What Every Manager Can Learn From NFL Recruiting
For every team in the National Football League, success is measured on whether its players, coaches and yes, its talent recruiting system, are good enough to earn it a spot in the Super Bowl. And whether you’re a pigskin fan or not, the NFL’s talent scouting and succession programs can be particularly instructive for today’s hiring organizations.
The keys to success in professional football, it turns out, are remarkably similar to the keys to success in business, because of the importance of having the best-skilled players in the most critical roles.
The way NFL teams draft and recruit talent can offer some compelling insights for lab managers concerned about keeping their workforce on the leading edge.
So says executive recruiter Isaac Cheifetz, author of Hiring Secrets of the NFL: How Your Company Can Select Talent Like A Champion. Cheifetz has recruited managers for technology and consulting companies for most of the past 20 years from his office in Minneapolis.
And given that he’s originally from New York, it hasn’t been easy for him to watch the New England Patriots develop a reputation for building the quintessential talent pipeline – and a reputation for being a perennial Super Bowl contender – over the past several seasons.
The Patriots have positioned their team for success by creating a culture that puts the team before the individual, Cheifetz says, by taking a chance on relatively inexperienced players and by insisting that each starter be backed up by a hardworking sub.
“What the Patriots do really well is…they’re really great at taking people and leveraging their strengths in their system,” says Cheifetz, who cites management guru Peter Drucker by invoking this important team-building consideration: “‘What does he or she do well and how can we leverage that?’”
The author says the Patriots have proven that you shouldn’t have to pay a king’s ransom to recruit top performers, he adds.
That’s because hustle, intelligence and good (not exceptional) physical ability can go a long way when you’re part of a system, a development pipeline and a culture that demands personal excellence from everyone on the team.
