Hiring right for successful digital transformation — my experience from three companies

Digital transformation within corporates is challenging given the scale. Worse still, getting the right people to develop the digital culture and live through the turbulence is even harder. Based on my experience in three companies, I have uncovered hiring strategies to get people who will stick together and make transformation happen.
Lesson 1: Do not hire stars
This is the worst crime committed by all three companies. When digital divisions were formed and big budgets were approved, their mandates were to hire “the best people”. There is almost a model answer to what “best” means — hungry for opportunities, bright and eloquent, excellent technical skills, passionate about technology/product/traction, looking for a stage to get success and showcase their capabilities, never settled. They would come in for an interview, and walk out with an offer immediately.
No doubt they are good, but they are more suited to start-ups where the product is the key. If you work and create a good product, then you have done your job well and the start-up benefits. In digital transformation, developing the product is only part of the job, helping with the transformation and living through the challenges brought about by transformation is the other equally big part. For this to go well, emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills and perseverance are requisite. These are qualities overlooked by the stars, and they feel frustrated and pack their bags soon.
Lesson 2: Hire slowly and avoid contractors
Digital transformations came out of threat of annihilation by fast-growing start-ups. The senior management is impatient, and so the digital divisions draft an ambitious product plan and hired an army to get the plan rolling.
One of the digital directors once prided himself on having read through 4000 CVs in 3 months to hire 40 people, another decided to hire consultancies at £1,000 per man-day, while the third rented a 5-storey building and filled it with 170 employees within a year. Windfall for recruiters, personal records for the directors, but disaster for the teams and companies.
When the digital directors’ sole focus is on hiring, the steering of the product plan suffer. When all members are new, corporate culture becomes hard to form and they start to fall back to their previous workplaces’ practices. Contractors get things done, but they drain the budget and digital expertise vanishes the moment they depart. But the worst is that product plans do not get right the first time round, and when iterations are required, the companies either end up firing people they have just hired, or undergo a time-consuming re-deployment exercise. Hardly agile at all and the digital division looks like amateurs in the eyes of corporate veterans.
Take time to build the product plan, and let it go through natural iterations. Hire permanent staff gradually as the plan expands, and use the time to build a digital culture suited to the company.
Lesson 3: Get people who knows how to make choices
It goes without saying that technical and professional skills are important. But that’s just the hygiene factor. It also goes without saying that do not hire based on human behaviour straits (extravert, introvert, outspoken, reserved etc), which are poor indicator of how they will perform.
Instead, spend time asking how they choose in different corporate situations. My favourite is whether an engineer prefers looking into a new technology or deepening their skills in an existing area; another is what project they would pick up to improve team efficiency or morale. These questions are reflective of their work-related interactions and dynamics. Can they weigh up what’s best from their own perspective and the team’s perspectives? Are they rushing into a decision or taking time to think? Are they engaging their colleagues (interviewers) in arriving at the appropriate choice?
In digital transformation where inter-divisional conflicts are frequent, the team must hang together and make decisions that give the digital team the best chance of surviving. These decisions are not pure technical-based, but must also consider other divisions’ preferences and long-term implications on digital transformation. People who cannot consider factors and make good choices will under-perform or even become counter-productive.
There is no short cut to digital transformation. Take the time to get the right people to fuel the iterative product plan and build a great digital culture to spread across the company.
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