The best and the brightest are not always the best fit
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"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,"
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid."
Those lines from the old hymn have been running around in my head these last few weeks. It seems like, suddenly, the strategy of choice is to hire lots and lots of the smartest people you can find. No one seems to be talking about the dangers of hiring "the best and the brightest."
Consider the where that terms comes from. It's the title for David Halberstam's excellent book about the Viet Nam War and how the best and brightest managed to lose it along with the lives of 58,000 Americans. That's not very auspicious.
A more recent example of the danger of trusting in brains alone is chronicled by the book The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. That book is about the rise and fall of Enron.
The problem is that looking for brains alone leaves out a whole lot of important things. Some of them are obvious. You want strong values and an ethical code. You want the ability to perform.
Intellectual firepower may give you the ability to analyze situations. It doesn't give you the willingness to decide on the basis of incomplete information. It doesn’t, necessarily, give you the skills to convince others that your ideas are good ones.
Fit with the organization is vitally important. Google may seek out the brightest. But Southwest Airlines seeks out cheerful people. Whole Foods seeks people who can work in the teams in their stores.
Business is a team sport. Successful teams of any kind are those where each member makes the others better. The best example I can think of is the New York Knicks of 1968-70.
In 1968, the Knicks had an OK team, anchored at center by a high-scoring star, Walt Bellamy. In December they traded Bellamy to Detroit. In return the Knicks got a forward named Dave DeBusschere.
DeBusschere was nowhere near the star that Bellamy was. But the trade was a great one for the Knicks.
It was a great trade because it made the Knicks a much better team. With Bellamy gone, Willis Reed could move from forward, which he played well, to center, where he was great. DeBusschere replaced him at forward, DeBusschere's natural position. In business, we'd call that building on strengths.
DeBusschere was also a great fit for a team culture that concentrated on hard-nosed defense and a motion offense. That Knick team went on to win the franchise's first championship ever in 1969-70.
You don't want "the best and the brightest." You want the best people for you. You want the people who can fill the roles that you need filled. Some of them may be very bright. But not all of them need to be.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
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Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.
Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.
For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.
Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.
Wally - you make some great points in your post. With all the focus on talent recently it is easy to forget about about job and organizational fit when a brilliant candidate comes along. The results are fairly predictable... Brilliant candidate realizes he or she doesn't fit, sticks it out for 6 months, maybe a year and then leaves.
Michelle Malay Carter has had some interesting posts recently about the danger of overhiring for a position. This is another negative byproduct of hiring only the best and the brightest.
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Part of the problem, I think, is that we confuse "smart" which is a measure of brainpower in most usages, with "talented" which means "good at" something specific. Thanks for coming by and commenting.
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Wally,
This is the topic that hits me where I like to live: the issue of best fit.
I'm finally seeing CEO's and managers coming around to looking at that dynamic in both hiring and promotion. It costs a lot less to ensure the right match up front than it does discovering it a couple of years later.
This is where it all begins for every organization.
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The worst cases, in my experience, are the really big brains who can't pull the trigger on a decision. They're always got good reasons why there should be more study or data or training and they're persuasive so we keep listening to them until we realize that they can hover over a decision forever without acting. Then the usual response is to send them off to training or to get coaching, which only delays the inevitable.
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Wally,
Great post! You have talked before about the danger of separating values from goals.
Warren Buffet said something once that is relevant here: You want three things in your executives: intelligence, energy, and integrity - but if you don't get the last one, the first two will kill you.
I read some fascinating research years ago that observed that if the parts of the brain that affect emotion are damaged, but those that affect logical functioning are untouched, the person can perform unimpeachable analysis, but somehow can never reach a conclusion, can never make a decision.
I think I've seen that at work, as well. The best decision makers are those who understand what their decisions mean.
Thanks for so though-provoking a piece!
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Thanks for stopping by. I love that Buffet quote.
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Wally –
One of the most rewarding parts of leadership is when you hire an “ordinary” person and help them achieve extraordinary results.
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Great point, Dan. The other, similar, joy is helping someone grow beyond you in some area.
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Another great post, Wally. No question intelligence is important. But I assure you, the best leaders I've seen in the Army have qualities that usually rank higher: character, energy, compassion, communicator, team builder, learner, etc. The more I think of it -- the less I think I value the size of one's brain. Give me someone with these characteristics and I think you've got a great leader! Hooah! TM
PS -- Out here in LA, I think the Lakers may be rewriting the Knicks story you referenced above. The addition of Gasol mid-year has really transformed that team into a -- TEAM!
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Thanks for those comments, Tom. Over the years I've developed the idea that a person has to be "smart enough" for the job they've got, whatever that is. Even Nobel Laureates are often not the brightest of their peers. They're bright all right, but not as bright as many other scientists. What sets them apart is persistence and the ability to finish.
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