Insights of the day - building a core management team

I happened to attend another excellent TiE session on building a core management team. It was headed by Parag Paranjpe, Director, HR at ICICI Venture. Some of the key takeaways from the session based on inputs from Parag, and the other attendees were:

• Talent looks out for opportunities for that talent to be harnessed. So your key USP has to be what opportunities do you provide for exploiting potential.
• Star employees look for autonomy and freedom - an equal stake in the organization. They want to make the organization bigger and share in the wealth that they help to create.
• Every leader must aim to make himself/herself obsolete in order for the people working under that leader to reach their full potential. The leader must then redefine his role and responsibilities and work to achieve a different set of goals.
• One of the most important attributes to look out for in a candidate is personal integrity. And the best way to determine this is to check for references and learn to read between the lines when the references respond to your queries. Parag gave an example of ICICI Venture contracting an international firm to do a background check on a candidate they were hiring for their Zurich office. And they looked at the huge fees paid to this firm as an investment that would pay off. But he said, that was only reducing the risk, we still would never know for 100% sure if all that we were told by the candidate is correct or not.
• Also, while hiring try to determine whether the employee is joining you for money or for a higher purpose. Does the candidate seem to buy into your vision or is simply making the jump for a better pay package?
• The past history of a candidate is the best indicator of future behavior. Dwell into it, and ask deeper questions based on the candidates previous profile. Everyone promises great things in the future, but have they delivered in the past?
• Try to determine as accurately as possible the real reasons why the candidate is leaving his previous company and joining your company.
• Another important aspect is the cultural fit. How well do you think the candidate would fit into your existing corporate culture. If your existing culture is open and autonomous, does he or she have the ability to work and excel in such an environment or is he/she a very hands-on micro-managing type leader?
• Other ideas were to ask candidates to write down their answers on questions such as achievements, failures, goals, and dreams, rather than ask them to answer verbally.