Newton’s Law of Reciprocal Actions will get you every time…

Posted on March 25, 2008, 9:29 pm, by andi, under Every Day Life, Friends, Leadership, Office Politics, Theory, Work.

Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion is often paraphrased as “For every force there is an equal, but opposite, force.”

Wow. Newton’s third law of motion is also a paraphrase for life and death; and for good versus evil.

Somehow this past year has acquired a Wizard of Oz theme in an attempt to make light of the eternal battles of good versus evil.

About a year ago, my then team mate Karyn and I joked we needed the help of Glynda the Good Witch to overcome several Wicked Witches who were wreaking havoc over parts of the company (which for us at that time meant the Roaster).

Then, last summer and post-Roaster, there was sudden shift in leadership at my current company.

My first week there, the VP of my org abruptly announced she was leaving the company at the end of that week.

The second week, several recruiters decided to follow her.

The third week, there was a new face in the office, who introduced himself as our new VP.

During the following months, people continued to trickle out of the org, most by choice. I and my immmediate teammates became an island on the far side of the floor, ever wary of the junior staffing manager who was always on the prowl to expand his empire, whether or not it needed to be expanded.

And yet - we still had fun. I was friends with several of my teammates before I joined the team - and became friends with the rest after I joined. More than one of them nicknamed the junior staffing manager “the flying monkey;” and other current and former org members acquired monikers, also based on characters from the Wizard of Oz.

Throughout the months of turmoil and churn, the lines between good and evil seemed very clear. Sadly, my friends/teammates one by one left for new adventures, while I stayed on, working hard and hoping harder things would eventually improve. And slowly, eventually, things did. Good began to triumph over evil. The junior staffing manager “self selected” out of the company; as apparently did Splat!

Lately however, I’ve realized sometimes the lines between the two can become obscured. Good and evil are not as separate or pure as I would like to believe, and often people - and their actions - are not as they first appear. (”Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” said the Wizard of Oz…)

People can do good acts while being motivated by their own self interest; and others do horrible things under the banner of “being right.” Symbolic imagery is everywhere: yin and yang; dark and light; the Evil Empire and the Rebel Alliance.

My fondest memories from the Roaster are of my friends and fellow warriors within the Alliance. But now I know when it is the Alliance members who migrate out first, they hand an easy victory to those they despise. And - as we already know, it’s been a hard year for the Roaster…

Newton’s first law of motion is a physical body will remain at rest, or continue to move at a constant, unless a force acts upon it - as exemplified by me lounging on my couch while I write this post.

Tonight begins my experiment based on Newton’s third law of motion: I’m going to counteract every bad force with an equal good force. And - I will meet each good force with an equal good force.

That way, maybe I will finally be able to move things in the right direction.

“What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen” - Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion is often paraphrased as “For every force there is an equal, but opposite, force.”

Wow. Newton’s third law of motion is also a paraphrase for life and death; and for good versus evil.

Somehow this past year has acquired a Wizard of Oz theme in an attempt to make light of the eternal battles of good versus evil.

Then, last summer and post-Roaster, there was sudden shift in leadership at my current company.

My first week there, the VP of my org abruptly announced she was leaving the company at the end of that week.

The second week, several recruiters decided to follow her.

The third week, there was a new face in the office, who introduced himself as our new VP.

Tonight begins my experiment based on Newton’s third law of motion: I’m going to counteract every bad force with an equal good force. And - I will meet each good force with an equal good force.

That way, maybe I will finally be able to move things in the right direction.

“What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen” - Ralph Waldo Emmerson

In July, I blogged about my theory “great managers hire great talent; similarly, bad managers hire themselves.”

The more I re-examine the hires I helped managers identify, and then make during almost 14 years of recruiting, approximately 9 years as an independent head hunter, and 5 years as a corporate recruiter who primarily headhunts my candidate pool, I know this is more than just theory.

My friend Mark, a former Apple employee, recently pointed me to former Apple Macintosh Evangelist and current VC Guy Kawasaki’s Corollary on Hiring:

“Hire better than yourself. In the Macintosh Division, we had a saying, “A players hire A players; B players hire C players”–meaning that great people hire great people. On the other hand, mediocre people hire candidates who are not as good as they are, so they can feel superior to them. (If you start down this slippery slope, you’ll soon end up with Z players; this is called The Bozo Explosion. It is followed by The Layoff.) I have come to believe that we were wrong–A players hire A+ players, not merely A players. It takes self-confidence and self-awareness, but it’s the only way to build a great team.”

I now think the real answer is somewhere in between my original theory, and Guy Kawasaki’s Corollary:

Good managers hire candidates who are at least A level themselves, but will hopefully hire A+ people;
Bad managers either hire themselves (aka “Mini Me” Hiring); or they hire C, D, E, F, etc. players.

How does the original bad managers, or a bad team mate get hired?

Yes, there are the star performers and originally good hires that morph into B, C, D, etc players; but I believe most companies create their own messes by not consistently following established hiring policies and practices.

I’ve worked for companies with stated policies requiring full interview loops of internal partners and customers, peers, the manager’s manager, etc. - and yet on more than one occasion, and at more than one company, miraculously one day a new hire appeared out of thin air, no interview loop necessary; rarely does this scenario have a good outcome.

Sometimes the candidate profile is flawed; a hiring manager and/or the hiring team concluded profile x is desired, even though a very quick business needs analysis showed profile x would not solve any of the business needs which profile y could and would. Profile x it was; cleaning up that mess took multiple people multiple months, and cost the company two star performers who tired of being the team janitors.

Oh well.

Imprecise and/or ineffective interview styles and questions also contribute to bad hires, particularly interviewers who:

Don’t know what to look for;
Don’t know/ask the right questions to be able to effectively evaluate a candidate;
Don’t accurately or effectively evaluate a candidate after asking the right questions;
Don’t drill down on soft skills in a way which does not allow the candidate to respond with well rehearsed and safe answers;

are likely to make a bad hire.

Whether you believe in my theory, Guy Kawasaki’s Corollary, or something in-between, it’s hard to fix a team/group/company after more than one bad hire.

But - if you think you have what it takes to successfully turn around those kinds of teams, let me know - there are several teams and companies I still genuinely care about, and will happily point you to work your magic - and … May the Force be with You.

Speak of the Devil…

The CEO’s Secret Handbook

Some of my friends occasionally land really awesome managers. Most of the time, they land ok managers; but most of the managers I get assigned to are mediocore at best.

As a result, on those rare occasions when someone I know has a good manager who actually wants their team members to be successful, I get jealous.

What does regularly happen with me is this: I usually inherit a mildly to very unhappy technology exec and his team of hiring managers; all whom have open job reqs which seem to age in a supersonic way, in that each 24 hours really equals three days.

I like challenges, I like to solve problems, and I’m pretty good at the work I do. I’m usually able to work successfully with very technical, very senior people by adding enough value with industry breadth and sometimes depth so I become their equal.

As a result - I usually have a lot of fun identifying and recruiting really good people whom my hiring managers usually end up hiring; and my internal clients tend to become my long-term peers, and sometimes friends.

This is a very unusual dynamic within each and every staffing org for which I’ve worked; with the result consistently being the more successful I am working with my client groups, the less liked I become within the staffing team.

About a year ago I left a large coffee purveyor which shall remain nameless for now, although legions of former employees refer to it either as “The Roaster” or “The Inferno” (take your pick…).

I was working with a hiring manager whom I really enjoyed working with, and most days I felt I was in the midst of a really fun treasure hunt.

Not only did I get to identify which business and technology people were doing really good work and solving problems similar to the ones my hiring manager and his team needed to solve - but often I was able to actually talk with them, and learn from them too.

I identified and was able to “hook” to a certain level a candidate who became my hiring manager’s dream candidate. However, neither the manager nor I were initially able to convince the candidate, who lived in another part of the country, to interview onsite with my manager and his team.

One week, I talked the hiring manager through 2 additional one hour converations with the candidate, with each call based on a solution sales approach specific to this candidate.

I left the building for lunch while the hiring manager talked with that candidate for the third time that week.

When I returned, my manager and several recruiters came up to me and said “wow, where were you?”

I replied - “Um… at lunch…? Why?”

“Well, you missed your hiring manager running from his desk, on the other side of the floor, shouting “Where’s Andi? I love Andi!”

While I apparently missed this event by about 15 minutes, my manager and the others were still in a noticeable state of surprise.

I looked at them and said “Great. That must mean that Midwestern candidate agreed to come here and interview for the Deputy Director role.”

Oblivious, I continued whatever I was working on, and clearly missed my cue:

Ask not for whom the bell tolls… it tolls for thee. - John Donne

Maybe four weeks ago, a beloved member of what was our team gave our now former manager (now known as Splat) notice she was leaving the company to work for a manager who was willing to talk with her, among other reasons.

The next day, Splat called her and said “Since I have to replace you, what exactly do you do?”

(hmmm - if you’ve worked in staffing for 12 years, and don’t know what a recruiting coordinator does … I don’t think we need to bring up the fact she’s been your direct report since OCTOBER 1.)

More ironically - each of us on the team had wondered the same about him these past months.

“I’ve had a wonderful time, but this wasn’t it.” - Groucho Marx

Are we falling or flying …