Wanted For Hire: Not Too Smart or Too Stupid

I was recently helping someone move from Europe to Canada and despite an impeccable academic background, attitude and outlook, he came up empty-handed and so he moved on to another part of the world.

He should have been a shoe-in for a job but he couldn’t find one.  What held him back?

It seems that in the marketplace he had targeted, there were additional criteria that he couldn’t meet; a secret, fuzzy criteria that was impossible to study for or anticipate.

The people he had approached didn’t want him to be too smart.  In essence, they didn’t want him to be smarter than they are (by their own definition and judgment) because it left their ego with a sense of being threatened.

So my response to them was “so you need this person to be not as smart as you” to which the response was “well, we won’t invest in him if he is too stupid either”.

So the final criteria for this enterprising individual was that he had to be less intelligent than the hiring person but not too stupid either – a nebulous range that would vary from one hiring individual to another and a range that would be impossible to anticipate on an interview-by-interview basis.

True leaders want and need to find people who are as smart or preferably, smarter than they are.  True leaders know they are tasked with leading individuals and groups to produce exceptional results and in the process, create leaders who are more knowledgeable than they are.

When leaders can adjust their ego such that they have enough to be confident but not so much that they forget their purpose, to create results as well as the leaders of tomorrow, then we will finally be on the road to a balanced, exceptional future – in business, in government, in institutions and in society.

Strong leadership and strong ego are both accelerants – one accelerates results and growth for everyone and one accelerates the demise of everyone.

When you are hiring, are you looking to create a legacy of results and strong leadership in your teams or are you hiring to fuel your own ego?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

To read my detailed blog “Wanted For Hire: Not Too Smart or Too Stupid”, please click here.

Don’t Invest in Maybe

I’ve had some opportunity recently to revisit my BHAG, what Jim Collins in “Good to Great” describes as your “big hairy audacious goal”.

The BHAG is that which drives you to move forward towards a specific objective in life.  It is a goal that is not easy to achieve;  something that stretches you (maybe painfully) in a number of ways and establishes a reason for existence that relentlessly calls you to do whatever it takes in order for you to get there.

It provides the filter that you apply against every significant decision and action in  your life since everything you think, say and do takes you closer to or further away from your life goals and purpose.

Many people have hopes, wishes, dreams and aspirations but they do not have a BHAG that they move towards with focus and intention.  They wander aimlessly around hoping to hit on their purpose; wasting their time and the time of those around them.

For people who waste our time, it is easy to be frustrated with others as we think “I can’t believe so-and-so did such-and-such”.

It’s not their fault.

It’s ours.

When someone enters our space, it is OUR choice that determines whether they stay there and what they do while they are there.

We are best equipped to do this when we find our BHAG and are aggressive about controlling what contributes to it, detracts from it and what defines how clear or cloudy it is.

If someone else enters your space and the reasons for collaboration are not immediately clear, politely and respectfully protect your space.

Have the courage to say “no” once in a while and stick to it.

It is YOUR Life after all.

Have a say in how you live it, what feeds into it, what influences it, what consumes your time and what results you produce.

YOU are worth it.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed musing about “Don’t Invest in Maybe”, please click here.