The Crystal Ball

"Crystal Ball" is actually a software program that is quite useful at analyzing future events. Keep in mind that "useful" does not necessarily mean "accurate". It's actually a statistical and analytics package, using mathematical methods to predict the probability of certain outcomes based on prior system behavior. Getting back to yesterday's conversation - I can't say that I would use a computer program to assess the potential success or failure of a potential candidate, but the underlying methodology is the same. The big question is this: are you an interpolator or an extrapolator?

An Interpolator only predicts future data that is within the bounds of historical observances. For example, if an interpolator were predicting the exact hour of sunrise, he would need observations from the begining of a month and the end of a month to predict the time of sunrise on, say, the 15th of the month. An extrapolator, however, recognizes trends and patterns and makes a few assumptions. So he may observe the time of sunrise on the first few days of the month and, based on this, predict the time of sunrise later in the month. From an uncertainty or "risk" standpoint, the interpolator is more certain of the correct answer.

So, what does this have to do with predicting success of a new leader? The primary data available to assess the future success of a leader is past experiences. The assumption is that the individual will perform under a similar pattern (interpolators can't be bothered assuming improvements or learning on the part of the leader). So, if I can find someone who has performed a similar or identical job function in a similar or identical company with a level of success, it doesn't take much analytical power to predict a high potential for success in the new job. Interpolators look for the "been there, done that" candidate.

Extrapolating, however, takes a bit of work and gets decision-makers a lot more nervous. Just like in statistical modeling and prediction, extrapolating human performance requires a thorough understanding of the inner workings of human motivation and team dynamics. It takes as much intuition as analytics to come up with a reasonable estimate. Going back to yesterday's conversation, this is where the discussion of learning from mistakes versus never making mistakes comes into play. What does the extrapolator use as a modeling assumption? Do you assume that the person has learned a lot from their mistakes and will be effective at avoiding similar mistakes in the future? Do you assume that someone who has made mistakes in the past is more likely to make mistakes in the future? Do you prefer someone who has a seemingly unblemished record, assuming that they are smart enough to never make a major mistake? It's always a lively discussion.

Fill a room with a combination of interpolators and extrapolators, each with a different set of experiences. Have them all interview a candidate for a newly created position in a unique matrix organization (one that has few, if any, direct parallels in peer companies), and sit in the room and listen to the debate about who is the best candidate. You don't need a crystal ball to determine the outcome of that exercise....

Celebrating Failure

Our lunchtime question of the day (Bill Wurtz contributing): which candidate would you hire; (1) the candidate with no business failures listed on her record, only a string of successes, (2) the candidate that has a mixture of failures and successes on his record, but has a good explanation for the external factors that led to the failures, none of which were his own mistakes, or (3) the candidate with a mixture of success and failures, admittedly having made mistakes along the way that contributed to the lack of success? Be careful asking this question in public - it can lead to a long and unfriendly lunch time conversation, depending on the personal experiences of the group. Personally, I think there is a right and a wrong answer on this one, and the answer "it depends" can't be used in this game. Of course, how you rationalize the right and wrong answer depends upon your understanding of human learning, self awareness, integrity and conflict management.

In the Navy, there always seemed to be those "golden boys" - the ones who somehow managed to be assigned to the perennial top-performing organizations. They were leaders in high performing and successful organizations that were high performing and successful before they arrived for their 2-year tour and long after they departed. Then there were others that somehow managed to draw all of the turn-around situations, continuously assigned to organizations with poor performance, with the assignment of turning them around. In which of these two groups would you expect to "learn" more about leadership? As a 12-year member of the latter group, I certainly have a strong opinion on the subject...

Does anyone actually "celebrate" their mistakes? What about "celebrating" their failures? To be sure, let's isolate our discussion of mistakes and failures to those that came out of honest efforts to succeed. Obvious illegal or unethical activities are excluded from this category - that's a different level of learning. Let's assume, for a minute, that after the fact, we are able to analyze and understand the faults in our logic and decision-making that led to the failure. Let's also assume that we have the insight to use this analysis to drive our decision-making in future situations with similar circumstances. We've just accomplished something called "learning" - couldn't this be cause for celebration?

I know, I know...you can learn just as much by making the correct decision the first time, right? Well, think about it...how much time to you spend dissecting the every move when the outcome was a success? I'll bet you do a lot more thorough post-mortem analysis if things did not turn out the way you expected. No one likes to be wrong - and you're much more motivated to prevent this situation in the future.

So, back to our candidates and my pointedly unfair question. Candidate #1 (aka "golden boy") has fewer learning opportunities - or alternatively, is not being forthright about his mis-steps. Not admitting to mistakes rarely works in a corporate setting. Candidate #2 (aka "the blamestormer") has everyone but himself to blame for his mistakes. While uncontrollable circumstances have a lot to do with success, the pattern of placing fault elsewhere can be very disruptive. So, in the absence of any other information - my preference is for candidate #3.


Of course, I would never hire anyone based on what they have already done. A new leader is brought in based on what they are going to do after they arrive. Which leads to the next emotionally debated topice: how do you predict success when choosing the "new guy"???