent management professionals have long learned to adapt their practices and talent strategies to the short careers of their players. Team depth charts showing three and four levels of potential (and often needed on extremely short notice) successors, detailed scouting reports of potential college hires (draftees), and a constantly updated assessment of replacement talent either currently employed by other teams, or on the open market are all staples of the professional sports team's head of talent. Although even I would admit not all sports/business/talent management comparisons hold water upon closer examination, even the most skeptical observers would have to acknowledge that the manner in which professional sports teams are constantly planning for the departure of their most important players, whether through injury, retirement, or even at times a sudden, and almost unexplainable drop in performance, is something to be learned from and even copied.

In that light, in addition to a constant vigilance towards succession planning, pro sports talent managers have another skill (mostly) down cold - namely maintaining a keen understanding of when they need to overpay for talent and where they don't, and that to me is the more interesting aspect of the Barber retirement, (even if in this particular case the issue did not appear to be money).

In the NFL while running back has been a traditional high-profile position, over time and due in part to a heavier reliance by teams on the passing game, the difference in production between the top few running backs in the league and the average performers at the position has been diminishing in statistical terms, as well as in overall value to team success. And time and time again it has been shown that rookie or second-year backs can perform to acceptable levels, while being paid significantly less than more experienced players. Essentially the league, and the talent managers from the teams, have determined that running back is a position where value usually trumps longevity, only the very best performers are worth rewarding with above market contracts, and replacements are readily found.

So Marion Barber, a seven-year vet and for the most part an above average performer for the majority of his career hangs it up at age 28 and the Bears, the rest of the league, and the average NFL fan barely notices. The Bears can and will easily find at least a half dozen viable replacements.  And that is I suppose another talent management lesson that we can learn from the NFL. That even the seemingly most easily replaceable elements of the team are indeed, easily replaced.

And when you can say that about your talent management plans and succession bench strength, that you have the answer and plan ready to go for every spot on the team, then maybe you'll be ready when your next 28 year old, in a high profile spot, and a solid performer decides to walk out the door.