Ignited: Managers! Light Up Your Company and Career for More Power More Purpose and More Success by Thompson Vince

Author:Thompson, Vince [Thompson, Vince]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Pearson Education (US)
Published: 2007-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

How Linkmakers Build and Use Their Networks

Steve Mummolo managed an in-house design team for US Search, a firm that is a leader in using technology to track down information about people for purposes as varied as employment background checks, screening of nannies or building contractors, or searches for someone's long-lost classmate or sweetheart. He exemplifies how the Linkmaker builds an ad hoc network to get things done when the explicit structure of the company isn't working.

Steve had a problem. In June 2003, US Search merged with the Enterprise Screening division of First American to form First Advantage, a Florida-based firm. The merger expanded the company and added many new resources, but it also threw the firm's internal systems into a temporary state of confusion. Departments like Finance and Human Resources had to devote time to examining their own processes and figuring out how to unify the two organizations. At this inopportune time, an urgent design challenge meant that Steve had a desperate need for more talent on his staff—and he needed them yesterday.

"In the wake of the merger," Steve recalls, "the HR people were really unclear as to what the hiring process would be. I tried the logical channels. Our new in-house HR rep said he didn't handle recruiting. So then I called Florida where our parent company is based. They said, 'Well, we can sort of handle it, but we don't know exactly what you need.' And when I explained that I badly needed some design help, I was handed a huge ball of red tape to unravel. To start the hiring process, you needed two weeks' notice, and you needed to fill out a collection of forms and get approval from executives all the way up to the CEO.

"This doesn't work with a design team. When you need help for a hot project, you need it right away. You don't have two weeks' notice."

So Steve took it upon himself to handle the recruiting process. How? By using his skills as a Linkmaker. "I spoke with people at several different staffing agencies. I preferred one particular creative group because they pre-screened and did all the background checks on everybody. I wound up orchestrating the recruiting process, hiring the people I needed, and then plugging the information into our HR systems."

The process took a little time and patience. "I just went and tracked down all the people I needed to get approval from," Steve explains. "For example, I went to Legal and said, 'This is what I'm doing and here are the contracts from the headhunters. I need you to review them.' My friend in the Legal department turned it around for me in a day. In the end, we got it all done quickly. I'd been dancing around with HR for months. Once I started acting on my own, I had a candidate that I was making an offer to in less than 30 days."

Here is where many managers in The Middle would raise the empowerment issue.

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