However, before I get into the secret of successful recruiting, I want to respond to those coaches, consultants, college professors, and HR coaches who may have doubts about my thesis that “real managers are born, not made.” The logical extension of this statement is that no training (or education) is required for management development. On the contrary, I firmly believe that training is essential for the development of people, regardless of their role or job description. I contend, however, that training works best when trainees have the right skills for their particular job. If learners have these innate abilities, they will naturally be more inclined to seek out relevant training to improve. Also, their desire to improve will make them more attentive and engaged students in the classroom. What this means for trainers, consultants, teachers, and coaches is that everyone benefits from having a classroom full of students who possess the skills necessary to be successful in their specific job or the job they aspire to. Why? Because trainees who possess the innate skills required for their job will be more engaged in the training process, better able to understand the curriculum, and more motivated to apply the knowledge gained to their job.
With that said, let’s turn our attention to a lesser-known recruiting method that I hinted at earlier. In fact, this personnel recruiting game changer was discovered over 40 years ago by none other than the National Football League (NFL). But, before revealing this secret, let’s learn a little about the history of the NFL. The key to understanding the NFL’s enduring success lies in the evolution of the NFL’s recruiting philosophy from the 1920s to the present day. Therefore, our historical review begins in the 1920s when the league was initially formed. The NFL stars of that era were Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, and Bronko Nagurski, to name a few. Certainly these are familiar names to die-hard football fans, but in those early years, there were also lesser-known players like 5ft. 1 inch, 119 pounds, blocking the back, Jack “Soapy” Shapiro. Surprised? You may be wondering, as I did, “How did a 5-foot-1 running back make the NFL roster considering the huge, behemoth grills we see today?” There is NO WAY Mr. Shapiro could make a team’s roster in modern times mainly due to his physical deficiencies. So what happened to the league’s recruiting philosophy between the 1920s and now that significantly reduced the chances of athletes like Shapiro becoming NFL players? Answer: The introduction of the NFL Combine. The Combine was formed in the early 1970s to serve as a talent selection process for college athletes interested in playing in the NFL. Qualifying athletes through the Combine, based on their “innate” aptitude for playing football, the league consistently filled team rosters with ONLY “good to great” players. [1]
How did the NFL pull off this recruiting magic? In the science of statistics, there are graphical representations of data called normal bell curves. As students of statistics know, the bell curve is used to represent the universe of probabilities of a given population being measured. Consider for a moment the population of NFL football recruiting prospects for the years 1920 and 2010 respectively. Now visualize just below this NFL draft bell curve that there are probability percentages of 68%, 95.5%, and 99.7%. These percentages tell us the level of statistical confidence that an NFL prospect will score “weak” vs. “strong” (talent-wise) or somewhere in between. In 1920, the NFL experienced a normal talent distribution curve. That is, in the 1920s there was an equal chance (about 50-50) that a professional football prospect would be classified as weak or strong talent. This makes perfect sense and explains why Soapy Shapiro was able to qualify for the NFL back then in a role that competed against the likes of Jim Thorpe. Essentially, what the NFL’s recruiting process turned up was an even mix of weak, average and strong player talent across the league. For this reason, the football talent in the NFL of the 1920s and 1930s, in general, was probably not much better than that of a top-ranked state high school championship team today.
Fast-forward to the 2010 NFL. Referring once again to the bell curve example, what you see for 2010 represents the extraordinary shift in the talent recruiting philosophy adopted by the NFL and implemented in the early 1970s through of their NFL Combine. As many of you know from your course statistics, the far right or far left of the bell curve is where the “exceptional” members of a given population are found. In the world of the 2010 NFL, positioning on the far right of the recruiting campaign reflects the “best of the best” recruiting prospects. So what you see today is an NFL that, through the Combine process, learned the secret of how to recruit ONLY from a pool of the VERY BEST TALENT available in college sports. Additionally, due to the effectiveness of the Combine’s skill selection process, the NFL was no longer forced to accept Joe Lunchbucket on a walk-in, undersized, or talented basis, as they did in the early years of the league. Nothing against Mr. Shapiro or others like him who braved the professional grill with less than a full complement of physical tools. I have no doubt that they were great players in their day. Players like that, however, are no longer considered viable by NFL managers/staff recruiters today because the pool of qualified prospects is now restricted to only skill-rich athletes (on the far right of the bell curve), those with football. talent to pass the Combine’s regimen of physical and mental tests with flying colors. In effect, through the Combine, the NFL cleverly figured out how to reduce its population of potential recruits from a vast number of available college athletes to a fraction of this number to include only the best athletes fit to play NFL football.
The NFL Combine concept is nothing less than recruiting geniuses! And the proof is in the pudding of the NFL’s spectacular success. Just look at the explosive growth of the NFL over the last few decades: in fan base, ratings, game attendance, team merchandise sales, etc. The NFL’s results are through the roof in almost every measure of performance. Financial success is great, but where is the proof of the effectiveness of this recruiting method on the field of play? Just turn on your TV on any given Sunday and watch an NFL game. You’ll quickly recognize the very high caliber talent on both sides of the ball. Without a doubt, each of these players at each position is an exceptional athlete, and waiting on the sidelines are his backing with more of the same high level of talent. This is why you barely notice a drop in performance when the first player on a team is replaced by a backup player. What does this all mean? In the NFL, active players are excellent athletes who are the product of their God-given abilities, as evidenced by their high scores on a variety of skills, abilities and agility tests conducted by the NFL Combine. The result: only exceptional athletes with “natural” talents for playing football are accepted into the NFL.
Ok, so how does the NFL Combine methodology work? demonstrate that great managers are born, not made? I provide the details in my book, born manager. [1] However, I will give you the condensed version here. NFL superstars are no different than superstars in any field of work, including management. Why? If an organization like the NFL can successfully personally acquire outstanding players by testing innate talents (a/k/a qualifications) of potential players, the same can be done with managerial candidates or any other candidate for the position. The bottom line is that the NFL Combine is a very successful recruiting model that others can emulate. How? Perhaps if he were as rich as all the NFL owners put together, he would create a Combine-like testing process for every job on the planet for others to use. Unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of wealth, but I don’t need it because there is a viable alternative. It is a national non-profit organization that provides scientific aptitude tests for a wide range of career types. This organization is the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation (JOCRF). In fact, JOCRF has been conducting aptitude tests for nearly 100 years, helping millions of thousands of people find their ideal careers. Just as the NFL attracts talented players from the far right of the bell curve through its Combine process, CXOs, HR directors be a butcher, baker, candle maker or manager. [2]
Now that you know the NFL recruiting secret, you can match your success by using JOCRF to identify and deploy HUGM or simply help you identify the best employees with the strongest skills needed to produce the next generation of career SUPERSTARS.
Finally, let’s “connect the dots” of the key points presented in this article…
- NFL players are born NOT made! This means that NFL players are born with a unique combination of skills that gives them a competitive advantage in a professional football career.
- These “Natural” Athletes Possess Abilities That Can Be Scientifically Measuredand the NFL created its Combine to do just that, identifying and signing the best players for professional football.
- The NFL’s unprecedented financial success is directly related to its disciplined use of its Combine process to identify the best players through scientific measurement of their athletic aptitude to play professional soccer.
- The high quality of NFL player talent is proof that Excellent employees (for any industry) can be identified by scientifically testing candidates’ aptitudes and matching them with the specific requirements of the job..
- Corporate and government entities can emulate the success of the NFL by scientifically testing the aptitude of candidates. and match these with the requirements of open positions, including manager and supervisor work.
- Organizational leaders and HR directors should engage JOCRF as their internal Combine process to identify and hire the best talent for each job position in your organization.
- Organizational leaders and human resource managers should start the transformation of leadership by qualifying managers through the JOCRF aptitude tests. expedite HUGM’s hiring to fill managerial and supervisory vacancies.
- Organizational leaders and hiring managers must routinely replace underperforming employees with exceptional employees through the use of JOCRF aptitude tests. to identify candidate skills that match specific job requirements.
[1] born manager (Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, 2009), pp. 4, 14, 18, 90, 95, 97-8.
[2] To learn more about the science of human engineering and to learn what scientific aptitude tests have done to improve the careers of people like you, visit the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation home page.