Hiring for GR: Who should be on the team?
1. Are GR teams weak link or strong link organizations?
In “The numbers game”, Chris Anderson and David Sally distinguish two kinds of organizations: Weak and strong link teams. The classical examples given are a basketball versus a soccer team: While in Basketball far-above-average stars really make a difference and almost guarantee success, soccer teams depend more on how good the weakest player in the team is. You could have Messi and Lewandowski on your team and lose every single game if your defense is crap.
So are GR organizations weak or strong link teams? I asked a couple of GR managers. Interestingly, answers vary widely. I heard arguments for both: Some think that it is more important to have some GR superstars in key positions (be it in an important market or as liaison officers for key business units), while others argue that if you drop the ball too often, GR is badly managing corporate risks. I tend to believe that GR functions are weak link teams. A couple of stars will not save you if you have too many underperformers in the team, for the simple reason that GR is just a very complex trade that requires many decisions on prioritization, distinguishing signal from noise and risk assessments all the time. Means: Focusing on your weak links makes a lot of sense. To start with: Don’t hire weak links in the first place!
2. Mindsets vs. rolodex: What are you hiring for?
One of the most problematic aspects of GR functions is the hiring pattern. GR functions often hire for expertise in the political system of a specific country and a network of contacts. I think this is the wrong approach. Contacts should be an afterthought. If you are a relevant stakeholder, it is not that difficult to get airtime with decision-makers. Expertise in a political system is no rocket science either — it takes a couple of months to figure it out. So why prioritize it when hiring?
Rather, you should prioritize mindsets and transferable skills. What you are really looking for:
- Capability to think in analytical models: GR is all about prioritization. Analytical models help to distinguish signal from noise. The most valuable GR managers are those who can apply analytical models to a messy reality.
- Storytelling skills: GR is about communication. The challenge is more often than not to communicate your strategies and value creation to the business leaders of your companies than to politicians or journalists. So make sure you hire people who are skilled in creating a narrative why your topics are important.
- Growth mindset: Everyone talks about growth mindsets these days. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. We believe that GR requires an extraordinary amount of intellectual flexibility and a high degree of learning capabilities. A positive attitude to the never-ending change of corporate transformation processes is essential to survive. You also cannot afford employees who only feel comfortable with clean boxes of responsibilities — life is messy, and GR work particularly so.
3. Hiring in practice: GR assessment cases
GR hiring is more often than not a rather unstructured exercise. It might be just a couple of “conversations”. Nothing against open formats when recruiting — but it might be a missed opportunity to test the candidates analytical capabilities. That’s easily done — here is how I hire:
- Take a nasty, badly written and complex briefing that you received from a legal consultant or the like. Make sure it completely misses the point of GR — namely providing strategic advice on possibilities to find common ground with governments — but rather reiterates legal rules that create obstacles to solutions.
- Send it to the candidate three days prior to your interview. Ask the candidate to give a GR presentation on the case to an executive. The candidate has seven minutes to present, can use powerpoint or submit a pre-read memo if needed but nothing else.
You will be surprised how many candidates will either be incapable of presenting a complex case in seven minutes in a style appreciated by executives or miss the point that GR is not about repeating legal arguments, but seeing opportunities where lawyers see barriers. Usually around 15% of candidates perform well — these are the people you want to have on your team.
Curious in your thoughts on hiring!
