It’s a mix of the old qualities, a couple of new ones, and two that are no longer necessary.
BG (short for Boy Genius), who was videotaping the seminar, came over to me with his goofy smile and raised iPhone.
“Mark,” he said, “tell me in one minute: What is one quality – the most important quality – that you look for when hiring, say, a copywriter or a marketer?”
It’s a question I’ve been asked and answered before. Many times. But as I was opening my mouth to give him the usual, I got a message from the quick-thinking part of my brain saying, “Wait! This is the new world. The world of AI. And this is an AI seminar. Things are changing fast. Including what you should be looking for in hiring someone.”
That part of my brain sent a message to the slow-brain asking for help – but I didn’t have time to wait for the slow brain to come up with something. I was being recorded. And I didn’t want BG’s audience (whoever they were – probably kids his age) to think, “That’s Mark/Michael Ford/Masterson? He’s bumbling!”
So, I tried a little trick I’ve used before in such situations. I repeat the question I was just asked and then make a statement that in some way interrupts the flow of expectations.
“I’ll do better than that,” I said. “I’ll give you five personal qualities I look for in hiring anyone – from a CEO to a marketing director to a copywriter to a mid-level manager.”
“Okay,” BG said. “So, tell us. What are those five personal qualities you look for in making a hiring decision?”
I was nowhere near a full answer, but I felt sure that I could borrow at least two qualities from my old, pre-AI Revolution memory jar.
“Number one,” I said confidently, “is ambition.”
BG nodded. “And what is the second…?”
I interrupted him with another delay tactic I’ve used before in such situations. I said, “But first, let me tell you why I said ambition.”
BG gave me a long eyeroll.
“Do you know what I’m about to say, BG?”
He shook his head, as if to say, “I tap. You win.” But because we were recording and he didn’t want to lose the post entirely, he said, “I don’t. Why don’t you tell us?”
And so, I told him.
“To me,” I said, “ambition is not just the hunger to become a success in some way, to become rich or famous. Those are merely choices the ambitious person makes. When I say ‘ambition,’ I’m talking about the desire to do more than just succeed. It is the desire to rise to the top of whatever competition one is in. To dominate. To be number one. That kind of ambition is rare, whereas the desire to be respected and affirmed is quite common.
“The truly ambitious person is competitive. Unusually competitive. Almost excessively competitive. And he (or she) tends to be competitive in every arena. Not just in a working environment, but in sports, in game playing, and especially in games of verbal cleverness, where the rules are to win without offending the other players.”
Just then, the image of two of the best hires I ever made popped up in my memory jar. JS and MP, both competitive to the nth degree, but both so modest in their behaviors that it took me months to even recognize it.
“But ambition alone is not enough,” I said. “In fact, if all the person has is raw ambition, the ambition will do him (or her) – and you – no good. It has to be combined with emotional intelligence. People that have great ambition and little emotional intelligence don’t realize that their raw enthusiasm for achievement would be a turnoff for many very capable people that could help them with their goals. And so, they boast and brag and make big claims. I get enthusiastic about job candidates who have that powerful combination of ambition and high emotional IQ. Those are the rare personalities that will move your business forward by ‘making friends and influencing them,’ as Dale Carnegie liked to say. Those are your future senior executives who will grow your company without a ton of collateral human damage.”
Okay. That was two. How many did I say? Five? Why five? I could have said four. What was I thinking? (Of course, I wasn’t thinking.)
Happily, another quality from the old memory jar popped into my head. It was, I realized, one of the few that I had at the beginning of my business and wealth building career – and so, could have been, in a way, my favorite.
“The third quality I look for,” I said confidently, “is a strong work ethic. “It is possible to be successful in business by being super-ambitious and emotionally smart without a strong work ethic. But in my experience, it is very rare. It happens when the ambitious, emotionally intelligent person has luck and good timing.
“The business world operates by the same astro-physical laws that the universe follows. The second law of thermodynamics ensures that whatever other gifts and qualities you have at your disposal, things will not always go as you planned. In fact, more often than not, the natural laws of the universe will work against you. They will thwart your progress. And in more ways than you can possibly imagine.
“During those moments, there is only one thing you can do. And that is to continue moving ahead. To work harder than you were already working. To come in earlier and stay later. And to push relentlessly until you get the team and the project back into forward motion.”
BG seemed satisfied with that.
For the fourth quality, an idea came to me – something that I had been thinking about that very morning. A quality that I had discounted for many years.
“The fourth quality I look for is loyalty,” I said.
“Loyalty is the unwritten currency of mentorship. For continued profitable growth, businesses need to continuously provide better value propositions to their customers. That means continuously better service and continuously new and better products. This has always been a challenge for all businesses in competitive markets, and that’s generally been a great thing, advancing every aspect of the consumer experience and expanding job opportunities for employees.
“Most of the time, when we think about the factors behind profitable growth, we are thinking about advancements in manufacturing, communication, and technology. But none of those things can continuously improve unless significant portions of the workforce advance their knowledge and capabilities.
“That’s where mentoring comes in. Up and down the chain of command, business managers must educate and train their subordinates to keep up. At the entry levels, this can be done with manuals and video training programs and the like. But the further you go up the leadership ladder, the more subtle and complex the needed skills and knowledge become.
“What solves this problem is another natural phenomenon: the human instinct of reciprocity. ‘I am going to teach you what I know, so that in five years, when I retire, you can replace me. And you will do the same with your subordinate. And onward down the line.’
“This is the natural system for the continuous education needed to combat the natural entropy of all industries and all businesses. But it breaks down completely if either of the two people involved in the mentor/mentee relationship does not feel morally bound to reciprocity.
“I used to think of loyalty as a sort of needy impulse – unnecessary for genuine achievers. But I now realize that it is essential for the business.”
“Okay,” said BG, “that’s four. “So what’s number five?”
This one was easy. “A sufficiency of intelligence,” I said.
“A sufficiency of intelligence?” BG said. “Why not an immensity?”
“Not everything that is good is better when there is more of it,” I said. “In terms of success in business, I have always been impressed by people who have a very high degree of intelligence. But after working with some super-smart people in competitive business environments for more than 40 years, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to hiring the key positions, a candidate who is highly intelligent will often turn into a pain-in-the ass employee. And I think that may be because highly intelligent people (with IQs in the 140s and above) can easily be hamstrung by having surprisingly low emotional IQs because they’ve spent their lives realizing that they are smarter than most of the people around them.”
“So, what is a sufficiency?” BG said.
“To me, it’s having the intelligence to think analytically, to break down complicated problems into simpler pieces and then figure out how to solve them sequentially,” I said. “It’s also being able to ‘think outside the box’ (which is what some neuroscientists call ‘creativity’), especially as it applies to creating and marketing new products. To ask yourself: ‘How can this thing that is working there – in that very different realm of industry – work for me in my industry?’ And then come up with at least one good answer.”
That pretty much ended the interview, as far as I was concerned. But just as I was turning towards the bar to treat myself to what I thought was a well-deserved tequila and soda, BG said, “You haven’t really answered the big question: How would you say your thoughts about hiring new employees have changed since the beginning of the AI Revolution?”
“I’m writing an essay about that now,” I said. “For openers, I believe that the two things that have always been at the top of every Help Wanted ad will disappear in the future.”
“And they are?” he asked.
“You can read all about it next week when I post the essay on my blog.”
