Peter Drucker, Pizza Hut and RPO
Posted on Mon, May 14, 2012
Sometimes when I sit down to write a blog, I feel like a contestant on the Food Network show, Chopped. Chopped is a cooking competition show that's all about up-and-coming chefs taking unrelated, dissimilar everyday items and turning them into a cohesive meal.
As you well know, I’m not a chef and I’m not creating a meal, but in most of my blog postings I try to take unrelated, personal interests and connect them to my Pinstripe professional RPO world. And like the contestants on Chopped, sometimes my creation is a hit and sometimes it is a bust.
For this entry, my challenge is to take Peter Drucker, Pizza Hut and RPO and connect the dots into a meaningful and relevant message that provides marvelous insight into the Recruitment Process Outsourcing world.
So here we go…
Peter Drucker was an influential writer, management consultant, and self-described “social ecologist.” His writings regarding taking risk and making mistakes have always stuck with me. In fact, the one Drucker quote I have memorized is:
“People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.“
And so the other day when I read about the new Pizza Hut Crown Crust pizza, the pizza-cheeseburger hybrid, I tried to think about this gastronomic boondoggle through a Peter Drucker risk taking lens. Many of the foodie reviews immediately jumped on this creation as an abomination of cuisine; however, I believe we should celebrate the risk taking, give Pizza Hut some latitude and temper our criticism. After all, they are taking a gamble, but without taking chances they’d never experience success. I’m sure if we check the history of some of our current culinary mainstays, they were at some point considered just as odd.
And this brings me back to Recruitment Process Outsourcing and why some RPO services providers are thriving more than others. The less successful RPO firms are just simply doing what they are asked. No more, no less. On the other hand, the high growth RPO firms are constantly evolving and driving innovation to their client engagements. Sometimes this forward leaning approach means stumbling; but more often than not, it leads to success. To maximize RPO opportunities, you have to be willing to take risks and cannot be afraid of making occasional mistakes.
Peter Drucker, Pizza Hut and RPO….It all connects for me!
Post contributed by Barry Diamond. Follow me on Twitter @bddiamond
