The Wisdom of Herbert : Management Insights 80 Years On

‘The anxiety which is felt in some cases when teams are threatened with the loss of their status must be almost beyond bearing. I know of one club who in their plight insisted on their star players being in their homes every Friday night at nine o’clock, and officials visited them to see that the rule is observed. Recently I have heard of the complaints of players who declare that every Friday night they are spied on, and that they are threatened with all sorts of penalties if they do not observe the club curfew. I have no patience with such supervision. If I were unable to trust a player I would not retain him. In my experience I have found that the man who is treated fairly, and in whom confidence is placed, will not let you down.’

Wise words.

If you changed the word ‘club’ to ‘company’ and ‘players’ to ‘employees’ and said that at a conference or unconference in relation to employer brand and social media you’d be a guru. It would be tweeted and re-tweeted, blogged about and quoted.

And it’s true. If you can’t trust your employees then you shouldn’t have them working for you…likewise if you treat them fairly, and with respect, you will get the best out of them.

But this quote isn’t recent. It’s not from this week, this year or this century. It was written in 1932!

It was written by Herbert Chapman, a man who was named Greatest British Football Manager of all time in a Sunday Times poll in 2004 and is widely regarded as the father of modern football. His revolutionary and pioneering legacy is long and impressive: Continue reading “The Wisdom of Herbert : Management Insights 80 Years On” →

Do Recruiters Need Representing? Or Enlightening?

Here’s a question…who sets the standards in the recruitment agency industry?

The recruitment industry isn’t a profession requiring a qualification or quality badge. It’s a B2B sales business, predominantly made up of a disparate myriad of small owner managed businesses all competing with each other and showing little appetite for collaboration or ethics.

Standards are set by company owners, and their prime motivator is often profit not quality of operation. In the ten years I was supplying recruiters to the industry no-one asked me about the standards to which individuals operated. Their main concerns were fees and transferable client relationships. I was never asked to find someone with a relevant qualification…usually just someone who could sell.

Being a thorough interviewer, or having a string of recommendations from clients and candidates, were irrelevant if there were not billing figures to back them up.

Recruiters who don’t hit their targets are labelled failures. It doesn’t matter if their clients and candidates rate their service highly, and would recommend them… they won’t get hired in the rough, tough recruitment world without those billings. A blank couple of months usually mean a warning or redundancy, no matter if you’re with a member of a trade body or attend some training courses.

So I remain fairy ambivalent towards representative bodies, particularly those who make claims to create standards and set benchmarks. I followed the brouhaha that surrounded the launch of the IOR which still seems to continue – read this insightful blog from SteveWard. Continue reading “Do Recruiters Need Representing? Or Enlightening?” →

Weak ties or strong links – it’s a question of bandwidth

Its called Relationship Recruiting!

When I started working in recruitment I was quickly told about the 80/20 rule – 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. It certainly informed my day to day relationship building as I quickly focused on a small number of deep relationships which held good for me for my years as a recruiter.

As we moved towards modern social networking though the accent was more on broadening out your network, concentrating on the ‘weak ties’, the ones that were most likely to bring new information and opportunity. Although the research that showed the strength of these weak ties dates back to 1973 they certainly started becoming more popular over the last few years, a situation exacerbated with rising usage of networking and connecting platforms – LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter – as they, in turn, facilitated growing the widest network possible.

So it was with great interest that I read in this month’s Wired of research conducted by two information economists, in a white paper due to be published later this year, that found that it was, after all the strong links that delivered the most profitable relationships. The weaker ties may deliver unique information, but the nature of the connection (weak) means that the interactions are rare.

Closer links may bring less unique news, but the higher level of interaction will ultimately make them a stronger source. The contacts with the greatest bandwidth do ultimately deliver the best results.

And to test this they used an executive recruiting firm, analysing e-mail correspondence. Guess what? Those consultants relying on a tight cluster of contacts received more new leads and generated greater fees.

Whilst the ideal results may well derive from a combination of weak and strong ties, it can’t be denied that close connections really are important after all.

If you’re a recruiter then develop them and nurture them…they may provide your best route to success.

And if you’re a jobseeker building the widest network you can, then stop for a moment and think about who is closer to home and who you may be overlooking. Close friends, family, neighbours and ex-colleagues…they may be able give you that vital lead a lot quicker than the sister-in-law of the guy who sold a computer to the wife of the friend of the golf partner you just shot an 82 with!

This post originally appeared as a guest blog on the excellent Blogging4jobs site run by Jessica Miller-Merrell. If you don’t follow her…you really should!