I had lunch last week with an author of two once best-selling
business books. I was interviewing him on behalf of a client for a consulting job.
I was brought in because the client wanted a good arm’s length interview they could
easily pass around the C-suite. The writer had once run a very large corporation,
did so famously, and wrote well about it. The recorded interview itself was telling
and useful relative to the client's decision about whether or not to consider him
further for the assignment. But it was the informal discussion later when he brought
up a useful notion he said I could share with other Corpwar readers.
This notion is his very deep seated belief of something called
"grokking". This was what he always looked for in his inner team members.
He said it was an even denser form of value, to him, than what I call a "corporate
warrior" (a phrase he considers a bit pop and superficial). I had never heard
the term “grok” before so I asked what it meant to him in a functional, as well
as philosophical, sense.
He answered, "It means the guy or gal is really inside the
skill set of something. It's not an external layer. Most people with good skills
wear them like good clothes. But it's still external. A layer on the outside. A
person that groks something knows it so thoroughly it has become part of them. It
has become their retina through which they see everything."
"Doesn't that singular focus lead to a kind of social dysfunction?"
I asked having seen exactly that in software engineers, actuaries, etc., that I
have been responsible for hiring.
"Sometimes. Those guys we just put into a nice corner with
good tools and keep the place dusted for them. Everybody that’s properly employed
adds equity holder value in their own way; if they grok something of value to the
organization, and therefore the equity holder, then that value add is pretty high.
You need to support it and use it. My ongoing goal, perfection really, is having
our most important critical paths composed of these kinds of people doing what they
grok. It's a beautiful thing to watch projects flash up those human chains once
they are assembled."
I asked him what he grokked. He smiled and said "Well, that's
simple. People."
I left the meeting asking myself what I "grok" in my
professional life, if indeed anything. I concluded it would be recruiting in its
various flavors, such as doing useful interviews and selling exceptional candidates
that don’t want to move jobs; that it will improve their life in various meaningful
ways to take that leap. It’s a fairly diverse skill cloud that, when brought to
a singular focus, is actually somewhat limited, which I found humbling.
It might be beneficial to ask yourself the same question: "Do
I grok at anything, and if so what?" After looking at your core team members
with the same question in mind, suggest they do the same. And so on. It’s a useful
exercise for accelerating things.
Think about it...
