Building a Virtual Bench

Finding the right people for your team is one of the most important, if not the most important, job of a leader. Yet, it's typically the most frustrating one, the most time consuming one, and the one we're most likely to delegate to someone else, like HR or recruiting, or just put a job posting on Indeed or LinkedIn and hope for the best. How's that working out for you?

I want to give you a different idea - a way to use the people you know, leverage the people you know, to find great people to add to your team, and it's called building a virtual bench. Very simply, the way the process could work for you is that every member of your leadership team commits to making a list of 10 people that you each know like, trust, hopefully know, like, and trust you. They could be in your industry or outside your industry.

Then, call each one of those folks and you ask them a simple question: "Hey, we've got some exciting plans. We're looking to grow. Who do you know that's an A player that I ought to be talking to?" The typical response is going to be, "Well, what position are you hiring for?" And your answer is, "Well, in time, we're going to need all different types of people: sales people, finance people, engineers, service folks, administrative folks. Who do you know that's an A player that I ought to be talking to?"

When you get introduced to those A players, you're not necessarily interviewing them for a job. You may not have a job for them right now. They may be thrilled with the job they have right now, but what you're doing is you're getting together for a cup of coffee or a virtual cup of coffee, and just having a conversation with them, getting to know them. If they do seem like they could be an A player, then you put them on your virtual bench, which may be as simple as adding them to a spreadsheet and saying, "I'm going to keep in touch with them every three months, every six months" because maybe you don't have a need for them now. Maybe they're thrilled with the job they're in now. But 6 months, 9 months, 18 months from now, things may change.

The very last question you ask that potential A player you're talking to is "Hey, who else do you know that's a potential A player?" If you and your team commit to each adding let's say three people to your virtual bench every quarter, and you have 5, 6, 7 people on your leadership team, you can see how that multiplies quarter over quarter, and before you know it, you've got dozens and dozens of potential A players on that virtual bench. That's where you go first - before indeed, before LinkedIn, before hiring a recruiter - go to those folks you already know that are high potential A players.

What are you going to do to build your virtual bench today?