Zeng Guofan
Take in widely, employ carefully
Judge people inside real work
Zeng Guofan's practice with his personal staff
A great many provincial governors came out of his staff. This asks how he judged a man before the man had anything to show.
What actually happened?
His method had two halves. Taking in widely meant a low bar at the door: bring people onto the staff and keep the pool large. Employing carefully moved the bar to the far end — not the record and not the conversation, but a real piece of work handed over, and then watching how he judged under actual pressure, how he reported, and what he did with the part he could not do. Li Hongzhang came up exactly that way, from the staff to independent command. What he looked for all his life was principle without officialdom, order in the head and few big words.
Widen the entrance, tighten the exit
Selecting hard at the door assumes you can see through a man in one conversation, and that assumption usually does not hold. Moving the weight of the filter onto the first real task costs less and judges considerably better.
Rather than take the interview from four rounds to six, design the first project of the probation period as something genuinely hard that shows judgement.
Watch how he accounts for it, not how it ended
A thing that came off may have come off by luck. What exposes a person is the process: whether he raises the part he cannot do early or holds it to the end, whether detail questions find him solid or vague, whether a failure comes back as a cause or as an excuse.
Ask where this is not finished. Whoever answers cleanly can be handed something bigger. Whoever says it is basically all fine usually does not know either.
Few big words
Principle without officialdom, order in the head and few big words. He was wary of two kinds: the man whose manner exceeds his content, and the man whose talk exceeds his work. The first drains an organisation and the second manufactures a gap between what was promised and what arrives.
The more adjectives and the fewer numbers in a report, the further it sits from the actual work. Whoever can say this week's figures offhand is usually doing it.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: choosing one of several people to hand something that matters.
Ask first: on the most recent real thing each of them did, how did they account for it?
Where it goes wrong: adding interview rounds instead of giving real work; or taking someone who talks well for someone who thinks clearly.
Lines to keep
For great undertakings, finding successors is the first business.
Ability runs high or low according to what a man aims at.
Same situation, other people are asking
He says all the right things and I'm not sure I believe him.He talks well. I've never seen him deliver.She is the strongest candidate and the way she operates worries me.Three months of doing everything right. Is that enough to go on?Can I trust this person · all 7 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.