Keath Hammonds does a good job explaining Why We Hate HR in his article for Fast Company and his observations can be similarly applied to executive recruiting.  The vexations stem from a wall between HR and the rest of the company. Executive recruiters often get more, if short-lived, c-level and business access but the siloed nature of hiring and organizational design effects them equally.   How can this wall exist? In a knowledge economy the company with the best talent wins so how can it be that the people meant to identify, screen, compensate, hire, introduce, manage and grow talent rarely interact with or understand the business much less the relationships between business units, partners, clients, media and international markets.  And typically lack the necessary education or industry experience for the roles they hire.

If you question my position then ask yourself again why we hate HR and distrust recruiters?  They should be rock stars; I am picturing Intel’s campaign for HR Executives and Recruiters.  They match us with our work.  They coach us, track our careers, portfolios, relationships and compensation.  Is it their fault? If we hire different people into HR and recruitment will the problems go away? A clue to the right answer is how few MBAs or industry executives go into HR.  Another is the phenomenon that HR executives claim victory when they get a seat at the table as if a coup has occurred.

We hate HR and distrust recruiters because they are at the bottom of the business food-chain and/or don’t know what’s up.  And it must be admitted that there are some out there just hoping to make a buck but this is not typical.  Most of them care tremendously but are un-empowered and isolated. Is it fair to blame them?  Of course not.  The responsibility lies with the design of companies which don’t connect talent and corporate strategy.  If HR functioned as a company’s central intelligence and communication core we wouldn’t be having this chat. I must note that this is where executive recruiting is better off than HR in that it has filled the communication gap to some degree and is thus rewarded handsomely but this is not the same thing as fixing the problem.  What we need is a redesign of organizations, business strategy and career management. This is an old problem that is getting stickier by the moment as the business environment becomes more global, technical, transient, social and cross-platform.

So what is Open Colony doing about it?

We value expertise, people in the field actively working to design great work and solve business problems.   We, our advisory board, Salon of experts and consultants  actively work as leaders in their fields.  We also bridge the gap between academia and industry by consulting social scientists, philosophers and professors of the disciplines that effect our work.

We are t-shaped. Many executive search companies suffer from the same regimented, siloed model that the industry does. Small firms are limited by their niche focus, while large firms stumble from a business model that is blind to collaboration among disciplines and industries. Great talent falls through these cracks. We find the right talent by asking “horizontal” questions across disciplines and industries while corroborating our findings with “vertical” experts who specialize in a particular field. This agile, “T-shaped” approach brings you the best talent in the industry. It also informs our organizational design solutions, industry analysis and experience design. Innovation happens at the convergence and we specialize in industry convergence and the next generation of jobs and organizations that they deliver.

We practice what we preach. We implement new technologies, research and tools. We collaborate with start-ups like our current partner vark.com. Our business model and organizational design reflect our values and design principles.

We are biomimics. We designed Open Colony like a mature ecosystem.   By researching and applying ecology studies to work we offer our candidates and clients vibrant, flexible, resilient opportunities and designs. And not only is it innovative, bio-inspired work is good for you.  For how can we fair poorly in a job designed around life’s principals; around products, experiences and economies designed to produce conditions conducive to life?

We are transparent. Recruiting is notoriously secretive but we are social.  We cheered when John Battelle announced Federated Media’s CEO search online (they used a recruiter too).  The Salon is our permeable layer.  Our homepage deconstructs “intro post” as a way to meet members and create dynamic content.  Our members-only Salon shares its discoveries with anyone who is interested and allows them to submit questions via the Open Colony Salon on Vark.

We run on information. By having multiple communications systems, including from the bottom up, dispersed throughout the colony structure and industry a rich feedback loop allows changes in one component of the colony to reverberate through the whole, allowing for adaptation when the environment changes.