Why A College Education May Spell Trouble
One of the greatest disasters in corporate history was
the advent of the HR (Human Resources) Department…
As companies grew they started needing a better means of record keeping and better means to work with employees without taking up the time of managers on personal issues with the employees thus the birth of the personnel department. This worked fairly well for many years until it evolved into the ‘Human Resources Department’ which has little if any ‘human’ consideration.
Human Resources was a nice ‘politically correct’ way to build a wall between the company and employees in order to ‘protect’ the company from all of the more and more expansive laws concerning employees. Worse yet, HR is often staffed with people who have some serious personality issues and a complex that make them ‘controlling’ in nature. This is the general nature of the departments (not to say that all people in those departments are that way, just enough of them to put then in the majority of that group).
HR Departments started using their time to determine who makes the best employee (a robot to their system). Armed with tests, ideas on how to interview etc they are becoming worse and worse at getting quality employees. Oh, yes, they are doing a better job of getting subservient robots but they are not getting the entrepreneurial spirit into the team. The Entrepreneurial spirit that builds great companies (as mentioned in part one – read ‘Built to Last’ by Jim Collins).
Hiring Rule 1: Do Not Predetermine What Is Needed To Fill A Role
By this I mean do not say you require this or that (such as a college education) merely lay out the details of the job and have your candidate tell you how they can fill that role. Intelligent business people in charge of hiring know that a college education means you will follow instructions but they also know that real leaders are people who most often never finished college. I am all for education, in fact I participate in life-long learning but life-long learning is more powerful in business (by far) because it is not designed to make you a robot to the system.
Check the above out and you will find most great leaders in corporations made it through possibly some college but seldom to degree level. Most people hire followers… smart business people hire people they feel are better than themselves. If you need a doctor or a lawyer hire a graduate… otherwise hire the person who demonstrates creativity and leadership (whether or not they have a degree or not) – this could well make or break your business.
Hiring Rule 2: Do Not Predetermine What Is Needed To Fill A Role
This is not a typo!
I repeat Rule Two as the same as rule one but this time in a different context…
Above I was speaking about breaking out of the non-productive way ‘HR Departments think and work’, here I am referring to breaking the pattern of hiring people who are like ourselves. Hiring someone like yourself is another disaster waiting to happen… usually on your profit and loss sheet. If you want a productive team hire team opposites on the Wealth Dynamics model and various Myers Briggs personality types.
Next week: CREATIVITY THAT MAKES THE CREATIVE LOOK STRUCTURED
To your success,
Bill Moore
Making People Powerful and Businesses Profitable
