Horse or a Donkey - what should be an Organisation's Choice ?

Clothes may maketh a man, but man maketh an organisation

This is true, more so for the right man or person. Unarguably, the most important decision an employer makes is about his/her hiring choices.

 The more I work on strategies, traverse the landscape of successes and failures; the more I am convinced that strategy / no strategy , technology/no technology , the most fundamental factor for sustained business success is finding RIGHT people . As explained in my other article , a wrong hire not only costs in its ( inevitable ) exit , but also or more so , in its existence – till whatever time it lasts !

 In mathematical terms, having the right human resource is a multiplier and the wrong resource is a divider. Therefore, right selection is a very fundamental business process for an organisation - it represents the first level of quality control. Selection in the best of organisations is therefore an elaborate, intensive, and rigorous process, which includes involvement from the highest level of the organisation. Very rarely is this process outsourced. Great organisations like Google place overwhelming emphasis on employee selection, even to the extent of favouring investments in hiring over their training budget.

 Where is the problem?

Why then, despite a greater consciousness among many organisations about the need to ‘recruit right ’ and the significance it holds for organisations progress – do we see rampant cases of wrong hire , corrective exit or gross mismatch between the role & the person – what is the core issue ?  

Is it lack of knowledge or skills/competence in recruiting , inadequate resources ( affordability ) or exigency, compelling compromised/ blind quick fix solutions ?

While it may be true in some cases for some organisations – I don’t think it is universally true for the Industry, across sectors – there must be & there is a reason different from the routine thinking . If we find wrong hires happening despite knowledge , skill , experience or resources of recruiters – logically the root cause must be beyond these ! As I always say, ‘Unless we have the diagnosis ( cause analysis ) right – no best treatment ( solution ) can cure the disease ‘

Also , to systemically eradicate this issue , we need to get to its very foundation--- it is imperative that ‘To get better fruits , we need to work at the roots’

The problem therefore , may not be in the Problem ; but in the way we are approaching it !

 Paradigm shift for a Breakthrough 

For a transformative solution , we need to break away from the conventional loop of thinking. For us - blind people, to make sense of this elephant , we need to pull back from breaking our heads on “Why” of this problem and get a fresher perspective on “What” is happening .

 While there could be alternative ways to fathom this elephant – I have my own experiential realisation on the matter. I believe we can broadly classify human resources an organisation has , into two kinds: Horses and Donkeys. Horses are the high performing employees – with promising potential and an ability to leap forward. Donkeys are the low/medium performers – limited potential employees but with an ability to carry load.

What do Organisations need – Horses or Donkeys?

Based on the above disposition, one may hasten to conclude that an organisation should employ only horses, but here’s the paradox – an organisation needs both. It’s not an either/or case , as they are non-competing resources; both have two different roles to play – a donkey’s role is to carry the load and a horse’s is to run to the destination.

A horse should not be deployed to carry heavy loads in the role of a donkey. It will affect his running speed, which is his strength. It results in underperformance and Inefficiency . Conversely putting a donkey in a horse’s role is Ineffective.

Critical issue here is not whether it’s a horse or a donkey, but to not place a wrong person in a right job with a refined judgement in deciding an optimal mix, appropriate for the given context . A pre requisite is to have a discerning managerial mind , nuanced with experience to recognise a horse from a donkey ( which requires a robust selection system )  

How do we differentiate?

Realisation that there could be two types of resources , will naturally lead to two key questions: (i) How do we know one from the other , & (ii) What is the reason for this difference.

The fundamental difference between the two is one of ‘Constitution’ . Constitution is what makes horse, a Horse, and donkey, a Donkey!

Constitution relates not to what a person’s external appearance or acquisitions are , but to his/her inner composition – the way he/she is intrinsically made of. In simpler terms Constitution gets defined by the person’s inner software – elements like Values, Belief system, Attitude to life, Approach to work, Resolve/ sense of Ownership …etc – all that goes into shaping his thinking , leading to external behaviour & results .

 Significance for Selection

It would be naïve to presume that our dedicated efforts, tools, techniques can transform a wrong selection into a right one. Equally erroneous is a belief that salary enhancements or incentivising can change a donkey into a horse.

Training too can’t help in correcting a selection mistake. Training does not cause a systemic transformation. There is no training program in the world that can transform a donkey into a horse; it can at best turn the donkey into a better donkey. Having the wrong person in the job is a fundamental quality control issue and needs to be handled at the selection stage. If we need a horse, we need to know how to select one !

 Even if theoretically we assume that one is capable of miraculous transformation from a wrong selection; it is just not worth the resources, time and energy one will put in to convert a barren land into a fertile one. We need to be rather careful in our choice of land.

 It is the inner constitution which is the driving force behind a person’s actions & results, much more than the exterior acquisitions like Education , Experience , Skills etc – which are at best enablers & enhancers

Only if we get a window into this ‘make up’ , can we use these as predictors of his/her future application on the job – which is where knowing constitution becomes a more effective selection mechanism

Key Learning Sum up

1.     To be effective, it is important to define the problem correctly. The issue is not to decide which is a better animal, a horse or a donkey- each has its absolute worth, for appropriate application.

2.     People are different - there are no clones. Some of these differences are not apparent on surface - external factors like education, skills, experience, but more fundamentally constitutional, i.e.  what one’s mould or disposition is; that is unique to each.

3.     It is important to employ a diversity of constitutions, of horses and donkeys. But it is crucial to place the right constitution in the right role. The idea is not to convert an orange to a mango, but to understand and put each to appropriate use.

4.     Most tend to overestimate what training can do. Training has a very limited role in human transformation. It can make a donkey a better donkey but it cannot transform it into a horse or vice versa.

5.     Hence the most critical point/decision in ensuring right fit on the job and right deployment, is at the selection level - how to select correctly is the biggest skill one needs to have.

6.     This requires that organisations recognise the role of assessing constitution in the selection process and stop taking resumes as the basis for interviewing/selecting, as resumes can only tell us about what the candidate has acquired externally. ( Skills , Academics , Knowledge) but not what the candidate is “internally” made of , or Constitutional factors

7.     In mathematics we have two conditions: necessary and sufficient. Necessary defines the minimum level required to be considered for a job position – this is a ‘rejection line’. Whereas sufficient represents a level that needs to be crossed to qualify – this is a ‘selection line’. In our recruitment process resumes (CV) should define the rejection line-- selection line is defined by the constitution assessment