Building Emerging Organizations

Young, growing companies are places full of excitement, promise and stress. People are often stretched beyond their capacity, yet amazed at what they are able to achieve in spite of the stretch. Executives, managers and entrepreneurs alike often consider the most meaningful time of their careers to have been when they were engaged and involved with building an organization.

Emerging organizations are just that. Like human beings (since organizations are made up of us), what happens during the developmental phase of building a business will have a significant impact once the organization reaches maturity. The most critical element to both short and long term success is the team. While many CFOs would argue with me that it is about the funding, without the right team funding will not be properly deployed or leveraged. The right mix of talent is critical to fulfilling growth strategies.

Bringing in the "right mix" sounds easy, but it is very hard. First, people tend to hire those who are like themselves. If a business owner has a gregarious sales personality, he or she is likely to be drawn to similar types. What this leader may need however is the balance of some strong analytics to maintain perspective and discipline. Secondly, hiring managers often go in to an interview unprepared to evaluate a person's particular skills. In some cases, the skills required have not been thoroughly thought through. Hiring then becomes a default decision, rather than a strategic one.

How should emerging organizations take on the talent challenge? While no method is perfect, following these steps will more likely to lead to a quality outcome than letting the process take on a life of its own.

Start with the business strategy. What markets are you in? What are the challenges currently being faced by your competitors, your customers and your suppliers? Is the industry evolving at warp speed, or is it more gradual?

• Evaluate you position in the marketplace. Then ask yourself these questions:
• What do we do very well? Take this apart, analyze it and drill down to find out why it works so well. You will find there are certain people with well defined skill sets in your organization that are making this happen.
• Where do we come up short? Again, take a hard look at your talent base. Drill down beyond the superficial to the substance of the matter. What skills are lacking? Is it a result of poor selection or placement within an organization? Think about it this way: do you have a great talent in the wrong role?
• What do we need to do next? Based on your position in the market and the dynamics you face, thinking about "what is next" is critical to making good hiring decisions. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. As you are emerging, your foundation may be very solid but you may need to modify the dynamics of the organization by bringing in additional skill sets.
• Decide where you want to be over what period of time
• What skills will be required in one year, five, or ten? Make this an interactive and collaborative exercise among your key team members. Again, drive towards specific and detailed skills that will be necessary to meet these goals.
• Define where you are likely to find the talent you need and develop a plan to source the talent. Depending on your industry, you may be able to take a long-term approach to building a talent base by networking at trade shows and the like. In other cases, you may need talent from outside the industry which may require the help of an experience search firm.
• Make hiring the right talent for your emerging organization a priority on par with getting financing.
• Identify those in the organization with objectivity and ability to help select team members.
• Pre-plan questions that will measure and reveal in an interview a candidate's true level of ability. Always remember this is an investigation. "Why", "Help me understand", "Explain to me" are all very helpful responses to answers that are superficial or lack the detail required to make an assessment of talent.
• Treat the process like the real investment of time and money that it is.

There is no short cut to finding great talent. It is a constant in business. Those emerging companies that ingrain the formula for talent selection in to their organizations at an early age are the ones that win in the marketplace.

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