the business bro catches up to emmitt smith

The combination of the NFL Draft happening just last weekend and my own involvement in a handful of searches for new hires into my organization has me thinking quite a bit these days about performance evaluation, particularly in the context of finding new additions. As a field, it seems to be around where astronomy was a thousand years ago. A specific story comes to mind from a book I read as a kid about Emmitt Smith, the legendary NFL running back who spent most of his Hall of Fame career with the Dallas Cowboys. The team used a first-round selection on the Florida star but some criticized the choice, with my recollection being that his footspeed was a major source of concern. When Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson was asked about this criticism, he responded to the effect of "well, I never saw him get caught from behind in college". Maybe we should call Jimmy the Copernicus of helmet football.

There is more to say about this story, a lot of which I covered in a December 2018 post. However, the direction of that post was a little different than why this story came to mind again recently, so I'll summarize the point from that post then add my new thought. The obvious lesson from the Emmitt Smith story is the importance of knowing which qualities are appropriate to evaluate along the lines of "good enough" - that is, not whether the player is the fastest, but whether the player is fast enough. In a generalized context, what it means is assessing a candidate using a yes/no framework (such as, does the candidate have a specific degree?) but resisting the urge to use relative value in the evaluation (in other words, not comparing GPAs of those who hold the degree). I think this lesson comes through in the above link so I won't harp on it any further.

The other lesson is far subtler but perhaps the more important consideration, particularly if you are generalizing to your own role as an evaluator. The reason Jimmy Johnson could evaluate footspeed on a "fast enough" basis is because he had prioritized the necessary qualities for success in the role. Speed is absolutely critical for success in the sport, but by prioritizing it appropriately Johnson knew he could take a slower player if it meant that the player was a better fit in terms of other more important criteria. I think the first step for any evaluation, particularly in the context of recruiting for a new hire, is to determine the top criteria for defining the best candidate. From my experience this is hard to do if you choose more than two or three qualities, but it's really up to the person in charge to know how many qualities can be precisely evaluated during the search. Once you have those criteria, you need to evaluate each candidate in enough detail to compare one candidate to the other along those criteria. This doesn't mean you would ignore other lower-priority criteria, but it does allow you to take the simpler approach of evaluating for "good enough" in those areas so that your energy is saved for evaluation of the priority criteria.