I was a minor-hockey referee for fourteen years. I was also a professional hockey mascot for five years. And I played hockey up until I was fouteen years old. Roughly figuring, that puts me in hockey rinks for almost thirty years. I learned a thing or two about business in my years at the rink. It's a dream of every kid who straps on a pair of skates to play in the big league one day. Not so much for the glory of going to the "show" but mostly because of the paycheck that comes with it. When money is involved, it's business.
Without a doubt, on most game nights, there is at least one hockey scout (affiliated with a pro or semi-pro team) floating around the rink - at least if the home team is somewhat competitive. That scout, who works for a higher-calibre team is looking for young undeveloped players who may have enough talent to be able to play in the big leagues one day. It is the job of the scout to drive ridiculously long hours through awful weather and drink some of the world's worst coffee all in the hopes of finding that one player that the team can groom, train and mentally prepare to move up the ranks.
Every team that wants to be competitive has scouts of their own visiting rinks in small towns and big cities. It doesn't matter whether it's hockey, baseball, football, basketball or ping-pong. If there's a pro league somewhere, there are minor league scouts looking for players to fill out the pro rosters. Scouting is necessary in sports just to remain competitive. Those without a good scouting system usually dwindle near the bottom of the league standings.
However, if a team chose not to scout at all, then that team would end up filling out their rosters with the players that no one else wanted. Oh sure, some of those players might end up being good utility players, but the real talent was spotted months and sometimes years earlier by the scouts. Those future stars were likely offered contracts or at least incentives by other teams long before they joined their new team. The team that doesn't scout - in essence - gets the leftovers and the throw-aways.
So, with that being said, let me ask this: is that how you run your business? Are you doing nothing for recruiting and development so that when it comes time to fill a position you end up taking what the rest of the market has left behind? Do you think you can run a strong team of superstars by hiring that way?
The truth is that competition for talent is heating up in the corporate world. Companies are sponsoring programs at universities and colleges, are donating money to build infrastructure at the halls of learning all in an effort to making their presence known on-campus. They too, just like sports teams, are looking for the next superstar or highly-talented employee. They are sending their recruiters to find these people. They have a plan of recruitment and development and will hire these future stars with no particular job in mind - just so the competition won't snap them up first.
As a boss, it's not just with customers that you need to be sharp. You need to be forward thinking and be ahead of the game when it comes to finding players for your team. You can't just expect to put an ad in the paper and attract the best of the best. The best of the best have been courted, contracted and are likely not looking for something else. Therefore, you're not likely to find them.
Once these future stars have been secured by a company, they'll end up jumping from department to department within the company in the hopes that they will either find a department they like or they get a little experience in each department as they are groomed for leadership positions. These forward thinking companies are far ahead of the curve and are snapping up the best people which gives them a tremendous business edge in the marketplace.
Make no mistake, if you're not actively seeking new recruits all of the time and have a strategy in place to keep in touch with these future stars regularly, someone else is going to beat you to the punch. You had better be prepared to accept mediocre performance from your people if you choose to not actively seek out the high-performer. But then maybe you're already reminded of that - everytime your competitor gets another one up on you.
Oh, and just so you know, the real superstars of tomorrow don't read newspapers. They won't see your ad anyway. Stop wasting your money and your time.
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