Today's HR Hires Mediocrity

Have you ever heard of an exceptional employee who stayed at the same job for ten years? How about for five years? No, remarkable performers shine above the rest and quickly take on bigger challenges. So, why then is it that today's human resource (HR) departments prefer job applicants who have sat at the same desk for long? Why do they display a bias towards mediocrity?
Let's agree on the following: just as performance everywhere can be illustrated with a bell curve, so does performance at work. In a bell curve we see that most participants saturate the middle of the curve. While it isn't nice to call those in the middle "mediocre", the term 'medius' comes from Latin and means middle. In other words, mediocrity is what people in the middle do.
Then, as performance increases to the right of the bell curve, we see very few participants. The higher individual performance is, the smaller the number of participants. Finally, to the left of the middle, we find the opposite. As performance drops, we see that there are fewer and fewer participants.
This matches my empirical experience. As an executive, I found that most people wanted to do a good job at work but couldn't for a reason. I saw that their performance was average when compared to the pool of available workers. Most displayed mediocrity.
If we now ask the proverbial monkey to select employees by flipping coins, we'd find that the company's workforce will display the same characteristics as that of the pool of available workers; the same bell curve with equal performance levels. After years of solving problems at many companies, I have concluded that performance standards are generally equal everywhere. While every company seems to have a couple of great performers, these usually carry the weight for a couple of underperformers. In the meantime, the rest of the employees are not bad, but not good either. The bell curve is similar in most companies. So, being that this is the case, why should organizations have an HR department at all? When HR's performance is no better than chance, why pay for anyone who claims to be specialized on the art of identifying special talent?
There are two main reasons why employees don't perform better. Either they do not have the knowledge or they don't want to use it. It's that simple.
While looking for the knowledge part, most hiring managers place way too much emphasis on identical job experience. They think that the only way to test for the needed technical insight is by matching the posting's title to the candidate's previous job titles. This is the wrong presumption. There are uniquely exceptional candidates who may presently lack some of the necessary knowledge who, as long as they have sufficient brain power, will have no difficulty with any technical aspect of the job. In no time, they will be up and running.
I have often told customer service agents in highly technical industries not to worry about being stumped with difficult inquiries. I assure them that, after a single day of thirty to forty tough calls, they will become experts. Therefore, hiring managers should look for evidence of either the technical insight needed for the position and industry or the brain power to get it. Thus, limiting the search to only those with the same title short-changes the company's chances at placing exceptional performers at every desk in the office. Moreover, looking for resumes sporting the same job title for many years is a sure way to identify candidates who performed at average levels. It certifies that their superiors didn't see any additional potential in them. While this is not the case for all everyone, this is surely the statistical problem with most of them. Yes, some employees worked for bad bosses who could not identify the employee's superior performance levels, but why did the employees stay there if the company didn't match their standards? Where was the fire in the belly they now claim to have?
As for identifying candidates who are willing to use their knowledge on their quest to the land of exceptional performance, the issue requires looking for signs of engagement-with-integrity, with emphasis on integrity. Let me tell you: you get smart people with very low integrity or ethical standards in your company and they will clean the company's bank account. Looking for brain power isn't enough. Any person who fails to have the qualities of engagement and integrity represents an eminent risk to the company. The least they can do is to sit on their hands when asked to take on additional responsibilities. Unfortunately, this is very common in all organizations. Still, it isn't as bad as it could be. Under the worst case scenario, the employee could absolutely sabotage the company. From corporate espionage, to destroying the relationship with key customers, to utter theft, are all possibilities.
Now I ask you, the HR expert, where in a resume or on your online application form do you have a way to identify exceptional candidates? Why is it that your application-filtering process takes the chance of getting rid of the many fantastic candidates who happen to fail some not relevant trait or experience? Yes, I am suggesting that you start by questioning the use of the job posting software you are currently using until you find a way to discern a candidate's technical knowledge, the need brain power and their engagement-with-integrity level. Don't be surprised if your hiring software of choice is letting you down. That would just be as expected; it would be mediocre.
Is it possible to get great employees at every single position? Yes. Read the book Money Ball by Michael Lewis. The book shows how a systemic approach, one not based on luck, can be used to build an exceptionally performing team. Moreover, the book demonstrates that paying more for better talent isn't necessary when the right system is in place. These facts also match with my experience. If I would have let database algorithms pick employees for me, my professional career would have been much less fun. Instead, I looked for those with high brain power and just enough technical insight to get started. I focused on gauging their will to commit while maintaining high integrity at all times. 
But guess what? Following this method is not easy. It requires work. It also forces hiring managers to make better decisions all the time.
No one has ever been fired for hiring an identical match to the job description. That's the safe thing to do. On the other hand, hiring a person from a different industry is scary to many. Not all people are up for the extra work or the pressure to make better decisions. Hiring managers, after all, are no different than the rest. Most are statistically mediocre.

Net Diversity at Work

It's well accepted that diversity is the key to corporate success. We all can agree to it. Unfortunately in business, the road to hell is really paved with great intentions. The problem with diversity has everything to do with its definition.  In a politically correct (PC) world, diversity focuses on characteristics like ethnicity, color, gender and religion. Yet, looking at diversity from this perspective isn't enough. In fact, under many circumstances, defining diversity in this way results in low net diversity.
In a country like Japan where most citizens are of a tightly homogeneous background, bringing people of a different color or ethnic background will in fact improve net diversity. But in a country like the US where people of different color, religious affiliation and gender grew up in the same area, attended the same schools and admired the same music, it is very difficult to improve net diversity by grouping superficially different people who think and act similarly. In other words, corporate human resource (HR) departments in diverse communities must look beyond the surface if their goal is to create the most prosperous environment for a business and its stakeholders.
Let's say that HR fills the corporate bus with a superficially diverse group formed by identical perpetual-optimists. HR reaches a perfect mix in all regulatory diversity metrics. Gender, race, color and religion are all accounted for and well balanced. PC at its best. Yet, since emotional profile diversity isn't part of their diversity metric, the company ends up with all the people in the bus feeling and thinking the same. With no realists on board to ruin the pleasure, the proverbial corporate trip will sure feel happy and exciting. Unfortunately without a healthy dosage of realism, the day-dreaming bunch will soon end up in LA-LA land; literally. They will travel far and fast but will arrive to nowhere soon. As the bus dives into the Great Canyon, we will hear nothing more than their chants of happiness fade as they accelerate towards the bottom.

On the other hand, fill the bus with a superficially diverse bunch of highly structured people and there will be no end to the complaining. After analyzing and debating every possible thing that could go wrong the bus will remain safely static. Next, fill the bus with a superficially diverse group of natural leaders and you will do no better.
These illustrations reflect the reality that a company's success is closely tied to net diversity and that net diversity is more than skin deep. Instead of looking at applicant superficial traits, HR departments should be blind to them. Instead, it is paramount to look at the emotional profile of each individual. Thankfully, emotional profiling has been around HR departments for many years now. First look at the position to be filled and then define the ideal emotional profile. Every job description best matches a unique emotional personality profile. Accounting tasks requires highly structured people who are adept at tightly following pre-established rules and work best under highly predictable, read repetitive, environments. Operational tasks demand people who love accomplishing. Emotional diversity is even needed within a marketing department. Idea generation is best dealt with by natural optimists who enjoy the trip rather than the arrival while marketing production requires a profile similar to those in many operational positions. Repeat finding the best candidate with the right personality match over and over and the company will end up high performing net diversity. In the end, this should be the real goal.
Unfortunately, many of today's HR departments become too concerned with hiring too many members of a given color or gender. Unfortunately, the sad reality of this attitude is that they are no longer being religion, color or gender blind. They are becoming biased. To bias something means to apply an unequal weight over a section of that something. This applies as much to physics as to social issues.

Yet the worst part of developing this bias is that HR departments end up subsequently exposing the company to unnecessary performance risk. By forcing an employee onto a job for which they are not a natural match, professional underperformance will result in apathy, a lack of engagement and finally low employee morale. A job requiring meticulous attention to detail and a high tolerance for repetition will be poorly done by a flexible, imaginative and charismatic worker. In fact, the employee will soon hate the job. No matter how well intended everyone is, the company and the employee lose when PC biases exist.
Get instead someone who naturally feels an adrenaline rush every time each fraction of a task is finished, one of those structured people who never breaks and never lets you down, and everything changes. The company gets super productivity while employee satisfaction is maximized. Everyone wins even in situations where the racial balance is off target, for example.
Despite the absence of the Kumbaya feeling that materializes when all PC metrics are in order, HR departments everywhere need to recognize that net diversity trumps superficial diversity. Closely follow standard PC metrics and HR will build an unhappy and underperforming organization.
I thus suggest not to stress too much about the usual PC metrics. By remaining blind to superficial diversity, by applying random selection of color, ethnicity, gender, etc., net diversity can be achieved. Let's consider that a roulette wheel that lands nine consecutive times on black is not necessarily biased. This is because true randomness has no memory of what just happened. Statistically, it is perfectly acceptable for black to occur nine times in a row within a real random environment. Likewise, it is possible that a randomly operating HR department may hire nine women in a row. In a random environment, the trend periodically migrates away from the mean. While such pattern of similar hires may be a three standard deviation event, the trend will sure revert to the long term mean based on company size and employee pool availability. Statistically, any deviation from accepted PC diversity should be solved in a random selection system over the long term without needing to apply any weight or bias to the system.

Former General Electric CEO, Jack Welch recognized that a company's future success is highly dependent on the performance of its HR department. Think of it. All corporate success stories first pass through HR. So, thanks to an ever more competitive environment, the responsibility of all hiring managers has never been greater. If we then consider the massive burden that superficial PC diversity metrics place on their shoulders, it is no wonder that most companies underperform when compared to industry leaders. Therefore, it is time to realize that in an already diverse society like that of the US, emotional diversity will result in the superior king of net diversity needed by employees and employers.

Nunes Memo - Released

The world of politics has been waiting for the release of the previously classified memorandum that summarizes the findings from an extensive investigation that started in 2016 after anomalies in the FBI's and Department of Justice's (DOJ) behavior were uncovered.
By now, all the media have received their talking points directly from the deep state: those colluding with and protecting Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. The disinformation media has started their coordinated defensive maneuver against the memo. Reuters describes the memo as "a previously classified memo that alleges bias against Trump by the FBI". But don't let them obfuscate the truth. The memo does not allege bias. No, being biased is lawful, Instead, the memo claims law breaking at so many levels and by the most "decorated" cops in the country. Read it for your self below. The memo describes illegal activities like collusion, breaking constitutional rights, perjury (lying) to the FISA court, perjury (lying) to congress, and blackmail of a US President. These are all crimes.
The left would have us believe that the memo is disrespectful of the honorable FBI and DOJ. That is because the socialist minded see government as not having to be accountable. To them, questioning mommy-government is unthinkable. But we know better. We understand that government officials work for us and must be made accountable at all times. So yes, we love the FBI. Still, we will exercise our right and responsibility to make them liable for their actions. In any case, the rank and file at the FBI, the real cops, know very well that their leadership has tainted their institutions and thus must be cleansed.
The New York times and democratic party politicians will argue that the memo gives no evidence. Well, this is correct. It is only a memo. The document detailing all the investigation process is still classified. In any case, democrats in the intelligence committee have seen it but will surely act ignorant.
Finally, the globalist-controlled media will continue to convince their international audience that the Mueller investigation is 'almost' ready to convict Trump. Of course that they will say nothing about the fact that special counsel, Robert Mueller, has just requested the court to postpone the sentencing of Michael Flynn, a former Trump aid facing charges unrelated to Russia or any election meddling. Mueller knows that his case is now about to fall apart. In a nutshell, Robert Mueller will be happy if he gets out of this mess without being taken to prison like the rest of the DC swamp as illustrated by the following mugshots. These are the people listed in the memo as in violation of laws:

James Comey, then FBI director

Andrew McCabe, then FBI Deputy Director

Sally Yates, then Deputy Attorney General

Dana Boente, then Deputy Attorney General

Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General

Bruce Ohr, then Associate Deputy Attorney General

Let's be vigilant. The deep state will be specially active with false flag events as they attempt to protect their behinds. Their strongest tool is fear. So, the Super Bowl will be a prime target just as republican congressmen were last week while traveling on board the Amtrak train that was attacked. Unfortunately, a person died during the incident. Fortunately, the many congressmen on the train were fine after the attempt at derailment failed.
Following are the individual pages from the memo and from Donald Trump's order to unclassify it.