The draft April 23, 2010
Posted by petemcd in Business, Culture, Strategy.add a comment
No, I’m not referring to the military. I’m referring to the NFL draft of which I am taking in on ESPN at the moment. I’m a couch potato right now. This annual show is great entertainment for the fans but it is serious business for every NFL team. They will end up investing millions in the first round picks. Prior to the draft I would venture to guess that each team spent at least $100K (most likely, a lot more) in evaluating the available talent. Why? Because, every team in the league is there for one reason- to win and win big.
A business best practice is to assemble the best team you can…that is if you want to win and win big.
A good friend of mine, Ron Kranz, says this: “There are no business problems. There are only people problems with business issues.” I’m a big believer that the old and overused cliché, ‘people are our most important asset’ is actually true. It’s just too bad that so many businesses give this lip service. You cannot solve serious business issues and perform at a high level if you have people problems. You usually have people problems if you haven’t hired the right people and then continually invest in them with training and coaching. That’s what the best NFL teams do.
The hiring of the right people is the key. There is no fool proof way to do this, but a leading company like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or General Electric has an intense recruiting, interviewing evaluating and hiring systems to get the best fit for their respective organization. They are disciplined in their processes. They are serious about getting the best players on the field and they are focused on winning- every day.
This approach isn’t just for big Fortune 500 companies. If you have a small business you need a disciplined and formal process to get the best people on board. Again, that’s if you want to win.
BTW, the ESPN crew of Boomer, Tom, Steve, Jon and …Mel are terrific. Well, maybe not Mel.
© 2010 Peter E. McDowell
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