Don't Go Chasing Unicors

Find diamonds in the rough...

Today everyone is complaining that they cant find talent! Tom Peters one of the greatest business guru's of our generation predicted a war for talent in the early 2000. Here we are 22 years later and the war is really turning nuclear. 

At my workplace, our stakeholders want us to find not only the best talent- they want the brightest, with extensive experience in the hotel industry, with proven track records of success and they want them at a rock bottom prices. I often ask myself: Am I searching for a Unicorn? 

Finding great talent is like trying to find a unicorn. They are rare, people believe they exist, no one has actually seen one. Maybe they exist. I once believed in Santa!

I am of the opinion we should stop looking for Unicorns and start looking for diamonds.

Diamonds...Everyone has seen one, true they are rare but not as rare as you think. In addition, diamonds are strong, they forged under pressure they are brilliant and timeless. Much easier to find are diamonds in the rough. These gems are hidden in plain sight, no one is looking for them so you can pick them up at a steal, sure they need a bit work to polish up and oh will they shine. Diamonds in the rough are very easy to find. If you look closely, you will see you too were once a diamond in the rough.

Let me start with an easy example, Chef Thomas Keller owner of famous restaurant The French Laundry with 3 Michelin Stars and a 3 month waitlist. Chef Keller started his career as dishwasher! That's right.. definitely diamond in the rough. Surely someone saw something in this steward and mentored him into the legend he is today. 

My wife, a reformed hotelier, headed up several customer care centers in Southern Metro Manila in the early cowboy years of the telecom industry in the Philippines. She managed to hire brilliant staff. I asked her how she did this? She told me her recipe was that during the interview she just looked & listened for "shiny, happy people". Well her team members became the most coveted in the company and many went on to manage their own customer care centers. Most have moved on and grown well beyond what she saw in them 20 years ago. Again "shiny, happy people" who shone bright like diamonds. 

I once read a story of a certain company using a Brick Test to test potential hires for creativity. They would place a brick in front of a potential candidate and asked them to figure out as many things in a minute they could do with the brick. The successful candidates got over 20 in a single minute. When I tried this test with my leadership team the highest score was 6. (Door stop, Life saving device, bookend, toy, marker, cooking utensil... ). 

So I adopted this to the hotel industry, into different social experiments of sorts. 

My thesis is this: hire people who have an a innate disposition that closely matches the specific task they will be assigned to do. Our job is to find that predilection, that one thing they would probably do for free.

As hoteliers in search of chefs we often become pre-occupied with the resume we pour over their previous work experience. Where did they work, who was the chef, was the restaurant any good. We spend countless man-hours doing background checks. I often ask a simple question "can the guy cook?" The answer typically is "yes his background check came back with positive reviews". How is that for a non-answer.

How often do we just ask the chef candidate to cook something. Even something as simple as an egg. After all we are searching for some one who can cook well not someone who can write resumes well. This cooking test will tell you in a few minutes all you need to know about a candidate.

When I opened a hotel many years ago we wanted savvy candidates who could immediately engage and charm our guests. So during the interview process we crafted a mini social experiment where front liners had to basically choose and vote off candidates. If candidates could not charm their own colleagues in a few minutes how could we expect them to engage our own guests. Most of those hires had little or no experience in the hotel industry, we planned it that way. We suffered during our first few months; but the end result was a #6 ranking on Tripadvisor in the city at that time. I attribute this primarily because of the quality of the associates we had on-boarded. 

I vividly remember when I knew my Executive Housekeeper was a diamond in the rough. After a busy week for her whole team, I told her that it was "ok" with me if she let her team go home early as a reward and she could leave some rooms to clean for tomorrow as the occupancy would allow it. She looked at me in horror and I immediately knew it was "not ok" with her. She replied curtly stating that she would not be able to sleep knowing we had "dirty rooms" left over for the evening. She quickly said 'It's ok sir, my supervisors and I will stay to finish the rooms, no overtime". I walked away sheepishly, but it was a great a-ha moment, I knew from that day onwards, I never had to check on her work again because she took so much pride in "her rooms". Found another diamond...Bling!

So I encourage you to create your own experiments, find your own gems. Look for great people who are passionate about what they do and tailor fit the hotel job to their passion. Instead of quixotic search for experienced unicorns, start looking for diamonds in the rough. There will always be less people looking and there will always be an infinite number of diamonds in the rough. 

The gems that I have stumbled on along the way know who they are. They will simply smile and "mentally tip the hat" for the effort in helping them shine. I always tell them I get more satisfaction from their success than mine. 

It would also be remiss of me to not to "tip the hat" and pay tribute to the many mentors I have had. Specially those who took the time to polish a lot of the imperfections in my leadership game.

I will end with one more anecdote, one of the happiest days of my career was when I received a call from an old colleague (another diamond in the rough) and he had just been promoted to General Manager for the first time and he wanted to express his gratitude. He just wanted to call to "thank me". I said thank for what, looking back maybe I have a disposition for discovering diamonds? I wish it were the other type of diamonds. We have kept in touch ever since and have shared our highest and our lowest moments with each other. It was memorable because he was the first, there have been more gems since them and will be more diamond discoveries to follow. 

I have been in this game for close to 30 years. If you are looking for Unicorns for the hotel industry you wont find them. Start looking for those diamonds in the rough! Let me know how you go.