I know it seems awfully shallow to say I find Tyra Banks' breasts attractive, but I do. Clearly, her achievement as a top international model, screen goddess and big-time TV producer makes Tyra Banks a powerful woman in her own right, one of the most influential.
Even so, I find her breasts grab my interest more than her other professional attributes. As I research everything I possibly can about Tyra Banks' and the origins for my own curiosity – it's a transparency thing, duh! – I realize that my being distracted by her voluptuousness is perfectly normal for a man of my age and orientation, certainly nothing to be embarrassed about. And, in the musings of an authentic post, I mean no offense to my less worldly or more matronly readers.
More, as I research the psychology of physical attraction and how having a beautifully formed bosom can influence outcomes in the recruiting process – in ways we might otherwise be uncomfortable talking about, screening and assessment, interviewing, salary negotiations and so on – I find Tyra Banks feeds a number of my interests, not shallow at all.
For example, take Tyra Banks' hit show in the U.S., America’s Top Model. As I follow along with my eleven and nine year old daughters I find myself quite fascinated by the story advancing each week as the aspiring models live out there communal existence and on-the-job trials. I find myself rooting for this one and criticizing that one – the way she walks, the way she dresses, her flat chest, the way she poses, the way she eats with her mouth open, her real-life spotty complexion, you know, the kinds of thing fat, balding, middle-aged white men rarely have to correct in themselves to get appointed for a well-paid job, or not, as the case may be. Yes, indeed, we all sit there glued to the TV, my daughters and eat-your-heart-out-Tyra Banks missus and I, speculating on which girl will get cut, whittling down the number of hopefuls each week to the one who will eventually become a CoverGirl model, the winner.
Bonding with my girls through such conversations as, "Who is going to inherit Aunt Jeanie’s hooters?" and, "Daddy, do you find Miss J. attractive?" and, "Amitai! For God’s sake – do the children really need to know about gender confusion?" would be reward enough for our family viewing. But, the transparency of reality TV and follow-on lessons for talent managers makes watching each week even more worthwhile. Consider, if you will:
1. Hearts and minds, the "wannabe factor": The fashion industry – like the military and professional sports, I guess – deliberately seeks to have children imagine their playing the part of their role models, otherwise become all consumed as consumers. That’s not to say that other childhood influences do not affect career choices in the "real" world – they do – but rarely can parents or pets or authority figures compete with the sustained societal, multimedia hype that children are exposed to as they grow up in a materialistically and image-orientated world.
And let"s not forget the attraction thing, remember? That’s what makes Barbie, for example, the type of job-merchandizing tool that talent managers and their marketing counterparts need to understand, exploit. As for my two youngest girls, I have yet to find such props. I have to hope that tucking them in every night and whispering affirmations like, "I wanna be a pharmaceutical sales rep, I wanna sell, sell, sell" will triumph over more subtle forms of brainwashing, like the Army uses in schools and at home. After all, we so want the girls to be happy, not hungry for work.
2. Reducing time-to-fill and cost-per-hire: Yippee! For jobs that do not require an extraordinary level of academic accomplishment or technical expertise, I think the idea of talent pools might made redundant by approaching the recruitment process more like an audition. I don't know how you make nursing chic or engineering glam but when someone works that out, those employers won't need talent pools either. Regardless, I think there is a case to be made for auditioning these all types now too, even if it's done remotely, via video perhaps.
Under this new regime, talent will come flocking to the employers, seeking us out based on our success at early indoctrination, job-related marketing, positive role modeling, and authentic leadership – all that stuff we find in fashion. Just as the hopefuls show up now to auditions for America’s Top Model, only beautifully qualified candidates will show up to our recruitment events – scheduled seasons ahead – and in such numbers we have to turn the vast majority away at the door – sorry, the fire marshal insists. With virtually no sourcing then, an abundance of wannabes beating down the doors and screening, assessment and interviewing all crammed into a quick panel audition or two – voila! – hiring in record time, money in the bank. I think this is a very intelligent way to hire people, and as the Office of Personnel Management knows – and one hopes they would – risk free. [Um, it is risk-free, isn't it?]
3. Improved quality of hire, no really: I know quality of hire is bandied about as a measure of the accruing value of an individuals' contribution to the organization represented as a percentage of blood, sweat, and tears collected in a beaker and certified free of performance enhancing drugs – or something like that. I do find it a little odd that we rarely draw a correlation between "quality of hire" and the hires' actual potential but, then again, potential is much harder to quantify than physical attributes like a nice square chin or ample bosom.
So, what if we could recast what "quality of hire" means and apply it to the measure of a candidate's personal qualities and performance relative to the other candidates, you know, like America’s Top Model does? In just the same way as our aspiring models tryout over the course of several weeks – clearly, more than paying their way in this extended job simulation – how about bringing in salespeople, for example, and explaining that their core competencies and on-the-job execution are being measured against the performance of their peers. On hire, quality can be a measure of how closely the new employee fits with original job profile, adjusting the profile appropriately to ensure a 100% score. In addition to enhancing our overall quality of hire metrics for boardroom consumption, this approach could also eliminate potential problems upfront, indemnifying the organization from future litigation maybe. Neat, huh? A kind of "quality of hire flip-flop" thing.
Well, we could go on and on and on, couldn’t we? We could mention the diversity angle and dovetail that with possible concerns arising from calling applicants Nubian diva-bitches and that kind of thing. Of course, as I think about diversity and name calling, it leads me to consider a another set of workplace conditions that may be run-of-the-mill in Paris fashion houses but somewhat problematic on the shop floor of a GM factory -- hmmm… We could talk about transparency and personal brand and even how full-disclosure – "Yes, this job can really suck," and "Modeling is a cut throat business" – might prepare a candidate for the real rigors of the job and in a perverse way, improve retention. We could discuss how successive yearlong contracts take care of succession planning, in some ways at least. I guess we could even restate my continued interest in Tyra Banks' breasts and all that that brings to mind, but no, that would be shallow, now wouldn’t it?
October 18, 2006, Amitai Givertz
