Here is a brief portion of Josh Bersin’s exclusive interview of Reid Hoffman, Chairman of LinkedIn and Author of The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age for LinkedIn Pulse. To read the complete article and check out others, please click here.
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The Alliance is a best-selling new book written by Reid Hoffman (Chairman and Co-Founder of LinkedIn), Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh. As co-founder of LinkedIn and a board member of several fast growing Silicon Valley companies, Hoffman has recruited and managed people in one of the most demanding and competitive talent markets in the world. In August, I sat down and interviewed Reid, and I wanted to share some of his insights from the book in his own personal words.
Why did you felt compelled to write this book, given your active role at LinkedIn and the venture community? Why do you feel this is such an imperative today?
I was struck by the fact that very few employees feel like they can have an honest career conversation with their managers. They simply don’t have the right language and framework for building a high trust relationship. The book is our attempt to crystallize our own experiences into a practical framework for managers. When honesty and trust prevail at a company, employees will be able to do their best, entrepreneurial work. And we believe the way you get to this point where everyone can work at their highest level is if you define a mutually beneficial, explicit “alliance” with your employees.
You talk about the change in employment contract to that of an “alliance” relationship, similar to a sports team. My experience is that people still do want stable employment and a job they feel they can call “home” – what about the people who want that kind of long term career and feel very committed to their companies?
The Alliance is all about building an honest relationship based on mutual trust, mutual investment, and mutual benefit. These principles apply whether the employee expects to stay at a particular company for a couple of years (likely on a Transformational tour of duty), or a couple of decades (what we call a Foundational tour of duty). In the world of sports, some players switch organizations all the time, but others stay with the same club their entire career. Yet even those franchise players don’t sign a single “lifetime” contract when they join the team; they serve multiple tours of duty that span their career on the team, so that both sides consciously re-commit to each other after incremental objectives are met.
The principles behind the Alliance started here in Silicon Valley, but they are spreading into jobs and industries all over the world, wherever employees and companies want to be entrepreneurial and adaptable. The more critical adaptability is in your industry, the more of your employees you will want on defined tours of duty.
Your discussion about “tours of duty” is very analogous to what we often call “facilitated talent mobility” in companies. How can a global company implement this kind of model when there are so many options and places someone could go? Who should orchestrate these moves – the manager? HR? And does everyone get to take these tours or only high potentials and high performers?
The key to orchestrating successful tours of duty is the individual manager—that’s where the burden of talent management lies on a day-to-day basis. Our notion of a “Transformational” tour of duty is that upon completing a mission objective over a realistic period of time (usually 3-5 years), the employee will transform both his career and the company’s growth trajectory. This requires a deep knowledge of the employee’s goals and aspirations, which only his direct manager is likely to possess.
Of course, it is extremely helpful for the manager if HR supports programs to promote the Alliance framework throughout the organization. The Alliance doesn’t replace traditional HR processes, and things like regular check-ins between manager and employee work best when integrated into the existing infrastructure and performance management process. Nonetheless, individual managers can use the Alliance with her employees even if the organization hasn’t yet officially adopted the model.
Historically, most organizations have reserved personalized management like the Alliance for high potentials and entrepreneurial employees. Certainly, that’s the main focus of personalized tour of duty conversations. But we believe the ideal is to roll out a version of this model to employees at all levels.
In an organization that implements the “tours of duty” model there will always be internal candidates competing against external candidates. How do we deal with the need for companies to hire outside experts for critical jobs vs. moving internal candidates who may not be as qualified? What is the criteria for external vs. internal or should internal candidates always get the job?
The goal should always be to choose the best candidate for the job. However, most companies and managers underestimate the value of internal candidates and are thus too quick to jump to an external hire. An internal candidate generally brings many subtle strengths to the table that an external candidate simply can’t. Not only does an internal candidate know and thrive in the company’s existing corporate culture, he is likely to have strong connectivity within the organization. Continuity matters—people who have been in a foxhole have the kind of trust and shared experiences that enable rapid decision-making and execution.
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Here’s a direct link to the complete interview.
Josh Bersin is the founder and Principal of Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP, a leading research and advisory firm focused on corporate leadership, talent, learning, and the intersection between work and life. Josh is a published author on Forbes, a LinkedIn Influencer, and has appeared on Bloomberg, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal, and speaks at industry conferences and to corporate HR departments around the world. You can contact Josh on Twitter at@josh_bersin and follow him here. Josh’s personal blog is herehttp://www.joshbersin.com.