HR for Tech

HR for Tech

The role of HR has varied a lot over the last decades. As explained in my release in Amazon "Change Hard: Why Corporations Rise and Fade": "Human Resource Management (HRM) is the process of managing an organizations' human resources. It is about developing policies, practices and systems designed to influence employee motivation, behavior and performance. In addition to tracking payroll hours and processing benefit forms, HRM has a lot to do with attracting and maintaining a high performing workforce". But what does HR do, besides participating in the Recruiting process? In practice, HR does not really do an employee follow-up. They usually consult with the employees' Supervisors or Managers, who are of course biased and more interested in providing political support to their most loyal employees than to actually value, recognize or promote the best players. Quite the opposite, the best employees will represent a threat to them, and they will do their best to get rid of them. HR should most definitely take more responsibility for employee follow-up, and protect the organization's most valuable players, who will drive change and also add more value in a long term perspective. Instead of taking strange tests and profiles, they should sit down with them and hear the employees' version of the story. Worst case scenario, they can be reallocated to another department.

But who should HR make a bet for? Experience, experience, experience (three times), is a word that is repeated to death at work in any branch. "You are too green" (immature), is the favorite phrase from the older people to the younger generations. But how important experience really is? Let us take examples from sports. Older players, more mature, might be best for organizing the team. A strong experienced defense, or mid-field, will have a better overview of the game than an 18-year old. But what about superstars, does it matter how much experience they have, how many matches they have played? How old was Messi when he started playing for the Argentinian National team? And what about Cristiano Ronaldo? Should they have waited many years, until they where old, to have their first appearances? What about those outsider midfields that run up and down the field, up and down, since they have the motivation, stamina and energy of youth? Has there ever been a team of "oldies" that ever made it somewhere? If the players do not have experience, should there not be other players more mature, more experienced, or a coach, that is in charge of channeling and organizing that energy to productive uses in the field? And if the team loses, who has the most responsibility, is it one player, a group of players, or the coach?

Again it does not seem to be like that in the Business World. Experience really refers to politics, "the way to handle yourself". We can call it Street Smarts. It is more about Networks and Contacts than anything else. In that sense, experience really counts... But how important is it really in the Tech field, as we approach the Knowledge Based Economy? Mark Zuckerberg, CEO & Co-Founder of Facebook (32 years old): "I started the company (Facebook) when I was 19, so I can't believe that experience is really that important, otherwise I would have a hard time reconciling myself. We invest in people that are really talented even if they HAVEN'T DONE that thing before. That applies to people who are fresh out of University, as well as the CFO who took the company public but had never taken a company public before! Focus on really talented people. Even if you are 19 you have done side projects and interesting stuff. It is important not to believe that the person needs to specifically have done the job that they are going to do in order to be able to do it well. We have given the people in the company a lot of opportunity, so there are a lot of people that have grown with the company over this period of time".

Great leaders UNDERSTAND the benefit that comes with working with Smart people. Marissa Mayer (41, CEO Yahoo!) considers that: "It is wonderful to work in an environment full of Smart people. It challenges you to THINK and WORK in a different level. If you play with the best players, that will make you better and you will ultimately be able to grow and learn a lot. The same thing happens on an intellectual level as well. I was very lucky to work at Google, where there are tons of Smart people to learn from. Smart people bring their perspectives and interesting intellectual arguments that they make, and give you a whole new way of thinking about things. If you give them EMPOWERMENT, you don't need to have a lot of MANAGEMENT or bureaucracy in the organization". Marissa Mayer might not be one of the smartest people in the World, but she was Smart enough to understand who to surround herself with to make it to the TOP!

And last, by not least, why not cite the greatest one, Steve Jobs: "the greatest people are self-managing, they don't need to be managed. Once they know WHAT to do, they will figure out how to do it. What they need is a common VISION, and that's what leadership is. Leadership is having a vision, being able to articulate that so that people AROUND you can UNDERSTAND it, and given a consensus on a common vision, we wanted people that were insanely great at what they did. Not necessarily those seasoned (experienced) professionals, but those who had at the tips of their fingers or in their passion of where technology was and what we can do with that technology, and who wanted to bring that to lot of people. The most important job of someone like MYSELF is RECRUITING". 'Nuff said!!!

Cristian Bøhnsdalen

CMO/CFO & Co-Founder @ITRevolusjonen