RUN WITH THE Big dogS™ newsletter
Volume 3, issue 40

Are you overlooking a major source of talent without realizing it?...John

Management idea

In one of our strategic plan review meetings, we were discussing the increasing challenge of finding good sales people. There was a sense of excitement when we discovered a major breakthrough that had just doubled the potential pool of candidates.  What was this magic breakthrough?

When the client's company was founded, the only employees their blue collar customers would deal with were men.  That was true in the nineteen thirties, the forties, the fifties, and, well, it was just the way things were.  Without being conscious of it, the entire organization was built around recruiting men.   When a woman recently applied and wouldn't go away, they hired her with the assumption she'd fail.  Imagine the surprise when she not only succeeded, but did so faster than half of the rookies hired the same month.

Peter Drucker tells the story of an early consulting experience, doing time motion studies for the Army. In those days it took two people to fire a cannon. After they completed the entire cycle of loading wadding, gun powder, and shell they stood on either side of the gun, one with his right hand on the wheel and the other hand extended into space.  The other with his left hand on the firing lanyard and his free hand extended in mid air. When questioned why the men held their hands out, they only replied,  "Because that is how I was trained - sir!"  When Drucker found an old, retired master sergeant minding the base museum he found his answer - "Ah, they're holding the mules." How many non-existent mules are their in your organization?