–Systems thinking. Understanding how the different parts of the organization interact to generate results. For example, getting sales compensation right requires systems thinking as it is an incredibly important, expensive and high impact program that directly affects the company’s bottom line. In order to be effective in that design role, you have to be clear on, among other things, the product and market strategy, the allowable financial framework, the goals for a particular reward period even before understanding the how and who to motivate. Managers, or critical team members, have to think about all of these factors at the same time, balancing for the best outcome, and not in isolation. This understanding means they naturally see beyond the confines of their own roles. They need to recognize that while they might have a deliverable for their job, it will have many different impacts across the HR function and across the company. To test for this, I’d often explain the CMO of People concept to a candidate and get them to relay it back to me. If they showed a sense of how things were interconnected, that would indicate that they had this capability.

–Collaboration. A willingness to slow down and an eagerness to work with others. The systems thinker understands how different roles fit together, so they know they need to collaborate with others (even if it takes longer) to bring the CMO of People concept to life. To test for this, I’d usually ask candidates experiential questions such as, “Tell me about a project you did. How did you manage the project? What were you thinking about as you planned your approach?” Collaboration, or lack of it, shows up in the answers. In my case, collaboration was a skill I had to learn. My natural inclination is to go ahead and get things done, especially when I’m pretty sure I know the right things to do. Some good leaders taught me to slow down and involve others.

–Curiosity. A willingness to constantly learn, explore, test and iterate as a way of finding creative solutions. The word “creative” can mislead people because it immediately draws to mind the artist’s vision. In this context, it’s more like a curious engineer or scientist who wants to learn about the world and, in doing so, hopes to find fresh, creative solutions. It’s only fair to note that the unconventional HR professional will often think around an issue only to land at the same solution that a traditional HR person would have given right away. However, without the curiosity to explore, they would never find those cases where there is a fresh approach. More subtly, and perhaps more importantly, the curious person is more likely to get the nuances right even if the core of their approach looks traditional. I didn’t use special interview techniques to identify curious people; their curiosity tends to leap out in their conversations.

–Executive presence. If you have a team doing unconventional things, then they need to have the communication and storytelling skills to sell those things to skeptics—that takes a degree of executive presence.

–Data—and technology—savvy. It almost goes without saying that an approach like the CMO of People, which is so rooted in data, demands that members of the HR team be “data savvy.” Similarly, since technology is so embedded in every process, the HR team must be technology-savvy as well.

–Risk-taking. Doing unconventional things involves a certain amount of risk. You need people who can spot and seize opportunities, are comfortable with managing risks, and have the judgment and courage to shut down something that’s not working.

–Some important attributes:

○Look for people who think of themselves as a sales professional. Find someone who takes pride in knowing the company story, knowing their numbers and knowing how their numbers impact the company.

○They should be willing to ask provocative questions rather than just taking a job requisition and filling it. For example, they should probe to ensure that the requirements make sense for now and in the future; sometimes they should raise the question as to whether the role is even necessary.

○Seek out someone who understands that they are a brand ambassador for the company. Recruiters should immediately get that if the Glassdoor ratings from people who were not hired are positive, then that helps the brand and will make it easier to attract talent.

–Unconventional places to find them:

○Consider people with a background in sales.

–Some important attributes:

○Look for business-oriented professionals who see their role as solving business problems, not as providing training programs. They will be far more effective if they think in terms of helping to deal with pressing business issues (such as missing product launch dates) rather than generic topics such as “how to manage interpersonal conflict.”

○Look for people who make a point of staying at the forefront of technology since this function is being turned upside down by new technologies.

–Unconventional places to find them:

○One of the best tactics for finding good training professionals is to look for people who have held line roles in the business. They truly understand what the business needs and whether training will make a difference.

○Consultants are often good in a training role—they have the strategic thinking, business-mindedness, and presentation skills to excel in learning and development.

○A more off-the-wall choice is product marketers. They see training and development as a product and have the skill to iterate toward ever better products that meet real customer needs.

–Some important attributes:

○For this role to have an outsized impact, the compensation and benefits pro must have the curiosity to look for new solutions and an innate sense of balancing what’s rational for the company with what’s compassionate for employees.

○They should see compensation as a means for driving performance, and should have a nuanced understanding of how compensation design can promote or inhibit the right behaviors.

–Unconventional places to find them:

○Consultants often make strong compensation and benefits pros. Just make sure that you look for someone with four to seven years of experience in consulting. Someone with more years of experience than that might have entered into a revenue-generation role rather than doing real-world problem solving.

○An alternative is to look for someone who has worked in benefits in a large company that self-insures. They are a good bet since they’ve confronted a lot more risk than the typical benefits professional.

–Some important attributes:

○Look for someone who naturally talks about things beyond HR and who can make the connection from strategy to the development of a work product.

–Unconventional places to find them:

○Consultants are a good source of talent for people who will be unconventional HR business partners. Four to seven years of consulting experience is ideal.

○Another good background is someone with an MBA who has worked in the operating business for three to five years.

–Some important attributes:

○Fundamentally, you are looking for someone who has the vision to see how the working environment is a strategic advantage for the company in terms of recruiting, retention and (ultimately) productivity. Skills in collaboration, systems thinking, and storytelling are huge in this role, and quite different from the more transactional skills often sought out in facilities professionals.

–Unconventional places to find them:

○There are venues called “executive briefing centers” that companies use to create an immersive product experience for major customers in a controlled environment. Someone who has designed this sort of center would have the right kind of skills.

○Alternatively, people who have done event management and have been involved in creating a particular customer experience will have the right mindset.

–Some important attributes:

○First, don’t confuse an analytics specialist with an HRIS professional, an HR reporting specialist, or a statistics expert. You are looking for a creative problem-solver who is good with numbers and can tell a story with them. A good role model for the skill set is the investment analyst who would prepare a report to evaluate a company’s investment thesis. You’re looking for someone who can create the model and synthesize a range of facts into an insight. You’d want a person who can collect a lot of data/ insights, and string them together into an enterprise-wide story line with multiple sub-actions.

–Unconventional places to find them:

○As long as the person has that mix of analytical thinking and storytelling, it doesn’t matter what background they have. We hired a unique person out of a two-year banking program who had studied English in undergrad at an Ivy League school. He was highly analytical and a great communicator, which were the key skills even though you wouldn’t normally look for English majors to do analytics.

–Some important attributes:

○A good employment brand person can synthesize a wide variety of views on what the company is about so that they can build an effective brand. For example, one of my staff members who took on this role did 60 one-hour interviews with people from across the company and pulled those disparate views together into a consistent brand message.

○A related skill is the multivariate thinker who can see the parallels between launching a brand and launching a product, keeping in mind how it’s positioned against competitors and delivers value.

○Also, it’s essential that brand people be highly skilled collaborators because they won’t have the resources they need to do the work on their own. They need to influence the website people, the communications people and others to cooperate in activating the brand everywhere.

–Unconventional places to find them:

○There is a whole range of marketing jobs that could prepare someone for this job from the CMO of a small company, to the person doing product marketing, to a brand manager in consumer-packaged goods.

○In terms of education, you’d be more likely to seek a Kellogg’s MBA (marketing focus) than a University of Chicago type (finance focus).