By Hiring Smart Employees, Are You Willing To Take Their Advice?

I think this quote by Steve Jobs is one of the catalyst which makes Apple so successful. He was willing to hire people who were smarter, and let them tell him where his company could improve. This is not an old idea but very few in management understand this concept.

It is called Level 5 Leadership. I first came to know this concept through my Doctorate Year 1 program and started to look at companies where I had worked which had Leaders who embraced this concept. One of the things a Leader needs to understand that they also are evolving and if they can find inviduals who are willing to evlove as well half the battle is won. The difficulty comes when you have a management (not leadership) team that does not embrace change and only wants to micromange people. 

It's when the other managers are not on the same page when issues occur. I think it comes down to is this, does the company really want smart people working for them.  When an individual is smart, they typically are not going to make a suggestion unless they have done their home work. However, as a new employee this can become a challenge when a mangement team only looks at ones education and not their work experience. 

Recently, I was hired by Corporate to address some standardization issues, look at what was currently known and document processes.  When I brought up some flaws in their system, I was told I was being combative.  Really, by asking questions to make something better was seen as a negative instead of a positive.  In order to do what I was hired to do, I had to ask those questions to gain an understanding of what was really going on.

Since I was not hired by the local manager, it was difficult or to say the least and almost impossible situation to do the job. In other words I was set up to fail, the company was not really into hiring smart people to provide them viable solutions but rather more interested in people who were used to being micromanged. 

At a different organization, when I made suggestions on how to make things better, I was shot down everytime. I think it was because the management team were intimidated that they had not thought of it. However, I was able to make connections outside my department and through those connections was asked to participate at a National Innovation Summit. 

So my question to you is this, when recruiting with the idea that you need to hire smart people to tell you what to do to make the company better, how do you deal with manager's who are not interested in this concept.