Turn Your Team into a Talent Magnet
Creating a dream team means hiring a bunch of smart, diverse and high-octane people.
You can lay the groundwork for this, by turning your organization into a talent magnet attracting the right kind of people.
One overlooked way to achieve this is to have a clearly defined “Big Vision” your team can rally around – like a flag, but with words.
Your “Big Vision” should provide a reason for what you do... one that ideally goes beyond, say, “we’re here to squeeze customers for every dime, thus maximizing the CEO’s bonus.”
Inspiring though this statement might be (for the CEO), talented people often need to feel motivated by something other than money. Increasingly people want their work to feel more meaningful.
Let’s look at an example of what I mean by a “Big Vision.” Here’s the one used by Southwest Airlines:
“To connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable and low cost air travel.”
Notice how the focus of the statement is on the WHY: connecting people to what’s important in their life.
This is about being of service to people... which is so much bigger than the concept of flying people through the clouds in huge pieces of metal.
HOW they achieve this is by being “friendly, reliable, and low-cost.”
WHAT Southwest Airlines do… like, the actual “air travel” thing?... is put last, almost as if it were an afterthought.
We could imagine the Southwest founders sitting in a board meeting. After a heated debate, they agree their company will “connect people to what’s important in their lives”... but now they’re desperately trying to think of a way to do this.
Finally, one bright young executive stands up. “I’ve got it!” he exclaims. “Let’s do it by putting people in airplanes!”
The founders all slap themselves on the forehead, wondering why they hadn’t already thought of this.
Of course, I doubt that’s how it happened.
Instead, the founders probably just saw an airplane and thought, “How much money could we make if we actually stuck people in those?”
Right? My point is, organizations and the people who work for them often get wrapped up in WHAT they’re doing.
But when recruiting your dream team, focus on the WHY.
Why do you do what you do?
The vision or purpose or “why” of my company is:
“We exist to awaken the highest potential in leaders so they can grow organizations that are good for people and the world.”
This drives many of the decisions we make and reminds us of who we are when things aren’t going our way.
When you answer this question for your team or company, it provides people with a purpose behind their work – whether it’s to serve people’s needs, make the world a better place, or at least a little less terrible than the day before.
