The Heart Of Business

By Craig S. Galati

I just read an article by Leigh Branham entitled “The War for Talent: Is It Really All About the Money?” I have had the privilege of meeting Leigh and attending one of his seminars, which I found to be interesting and informative. His article reminded me of the book from the late 90’s “The War for Talent” by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod. This book was groundbreaking at the time, as it suggested that companies would be competing in the future to recruit the best talent in a world where there would be shortages of people to work in our businesses.

While I agree with the premises of both Leigh’s article and Michaels, Handfield-Jones and Axelrod’s book, it has brought to mind some questions for me. It appears that many companies have taken liberties with these writings and even the entire concept. They have taken it so literally that they truly have waged war on their competitors and raided them for their talent. It also seems to me that today’s businesses are more concerned with growing by numbers of people than by knowledge or margin. I attend many meetings and networking events and inevitably the first question that I get asked is “How big is your firm?” as if that is the litmus test for success. When did we quit caring about the more important questions like:

How much has your firm learned and how do you apply that knowledge to your work?

How are you benefiting your clients with your work?

Are you finding ways to reinvest in your firm to make it sustainable?

Many firms judge their success based on the number of bodies they employ. I believe that most firms view the “war” as a zero-sum game and that there are only so many employees to go around. It also appears that firm growth is judged more on numbers than on market share, fit, or alignment.

My belief regarding growing by number of staff is as follows:

Growth is unsustainable. How many times do we pick up the newspaper and read about layoffs and corporate downsizing? We also hear on the streets that firms are hiring or firms are firing — “they just let fifteen people go because they got slow.” Growing by numbers is an unsustainable practice, but too many firms’ business models are built on that growth—leveraging low dollar workers to do tasks for fees. If we hire to fulfill a short term need, there will inevitably be the day when that need is no longer there—and most firms will layoff or downsize.

Growth doesn’t always equal additional market share or profit. Many firm leaders have confided in me over the years that they wished that they hadn’t gotten bigger. They told me that growing larger hadn’t done the things that they had hoped. They are not more profitable and they aren’t able to command more market share; they just have larger expenses and need to garner more work to pay those expenses. I’ve found in my own practice that we were not more profitable when we were larger.

Growth can change your corporate culture. It’s difficult enough to get a few people working toward a common vision. Imagine how difficult it is when you are growing by leaps and bounds, then downsizing, and repeating the process. I’ve spoken with many of my colleagues who describe their firms as “having growing pains.” This constant flux of individuals makes it very difficult to settle into a true culture—unless it’s a culture of growing and contracting. I’ve found that it takes approximately one year for someone to assimilate into my firm’s culture. I imagine that this assimilation time is similar in other firms as well. Growth can change your culture. It’s not always a change for the worse, but you should at least consider what you want that change to be. Plan it before you grow.

Growth encourages you to take on engagements you might not otherwise. I know, you need to feed the fire. I’ve heard that so many times. But is that the reason to take on work? As I’ve written before, people want to work on things that have meaning for them. I don’t believe includes working for working’s sake.

As the “War for Talent” suggests, talent is very important. I believe there is something even more important: alignment. I would rather work with people that are in alignment with a purpose or cause than work with people who are just talented.

I’d like to hear from you:

Do you view your success by how big your firm is?

Do you believe that those you employ are aligned, talented, or both?

Have you ever agreed to take on a client or assignment because you needed the work? How did it feel?

Until next week …

Craig

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Misinterpreting the War for Talent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.