In picturing the future, it is time for a right-now confession. As an industry, we're trapped. We've been stuck in an endless tactical cycle ever since our inception. When we were founded as an industry we offered such extraordinary values that no force could stop our rise. But, somewhere along the way, we peaked and we've yet to rise above that value level.
Consider:
· How many people have started out to become recruiters but never made it past newbie status?
· How often do we win Key Accounts, grow comfortable and then discover how we became yesterday's news; often also discovering that we've lost our prospecting pipeline and worse, have no will to rebuild it until we simply have no other choice?
· How often do we face political opposition in our client companies that we just don't know how to overcome or win?
· How often do we find the same kind of resistance in new prospects that used car sellers meet, and that our industry nickname as "head hunters" seems to justify?
· How often are we passed down from executives to HR or some other player, having won no respect, no friendship, no recognition of the value we bring?
· How often do we find ourselves scared that the next deal won't come; always reinventing the wheel of the next deal, never really knowing where our next commission check will come from?
These and many other such symptoms (did I mention our investment into continuously finding, hiring, training and replacing new people, and, on the other hand, the struggles we have in retaining the best performing AE's), that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are a tactically trapped industry?
I say its time - NOW - to break the barrier of tactical limitation. In the rest of this lesson we'll first define Strategy and Tactics. Second, we'll explore the transform required in our thinking. And last, in application, we'll see if we can't find at least hints toward immediate solutions for the limiting conditions listed above.
Strategy and Tactics Defined
Turning to definitions, please consider these four elements:
1. On the path to any strategic victory, tactics are merely the means to those ultimate ends.
2. Where strategy indicates ultimate destinations, tactics are the action steps we take.
3. Strategy is the approach, the way of thinking, the mindset and the mental, emotional and even spiritual purpose that drives all your tactical execution.
4. And last, these two terms are always relative, just like "large and small." There are always higher, greater strategies, and there are always smaller, lower tactics, at any and every level of thinking and performing.
Thought Transformations
You may be surprised that the most powerful starting point in transforming our tactical minds into strategic powerhouses that I've ever found is to contemplate the Yin Yang, in its tactical/strategic application. This is my current favorite version of the Yin Yang.
http://images.suite101.com/785449_com_yin_yang.jpg
In case you're not familiar with the true meaning of this symbol, it stands forevery form of duality such as: strong and weak, hard and soft, light and dark, etc. Why does each side of the symbol include a circle representing the opposite side? Opposites, in spite of their opposition, are always connected. The example of night and day can clarify what this means.
We know that at the darkest hour of the night, we are finally growing close to the coming day. We know that at brightest part of the day, when the sun peaks in its circuit, we are now heading in toward the evening and dark of night. Thus, you can view the Yin Yang's dark circle as the fact that high noon indicates the shift toward night, and its light circle as the indication that midnight represents the beginning of the shift toward the day.
Applying this symbol for our purposes, let's consider the silver side as tactics, the gold as strategy.
Contemplating the golden circle within the silver side, this represents the strategy you find inside tactics. Its opposite form, which is the silver circle within the gold side, is the necessary tactic by which a strategy must be executed.
Without tactics, any strategy is stillborn, just theory, no facts or actions. Without strategy, tactics lead nowhere and are vulnerable to every mental gap from simply mindlessness to complete stupidity. Each side requires the other for our circle to be complete.
Now let's look again. The silver side is today, January 11, 2011. The Gold side is the future, in my vision, specifically December 7, 2023. Our task today is to grab some of the golden power of that future moment and bring it back here to the present. Or, if you like flipping that the other way, our task is to see right here in the present the very power of the forces that will lead to our industry's total conquest in 2023. The Yin Yang is designed to flip back and forth, or to cycle round and round in a smooth flow.
We'll start working on application in a moment, but first allow me one more visual aid; the famous Necker Cube:
http://www.uncg.edu/~whanthon/optical_illusions_jul06/necker_cube.jpgThe blue is in front, 2011...the green is in front, 2023...the blue is in front...the green is in front...you're getting very sleepy...oh, that's a different lesson...or is it?...
Executing Transformation
So what do we do with these visual tools, how do we apply them? Let's consider the conditions that are trapping us and see if we can't find a hint about the way forward by finding the strategic answer hidden inside our tactical dilemma.
· The Dead Rookie Challenge? Currently, we live in an almost purely sink or swim world for newbies. We've invested almost infinitely in training them, but still, we have not given them what they truly require. Strategically, might it be possible to break all difficulties down into the smallest possible pieces and give each new recruiter a type of near or even actual certainty of action?
· Constantly Disappearing Key Accounts? Could it be that we might redefine the very relationship to our best accounts, and rise to higher levels of value and strategic contribution? Perhaps it is us who, by losing ourselves in the placements we strive for, fail to rise to the level of actual support for the true missions our client firms must win. If we look away from our own function in making placements to both the practices of our clients in hiring and the very missions that their new hires are being sent on, might we not provide a kind of value that is not only irreplaceable, but that will secure our relationships themselves, granting us the long window required to create and deliver true strategic value?
· Recruiters' Political Blindness? Who is actually better positioned to log and record every conceivable political challenge in serving our clients and candidates? If we create this exhaustive list, will we not become the most politically savvy players on the field? If our list is clearly laid out and complete, we will find the answer to every possible political challenge. We'll finally be more than prepared, we'll be the most prepared politicians and servants in the business world.
· Our Lousy Reputation? This may be the area of greatest strategic opportunity of all. A short 150 years ago, doctors were not much more respected than barbers and were a good deal more dangerous to patronize. They killed as often as they cured. What changed their status? Science did. They discovered the method of actually curing and being able to test and prove the science driving their work. We may never have an equivalent science. But, we can test and prove our methods, and more, we can dedicate ourselves to the true fulfillment of strategic needs for both candidates and clients alike. When we care as much about the strategic value we deliver as the medical profession cared about its science, we will transform our reputation completely.
· Hand Off The Recruiter? Each player, including HR, must be served in the end. Still, when we know the value we deliver to the corporation itself, and politically when we know the value we deliver to the most powerful players, we will get out in front of this hand off. Another transformation indicated is simply not accepting the hand off as we so often do. Sometimes, we may just say no.
· The Vanishing Flow Of Placements? Look at the greatest performers among us. They do not suffer either the typical ruts, or dead zones that the rest of us suffer. How do they do it? Surely we know it has to be possible? The answer cannot be in tactics alone. There are strategies that point the way. But, before we can find those strategies we have to start looking for them! We can't simply look for the next best tactic and think we'll get our transformation. It cannot be. We MUST become students of the strategy of recruiting itself, and of consistent creation of placement funnels and pipelines that flow predictably, or at least vastly more predictably than most of us are able to enjoy today.
If you take nothing else away from today's lesson, hold onto this. Inside each tactical limitation there is a strategic opportunity for transformation. Even if you don't know how to complete the transformation, the first step is seeing the possibility and dedicating yourself to finding the steps you must take. You cannot execute the tactics of transformation without the vision that strategic clarity inspires. Set your sights there, and you'll be able to, through that dedication, discover the tactics you require.
