Photo: Air by Thomas Hawk Outstanding shot. Bravo and thank you!

"He/She who has the ... Best Roster ... rules. Oh how I love ... LOVE ...those two words. TALENT. ROSTER. Say 'talent,' say 'roster' ... and the Yankees ... the Metropolitan Opera ... or a space shuttle crew ... or Microsoft's latest bet-the-company design team comes to mind...Talent is cool! Talent gravitates to cool! Talent attracts more Talent! Boss Job One (and 2 through 2,002 is the ... Attraction & Development & Retention of Talent. For NFL GMs, a few of whom I've known, Talent per se is a 25/8/53 Obsession (and don't forget to capitalize the 'O' in 'Obsession.')." Tom Peters

"Never hire anyone with a history of being unlucky." Bruce Johnson

"You can teach a kid everything else in the game but you can't teach speed." Al Davis

Startups are all the fun of a new car and fresh driver in the big race. Turnarounds are more like last year's losing car back in the race deciding to take on the additional challenges related to changing a flat tire without stopping or slowing down. Pit stops? We don't need no stinking pit stops to win this race. It's the difference between building new for the Parade of Homes and doing a major rehab project while the owner's family remains under roof. Both situations teach valuable lessons about hiring, directing and retaining talent while operating under unusual pressures and high expectations.

Ideal candidate description > Identification of suspects > Recruitment of prospects

Casting to role is very effective, it begins with creating the role, and a detailed description of the player needed to bring it to life. If breaking news is important you'll need a player that is strong off script. Should the role be built upon listener/viewer interaction you'll want a player that can work callers cold and love doing it. Ensemble cast? You will want one player that is great at bringing out the best in others, the player-coach that can keep things moving. What is the act? Tell me everything about the show. What's important? What is going to make the show work? Knowing what you're looking for keeps your casting focused.

Drafting term sheet "zero."

Managing up is about managing expectations. My suggestion is before you go shopping it's best to get a ballpark budget approved. We call this drafting term sheet "zero." When you get to the offer stage of recruitment you can revisit this approved budget and fine tune, creating your "first" draft or term sheet "one."

Start in your neighborhood.

We have all seen the nationwide search that ends with the job being offered to a person already on staff. My sense is this, in at least 50% of cases, is a signal of "settling." The ideal candidate you found 1,500 miles away wanted more money than you budgeted, including a pricey relo, and had five months left on their paper. The person on staff can "grow into the job" at a fraction of the budget hit. We have a winner.

In most cases, the ideal candidate is already in your neighborhood. From now on staff to across the street to within 200 miles of your mailing address. Hiring within your neighborhood, what my friends Charlie Boone and Roger Erickson call "the territory," has practical advantages. Candidates know what they're getting (see yesterday's post on my dumb mistake - bringing a sunbelt talent into the ice and snow of Chicago). The profile and reputation of you and your organization are likely to play larger in your neighborhood than nationally.

Perceptions rule, play the hand you hold. Curb appeal tends to diminish with distance unless you're in a glamour market (e.g., San Diego). Chicago, Minneapolis and Milwaukee might be regarded as regional meccas to those in the neighborhood while viewed as "fly over land" by coastal denizens. Green shade benefit: your costs will be lower from scouting to relo.

Road trip!

After getting the book on everyone in your market, and that includes all part-time and free agents, it's time to hit the road. Once a quarter scouting trips or "market tours" as the legendary Al Heacock used to call them are invaluable. Not only do you get to discover talent, you also gain the advantages of getting out of the bubble, being exposed to new and different approaches. Forget air travel when scouting; "windshield time" gives you time to think, time to reflect.

Start and keep a talent journal.

Memorialize your thoughts, perceptions and findings in a journal. More than once I have hired someone years after first discovering them. This is also the one place to store priceless intel (e.g., contract expirations, candidate's "dream cities", name of candidate's significant other, candidate's birthday, anniversary, names of children, parent's DMA, et al). Doing this homework pays. We once made a great hire quickly as a result of my first learning years before that a candidate considered our market her "#1 dream city." For the exact reason we previously passed in Chicago we later hired her in New York. Sidebar: No one else had ever asked this Florida star about her "dream city" or "dream job." Only we knew her secret, she wanted to come home to the tri-state.

Cultivate and nurture.

Once you discover a talent the recruitment process should begin in earnest. Get to know the person. Stay in touch, especially on those special occasions. Stock up on birthday and congratulations cards. Follow their career. Be there to listen or watch their work and offer honest reviews. Odds are they are not getting the positive feedback on the job that they want and need. Catch them doing something right. This investment in building a relationship over months, even years, offers an excellent ROI. When the talent gets a new job out of the neighborhood stay in touch. On many occasions I have hired or recommended the hire of a star first met years and multiple markets earlier. To connect the dots you need the dots. Exactly wrong today might just be the perfect fit tomorrow. Good talent can also grow while on the payroll of others. The killer street reporter of two years ago becomes the gifted up and coming anchor. The exceptional night guy grows into the afternoon drive star loaded with morning show potential. Know and understand their dreams.

When you witness a Ferrari getting into a go-kart race, that is, some major market star making a lifestyle move to a smaller, less competitive DMA, you can make book it's not an accident, someone has done their homework. Timing is everything if you have the right knowledge to act. Your goal should be establishing relationships with qualified candidates before you have a job to offer. It's working smart.

Lesson learned the hard way: develop a short list of qualified candidates for each position. Don't put yourself in a hostage situation by having only one best candidate. Odds are six to five against you when it's one or none. You think everything is going along just fine and suddenly you're face to face with Mr. Murphy in the mix. You end up settling or paying too much. You must have depth in your casting portfolio. Not having options is unlucky.

Develop your speed dial of gifted minds.

Networking with like minded managers everywhere, especially those in your neighborhood, is also part of working smart. One day you may want to get someone out of town or get the book on a promising candidate. This is a contact sport and the person with the best rolodex wins every single time. Know your neighborhood and all the players in it. Consider it one big chess board.

Casting is everything. When casting, go for greatness. Never settle, never.

NEXT: Part Three - Job ads, responding to applicants and hiring under the gun.

Image: Business is change by Hugh MacLeod. Bravo Hugh & thanks!

"One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it...A change leader sees change as an opportunity. A change leader looks for change, knows how to find the right changes, and knows how to make them effective both outside the organization and inside it. To make the future is highly risky. It is less risky, however, than not to try to make it. A goodly proportion of those attempting to will not succeed. But predictably, no one else will." Peter Drucker

"There are always two parties - the party of the past and the party of the future, the establishment and the movement." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Agility is great, but if a company is no more than agile, it will be a perpetual follower - and in the age of revolution even fast followers find few spoils. Companies fail to create the future not because they fail to predict it but because they fail to imagine it. It is curiosity and creativity they lack, not perspicuity. So it is vitally important that you understand the distinction between 'the future' and the 'unimagined,' between knowing what's next and imagining what's next." Gary Hamel

In my salad days as a music director and talent at RKO's WFYR in Chicago I learned an important lesson. Having worked hard to earn the respect of my superiors I wanted a promotion to program director. Going on the record with my station and corporate bosses seemed the right approach. When word reached RKO president Dwight Case he called and said "Once you train or recommend a qualified replacement we'll consider promoting you."

Succession planning is difficult but important work. It remains the single most vexing task at every level of the organization. The identification, recruitment and retention of creative people should always be on the manager's agenda. The time to look for people is before you need them. Until you have found replacements for every member of your team identification should remain a daily priority. Begin the recruitment process after identification and before the job offer. Cultivate the relationship while getting the book on your candidate and selling the person on your organization. Having identified, vetted and cultivated the best candidates you will be in a position to act as soon as circumstances dictate or needs require.

In the near term this is months of thankless hard work. In the long term you and your organization will be ready for the inevitable change you can not now imagine. One evening our very talented and effective sales manager gave me his notice. No one saw it coming. His father-in-law had developed serious health issues and his wife had convinced him that their immediate relo to be with her father was the only acceptable course. We were riding high in April and seriously shot down in May.

Hiring is a process not an event.

When you begin looking for the best person the day your top performer gives notice the odds are against you. The pressure is on to hire. You have lost any opportunity to cultivate a relationship. The majority of the time you will be speed hiring. Chatting up strangers from scratch, hoping for the best. Often you will "settle" for the person available rather than the ideal person you have not had the time to find.

Write a detailed description of the ideal candidate.

More than simply skill sets. Who is the ideal person? Attitudes, character, values, beliefs, dreams. It is sometimes easy to overlook the obvious. Once, under the gun to hire in a couple of weeks, we went after a great talent that was in the southwest. We brought him and his wife up to Chicago during a beautiful September weekend. We had picture perfect Chamber of Commerce weather. Everyone got along and had a terrific time. The offer was made and accepted before the couple left for the airport. Things went very well until winter arrived. At the company Christmas party his wife joked that they had finally gone to Marshall Fields and bought their first ever "heavy winter coats." Six weeks later our great talent was asking me to release him from his contract. I had failed to do my homework. The performer's wife hated the cold Chicago winter weather. It turned out he was not the ideal candidate and it was my mistake. The big market, big call letters and big contract were less important than the weather. Performers tend to do their best work when they are happy. Each performer has their own unique and very personal set of "be happy" requirements.

Look for people that want to come home.

One of the lessons learned in retaining the best people is to hire people who have some reason to be in love with your market or, in the least, your neighborhood (e.g., upper midwest, southeast, et al). Over the years there were some gifted performers that we knew could not be hired away to any other town, we worried only about losing them to the guys across the street. They had their own reasons but they had no interests whatsoever in living any place else. This also applies to folks who believe your market is somehow very special to them but they are working elsewhere. Perhaps the most effective job ads we ever ran always used the name of our town in the headline (a trade secret we still use, it works!)

COME HOME TO CHICAGO
We have an excellent opportunity for the right person.

Sometimes we find people who vacation every year in our town. They may be coming home to family for the holidays and sometimes we discover they just have dreams of living in the market. No matter, these are the people you want on your team. You don't have to sell the market, later others will have a harder time selling them on leaving their market and you. Start by looking for people who believe you are living in the neighborhood if not the city of their dreams.

NEXT: Part Two - Birthday cards, timing and term sheets

Doing the right thing: Creative Commons is conducting a special two-week iSummit 2007 Scholarship Funding Campaign. The goal is $50,000. Please join me in giving what you can to this important cause. More info here. My thanks to Lawrence Lessig for the heads up.

Congrats & cheers: AllThingsD debuts. Kudos to Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg.

Bonus: We spend too much time hiding illness - "I ain't a pretty boy no more." Roger Ebert writes from the heart here. Thanks to Dan Kelley for the tip.

Bonus 2: Christopher Lydon talks with Dr Dave Weinberger about Dr Dave's very cool new book Everything is Miscellaneous. Highly recommended. Check out the podcast here. Bravo Christopher! Kudos to Dr Dave!