Monday, June 25, 2007

Dealing with the lack of values and ambition (part A)

It has been a while since I was here last time. I have had time for reflecting on how business is going and understanding how we continue evolving but I did not have the opportunity to reflect those in paper (electronic one) and to upload it on my blog. But here I am and will try to be more regular again

As I mentioned previously one of our big battles for growth has been managing to acquire (and then retain) talent. For a while I do think we did not have a solid formula or at least we were not able to portrait to the market. But lately in the past 6 months we have started to see some successes. Obviously the fact that we have a much better-looking office (and also the location of it) have had an impact but I believe that there has been much more of it. In fact nothing has made me more convince of it that the fact that our channel employees has been recommending/referring their friends to us (which they did not in the past) and also our more senior people in consulting has been getting involved very actively on this process

However I still feel frustrated many times. In fact I have had many discussion about this topic both with company stakeholders (as an example I remember a conversation with Dave M., Telenor Serbia’s CMO past March in Belgrade) and with outside friends about the lack of ambition in the younger generations, usually referring to the Spanish ones but also in others (in fact my conversation with Dave did mention also about Canadians and Serbians). When you do interview people you see what motivates them and it is very few times when you find people that it is ambition. People tell that this is fine, that younger people wants now to live life and enjoy their free time, they want to have a balance, etc. All of this is fine but in all generations we need ambitious people. People who want things to change. Obviously my ambitions and our company ambitions may not coincide with the candidate’s but it is not even that. I find so few people who are just not comfortable with keeping things as they are and this somehow makes me very frustrated and somehow worry. We need people who start companies, ONG, foundations and which fights and suffers to make them successful and changes society or people lives with that, or at least inspire people in one way or another

2 comments:

  1. I once made an interview for a position in Maersk. It was a great opportunity and it was right after I come from one year in Brazil working for VIVO (Telco). The hiring process had me running tests as if I was applying to harvard.after that,they sent a guy from madrid specially to interview me.he then told me that I had done brilliantly in the IQ (which i doubt has any scientific explanation :-)) but that my behavior maps showed great predisposition to change. That attitude was not in line with the company's guidelines and they wouldn't hire people with that profile.After that he interviewed me and at the end he said he was sorry but he didn't think I matched the company's desired profile.He wished me luck and that was it. Ambition still exists in some of us. Hasta luego!

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  2. Just read a post by Julio Alonso, Weblogs CEO about similar situations, I thought It did capture very well similar situations we have faced in the past

    Sorry it is in Spanish
    http://www.merodeando.com/2008/01/09-buscando-empleados-desesperadamente

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