When was the last time you sought the most average potential candidate for your next employee? When you said, “competent is great, but a solid C/C+ candidate is the real sweet spot?” Are you hiring for the tasks that need addressed, or to meet the bell-curve of your pending performance reviews?

I hope you haven’t been thinking the latter. “Good enough” isn’t a strong recruitment approach. I hope your organization sees the future of the company in the passion and potential of your employees.

Oddly though, I have so many conversations with folks about their review process, and invariably we talk about how managers are asked to rank order professionals across a horizon. Someone has to be average, someone less than average.

I would get this, if I ever had met an organization that actively sought the very best, and then in turn managed out the average performers. But I’m not talking about companies in general, but rather, those pockets of excellence where real change is expected to be occurring.

A manager is charged with delivering superior results. They actively recruit inside and outside the firm to find the most competent, flexible, execution-oriented change agents they can find. The team works like the devil to hit dramatically accelerated timelines, and then at closure, the manager is asked to describe performance in a way consistent with the rest of the organization “we can’t all have teams of ‘superstars’.”

Really? Is it inconceivable that an entire team could have been organized of exceptional talent?

God, I hope so. I aspire to. I try every time. I hope you do too.

If you can’t get your head around this, prepare to watch good hires move on to other opportunities – you should know what talent is demanding.