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“Hiring Lessons of the NFL Draft”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 1, 2006

 I wrote this article in 2006 and got a book deal out of it for what became “Hiring Secrets of the NFL“. I will be posting sections of the book daily over the next two weeks.

Following the annual National Football League collegiate draft, which was held over the weekend, long has been a guilty pleasure of mine. Helping companies hire executive talent is my day job, and the professional sports talent selection process has vicarious appeal.

Every year, football fans from Weehawken to Wayzata dream that their team will draft the next JJ Watt or Julio Jones. Some years they are rewarded with stars, some with stiffs. The NFL drafting process is at least as sophisticated as the corporate hiring process these days, with psychological assessments, IQ tests, breakdowns of college performance and examinations of physical ability.

How can football teams and companies maximize the chances of selecting future stars? Here are my rules to consider in assessing talent in professional football or in business:

1. Beware Hometown Heroes – When choosing between two players of equal talent, do not choose the local college star who will “sell tickets.” Success in the future, not the past, sells tickets; fans will adore a superstar wherever he is from. For example, Joe Namath, a Pittsburgh native, was revered by locals in Alabama and then New York, based on his performance and charisma.

In business, select extraordinary talent from different cultures, rather than settling for ordinary candidates who fit your cultural comfort zone. In a global economy, “success sells tickets.”

2. Draft the Best Athlete, not the Most Pressing Need –  In the NFL, drafting to improve a key weakness is fine if the player selected is of similar ability to those available at other positions. Otherwise, select the best available athlete, even if he plays a position where you already have talented players.

Companies often assume that candidates from their own industry will help them most. But executives from other industries can help a company leapfrog its competitors by bringing best practices from elsewhere. For example, UnitedHealth Group, the managed care giant based in Minnesota, deliberately recruits a significant percentage of its executives from outside the health care industry.

3. Avoid Cogs in the Machine – Some college football programs are so successful that the system makes good players appear great, but they then revert to ordinary in the pros. Teams selecting Big Ten running backs run this risk.

In business, companies are sometimes blinded by the halo effect of a candidate from an elite competitor. But success in a smoothly functioning system often doesn’t translate into success in a turnaround effort.

4. You Can’t Teach Heart –  College football players who aren’t self-motivated are not likely to develop that trait as professionals. Good talent with great will and intelligence beats unmotivated great talent every time, as the success of Tom Brady and Jerry Rice (“too slow”) or Ray Lewis and Emmitt Smith (“too small”) proves.

In business, as motivational author Jim Rohn has written, “Don’t waste your time trying to change ducks into eagles.” Hiring motivated individuals is easier than trying to instill ambition into the unmotivated.

5. Ability Matters, But is Hard to Measure – Metrics of ability are important, but subjective, in football and the workplace. The Football Hall of Fame is filled with players who lacked world-class speed but whose playing speed made them far more successful than sprinters who were not football-savvy.

Companies sometime rely too heavily on school grades as an indicator of success in the workplace, especially for experienced hires. I once encountered a company that asked candidates how they scored on their SAT college entrance exams. The fallacy is obvious — SATs are predictors of future success in college.

6. Jerks Rarely Win – Superstars who are personally productive but disruptive to the organization are seldom worth the bother in a team sport. For all his touchdowns, Terrell Owens has never won a playoff game beyond the first round. As a team executive famously said to the star of an abysmal team who was demanding more money: “We lost with you, we can lose without you.”

In business, companies are sometimes afraid to rein in disruptive stars, particularly sales rainmakers or technical gurus. But a superachiever who demeans and manipulates his or her peers can ultimately disrupt the output of the entire department.

7. Don’t Mistake Eccentrics for Jerks – Jerks may not be worth the trouble, but talented nonconformists usually are. The Oakland Raiders won multiple Super Bowls collecting talented oddballs with a deep desire to win, after they were discarded by other teams.

In business too, it is wise to manage talented individuals differently, even gingerly, as long as they are committed to leveraging their abilities toward the goals of the organization.

8. Don’t Try to Fix All Your Problems with One Hire – Trying to compensate for systemic weaknesses with a superstar doesn’t work. The classic example is the elite quarterback inserted behind a terrible offensive line, like Archie Manning on the 1970s New Orleans Saints. In contrast, the New England Patriots won yet another Super Bowl in 2005 with no-name cornerbacks Asante Samuels and Randall Gay. The defense was built as a system, not around any one superstar (thought the team had several).

In a business, beware trying to hire superstars to compensate for weaknesses in other parts of the organization. Hiring a sales guru is a worthy goal, but if marketing is feeble, business growth will continue to disappoint.

9. Production Eventually Trumps Potential – In football, the ultimate complement is “He’s a football player.” In business, it’s: “She makes money everywhere she goes.”

I will be posting daily excerpts of Hiring Secrets of the NFL, by Isaac Cheifetz, Catalytic1 Executive Search, over the next three weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Please feel free to discuss how the concepts apply to today’s NFL, and business.

Every year, football fans dream that their team will draft the next JJ Watt or Julio Jones. Some years they are rewarded with stars, some with stiffs. The NFL drafting process is at least as sophisticated as the corporate hiring process these days, with psychological assessments, IQ tests, breakdowns of college performance and examinations of physical ability.

How can football teams and companies maximize the chances of selecting future stars? This book is an attempt to define the rules of success for talent selection in the NFL and corporate ranks.

The origins of this book are interesting. It did not require much research or interviewing, but sprung nearly fully formed based on my work and interests over the course of my career. I am an executive recruiter, a headhunter, who has spent twenty years experience consulting to advanced technology businesses on executive search, organizational design and strategy.

As for sports, I was a rabid fan in high school and college, but as the years went on found myself following sports less and less. Hockey, baseball, and college basketball each fell to the wayside. Even my NBA obsession dimmed, as the NBA draft came to resemble a High School prom. Yet my fascination with the NFL draft grew. Between recruiting calls, I found myself surfing web sites dedicated to NFL Mock Drafts and prospect evaluations several hours a week, first in the months before the draft, and after a couple of seasons, all year long.

Occasionally I would admonish myself for wasting time. Why not choose to analyze balance sheets in my spare time, like Warren Buffett? I hardly watched NFL games on TV anymore, yet was fascinated by the interplay between pre-draft projection, draft selection and career performance.

One day it hit me: trying to predict the performance of NFL prospects feels familiar because it has so much in common with my day job, helping companies hire executive talent. I specialize in searches for executives who can help companies in rapidly changing industries, particularly those attempting to leverage Information Technology for strategic advantage. The business model and/or position are often new, and predicting success is even more difficult than usual.

Football has much in common with the corporate world. Success in both results from complex plans aggressively and precisely executed. In both, it is challenging to select personnel with the appropriate balance of raw ability and accomplishment, and difficult even to conclusively define what experience is critical to success in the position. Yet mistakes are costly in both football and corporate human capital.

The corporate talent selection process has more in common with football than with baseball or basketball. As described in Moneyball, Peter Lewis’s bestseller on the Oakland A’s, a baseball player’s statistics are easier to define, lending themselves to analysis more than the human talent selection and assessment process in business, or football. The NBA is a poor analog to the corporate world, because in the NBA superstars are indispensable and rare. The concept prevalent in football and business that no one person is indispensable doesn’t apply as much in the NBA. Teams do win championships without a Shaq or Michael Jordan, but they are the exception.

Of course, there are significant differences between the NFL and business. A business career can easily span 25 to 40 years, while NFL careers are far shorter. Even stars rarely play much more than twelve years, and careers are routinely ended by injury.

Using football as a metaphor for business organizations has limitations, given the violence inherent in the game, and the ruthlessness with which personnel decisions are made.

This book is about how to build champions, in football and business. The first eight chapters each focus on a critical success factor for selecting talent in the NFL and its application in business. The final chapter outlines a model for applying these principles in business to improve the efficiency, speed and results of corporate hiring.

I will be posting daily excerpts of Hiring Secrets of the NFL, by Isaac Cheifetz, Catalytic1 Executive Search, over the next three weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Please feel free to discuss how the concepts apply to today’s NFL, and business.

“When I was playing, I never worried about a guy that ran a 4.4 forty, if I watched the film and saw that he had 5.2 hands.” Herm Edwards, former Kansas City Chiefs head coach

In the NFL and in business, a position will have a variety of attributes considered important for success. But for most roles, there are a very small number of skills which are critical – their absence will dictate failure.

The “true must of the position”, as writer Pete Prisco of CBS Sportsline.com calls it, is the critical success factor of the position, without which achievement is impossible. Tables 1-1 and 2-1 describe the “true must” for several football positions and business rules. Lacking the “true must” for a role, elite ability is useless. Note that key intangibles like discipline and motivation are not addressed here, on the assumption that all roles in football and business require them.

“True Must” in Football

Position                                            “True Must”                                 Desirable

Receiver                                           Great hands, route runner      Great speed

Quarterback                                      Calm, accuracy, leadership             Great arm

Offensive Lineman                             Tenacious, strong, smart               Gigantic, athletic

“True Must” in Business

In business too, there are is a “true must” for nearly every role, without which success is unlikely, regardless of the individual’s ability.

Role                          True Must                                        Desirable

Sales Rainmaker        Tenacity, professionalism               Charisma and organization

Startup CEO               Design strategies and execute           Visionary

CIO                            Leader, integrator, integrity                 Technical visionary

A new venture benefits from a leader who can paint a vision of where the company is going and how it will transform its industry. But being a successful leader requires just enough creativity to win, yet not so much as to get lost.

I will be posting daily excerpts of my 2007 book, Hiring Secrets of the NFL, over the next several weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Please feel free to comment.

Consider a software firm whose growth has stalled, and hires a President who was wildly successful during the boom era of the 1990’s. But a successful executive in that era was trying to hit home runs, to grow a large company and have a successful IPO.

Software has become a mature, rather a growth industry, and standards for companies going public are more rigorous today’s Sarbanes Oxley environment. A software firm is more likely to be successful attacking niche vertical markets, rather than attempting broad rapid growth. And acquisition by a larger firm is a more likely long-term goal, rather than an IPO.

To successfully grow the firm under these new conditions, success in sales management might be less relevant than a track record of efficiently building targeted solutions to specific industries, and building successful channel relationships.

Few executives in recent history had the charisma of Carly Fiorina, the CEO of Hewlett Packard from 1999 to 2005. Her ability to motivate employees and customers was considered critical to HP’s turnaround.

But Fiorina had no track record of large scale, long term operational excellence, nor was she a visionary. Her track record was as a successful sales executive during the 1980’s and 1990’s, the Golden Age of the computer industry. She was strategically creative and highly articulate.

Unfortunately, by 1999 the PC industry had become unprofitable to everyone but Dell, the Fedex of the PC industry. HP would have been best off have pursuing a niche strategy, investing in its profitable businesses such as printing and imaging, and retaining the profitable instrument division, rather than spinning it off as an IPO into Agilent. HP should have gradually stepped away from the low-margin PC market, as IBM had done, rather than spending $24 billion to acquire Compaq and double up its challenging bet on PC’s.

Hewlett Packard’s CEO as of this writing (2007), Mark Hurd, is less of a “star” than Carly Fiorina, but his track record of success making NCR Teradata a successful niche vendor explains his current success at HP.

Sometimes a person with strengths in a key attribute can mimic competence in secondary critical skills, without actually having them. This often occurs when a brilliant specialist or salesperson lacking key intangibles is sometimes groomed for a top job.

Often the attribute missing is “Emotional Intelligence”, or “EQ”, which the individual has till now ignored or discounted. This part of his makeup is so underdeveloped that over time he is held to a lower standard than his peers, like a dog that has reduced the frequency of in house “accidents” from regular to occasional.

Similarly, when this talented individual evolves his interpersonal skills from crude to adequate, he may be judged ready to lead. But he has only learnt to mimic these skills, to memorize them by rote. When challenged by new circumstances under crisis conditions, his veneer of leadership skills will quickly wear down and he will fall back on his lifetime stunted interpersonal skills.

I will be posting daily excerpts of Hiring Secrets of the NFL, by Isaac Cheifetz, Catalytic1 Executive Search, over the next two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.

In the NFL, the two primary defensive line configurations are the “4-3”, with four defensive linemen and three linebackers, and the “3-4”, with three linemen and four linebackers.

In a 4-3 defense, the linemen are the primary pass rushers. They are “one gap” linemen, responsible for a single “lane” between the opposing offensive linemen, and can more aggressively attack that gap in pursuit of the other teams quarterback or runner.

In a 3-4 defense, the linemen have “two gap” responsibility. As a result, they must be bigger (3-4 linemen rarely weigh less than 300 pounds), and are primarily responsible for controlling the opponents offensive line, freeing the linebackers to rush the passer and make the tackles.

Smart NFL teams who play a 3-4 are careful to draft linemen who fit their defensive scheme. Many can play in either, but many do best in one or the other. Aside from the additional size the 3-4 requires, many college linemen are accustomed to instinctively penetrating the opponent’s backfield, rather than playing the more systemic role of controlling the line of scrimmage.

How does a 4-3 sales organization differ from a 3-4 sales model?

A 4-3 business development model is a classic sales driven organization, where the sales reps are responsible for penetrating new accounts. It requires salespeople to be aggressive hunters, and compensates them accordingly.

A 3-4 business development model is driven by account management, rather than new sales. The account reps still have revenue responsibility, but they are primarily farming within existing accounts. They have more of a consultative role across the customer lifecycle, and often have more industry expertise.

Deciding whether you are a 4-3 or 3-4 sales organization is critical for how you hire and compensate your salespeople. A 3-4 business development model often has world class sales reps, but they have different responsibilities, and are compensated differently.

For example, IBM is a 3-4 sales organization, despite being a highly respected training ground for IT sales. The “account executives” generally sell into existing customers, and are part of a team, with a customer service mentality. They are well compensated, but it is understood they can make more if they leave IBM and sell for a firm that emphasizes a sole contributor sales model.

Oracle, in contrast, is a 4-3 sales organization, where sales reps are hunters. They are highly compensated but ruthlessly judged on their production (somewhat like an NFL coach, come to think of it).

Responsibilities & Requirements of a 3-4 versus a 4-3, in the NFL and corporations

Ø 4-3 Football Defense: Swift Hunters – Linemen who relentlessly attack quarterback

Ø 3-4 Football Defense: Massive & Strong – Linemen control line of scrimmage, allowing linebackers to attack the quarterback.

Ø 4-3 Sales Model: Aggressive Hunters – Individual contributors who penetrate new accounts; Classic sales driven organization,

Ø 3-4 Sales Model: Subject Matter Experts with Consultative Skills – Drive new business by cultivating current clients, rather than by hunting new clients.

I will be posting daily excerpts of Hiring Secrets of the NFL, by Isaac Cheifetz, Catalytic1 Executive Search, over the next two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.

 Hiring Secrets of the NFL #5- Keep it Simple

The best indicator of future performance is past performance, “betting on form”, as the horseracing expression goes. Challenging this statistical rule of nature is OK, as long you don’t invest a lot in these bets.

If your obsession drives you to continue on this path nonetheless, you may be the next great innovator in your profession: the next Bill Belichick in the NFL; the next Ross Perot, who founded EDS and the computer outsourcing industry; or the next Fred Smith, founder of Federal Express and next-day delivery. But if you are, be aware that most revolutionary businesses are radically innovative in one—note that’s only one—aspect: technology for Apple, logistics for Wal-Mart and Dell.

I often caution entrepreneurs that if they are reinventing the wheel in some critical aspect of their business, they ought to be energetically but unimaginatively competent in their hiring practices. The risk to the organization of innovating on more than one front is nearly insurmountable.

I will be posting daily excerpts of Hiring Secrets of the NFL, by Isaac Cheifetz, Catalytic1 Executive Search, over the next two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.

Hiring Secrets of the NFL #6 – Character Matters

“One the terms I’ve learned to be sensitive to is risk and reward. Now when I hear it in a character context, I don’t want those players on the team”. Arthur Blank, Atlanta Falcons owner and Home Depot founder

Organizations that tolerate superstars who are personally productive but organizationally disruptive rarely attain world class performance.

It is rare for a dysfunctional NFL superstar to win championships. The famous exception is Lawrence Taylor, “LT”, the New York Giants linebacker (1981 – 1993) who revolutionized his position and led the Giants to two Superbowl wins while combating a full blown addiction to crack cocaine. But Taylor was a uniquely talented gamechanger, powerfully driven to win, and surrounded by other great defenders who were emotionally stable. He is the exception that proves the rule.

Avoiding drainos is more easily said than done. The temptation to keep them around springs from their incredible talent. Moreover, they are often driven and hardworking. Companies are sometimes afraid to rein in disruptive stars. But a superachiever who demeans and manipulates his or her peers can disrupt the output of the entire department.Report this

In his 1990 book Million Dollar Habits, Robert Ringer devotes a chapter to “The Drain People Elimination Habit”, who he described as “people who drain you of time, energy, peace of mind, relaxation, comfort and/or money”. A wide range of these “draino’s” populate the corporate world. Let’s examine four categories of them, including one with its own subcategories: The morally challenged, the narcissist, the walking wounded and the situational draino.

The Morally Challenged

A morally challenged individual is likely to act on his worst instincts at some point. If in a leadership role, he can corrupt a culture or deform it. Even if he somehow doesn’t impact others, can you watch him every moment of the day? How much energy will that take? Where can you better use that energy to grow a business?

The human condition being what it is, many people have the potential for morally dubious actions. An organization led by an amoral leader may succeed for a time, but in the long term will be seriously damaged when challenged by unforeseen events. It’s possible to establish an ethical business culture and demand that legal and ethical standards be upheld, but it is much more difficult to reform an unethical adult.

The Narcissist

The narcissist’s consuming goal is to look great. Winning is the best way to accomplish this, which often makes this individual appear to be valuable, whether in sports or business. But if the narcissist can look great in defeat, he will also be satisfied.

The Walking Wounded

The walking wounded have a different psychological landscape from people who are emotionally whole. Their internal strife drives them to create and perpetuate conflict where none exists. Here are the three varieties of walking wounded, from least harmful to most harmful: the crab, the backstabber and the scorpion.

The Crab. As in a pail full of crabs, the Crab will reflexively pull back anyone who attempts to better himself by climbing out of the pail. Every organization has powerful political undercurrents, but the Crab Culture is paralyzed by politics.

A high performing organization will swiftly cast out crabs, but a critical mass of crabs creates a culture where losing is preferred to taking chances. Crabs are losers, or at the very least have become habituated to losing.

Transforming a long-term losing culture may require a figurative “scorched earth” policy, leaving the “turnaround” coach who rids a team of its losing mentality without enough talent left to win.

There is little evidence that corporations with grossly dysfunctional cultures can be changed gradually. In the real world, a better vision for the future and organizational discipline may not be enough. A certain amount of tension, even fear, may be necessary, to separate those willing to commit to the new culture from those who lack the motivation or ability to step away from their losing mindset.

The Backstabber . The backstabber is competent, but puts significant energy into subverting his or her peers. In football, the organizational structure and culture constrains overt backstabbing, with the gap between players and coaches resembles that of management and union workers. But in a corporate management setting, where politics are ubiquitous, a skilled backstabber can cut with the dexterity of a surgeon. A company can make its culture less hospitable to backstabbers, even if it can’t realistically screen them all out in the hiring process.

An organization that puts results above all will give less camouflage to individuals who compete politically. These backstabbers will tend to migrate to companies whose cultural “eco-systems” are more hospitable to their machinations.

The Scorpion. Scorpions are talented, hardworking individuals who are driven to destroy their work environment, and ultimately their own careers, because of inner emotional turmoil.

Terrell Owens was the ultimate scorpion, a cartoon-like archetype of the temptations and perils of bringing talented drainos into an organization. “TO” was a big, fast, powerful, hard working receiver, but deeply self destructive. For all his touchdowns, Owens never won a game beyond the first round of the playoffs.

The situational draino is a follower who will go along with the dominant culture, positive or negative. This person acts badly in a culture that is used to losing, but will be productive and loyal if transferred to a stable winning organization.

Situational drainos should be presumed guilty until proven innocent. Even if they are well intentioned, they are expressing themselves childishly and are not going to lead the organization from losing to winning. To succeed, they require an already stable organization. Consider these two varieties of high-performing corporate disruptors: The rainmaker and the IT Guru.

The Rainmaker

The temptation to tolerate a star salesman who is abusive of those around him is powerful. High performing sales reps are the ultimate hunters, and think of themselves as a Clint Eastwood movie character, either a Western gunslinger or Dirty Harry. They are an odd combination of thick skinned and emotionally sensitive, empathetic and manipulative. A sales culture often has a merrily obnoxious quality. And performance in sales is individually measured, like a baseball hitter at the plate.

A wise sales manager once told me: “Great sales reps either have really high or really low self esteem. The “highs” deal with rejection by assuming there is something wrong with you, not them. The “lows” have such low self esteem that they are numb to rejection.”

Both sales types can be very successful (and many stars have elements of both). Yet happy sales stars are the foundation of a much healthier sales organization. They are less likely to misuse the organizational influence derived from their revenue generation, and drain energy from other functions, and their peers in sales. They also serve as a positive role model for ambitious junior sales reps as to how to behave. The “problem children” of tomorrow will act out in any case, but many individuals will vary in their behavior, in sports or companies, based on the implicit rules of the organization

The IT Guru

Software gurus earn their salaries. The complexity of software architecture is staggering – it is the design of an imaginary castle in the clouds, in a foreign language. The variance between the production of a competent software programmer and a great one is monumental, not incremental.

For years, software vendors tolerated brilliant but volatile geniuses due to their outsized impact. Sometimes, if these individuals were charismatic enough to be promoted, they created entire obnoxious organizations in their own image. Across the country in MIS environments, lesser lights imitated the disturbed guru model, whether or not they were truly indispensable.

But as the size of software systems grew, software development increasingly became a collaborative effort. The dysfunctional savant has an increasingly negative impact, as software development is an increasingly collaborative endeavor. There is, and will always be, a need for the isolated genius, a writer of algorithms, or a game designer. Just be sure he is producing like a mad genius, not just acting like one.