First, Become a Tipping Point Maverick To Be Great In a Flat World

I’ve been a big business-book reader of late, learning how to Break the Rules, then go from Good To Great, why the World Is Flat, and how Tipping Points create epidemics. Each of these books have been fascinating reads, and all have implications on talent acquisition. I was even inspired to write an article on ERE this summer while reading one of these books.

In my new role, I am consumed by the need for us to A) differentiate ourselves, and B) achieve greatness in our recruiting capabilities. Earlier this year at the ERExpo in San Diego, I saw Bill Taylor, founding editor of Fast Company Magazine, speak about what great organizations did to differentiate themselves from the competition and succeed in markets where everyone else was failing. Much of what he spoke about that morning has stuck with me, so much so that today I finally went out and bought his newest book, ‘Mavericks at Work’.

My new employer has significant competitive challenges when it comes to talent acquisition in our industry. To succeed, I need to know what our competition is doing, not to model and replicate, but to exceed and differentiate. It’s not going to be reasonable for us to build similar talent acquisition models to compete, so we need to find other ways.

Over lunch, I read the introduction to ‘Mavericks’ and a couple quotes hit me right away as being a dead-on match for how we need to think and operate moving forward, including:

“You can’t do big things as a competitor if you’re content with doing things
only a little better than the competition”

“The strong take from the weak”, according to Hall-of-Fame basketball coach Pete Carril, “but the smart take from the strong”.

We are just getting started here. To attract, engage and hire great talent in our industry, we need to find smart ways to do recruit much better than the competition with the resources we have available. The good news is that we have a great employment value proposition, we have clear differentiators, we are growth oriented, we are focused on being the best in our market-niche, and we are open-minded. So the proper mindset appears to be in place. I’m excited about where this might lead, so stay tuned for more on what will come from us as we build for the future. More on the book as well. Can't wait to read more!