A few days ago in an article titled “The recruiting Treadmill” I made fun of the reasoning that companies need to get fit. Colin Kingsbury COO from HRM Direct, in an article titled Getting on the recruiting treadmill says that in fact there is a recruiting treadmill. He calls it “competition”. After thinking a while I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. It sounds logical enough but there is an odd twang to it, it just resonates wrong with me.

Mr Collings said: ”The challenge for managers who wish to be successful is to not wait until they suffer the corporate equivalent of a heart attack to change their ways.” Still following the same allegory, he goes on to say; “As Rodney Dangerfield once said, “Want to feel skinny? Hang around with fat people.” So, put your hiring managers on the scale. ”

This doesn’t sound like it is about competition to me. I agree with Mr. Kingsbury on what he’s saying, but if it was all about competition as he said in his blog post, if I really was committed to be skinny, I wouldn’t be hanging around fat people but at the gym

The overall conclusion for me is that it is all about motivation not competition. Getting companies fit has more to do with motivation and companies get motivated by leadership. When we revert to competition we are looking for external forces to cause change within us and it is the equivalent to looking for dexatrim to lose weight and whenever we stop taking our corporate dexatrim; watch out scale!! It starts with getting a correct perspective, making a commitment, then setting up a form of accountability, it is the same in losing weight as it is in getting a company fit.

Tags: , , , ,