I haven’t seen The Hunger Games yet, but I’ll be taking my mentee this weekend. However, I am sure I will hear the inevitable “It’s not at all like the book” to which I’ll respond “Of course not, its a movie!”
How can you inject “The Hunger Games” in your business? Well, first, don’t follow the plot line in the book where you send your best to fight to the death for the good of an entire civilization. The business version of “The Hunger Games” is to create an environment where there is so much passion and love for the work that people do that they are hungry for more and more opportunity.
Many businesses fall short because they don’t tap into that hunger that employees have to be all that they can be. Instead of pushing their best people even harder, they spend more time trying to fix those who aren’t on board in the first place.
Cultivated that hunger in your staff, and you’ll be able to get rid of the ones who don’t have the hunger via attrition.
I am lucky to work for a company who makes applicants go through a rigorous interview process. We have each applicant interview with the heads of each department, plus the people that they will be working with daily. Everyone then comes together and makes decisions (usually unanimous) as to who the “winner” is. It takes a long time to find the perfect person for the job, but its so much better to hire the right person than trying to train the wrong person.