Here’s a reminder that most of us who struggled with a freelance ‘business’ as you did are not going to be handed such a cherry opportunity by their relatives. For us, ‘salvation’ will most likely come (if we’re lucky) from a less-than-ideal 9-5, from a boss for whom ‘cultivating a culture’ means firing everyone who doesn’t agree with him/her. Wide-eyed bootstrapping anecdotes of ‘following your dreams’ usually bear the scent of privilege, and are endlessly frustrating to those of us facing the day-to-day realities of soaring rents, rampant unemployment, and competition from recent grads 20 years our junior.

We expect skills and experience, of course. But we also need creativity, improvisation, dynamic leadership, agile communication, integrity, attitude and technological acumen. We need leaders with a tolerance for churn, the blood of change, but with a heart that offers others a calm center.

About 10 years ago I took a chance. After a few tumultuous years freelancing in TV production and attempting to call that scrambling “a business,” I needed a serious change. I was unhappy. My psyche was battered, and I couldn’t figure out what I really wanted or what to do next.

At the time my father was running an executive search and leadership advisory firm and he asked if I wanted to work with him. I wish I could remember how it felt, because I’m sure it felt like a preposterous idea. Working with my dad? On something I knew nothing about and had only a cursory interest in? Haha.

Fast forward to 2010. I had learned every nook and cranny of the business and enjoyed it: the process of working with clients and candidates, the right way to recruit and interview, a broader view of what people actually meant to the companies we worked with. And working with my dad, a man I truly admire, was awesome.

I knew he was retiring. We discussed it often, and we discussed his legacy. He offered me a choice. I could take over the business or dismantle it and start over.

I wanted to take it apart. Or I wanted to keep it. I wasn’t sure. I was being handed someone else’s baby and then I was asked what I wanted to do with it. What a surreal opportunity.

We need leaders with a tolerance for churn, the blood of change, but with a heart that offers others a calm center.

So in 2010-2011, I spread my wings. I did executive search, yes, but I also coached dozens of people on career and business matters; I facilitated strategic planning sessions and board retreats; I wrote; I took classes; I worked with non-profits on organizational design, committee structures, and board development; I started building a product; I passed up the big corporate clients to work with smaller growing organizations with missions and products and services I believed in.

It wasn’t all just blind wandering. I had a purpose. My goal was to reinvent CHM Partners(or whatever it would be called), and I needed to find out what that really meant. I wanted to truly discover and meet the needs of my customers, to figure out how to nurture the businesses of people that I care about. And to do it with purpose.

I needed to throw out “the way it’s always been done” and help solve a problem that’s been around since anyone hired anyone: how to find and keep and nurture the best damn people so you can change the world.

Finding and cultivating transformational leaders to accept the challenges of our time: that’s difficult. But it’s what I’m here to do.

For all practical purposes, I’ve been the new Managing Partner and CEO of CHM Partners since the beginning of the year. But this is the official announcement.

This is also the gauntlet. I’m unconcerned with tired old business models or whatever “consulting” or “executive recruiting” means. I’m here to help solve the problems of finding and keeping dynamic leaders by any means necessary.

If you just need to hire someone, there are lots of other firms that do that. If you recognize the value of people and cultivating a culture, if you care about investing in those people as human beings, if you need transformational leaders to help push your ideas out into the world, give me a buzz.

Love,

Scott McDowell
Managing Partner & CEO, CHM Partners

P.S. CHM’s process is all about reducing your risk. We start with (several) free conversations to identify what you need and what you want. Simply get in touch and let’s start talking.

My overall impression was that the conference was even better than last year. The details, size, information, approachability of the attendees and speakers, and general vibe is unmatched. 99%’s director, Jocelyn Glei and the folks from Behance do a great job of curating everything. The care and joy and message are seen and felt and experienced. (The pizza from day one wasn’t very good. That’s it. The only criticism. And I really tried to think of some.)

As Scott Belsky the CEO of Behance reminded us in his introduction, “The benefits are in the seams,” those chance encounters and conversations that aren’t part of the official program. I’m grateful for the conversations. Like chatting with Genevieve Hume about her husband/wife team and the division of responsibilities; the truly busted airplane that I designed for Sarah McCormick to prototype at Ideo; reconnecting with my Alabama pal, Buddy Overstreet; Thursday night’s dinner/strategy session with my friend, nation-builder, confidante, Sarah Bray; connecting dots and ideas and plans and the past and the future with 99% Fellow, Jessica Speer; meeting conference speaker and all-around instigator, James Victore, and wrapping things up by skipping the after-party to actually go make something with people that I love (a loud racket, songs, recordings).

I scribbled lots of notes and boiled them down into a batch of quotes:

“Our brain is designed to be ungrateful.” – Jonah Lehrer, author

“Companies get in the way. Cities don’t try to maximize creativity. When in doubt imitate the city.” – Jonah Lehrer, author

“Great teams don’t come about by chance. They work hard at it. They cultivate positive habits that make them great.” – Keith Yamashita, SY Partners

“Great teams see the forces at play and capitalize on them. That’s an essential capability.” – Keith Yamashita, SY Partners

“Duos are the smallest atomic unit of trust.” – Keith Yamashita, SY Partners

“Extend an act of trust before it benefits you.” – Keith Yamashita, SY Partners

“Ignore Jackie Rice.” – Jonathan Adler, designer (Speaking about a teacher who discouraged him from doing his thing.)

“Fuck it.” – Jonathan Adler, designer

“Be consistent to your vision and spirit while being a responsible person.” – Jonathan Adler, designer

“Be polite and ignore them.” – Jonathan Adler, designer

“Better to have a hole than an a-hole.” – Neil Blumenthal, Warby Parker (Talking about hiring.)

“What will you deliver without fail every time?” – Neil Blumenthal, Warby Parker

“If you can’t figure it out in a year, scrap it.” – Jason Goldberg, Fab.com

“Change can only be recognized after the fact.” – Jad Abumrad, Radiolab

“Recognize pointing arrows.” – Jad Abumrad, Radiolab

“Design has a purpose and art doesn’t.” – Paula Scher, artist & designer

“If you don’t have contraints, set up constraints.” – Tony Fadell, Nest

“I wanted to write a poem that was barbed.” – James Victore quoting Robert Frost

“Just ask.” – James Victore, artist & designer

I would love to meet you, yes YOU, since SXSW is all about meeting people! Don’t be shy. Please find me on twitter or come to the session and say hi. Let’s meet up for a beer or a panel, and let’s eat some BBQ!

The opposite is also true. Progressive businesses are taking the view that thorough planning is ill-suited for our super fast digital age. By the time you set a goal and begin working towards it, the target has already moved.

The truth is, that’s always been the case. Think about it. How often do your goals become obsolete due to an unforeseen force? Goals are inflexible, stubborn, and rarely fully met. At their worst, they create a good deal of guilt and leave you spinning your wheels when you should be driving on a different road altogether.

Preparing the meal for the following day is tonight’s work.

Your strategic plan should have one goal: to become flexible and fluent in improvisation.

It’s very easy to have direction without goals. The conversation should not exist in the isolated confines of a strategy session. The conversation should be always happening. When we’re working to clarify & refine our organizational intentions, we react to the direction of the present, rather than a tomorrow that’s yet to exist. Part of today’s work is to prepare for tomorrow.

If you’re struggling to write a captivating mission statement or the one you have needs freshening up, this guide is for you.

This has been one of the most popular corners of the website so I’m making it available again. And now it’s a totally frictionless download. Please download it and share it, pass the link around. http://www.scottmcdowell.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/anatomy.pdf

If you love the idea of having a sticky, easy-to-memorize, all-purpose statement that anyone can use to describe why your organization exists I’ve put together a ridiculously straightforward process for creating one. Along with the companion piece, 100 Missions, you have everything you need to write a killer mission statement and oodles of good examples to show you the way.

The guide is called The Anatomy of a Mission Statement (and how to write yours) and it’s free.

Click here to download it.

Browse the 100 Missions list:

Cover letters. At best they’re a window into a candidate’s actual writing ability. At worst, they’re a complete waste of time.

I think we should ditch them altogether. Here’s why.

I’ve read thousands of cover letters. Never have I once interviewed someone solely due to a cover letter. A lot of times they’re simply too generic, used for any number of different positions and companies. Sometimes they’re written by a friend or neighbor and not the actual candidate (which is usually obvious).

As someone managing the hiring process I spend only a few minutes per resume. I know this is depressing and sad, but it’s a fact. Most hiring managers spend less than that. I’m looking for key points in order to develop some thematic congruency with the job spec. After that I’m looking for a detail that stands out: specificity, a unique situation, leadership or initiative, strange and useful skills, or a an interesting quirk. The first goal of a hiring manager when running through a stack of resumes is to make that stack exceptionally smaller. Cull.

Cover letters create confusion. They add time. And they don’t really say much.  Candidates don’t know what to do with them. Employers hardly glance at them. Let’s all make a pact here and now to just simply ditch the cover letter. For the children.

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To learn more about Hiring Gold, go here.

Job boards are every hiring manager’s friend, until they’re your worst enemy. When you post a job online it’s a crapshoot. You’re counting on a ton of variables. You’re hoping the right person happens to be browsing the right website at the right time, and then makes the decision to contact you (instead of going off to check Facebook again.)

The odds aren’t good. And when you do connect, you’re often connecting with the wrong people. Piles of mediocre resumes flow through your Inbox, mixed in with potential winners.

The truth is job boards don’t really work, or at least should be looked at as augmentation to your hiring strategy and not the whole strategy. Here are three things to do instead:

Use your network. Hands down the surest way to find great employees is through the people you know. But be sure to ask them the right questions starting with (not ending with) “Who should I talk to next?”

Make a list of fantasy picks. People are more approachable than ever. Develop a target list: people who you think would be fantasy additions to your team. Maybe they were speakers at an industry event, or people you follow on twitter, or known experts. Track them down, tell them what you’re doing and approach them asking for help. Don’t give them the hard sell, go into with the intent to network, use them as a resource, not to poach. If the opportunity arises and there’s interest, they’ll speak up.

Try trade associations and other groups. Find the ‘watering holes’ where your potential candidates hang out. Where do they go for information? Aligning yourself with the right group gives you immediate credibility and can create introductions.

Job boards usually require more time and energy than they’re worth. If you do utilize job boards choose carefully. A well-targeted and well-traveled industry- or function-specific job board is eons more useful than the general kind.

What’s been your experience with job boards? Classic or dud?

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To learn more about Hiring Gold, go here.

In the book Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street, there’s a rundown of Marshall Goldsmith’s “behavioral warning signs.” Things to look for in interviews that should put you on alert. It’s a good list. Marshall Goldsmith wrote the influential book, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, and is considered the preeminent expert in all things leadership development.

Winning too much. “I would look out for people in the hiring process who boast about winning battles that do not matter that much.”

Adding too much value. “If you are talking and you throw out an idea, does the candidate try to add too many of his ideas to yours? If so, it implies that your idea was not sufficiently good on its own. It is a small indicator of ego gone awry.”

Starting a sentence with ‘no’, ‘but’ or however. “‘Yes, that is a great idea’ is the right answer. ‘No, I agree with you but’ is the symptom of somebody with an overactive ego who might be challenging to work with.

Telling the world how smart we are. “The unhealthy display is taking excessive credit, especially for a leadership role. For the leader, being all about ‘me’ is bad.”

Making destructive comments. “Making destructive comments about previous colleagues is a huge red flag. Because once this person works for you, he or she will make the same needless sarcastic comments about you!”

Passing the buck. “Blaming is always bad. Winners don’t blame.”

Making excuses. “Ask people what their challenges were. If they say that their biggest challenges were not their fault but other people’s fault, that shows they do not take responsibility for their performance.”

The excessive need to ‘be me.’ “Listen for comments like ‘That’s just me, I’m not organized.’ ‘That’s just me, I’m impatient.’ ‘That’s just me, I don’t include other people in decisions. That’s just the way I am.’ Beware. Somebody who has an excessive need to ‘be me’ is telling you that they are not open to adapt their style to fit your culture or your company should not be hired.

If you’re noticing one or more of these consistently, beware!