The Art of Unlocking Potential
Ever since I started my VP of Engineering role at TourRadar to help achieve our vision of connecting people to life-enriching travel experiences, growing the team has been a top priority. As anyone who has ever worked for a fast-growing scale-up will tell you, there will always be more things to build and create than people to do it. No wonder “priorities,” “focus,” and “not enough resources” are some of the words most often heard in the corridors and meeting rooms.
Faced with the challenge of increasing the size and capacity of our Engineering team, the question becomes: how do we do it? Hiring is obviously a big part of the answer, but is it only a numbers game? Is it just about getting people in the door? Certainly not. People are not interchangeable like pawns on a chess board, or nameless like cogs in a machine.
Experience or Potential?
What kind of team are we looking to build? What are our goals? What constraints do we have? All of these are perpetual questions, for which the answers vary over time as the landscape shifts. However, having clarity on these is critical, as it is the basis for aligning everyone involved in the hiring process for the different roles, as well as to mitigate as much as possible for personal biases.
As an example, at TourRadar, we have been focused on getting Engineering Managers onboard not only because we believe a world-class management organization is key to happiness and success, we also did not have enough of it for the size our team grew into. We see having a strong coaching and mentorship capacity as non-negotiable to leveraging top individual contributor (IC) talent. As we successfully addressed that — for now — the strategy again shifted more towards attracting ICs.
One important question is whether you focus on experience or potential. Do you put a premium on what your candidates have already done in the past and the companies they’ve been in? Or do you side with the high-potential folks who don’t boast a fantastic resumé but display a growth mindset and cannot wait to take initiative and grab opportunities?
The right answer is probably “both.” Attracting people who have seen a level of scale that your company hasn’t gone through yet can be incredibly helpful, as it adds to your capacity to be proactive in change. On the other hand, experience can also potentially carve a groove too deep — people can be quite set in their ways and not always very adaptable to a reality that perhaps calls for a different touch. Expertise can box you in and make you less malleable, simply because it worked for you before.
But the bias is understandable: if we need to do X, let’s get a lot of people who have already done X before. Moreover, without experienced people who have seen a lot, how can we mentor the less experienced ones? Fair point. Still, there is a solid case to be made for getting good at detecting, attracting, signing up, and developing those who are just at the early stages of a great trajectory.
First, You Have to Believe
I still remember when I was interviewing for a previous employer. My years back in Portugal were not exactly the most profound professional experience, to put it mildly. So when I decided to move abroad, I was not an experienced developer. At the end of my final interview, the CTO said something I will never forget:
“You are not yet the senior I am looking for, but I am convinced that if you join my team now, in 6 or 12 months you will be.”
I was incredibly energized by this. Someone believed in my potential. I ended up getting an offer as a mid-level (frankly more on the lower end of that…) backend engineer, which I accepted. Two years later, I was a Director of Engineering, and a year after that I was leading an extended team of close to 50 people. I eventually left the company shortly after to become a VP of Engineering here at TourRadar.
The reason why I personally believe in potential is because someone believed in mine and I saw first hand it can work. I know it took a lot of drive and energy on my part, but startups and scale-ups are also full of opportunity waiting to be grabbed.
Hiring for Potential
How do you detect these types during the recruiting process? While we have to acknowledge that hiring people is far from an exact science, we have found some qualities to be highly correlated with the high-growth, high-potential people we look out for:
- They ask great questions. High potential people are extremely curious and just can’t wait to learn and know more. They know asking questions is the best way to learn about any topic. Since interviewing is a two-way affair, it’s also on you to give explicit room for and encourage those questions.
- They have a history of advancing their own interests. These folks don’t wait for the world to fall into place — they bend it to their will. They’re probably dying to tell you about accomplishments they are proud of.
- They have high energy. Which does not mean they are all over the place. It means instead the conversation will likely energize you, the “vibe” will be positive, and time will fly.
- They are self-aware. They not only know what they want (and don’t want), they are usually quite perceptive about what they are good at and what they are not. Self-awareness can be learned, but it is usually built into people with high potential. And without it, you’re flying blind — you just can’t grow properly.
- They are coachable. If they don’t listen much, odds are it’s going to be hard to coach them. Coaching the “uncoachable” is like swimming upstream — exhausting and frustrating.
The key is to dig into how well equipped to learn the person is. The better they are, the faster they will learn. And if they are learning machines, the sky is the limit. It is then on you, and your team, to make the most out of that.
Stoking the Fire
The flip side of all this is that these people are hell-bent on growing themselves, learning as much as they can, and making an impact. If your company is not catering to that, they will leave. Full stop. No hard feelings.
So what can you as a manager, and as an organization, do to tap into that potential and make the most out of it? A few things, among many, come to mind:
- Challenge them, relentlessly, just beyond their comfort zone. The best way to learn is to always be on the edge, pushed just outside your limits. Like when lifting weights, you may barely make that last rep, but you know that’s because you’re improving the muscle.
- Give them meaningful work. They may yearn for challenges, but spinning wheels and standing still is not an option. Translating tasks to code and shipping like a robot is not enough. There must be a purpose and the connection to it has to be clear.
- Coach them and support them. Don’t assume they have a built-in auto-pilot mode. The whole point of potential is that it must be developed. Unwavering support is essential, even if it becomes less and less necessary as they progress.
- Reward them adequately. Not just with higher compensation, but with increased scope and more responsibility (and accountability). Let them know when they have done a good job — be explicit about it, don’t assume they know. Be their champion.
- Always give honest feedback. Proactively establish a relationship based on radical candor — care personally, and challenge directly. Reinforce the good practices and offer constructive criticism in areas where there is room for improvement. Don’t bullshit them.
- Be a role model. High potential people are like sponges — they will absorb what’s around them, good and bad, because they may not yet be mature (or experienced) enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. As a manager, you must set an impeccable example. What you say and what you do must align, or trust will go out the window in no time.
Bringing experience from the outside is invaluable. High-growth companies have no time to waste, so the head start and the ability to be more proactive do matter a lot. But real experience out there is scarce and the war for talent is fierce. Building up your capacity as a company to identify, attract and develop high-potential, growth-mindset employees is one of the biggest levers you can have at your disposal. And few things are more rewarding than observing the trajectory of a more junior employee who becomes the senior that mentors the next wide-eyed apprentice coming in.
Interested in joining TourRadar and helping provide life-enriching travel experiences? We’re always looking for talented and passionate individuals to join our engineering team!
