From a talent acquisition, people development and talent
management perspective, I am hoping that the Twitter acquisition of Posterous
is prosperous. Dick Costolo, a former Google Executive, is the third CEO of
Twitter, and that is a high CEO turnover rate if you consider that the business
launched in 2006. Twitter is coming out of its own people management problems.
It is bold for them to make an acquisition driven by acquiring the talented
people in the target company. Typically an acquisition is about chasing the
target company’s technology or client base, not the people who make up the
target company. This says something about Dick Costolo’s leadership style and
the vision for Twitter.
For the number crunchers who motivate any form of M&A (Mergers
And Acquisition) activity, an acquisition based on “talent” might sound
preposterous. While we all have heard the cliché’ “People are a business’s most
important asset”, the number crunchers would argue that is not technically
true, given people are not valued anywhere on the Balance Sheet, nor are they
part of the variables in any valuation model. If anything, traditionally with
most acquisitions, what gets overlooked is the people culture fit after the
transaction, which destroys any other calculated synergy envisaged when there
is an organisational culture clash.
Dick Costolo is the longest serving CEO at Twitter and his
leadership seems to have steadied what was a volatile people management culture
into a more sustainable one. He recruited the right talent, embarked on a path
of dedicated leadership development and allowed the Twitter team to define
Twitter’s core values. Users are now experiencing a stable product that is up
(remember the whale) and they are holding on to the people they are hiring. Are
they finally turning the corner in becoming a viable business model?
Costolo is doing the simple stuff right, albeit none of it is
easy. Recognising the inherent ability of people and allowing them the freedom
to create is many a business leader’s dilemma. This goes against the grain of
managers looking to control people as an instinct. Great leaders don’t control
people, they inspire them. Costolo devised a six hour leadership course, which
he administers to Senior Executives four times a year (source Brad Stone’s
article on Bloomberg Businessweek, “Twitter, The
Startup That Wouldn’t Die”).
Just because you’re at the top of your game, does not mean you
know it all and have nothing further to learn. You can be smart and have the
technical depth, having little gaps when it comes to dealing with problems from
a business as usual perspective. Your behaviour though is a different learning
game as that is what makes people want to work with you or not. You can’t stop improving
that, so successful companies today are more aware of how behavioural problems
are what inhibit leaders from rallying their teams to deliver on the goals and
vision of the organisation. How does one recognise talent, and more importantly
how do you attract talent that wants to stay?
A good manager can possibly hire one talented person in his/her
entire career. A great leader consistently recruits talented people to join
their team. Twitter is taking the concept of talent acquisition to a whole new
level in their latest acquisition for talent. It is simple to look at one
person and hire them based on their personal values and vision being aligned to
that of the business. Simple, not easy! It is quite something else, if you
recruit an entire team of people in one go, whose values and vision you think, are
aligned to those of the organisation.
It’s preposterous for some, but post Posterous, Mergers And
Acquisitions could be prosperous. The true value and contribution of people in
making business viable and successful is finally being seen. If people factor
that in their valuation models, what’s the art of the possible?
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