Influence encompasses a broad range of behavior and experience. The difference between influence and power is subtle. Power is the direct ability to harness resources to get things done. Influence is like power without the underlying resources. Influence is the ability to cause other people to use their resources in a certain way.
According to the I Ching, China’s legendary Oracle, the difference between seduction and courtship is persistence. That same difference holds true across all forms of influence. Some high-volume direct marketing operations rely on instantaneous buzz and rapid decision making. Longer term influence comes from more modest approaches of greater duration. Both are forms of influence, each has pros and cons.
The point of this Top 100 Influencers series is not to judge right or wrong. The goal is to illuminate patterns of influence so that the reader might better understand the operating context. Some influences are quick burns, others are slow and sustained.
Bill Vick, profiled earlier this week, is one example of a sustained influence. Over the course of decades, Bill’s businesses and practices have enriched and shaped the very meaning of Recruiting for hundreds of thousands of practitioners. Combining information distribution and technological advances, Vick continues to mold the core idea of Recruiting.
Bill Kutik and David Manaster, who both operate at the faster, more seductive end of the business, take great pride in steering the industry towards greater effectiveness over time. The platforms they operate are more seductive but their contributions are sustained. The current rise of social media is quick and enticing. The presumed experts generally offer little sustained influence but do create quick shifts in market perception.
At the ERE Social Media Summit, we got to see Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s CEO, proclaim that LinkedIn profiles were more honest than resumes. The idea rapidly migrated from the Google conference hall to mainstream via the hordes of twittering participants. No facts were ever presented as evidence. This is quick alluring influence. There’s influence in Twitter’s speed of transmission (and fact checking agnosticism), Hoffman’s position at the helm of the next generation job board and LinkedIn’s own provocative sway.
Rob McIntosh (ERE , LinkedIn and RBC) holds the middle ground. The Australian native has been plying his trade in the states for a decade. Currently, Rob is the Senior Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition at Avanade. The company, which is a Microsoft – Accenture joint venture has 10,000 employees engaged in various forms of enterprise software solutions using Microsoft products. The company is reaching a stage of maturity where it is wrestling with the apron strings of its parents. It’s financially viable and has a distinct and interesting employment brand.
McIntosh’s work history looks like he was preparing for the job. Time leading various recruiting initiatives at Microsoft and Deloitte are just the pieces required for a company as focused as Avanade. “It’s a very defined recruiting sphere and a focused problem,” says Rob.
For several years, Rob put together the SourceCon Grandmaster challenges. The clever contests were designed to stretch and strengthen the members of the sourcing subset of our industry. McIntosh always creates influence by teaching in this sort of way. At the center of the emergence and professionalization of sourcing, McIntosh insists on an extraordinary level of excellence in the people he leads and mentors. (He was the ’sourcecon dude.)
The list is extensive. As sourcing emerged into the mainstream, McIntosh’s various ex-employees, team members and colleagues started to occupy central positions throughout the industry.
One of the things that makes McIntosh so profoundly influential is that he seems to always be giving credit. He must have mentioned forty other Recruiting – HR players over the course of our conversation. He’s well versed in industry dynamics and singularly focused on his task.
It’s an interesting problem set. Avanade is uniquely configured to respond to a relationship based recruiting approach. The company hires a very specific kind of person who can only emerge from a narrow range of sources. Where McIntosh was focused on sourcing, he now has to consider long term relationships and the implications of experience.
He makes the transition look graceful. What seems to happen when he moves through an arena is that he professionalizes it and moves to the next accomplishment. Rob McIntosh’s deep influence on the HR-Recruiting industry comes from a deep practitioner’s focus on the work at hand, an enormous regard for the power of cost-cutting and a desire to make a real difference.
The scores of associates whose careers are turbo charged as a result of working for and with him are his gift to the profession.
John Sumser is the founder and CEO of TwoColorHat, a company specializing in market strategy for HR – Recruiting Vendors. You can keep up with his other stuff at johnsumser.com. Follow the rest of the Top 100 Influencers project.
