He’s not wrong, and yet with one forgivable but critical omission, this optimism misses something enormous. Humble and smart are generally valuable in any workplace. Whether “hungry” is, is entirely contextual. It works for some teams only. Lencioni's ideal team player is decidedly un-ideal in many or most environments, unlikely to stay long if by some miracle he makes it through the hiring process.
A safe approach to hiring is selecting for a limited and fixed set of experiences. We judge skill by time spent with each, or occasionally ask specific questions which (we hope) gives us some confidence that our initial impression is not glaringly wrong. Having been on both sides of an interview table, I’m unconvinced most questions asked give the data we need for an optimal decision. When we advertise an opening we build a laundry list of “wants”, deem more than a few as critical, and tick off the candidate's work against each. We choose the cheapest person who has the most tick marks. We open the position as soon as a shortage of internal capability opens up, and our primary focus is on filling those capabilities. We plan for a job description which will not change significantly during our tenure and for a candidate that will not as well. In short, the ideal candidate is making a primarily lateral move in his role, and the carrots we offer become slightly higher pay or other secondary, role-agnostic perks.
I’ve read countless job descriptions for tech roles. For my own field, I would say 95% came from the same playbook. You have a list of 10-20 duties that the candidate will do, and then 10-20 requirements that the “ideal candidate” must bring. Maybe, at the top, is a general blurb about the success of the company at a level that won't affect most of us. The material is dry and is meant to be. In many cases the point is for prospects to take themselves out of the running, seeing that they miss 5 out of 20 required experiences or credentials, never mind that the last person who held the role began with only 5 out of 20.
In fact, the point of the entire hiring process, end-to-end, seems built on finding reasons not to hire, assuming a starting stable of somewhat acceptable prospects. The role is static. The need is static. HR costs and time are acutely visible with turnover. Longevity, stability and predictability are the truly critical points, but we don’t write those into the job description. If we talk about this at all, we will couch them in euphemism.
Now, for a definition: The “hungry” or “growth” candidate is the one with something to prove, perhaps to others, often to himself. He or she is looking to advance further and test his or her limits. In return, he or she is looking to work harder and accomplish more. Predictability and stability are low, because performance is intended to increase and will do so proportional to the challenge present. Because of the higher motivation and performance, we recognize something of “the best” in these people. Risk itself becomes a factor because the growth candidate needs the possibility of failure in order to judge success. Longevity is suspect because once growth plateaus, the role itself becomes a hindrance. The usual pay and perk increases are of limited value. The growth candidate may be willing to sacrifice a number of luxuries today for the possibility of leap-frogging rungs or time on the normal advancement ladder.
(Here we add a further point that those motivated by money principally will scale up or down their efforts on the expectation of material rewards. Since there is a limit at some point as to what they can be paid and how fast or often we can increase it, you are not looking at an internal drive for growth and at some point, when the pay or perks are no longer satisfactory you lose any performance advantage. This is not a proper growth candidate, although at times they may be hard to distinguish from those that are.)
The first problem in hiring for growth is that these dry job descriptions, recruiter checklist run-throughs and vague interview questions are not designed to bring in a “hungry” candidate. And yet, it is offensive to believe that we will expend our own time and effort hiring for less than “the best”. In fact, since mediocrity often begets mediocrity, our hopeful maintaining as individuals and companies that we are above average, if not the best, precludes us from believing that we are looking for anything other than “the best”. The problem arises in perpetuating processes designed to weed out the growth candidates while affirming to ourselves this is the sort of go-getter we are looking for. If we practice calling merely adequate “the best”, when we finally need “the best” we will likely be unable to recognize it.
The second problem lies in the very way we view success in the position: primarily acceptable, consistent and long-term duties and behaviors, according to a set expectation of the role, or the real experience of the employee who previously held the role. I’ve asked often to an interviewer what are the markers at the 6 month and 2 year mark that will convince them I was a successful hire? If a candidate asked me this I would be delighted to tell them; because it’s specific and I like that they want to know. Nearly all of my received answers are phrased in vague language alluding to fitting in with the team effort. In other words: no specific tasks in view. No specific metrics and milestones. The growth candidate likely has some sense of the skills he or she would like to enhance. Metrics let them start thinking about what they will be doing. If we don’t have a strong sense of how we would like to position this employee, it is far more likely they will be spinning their wheels for a while until they (hopefully) carve out a niche for themselves that affords them the experiences they want.
Related to this, there is also very little incentive for middle managers to hire someone who in 10 years will be VP. Unless the growth candidate performs in such a way that his or her successes translates directly into the manager’s successes resulting also in a faster track for the manager, performance won’t simply drop once the new employee moves on, but any extra work they were handling will fall on the less capable, further reducing team performance. No sensible person wants to hire someone that will cause these problems down the line without a more-than compensating advantage.
A third problem lies in the on-boarding process. The growth candidate is looking to be put to work. He left comfort and stability behind to take the new position. Most on-boarding processes are woefully inadequate to support this person. You want 30, 60, 90 day targets in place as to what they will accomplish. They are looking to achieve more, faster. Give them achievements useful to get them up to speed fast, and then push them to capacity. And yet, in my own experiences and those of many others, on-boarding is basically one or two weeks of HR paperwork, then either very basic tasks that others hope to offload, or simply spinning wheels until you figure out the work culture and process and begin to contribute. Beyond that, if the work pace is high, but repetitive, or otherwise low, you will breed frustration, from the new employee, from the older ones who will sense the changed morale, and from your manager expectations. A growth candidate, once disengaged, can easily become a low performer, disinterested and even antagonistic.
Fourthly, the value proposition of a growth candidate is very different from that of the traditional. The primary draw will not be perks, or pay, or general comfort. Granted, there are lower limits for perks, pay and comfort to what a growth candidate needs in order to sustain the desired growth, but if those are satisfied, the personal and professional growth are paramount. This is where you sell them. Companies focus on their brand for customers, but are very slow to develop and improve branding for those most critical to their success: their own employees. You work, for pay. Perks may be substituted or tolerated. The notion of the role itself being a selling point only makes sense when you are actively looking for under-qualified candidates, at least in the sense of the checklist of “wants”.
Traditionally, for the price of higher salary and perks we look for the most qualified candidate and tolerate the next best if we have no choice. Traditional candidates hope to demonstrate that they are what is needed. Growth candidates aim to become what is needed. For the growth candidate, we bank on their higher, motivated performance and faster “coming up to speed” against the risk of accepting someone who meets far less of our initial list, who we normally screen out at an early stage. Training and stretch projects will be be seen as tolerated and expensive perks, unless the company absolutely needs the employee to grow and could not afford to hire someone who won't. If Lou Adler is onto something, then the optimum candidate for performance and longevity must be presented with a minimum of 30% non-compensatory increase in their new responsibilities, and we should be looking for people who by definition are at least 25% under-qualified for the position. This makes no sense to many people, to toss out those who have more qualifications and look for those who have less, even if the latter can be had cheaper and your time to hire shortened.
Finally, and most critically, when we meet this hungry candidate, if they are looking at the role itself as the principal medium of growth, and if the consistency of growth dictates how long they are likely to stay, we need to be introspective and honest as to what we can offer them, which necessitates clarity on a number of questions. What do we value as a business? Where are we now? Where do we want to be? If we are clear on our vision, we will be able to articulate what we need in employees, whether we really need them for the current task list, or for the long haul, in a great many roles.
It isn’t enough simply to lay out the vague possibility of later promotion (if you do well, management may upgrade you). The probability of growth is defined by the probability of the company itself developing and growing in a way that is likely to need people who adapt fast and push hard, where stagnation and predictability are liabilities. We cannot capture or keep growth candidates if there is simply no underlying need for what they bring. And if that need does not exist, then they become a double edged sword and can threaten even the mediocre performance of our teams.
In short, if we are telling ourselves that we are looking for hungry candidates, we need to already be running the sort of teams that absolutely need and rely on them. We are doing ourselves no favors by prioritizing “fully grown” candidates for lateral moves while telling ourselves we will only accept the best (and treating everyone else as a pretender).
If we really want the hungry candidates, we need to stop looking for reasons not to hire and start examining work histories to find the reasons to hire based on a longer term view. We need a clear long-term vision and a present need that will leverage what they bring. Growth is not a perk we offer them. Salary is a perk. If they sacrifice salary for much higher marketability, salary follows anyway.
We need as well the honest (and highly unlikely) introspection that leads to a conclusion that in not developing the processes and priorities that lead to hiring the hungriest candidates, we are capitulating to mediocrity, no no more new ground or leaps ahead. Many businesses once disrupted their industries until they grew to a point where concern for losing ground won over the anticipation of new ground. This is where profits began to hinge on cost cutting measures rather than generating new products and capabilities. This is where we hire for longevity, predictability and stability, excepting the occasional bright star that breathes new energy into the mix, rather than attempting to build a team of hungry performers and set them free.
Too often we focus on Lencioni’s question of how to identify the best team players, neglecting that his hungry ideal may be absolutely the wrong fit, as if the lack of our team performance hinges more on a failure to recognize the talent we need. It’s an oft-repeated fallacy that ignorance is the source of most of our woes. Here, we fail to recognize the potential and significance of that talent because we don’t in fact need it. To find, capture, leverage and keep this ideal team player, we need to run our teams close to the ideal.
(For the record: I've discussed easily available distillations of Lencioni's idea, having not read The Ideal Team Player, nor his earlier work The Five Dysfunctions of a Team which may very well address this.)
The “hungry” candidate, also known as the “growth” candidate, is a double-edged sword.
I’ve read countless job descriptions for tech roles. For my own field, I would say 95% came from the same playbook. You have a list of 10-20 duties that the candidate will do, and then 10-20 requirements that the “ideal candidate” must bring. Maybe, at the top, is a general blurb about the success of the company at a level that won't affect most of us. The material is dry and is meant to be. In many cases the point is for prospects to take themselves out of the running, seeing that they miss 5 out of 20 required experiences or credentials, never mind that the last person who held the role began with only 5 out of 20.
In fact, the point of the entire hiring process, end-to-end, seems built on finding reasons not to hire, assuming a starting stable of somewhat acceptable prospects. The role is static. The need is static. HR costs and time are acutely visible with turnover. Longevity, stability and predictability are the truly critical points, but we don’t write those into the job description. If we talk about this at all, we will couch them in euphemism.
Now, for a definition: The “hungry” or “growth” candidate is the one with something to prove, perhaps to others, often to himself. He or she is looking to advance further and test his or her limits. In return, he or she is looking to work harder and accomplish more. Predictability and stability are low, because performance is intended to increase and will do so proportional to the challenge present. Because of the higher motivation and performance, we recognize something of “the best” in these people. Risk itself becomes a factor because the growth candidate needs the possibility of failure in order to judge success. Longevity is suspect because once growth plateaus, the role itself becomes a hindrance. The usual pay and perk increases are of limited value. The growth candidate may be willing to sacrifice a number of luxuries today for the possibility of leap-frogging rungs or time on the normal advancement ladder.
(Here we add a further point that those motivated by money principally will scale up or down their efforts on the expectation of material rewards. Since there is a limit at some point as to what they can be paid and how fast or often we can increase it, you are not looking at an internal drive for growth and at some point, when the pay or perks are no longer satisfactory you lose any performance advantage. This is not a proper growth candidate, although at times they may be hard to distinguish from those that are.)
The first problem in hiring for growth is that these dry job descriptions, recruiter checklist run-throughs and vague interview questions are not designed to bring in a “hungry” candidate. And yet, it is offensive to believe that we will expend our own time and effort hiring for less than “the best”. In fact, since mediocrity often begets mediocrity, our hopeful maintaining as individuals and companies that we are above average, if not the best, precludes us from believing that we are looking for anything other than “the best”. The problem arises in perpetuating processes designed to weed out the growth candidates while affirming to ourselves this is the sort of go-getter we are looking for. If we practice calling merely adequate “the best”, when we finally need “the best” we will likely be unable to recognize it.
The second problem lies in the very way we view success in the position: primarily acceptable, consistent and long-term duties and behaviors, according to a set expectation of the role, or the real experience of the employee who previously held the role. I’ve asked often to an interviewer what are the markers at the 6 month and 2 year mark that will convince them I was a successful hire? If a candidate asked me this I would be delighted to tell them; because it’s specific and I like that they want to know. Nearly all of my received answers are phrased in vague language alluding to fitting in with the team effort. In other words: no specific tasks in view. No specific metrics and milestones. The growth candidate likely has some sense of the skills he or she would like to enhance. Metrics let them start thinking about what they will be doing. If we don’t have a strong sense of how we would like to position this employee, it is far more likely they will be spinning their wheels for a while until they (hopefully) carve out a niche for themselves that affords them the experiences they want.
Related to this, there is also very little incentive for middle managers to hire someone who in 10 years will be VP. Unless the growth candidate performs in such a way that his or her successes translates directly into the manager’s successes resulting also in a faster track for the manager, performance won’t simply drop once the new employee moves on, but any extra work they were handling will fall on the less capable, further reducing team performance. No sensible person wants to hire someone that will cause these problems down the line without a more-than compensating advantage.
A third problem lies in the on-boarding process. The growth candidate is looking to be put to work. He left comfort and stability behind to take the new position. Most on-boarding processes are woefully inadequate to support this person. You want 30, 60, 90 day targets in place as to what they will accomplish. They are looking to achieve more, faster. Give them achievements useful to get them up to speed fast, and then push them to capacity. And yet, in my own experiences and those of many others, on-boarding is basically one or two weeks of HR paperwork, then either very basic tasks that others hope to offload, or simply spinning wheels until you figure out the work culture and process and begin to contribute. Beyond that, if the work pace is high, but repetitive, or otherwise low, you will breed frustration, from the new employee, from the older ones who will sense the changed morale, and from your manager expectations. A growth candidate, once disengaged, can easily become a low performer, disinterested and even antagonistic.
Fourthly, the value proposition of a growth candidate is very different from that of the traditional. The primary draw will not be perks, or pay, or general comfort. Granted, there are lower limits for perks, pay and comfort to what a growth candidate needs in order to sustain the desired growth, but if those are satisfied, the personal and professional growth are paramount. This is where you sell them. Companies focus on their brand for customers, but are very slow to develop and improve branding for those most critical to their success: their own employees. You work, for pay. Perks may be substituted or tolerated. The notion of the role itself being a selling point only makes sense when you are actively looking for under-qualified candidates, at least in the sense of the checklist of “wants”.
Traditionally, for the price of higher salary and perks we look for the most qualified candidate and tolerate the next best if we have no choice. Traditional candidates hope to demonstrate that they are what is needed. Growth candidates aim to become what is needed. For the growth candidate, we bank on their higher, motivated performance and faster “coming up to speed” against the risk of accepting someone who meets far less of our initial list, who we normally screen out at an early stage. Training and stretch projects will be be seen as tolerated and expensive perks, unless the company absolutely needs the employee to grow and could not afford to hire someone who won't. If Lou Adler is onto something, then the optimum candidate for performance and longevity must be presented with a minimum of 30% non-compensatory increase in their new responsibilities, and we should be looking for people who by definition are at least 25% under-qualified for the position. This makes no sense to many people, to toss out those who have more qualifications and look for those who have less, even if the latter can be had cheaper and your time to hire shortened.
Finally, and most critically, when we meet this hungry candidate, if they are looking at the role itself as the principal medium of growth, and if the consistency of growth dictates how long they are likely to stay, we need to be introspective and honest as to what we can offer them, which necessitates clarity on a number of questions. What do we value as a business? Where are we now? Where do we want to be? If we are clear on our vision, we will be able to articulate what we need in employees, whether we really need them for the current task list, or for the long haul, in a great many roles.
It isn’t enough simply to lay out the vague possibility of later promotion (if you do well, management may upgrade you). The probability of growth is defined by the probability of the company itself developing and growing in a way that is likely to need people who adapt fast and push hard, where stagnation and predictability are liabilities. We cannot capture or keep growth candidates if there is simply no underlying need for what they bring. And if that need does not exist, then they become a double edged sword and can threaten even the mediocre performance of our teams.
In short, if we are telling ourselves that we are looking for hungry candidates, we need to already be running the sort of teams that absolutely need and rely on them. We are doing ourselves no favors by prioritizing “fully grown” candidates for lateral moves while telling ourselves we will only accept the best (and treating everyone else as a pretender).
If we really want the hungry candidates, we need to stop looking for reasons not to hire and start examining work histories to find the reasons to hire based on a longer term view. We need a clear long-term vision and a present need that will leverage what they bring. Growth is not a perk we offer them. Salary is a perk. If they sacrifice salary for much higher marketability, salary follows anyway.
We need as well the honest (and highly unlikely) introspection that leads to a conclusion that in not developing the processes and priorities that lead to hiring the hungriest candidates, we are capitulating to mediocrity, no no more new ground or leaps ahead. Many businesses once disrupted their industries until they grew to a point where concern for losing ground won over the anticipation of new ground. This is where profits began to hinge on cost cutting measures rather than generating new products and capabilities. This is where we hire for longevity, predictability and stability, excepting the occasional bright star that breathes new energy into the mix, rather than attempting to build a team of hungry performers and set them free.
Too often we focus on Lencioni’s question of how to identify the best team players, neglecting that his hungry ideal may be absolutely the wrong fit, as if the lack of our team performance hinges more on a failure to recognize the talent we need. It’s an oft-repeated fallacy that ignorance is the source of most of our woes. Here, we fail to recognize the potential and significance of that talent because we don’t in fact need it. To find, capture, leverage and keep this ideal team player, we need to run our teams close to the ideal.
(For the record: I've discussed easily available distillations of Lencioni's idea, having not read The Ideal Team Player, nor his earlier work The Five Dysfunctions of a Team which may very well address this.)
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