Drucker on Talent

One of my favorite business thinkers is Peter Drucker, author of The Effective Executive. Here are a few selected quotes, along with my reflections on how they apply to interviewing and hiring:

“What the executive needs are criteria that enable him to work on the truly important, that is, on contributions and results, even though the criteria are not found in the flow of events.”

This is why “Results Expected” must form the core of your hiring strategy for a given role. It’s also a kindness for the person you hire—you are giving them transparency around expectations and ultimately setting them up to succeed in the role.

“Executives are forced to keep ‘operating’ unless they take positive action to change the reality in which they live and work.”

In this context, Drucker is referring to someone being who is promoted (e.g. CRO → CEO) and yet still continues to operate in their prior domain (the newly-minted CEO still continues to run Sales as the default mode.)

Drucker claims that the executive must change this “by deliberate action” and in this context that clearly means finding A-level talent to fill the vacancy and start achieving the relevant objectives. This will enable the new CEO to devote their full effort towards actually being the CEO. (This sounds obvious in theory. In practice, I see CEOs—especially founders—struggle with this all the time.)

“I soon learned there is no ‘effective personality.’ The effective executives I have seen differ widely in their temperament and their abilities…”

We’re generally skeptical of personality tests as a way to predict on-the-job success. Drucker concurs. A demonstrated history of accomplishing impressive things in areas relevant—or analogous—to your Target tends to matter much more than the fact that someone is an ENTJ or an Enneagram 3. You still have room within the Competencies section of the Target to clarify important cultural norms and working modalities that you value.

If you have any recommended authors whose advice on people, talent, or hiring you admire—please let me know. I’ll be covering other important thinkers in future posts.

PS—Jordan and I hope that all of you have a restful and rejuvenating holiday break. We’ll take next week off and see you again at the start of the new year.

Happy Hiring,
Matt