When Too Much Seth Godin is Too Much Seth Godin...

I love Seth Godin as much as the next person.  I think I have all his books (you'll see many of them listed on the sidebar of this blog as suggested reading), although I still have yet to read "Tribes".  When it comes to keeping you on your feet related to marketing, brand and the new age of social media, there's no one better.  He's the gold standard in that area, OK?  Now on to the meat of the post.

Sometimes too much Seth Godin is too much Seth Godin.  Especially when he bounces into the area of talent, specifically selecting talent, and the pundits covering him brand super smart marketing and PR techniques (which Seth is very, very good at) as innovative selection processes for talent. 

Am I grumpy, cynical, jealous and/or "on the money" with this one?  You decide.  More on the cult that is Seth Godin from Forbes:

"Seth Godin sits at a table surrounded by nine aspiring entrepreneurs. Emily Kate Boyd, a songwriter from Atlanta, shares her idea for a new venture: a nonprofit that will expose wealthy donors to fledgling artists who need their support. "How do you use 'groupthink' and wisdom of the crowds to do this?" Godin asks her in his signature marketer's jargon. Boyd, 28, says that when prospective patrons are together in one room they will inspire one another to participate.

Boyd and the other folks, most of them under 40, are participating in an "alternative M.B.A. program" organized by Godin and held in his office in the sleepy town of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. The Godin followers are spending five days a week for six months, until mid-July, soaking up marketing insights from the speaker and author of marketing advice books. The program is free--sort of. Four of the participants gave up their jobs; two quit; two are taking leaves of absence to spend time with Godin, who pads around in mismatched socks and quirky glasses and fixes his followers' lunch almost every day. Allan Young, one participant, quit two part-time gigs, which paid him a total of $170,000 a year, to hang out with Godin. Boyd is racking up $1,000 a month in debt to participate.

Godin, who typically works alone and admits that he gets lonely, came up with the alternative business degree program in November. He initially hoped to find people he could teach who could also help him work on his Web site (Squidoo.com) and other projects. He sat down at his computer and dashed off a posting on Squidoo. The heading: "Don't go to business school. Instead of getting an M.B.A., consider spending six months in my office." He was looking for "brilliant, charismatic" people "on a mission, moving fast, filled with passion and empathy."

Even he was surprised at the number of responses he received. ("The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes," he says.) Godin says 48,000 people looked at the post and 340 applied. In December he invited 27 applicants to his office for a group interview. They spent two hours interviewing one another. Then they, and Godin, wrote down the names of their favorite candidates. Three weeks later the 9 chosen showed up at Godin's office."

Here's what drives me crazy.  I've seen a couple of posts related to the selection process and got the article forwarded to me a couple of times.  The gist of the posts/emails from my talent peers?  "Seth is freaking brilliant, look at how he arrived at the nine". 

Seth is brilliant at many things, including marketing and PR.  When it comes to selecting multiple candidates for your company, are you really willing to let finalists vote for their favorites and live by that for your business?

You're not, because you know better than that.  I'm sure Seth could have made all the selections himself and done very well based on his hiring instincts.  But don't look at a "Survivor" type of process and tell me Seth's brilliant because of a PR/Marketing gimmick.

Seth's brilliant in a lot of ways.  This selection process isn't one of them.  If you believe the selection process above, just start allowing anyone who submits a resume to vote for their "top 10 candidates to phone screen" and see how that works out for you.

Crowd sourcing - good for many things, selection isn't one of them.

Comments

[Kerry]

I had the same reaction when I read it. I think the whole thing is a little nuts.

These cults of personality freak me out all around. No one is brilliant at EVERYTHING, so it's never wise to take advice from someone in too many disciplines.

[Michelle]

I think it would be crazy to let the group make the final decision, but it is an interesting concept. One thing I do like is learning how each candidate would assess and select individuals. I think their recommendations along with how they developed those decisions would provide insight into their own skills and what they look for when selecting talent.

[Seth Godin]

Thanks Kris, I appreciate the feedback.

I need to start by challenging the tone and nature of the Forbes article. It was really hurtful to me and my team, mostly because it wasn't true and also because I invited them in as a favor. We weren't seeking to hype what we are doing here.

I don't think I ever said that people should hire the way I chose the people for the program. What fascinated me is that the nine picked PRECISELY the same nine people that I had already picked. The gulf was obvious and the crowd (the 27) saw that.

I can tell you that getting into Stanford Business School was not only less organized than my process was, it was also significantly less effective. Every single one of the 9 in the program are amazing. Not one bad pick. Maybe that's luck or maybe Stanford ought to consider something similar...

But no, I'd never do this for "real" long term jobs, mostly because it's unlikely a real long term job would be as parallel a process as school is.

[Bohdan Rohbock]

Easy, do the exercise, see the results, and maintain final decision making. This puts a burden on the 'interviewer' to communicate clearly and succinctly what qualities are being looked for. If you can't do that you're probably wasting your time.

This seems like a very work-intensive process. I think that most positions in a company would not be a good fit for this style of selection.

[tvt]

Employee selection...Hmm. Let me deviate slightly. I'm sure people are familiar with the various cases where someone is not entirely forthcoming on their resume (fake degrees, milled degrees, etc.) and, after an extended period of time (years, sometimes even decades later), they are caught for some reason unrelated to job performance. Notice also how vehement universities (and other groups) are about prosecuting these vile criminals? Except in the case of licensed professionals (which may be avoided via the licensing requirements), the vindictive mind set seems to me to be odd. Incompetence would have been rewarded with termination and, since they didn't get fired, they weren't incompetent (employer seeks competent employee and is deceived into hiring a competent employee). No big deal, right...and that IS the big deal. If most job positions (given an appropriate acclimation period) can be filled by ANY properly motivated, intelligent person disposed to seek that type of employment (think of a modified turing test) then maybe the people who write up lists of necessary qualifications and the degrees listed in the qualifications seem less necessary. I guess a survivor type pruning approach would work better. It would, I suspect, result in a group of people whose thinking and personalities work together to minimize interpersonal dissonance. That may be a good thing (strength via uniform vision) or, at some level, it might be mind slappingly tedious as one person after another preaches to and reaffirms the choir (sleepy via church sermonision). Heck all those people applied demonstrating some level of interest. I would have simply used a lottery or random number generator to select the candidates to keep (variety, of the statistical kind, might provide a more provocative learning environment or at the least, a more entertaining one).

[Wally Bock]

The problem is less Seth Godin than the disciples who label each thought as "brilliant," sometimes without reading it. It's interesting on Twitter to watch the flurry of mentions of a Godin post as they appear within seconds. Have the people touting the post read it? Highly unlikely, but since it's Seth it must be brilliant. Besides, the Congress has set a precedent here by voting on bills everyone admits went unread.