It was April 2000. National Football League (NFL) Draft day. College football players had gathered in New York City. A day all these players eagerly been waiting for. This is the day 32 professional football teams draft top-notch players to their roster.
This is the actual graduation day for these collegiate athletes. A gateway to make it to the big stage.
Football is the most popular sport in U.S. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. Every football team’s chances to make it to the Super Bowl stage is all determined within 16 games in a season. So needless to say, teams spend a great amount of time scouting, screening and hiring these athletes.
Hopes and dreams of big pay checks, stardom, fame and more importantly a chance to make an impact in professional sports history is about to unfold for the college hopefuls.
Obviously anxiety and nervousness is in the air. All the hard work, pain, agony the players went through their high school and college days are about to pay off.
Among the athletes, on that day at New York City, there is a lanky guy from Bay Area, California. He is hopeful that one of the 32 teams will draft him as a quarterback. He was led to believe he will be drafted in the second round or the third round of the draft at worst.
Track records of these players are crucial in deciding who gets selected. Unfortunately this quarterback’s track record is not stellar.
1. He did not play football till he was in freshman year of his high school. When he did start to play he was a backup quarterback.
2. He started to play during his sophomore year but he got the chance only because the starter quarterback decided not to play. His high school coach called him chubby and slow-footed.
3. During college he was seventh in the depth chart among quarterbacks and spent most of the time on bench.
On top of it, draft report says “Poor build. Very skinny and narrow. Ended the ’99 season weighing 195 pounds and still looks like a rail at 211. Looks a little frail and lacks great physical stature and strength. Can get pushed down more easily than you’d like. Lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush. Lacks a really strong arm. Can’t drive the ball down the field and does not throw a really tight spiral. System-type player who can get exposed if he must ad-lib and do things on his own.
Summary: Is not what you’re looking for in terms of physical stature, strength, arm strength and mobility, but he has the intangibles and production and showed great Griese-like improvement as a senior. Could make it in the right system but will not be for everyone. “
Finally, the New England Patriots pick this guy as the 199th pick in the sixth round. This was year 2000.
Now 14 years later… the quarterback every team passed, has taken the Patriots to Super Bowl 5 times. Winning three of those.
His name is Tom Brady. The legendary Tom Brady. That’s right, he was 199th pick in the sixth round.
Brady’s story is an exceptional one. From a high school benchwarmer to one of the greatest quarterback in football history.
His story brings up a couple of important aspects, we as hiring managers often don’t pay attention when we interview potential candidates. Here are those:
1. Personal Motivation
Brady’s story is a classic example of grit. Michael Jordan, Kurt Warner, Kobe Bryant are some other examples in professional sports who exemplify grit.
Recently lot has been said about grit and how vital it is for success. Enough has been written on big companies using grit as an indicator instead of GPAs. Science too proves grit is a better predictor of success.
Grit is nothing but a single minded focus on the goal even when you are faced with adversity. We see this trait all the time around us. We see team members slugging it out on projects when the odds are against them. You see this in yourself. When the whole world thinks you can’t do it, you somehow make it happen.
Brady’s story is also about personal motivation. Personal motivation determines grit. If you think grit as the how, personal motivation is the why. Steve Jobs is known to ask “Why are you here?”. If you ignore the tone and whittle it down to the fundamentals, this question addresses the core of personal motivation.
To hire the best talent, it is important for hiring managers to understand how deeply, emotionally, personally a person wants to excel. What is the appetite this person brings to the party. It applies to all levels of the organization, whether you are head of the company or at the bowels of the organization, in my belief there is a strong co-relation between personal motivation and performance.
As a hiring manager imagine yourself sitting across the table, the candidate is not thinking about how he can solve your problem. He doesn’t even know what your problem is, to begin with. He is thinking about solving his problem. Find out what problem he is trying to solve.
If you aspire to be a Steve Jobs, looking to create a product to put a dent in the universe, hire someone who is desperate and hungry for that opportunity. Regardless of what the resume says.
Find out why he badly needs this job. Look for those intangibles.
2. Value Alignment
Second aspect hiring managers miss out is to ensure if there is value alignment.
What is value alignment? Value alignment is about a shared belief system. It is vital for the manager and employees to share the vision and believe in the common set of goals. There is no other time best suited for ensuring alignment other than when you are interviewing.
As much as Brady’s grit was responsible for taking the Patriots to Super Bowl championships, Bill Belichick played an equally important role to ensure Brady aligned to his guiding principles.
Companies are relying increasingly on the internal referrals as a great source. I tend to believe if you hire someone within the organization or within your network, there is a higher chance of better value alignment.
But assuming you are going out of the internal network, how do you ensure your values match? As a hiring manager, you are the CEO of your team. As the CEO you get to define what is the purpose, value of your organization should be. So write down what those values are. For e.g. When I was managing a Program Management team, Accountability was a core value our team was built on. So questions were geared towards accountability. If you are running a finance organization, I would assume Integrity would be a core value of yours.
In conclusion, both these aspects are very tricky to ascertain but completely doable. No matter how much time you spend you are not going to completely know if this person will deliver to your expectations. Ultimately, trust what your gut says.
Do you see any other aspects that are commonly missed? Please share your comments.
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Source: ESPN
Image: iStock
