Christopher Barron explains his model, The Talent Triangle, designed to help executives make better hires.

abstract_triangles2

Guest blog by Christopher Barron, who served as a CIO in the energy sector for over a decade. He is the author of the book, The Talent Triangle.

If you are like me, or have hired more than a handful of employees in your career, you will probably agree that this process is one of the hardest, but most important things that you do as an IT leader. None of us can be successful without building great teams that can collectively produce superior results. This is the paradox of management – the most important skill you need is the one you are least likely to naturally possess.

christopher_barron2_rndTen years ago I was one of those leaders who was good at hiring, but not predictably so. As the CIO of a multi-billion dollar company, my career depended on hiring great people who could provide the direction necessary to move the IT function, consisting of hundreds of people, in a positive direction. The problem was that for every three hires I would make, two would be just right and one would be wrong.

A Costly Bad Hire

Here is one painful example: My company was expanding to Asia, starting with the ramp up of a sales and distribution center in Tokyo. After the initial set up, we needed to bring operations to a normal rhythm. This meant that we would have to recruit a number of local people to permanently fill the roles that had been temporarily held by ex-pats. Many of us were new to multicultural hiring and had the dual problem of really getting to know people where English was their second language. One of the most important roles for which we were hiring was the one that would manage all of the IT people and functions for our Japan operations. After interviewing 16 candidates, we were no closer to finding a finalist. Then along came “Charles”, who was an American living in Japan, completely fluent in the local language. He was very charming and before long, we had a lucrative offer on the table. At the time, we felt like we had made a great offer. Not 60 days later, we had to terminate Charles’ employment at great expense because he was completely incapable of doing the functions of the job. Where had we gone wrong?

And there were other instances, I admit. So, I sought advice from experts who could provide insight on both why these failures were occurring and how to avoid them in the future. Some of these experts were consultants with whom I dealt directly. Others were intellectual giants from institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford, who had published materials that I was able to study. Some of the names may appear familiar: Elliot Jaques, Brian Hall, Susanne Cook-Greuter.

Four Components of Talent

After several years of consultations and studies, I began to see a pattern that applied to almost every person who works in a modern corporate environment. Utilizing the multiple perspectives of all the experts, I could see that everyone, from a hiring perspective, is made of four components:

  • Capability – essentially the mental “horsepower” needed to perform a given role

  • Values – how a person views the world and interacts with it

  • Motivations – the things that cause people to act in certain ways

  • Ego – the ability (or lack thereof) of a person to see beyond themselves and act in ways that incorporate the needs and feelings of others

In many ways, without even knowing it, we all use one or several of these components in our hiring decisions. Having insights on just one of the components provides great reference information about an individual. But what makes the components so valuable and useful to us when put together is the fact that each of them can be measured scientifically. The renowned individuals behind each one of the components developed ways to qualitatively measure any person. In other words, the approaches were designed to provide hard data on people, which eliminates guesswork. And as we know, when the guesswork is replaced by process, the results can be both astounding and repeatable.

The Talent Triangle

I took the four components and created a model called “The Talent Triangle”. When viewing candidates through the lens of each piece of the Talent Triangle with an eye to an overall fit within the model, I was able to immediately increase my rate of successful hires dramatically.

Talent_Triangle

Spending the time to gather the data on candidates can be both expensive and exhausting. Not every role rises to the level of need where this virtual dissection is necessary. But the criticality of making good decisions when hiring at the manager and director level and above easily warrants the time and money.

Where to Go from Here

If the process I’ve described for you is too difficult, expensive, or time consuming to follow then it will have no value. Here are a few tips that will allow you to get started quickly and easily.

  1. Go to the Talent Triangle website (www.talenttriangle.com) and download the book for free. It will give you quite a bit more information on all the components and answer questions in detail.
  2. If you are hiring for a key leadership position, partner with Dr. Glenn Mehltretter at PeopleFit to perform a capability assessment on your finalist candidates. Their services are affordable, fast, and accurate. Use the feedback they give you on each candidate’s capability to see if what you observed in the interview is supported or rejected by their assessment.
  3. After reading the “Values” chapter in “The Talent Triangle”, do a quick Google search for “Hall Tonna Values Map”. After spending about 15 minutes reading information on individual values, reflect on how individual value composition is a strength or liability within your leadership team(s).
  4. Pick one of your existing high performers (or even yourself). Go to the official Cook-Greuter website and pay the small fee to have your selection take the SCTi-Map assessment. You will get an incredibly detailed evaluation on the individual and his or her current level of ego development. This trait is very important at higher organization levels and this assessment can accurately predict a person’s ability to successfully navigate office politics and day-to-day interpersonal relationships.
  5. Email directly to me: cbarron@talenttriangle.com I would be happy to engage with you to answer questions or discuss the Talent Triangle concepts specific to your own needs.

The war for talent, especially in technology, is incredibly fierce. It is long past time that we learn that hiring, just like project management, software development, and customer service, is a scientific process. When we come to view it in that manner, we can take the magic out of it and use hard science to make great, repeatable decisions.

 Subscribe to The Heller Report

 

 

Roles We Recruit


 

Read our weekly e-newsletter packed with career advice and resources for the strategic technology leader, and information about active searches.

The Heller Report

Add a Comment

Ask These Revealing Leadership Questions When Recruiting Digital Trailblazers

Mar 27, 2024

Mark Sander of Azurity Pharmaceuticals on Leading in Times of Dynamic Growth and Change

Mar 27, 2024