Talent Challenges for Social Ventures: Skill vs. Will

Submitted by Moses Lee on September 11, 2008 - 08:15.
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Talent management is arguably the greatest challenge today for social ventures trying to scale-up in their overall impact.  I recently spoke with Deepti Doshi, Talent Manager at Acumen Fund on the subject and she commented, "We have realized that recruiting and retaining quality local talent is one of the greatest hindrances to growth and scale for enterprises serving the poor."

In the next few posts, I'm going to write about talent challenges at the BoP in the effort to spur discussion and brainstorm solutions.  In this post, I'd like to open up a discussion on recruiting.  The following scenario sets up one of the main issues:

There's an open position within your social venture and it has been very hard to fill.  One of the primary reasons for this is that there is such as small pool of qualified local people - people with the right skill and will - from which to pull from.  The country's educational system is not strong and the most qualified people end up migrating to greener pastures.  You eventually stumble across two potential hires: one has the right skill for the position, but doesn't have the will - the value and drive to build a social venture.  The other person has the will, but not the skill.  The position is considered key within the organization.  What do you do?     


This is the dilemma that many entrepreneurs and business leaders of social ventures face.  Ideally, it would be great to fill all positions within a social venture with those who have both the skill and the will.  But this is no easy task, particularly at the base of the pyramid.

I've heard the argument by some that those who work in more operational or front-line positions do not necessarily need the will component.  The reason for this is that some positions just need to be filled by people who can get the job done.  Others, however, argue that hiring someone without the shared values is dangerous - at any level.  If someone doesn't share the values of the social venture, he/she will, in a sense, "pollute" the venture.I recently read a case study on Jide Taiwo & Co., a real estate business operating in Nigeria.  The following caught my attention:

Inadequately qualified employees detracted from the business as they were unable to meet clients' needs in a professional manner.  Although this had always been a major challenge for the firm, it was not half as bad as their poor social values.

The founder of the company commented on this situation, saying, "For dwindling quality of education, this can be addressed through training.  But for change in attitudes, there are greater challenges in remolding social values already entrenched in their psyche."  


What do you think? What matters most when hiring people into a social venture: that the worker have the right skills to perform the job or the shared social values?  Can you hire a person who has the will and train him/her in the skill? Can you hire a person who has the skill only, but try to train the person to develop the will? Or should you only hire people who have both  - at the risk of never finding anyone?


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Skill or ability?
Submitted by JHSeattle on September 13, 2008 - 12:41.
One of the distinctions I'd like to point out is between skill and ability. When a job is posted it typically includes a litany of "qualifications" or "required skills", often defined as experiences that a job seeker has already completed. As a result, how often does a prospective job seeker disqualify themselves despite a passion for the mission and alignment with the organizations values? Yet there must be people with the _ability_ to accomplish the specific requirements, even if they have not already accomplished them in the past. How does an organization evaluate an applicant's "runway" - their ability to grow into a role, and the speed at which they do so? The capacity of an organization to evaluate and grow talent seems proportionate to their capacity to hire based on will at the expense of skill
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I believe passion or will is
Submitted by Anonymous on September 14, 2008 - 13:39.
I believe passion or will is the most important when hiring someone... while working with a number of non-profits i have experienced that those with the passion will go above and beyond the job's calling to accomplish the institutes mission- they will develop the skills required, face challenges with a fresh view. However, if they potential employee's personal goals don't meet eye to eye with the institute's, then they dont give their 100%, often reacting in ways (knowingly or unknowingly) that hurt the organisation in the long run. Plus when the going gets tough, they are the first to jump ship! I would always hire a passionate person versus someone who is isnt.
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yes
Submitted by Moses Lee on September 15, 2008 - 11:31.
I think this is an absolutely critical discussion to have.  What is the proper way to evaluate a job seeker?  Clearly, past experience is an indicator, but not entirely.  I believe a lot of companies are try to adopt new measures/criteria to evaluate a prospect that go beyond experience,etc.  
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evaluating passion/drive
Submitted by Moses Lee on September 15, 2008 - 11:34.
I would generally tend to agree with this. The hard part is trying to evaluate if someone has the DNA of the organization.  This ususally can't be done in one-two interviews. 
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Timely
Submitted by Rahul Panicker on September 17, 2008 - 14:22.
This is a very timely post. I've been following your articles for a while now, Moses. A good number of people I know are dealing with this issue. My own venture (www.embraceglobal.org) will be on the ground in India soon, and we've been wondering about this. Another venture that came out of the same class at the d.school at Stanford as Embrace, d.light design (www.dlightdesign.com) has been hiring agressively and faces similar challenges. I'm all ears.
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Case Study/Research
Submitted by Moses Lee on September 17, 2008 - 23:32.
Rahul, thanks for this comment.  I'm actually working with Acumen right now on a case study/research project on the talent challenges at the base of the pyramid.  Will be teasing out the framework in the next month or so and would be happy to share. (also, perhaps I can gain some insight from your own experience) One of our hopes is to to educate practitioners/entreprenuers on thesetalent  challenges prior to launch.  
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Moses - agreed, this is a
Submitted by Ann Rogan on September 18, 2008 - 04:52.
Moses - agreed, this is a very timely post. I am currently writing on this, from the perspective of a foreign national working in an Indian company. More than any other environment, I think the key to hiring, particularly in the social enterprise field, is understanding an individual's motivation. Often times, the will that people say they are valuing (which I would agree with), comes with someone who values passion and stimulating work over money. It can be very difficult to find these people locally, which then may throw your recruitment outside - to the metros, or overseas. The challenge you then have to consider is letting these 'will-folks' grow into the role at the risk of losing them to a temporary stint. Training, as always, is important - but so is building a strong enough organizational culture that can help build processes into 'will-folks.'
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Expats
Submitted by Moses Lee on September 18, 2008 - 09:44.
Ann, you raise an interesting point regarding recruiting people outside of the local context.  This is something that I'm going to write about next: the role of the expat in a social venture in the developing world.  Would appreciate your comments/thoughts on this.    Also, I agree with you that we need to let people grow into roles and how important training is for social ventures.  Unfortunately, many social ventures do no have formal training and put very little emphasis on it.  
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This is a fascinating
Submitted by Bo Ghirardelli on October 13, 2008 - 22:06.
This is a fascinating conversation with implications both domestically and internationally. As a Teach For America corps member in South Central Los Angeles, I can speak from the position of having faced this decision concerning my own qualifications. I did not study Education formally at all in college, but I believed that I had the ability (as JHSeattle put it) to perform as a middle school teacher. I certainly had the will, and I found that TFA screened initially for will and then assessed skill. However, it seems, as Moses just mentioned, that many nonprofits do not provide much or adequate training for employees. Well, TFA focuses so heavily on the training of their new corps members through the summer teacher "boot camp" and the monthly Saturday trainings that they are able to quickly grow established abilities into the skills necessary to teach in inner-city, dysfunctional schools. Although I recognize the enormous costs of sophisticated training programs for social ventures, I think that some formalized training could go a long way towards turning the ability and will into a valued employee. Furthermore, establishing clear and detailed job responsibilities for the new employee serves both as a focus for the training and as an aid in the transition to the actual job.
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Agree with you
Submitted by Moses Lee on October 15, 2008 - 01:12.
Bo, thanks for this comment.  Training/career development  is a requirement for social ventures if they are serious about scaling their impact.  (BTW, I think TFA does an unbelievable job in training its people.  It is a model organization in my mind) Unfortunately, most ventures don't think about it until it's too late.   
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