Trust the process? Maybe so, because as Craig Hoffman opined to open his show on Thursday evening, it seems like Josh Harris’ search committee to hire the next Commanders regime seems to be working.
Harris, Rales, Johnson, Myers, and Spielman – sounds like a powerful law firm, but instead, it’s a force to be reckoned with as a group of smaller groups trying to find the right guy for the Commanders.
“I think when we all heard that we thought there would be like this, you know, round table of wise men that were sitting around and they would interview candidates, but what it turns out is it’s a way smarter deployment than getting a bunch of people in a boardroom or around a large table with five people conducting an interview of one,” Hoffman said. “Considering the group of people, it would probably yield pretty solid results, but what they're doing is actually way better, which is to just to split these people into different groups and have them all interview the candidates separately.”
Why is that better?
“You're trying to figure out different things from different people,” Hoffman said. “Josh Harris kind of is over everything; Bob Myers’ job is to see what is this person's thoughts on culture and organization building – to me, based off Bob's resume, that’s what he is most qualified to look at, is how do you view culture and culture building and how do you view organizational communications and organizational structure, and what do you want from ownership? And then, Rick Spielman, his big responsibility is football, and I want to know from Rick Spielman what he thinks about your thoughts as a candidate on where the NFL is schematically and personnel wise, all of the football Xs and Os things and where it's going. Who are your connections in the league in terms of coaches? Who do you like and why, and why do you like them? Do you think that the way you scout works with the way they coach, and do you think you can scout for the systems they run – and if you’re a scouting or analytics person, how are you going to work with the other department?”
So, yes, instead of a bunch of people asking a bunch of non-sequitur questions, it’s more like individualized mini-interviews in each member of the committee’s wheelhouse.
“What I don't necessarily want is Bob Myers or Josh Harris interjecting their football thoughts into that conversation or whatever, so what do they do? They separate it out, because it’s a lot easier than if they're all in that room together. I hired Rick to be the football guy, so let him do the football stuff – and if thy wanted more football opinions, they could have hired more football people to be in those rooms. So, the hope is to hire the top guy, and then have them be in the room for that part of it when you hire the head coach, which by the way, is way more important on the football stuff. The coach sets the vision.”
And now we’re down to the top two candidates based on the opinions of all sides, and they will meet with Magic Johnson and Mitchell Rales, as they passed the first barriers.
“Josh, Rick, and Bob liked you, now let's go talk about building an organization with Magic Johnson, one of the greatest winners in the history of professional sports, and Mitchell Rales, who's built a lot of multi-million dollar companies - people who understand what it takes to win in multiple avenues,” Hoffman said. “Magic was a player and in some of those Lakers front offices, and he's built a billion-dollar company and there's real estate and there's movie theaters and there's this and there's that, and same thing with Mitchell Rales, built multiple companies in different avenues.”
And when it all comes together?
“If you can convince those guys that you're the right one for the job, then you bring the committee back together and everybody powwows, and hopefully, it's on Josh to bring the mathematicians into the room and figure out what the money and the contract looks like,” Craig said, “and I freaking love that process. I know some people don’t like it for some reasons, but I think there is no better process than bringing smart people together with different perspectives, and then creating a system to allow the perspectives to shine – and that to me is what they've done. They haven't just brought a bunch of people in the room to hear a bunch of milquetoast answers; they are letting the experts expert in their area of expertise, all of which is relevant to the actual hire itself, and then they will make the hire.”
Not only does that help them find the best person, it makes sure the one they think is the winner believes this is the right place for them, too.
“Interviews are two ways, especially for these candidates who interview other people all the time and have done hiring themselves,” Hoffman said, “so it's a two-way street. You are doing the interview, but these are people that are going to have options and they have to decide, ‘do I want to go work for those people?’ This is a good way to sell yourself to them, too.”
