Last week, I began a discussion regarding the emphasis that many real estate companies place on experienced agent recruiting.  There is a natural frustration that always surrounds this topic due to the underlying demographics that characterize the issue.  
 
In short, companies currently compete for a very small pool of viable experienced agent candidates (i.e. those agents who are productive, but haven't yet crossed over into the realm of being high performers).  I believe this “productive but not prima donna” group makes up about 20% of the recruiting market of experienced agents. 
 
I made the suggestion that opening up the recruiting aperture to consider agents who are low performers in other companies, may be worth considering.  In a typical real estate company, this category of agents account for 40% to 60% of the agent population.  This amounts to a lot of candidates, who are more accessible than their more commonly pursued counterparts.
 
Before you jump into this new utopia of experienced agent recruiting with both feet, here is a disclaimer:  

Hiring failures is a risky proposition.  

In many cases, engaging these low-performing agents can quickly turn into a waste of time.  Or worse yet, the potential is there to waste resources and drag down your own productive agents if these folks fail in your company.  So, tread down this path with care and a healthy dose of cynicism.  If you believe you can save every poor performer that your competitor has created, you’re in for a big disappointment.
 
But, you may be able to save a small percentage…and a small percentage of a larger number can result in incremental recruiting successes that are worth pursuing.
 
If you decide to take on this challenge, I have an assignment for you:  You need to become a student of failure.  That’s right.  You need to become proficient at understanding why people fail. 
 
I know many of you have a bookshelf full of books on success.  But, have you ever spent time learning about failure?  A great place to start your education would be the April 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review.  In this publication, there are nine full-length articles, and seven short bios on the topic of failure.  The write-ups cover more than 60 pages ( yes, that’s 60 pages of small type).  There is a surprising amount of research that has been conducted on the topic of failure, and there is much to learn.
 
One article that I found particularly interesting highlighted the concept that not all failures are created equal—there are good failures and there are bad failures.  Being able to differentiate one from the other can be very helpful if you’re trying to figure out whom to engage in your newly expanded candidate search.
 
To document this phenomenon, HBR created a “Spectrum of Reasons for Failure.”  At one end of the spectrum, there are blameworthy failures (bad failures) and on the other end are praiseworthy failures (good failures).  Here is the list from bad to good:

• Deviance:  An individual chooses to violate a prescribed process or practice.
• Inattention:  An individual inadvertently deviates from prescribed specifications.
• Lack of Ability:  The individual does not have the skills, conditions, or training to execute the job.
• Process Inadequacy:  A competent individual adheres to a prescribed, but faulty or incomplete process.
• Task Challenge:  An individual faces a task too difficult to be executed reliably every time.
• Process Complexity:  A process composed of many elements breaks down when it encounters novel interactions.
• Uncertainty:  A lack of clarity about future events causes people to take seemly reasonable actions that produce undesired results.
• Hypothesis Testing:  An experiment conducted to prove that an idea or a design will succeed, fails.
• Exploratory Testing:  An experiment conducted to expand knowledge and investigate a possibility, leads to an undesired result.

Let’s suppose that you have the opportunity to engage one of your competitor’s agents who falls into the 40% to 60% of underperformers.  In striking up a discussion concerning “how business is going,” it would be natural to ask something like:  “Do you feel you’re meeting the original goals that you had when you decided to get into real estate?”    
 
And then as you listen to the answer and ask more open-ended questions, eventually get to the question:  “Why do you feel you have not been able to meet your goals?”  And then listen.  This is not the time to recruit and sell.  This is the time to collect information and make a determination if this person is experiencing a praiseworthy failure or a blameworthy failure.  Match the answers to the list above (after you wrap up the conversation) and then make a determination of whether this is someone worth pursuing.
 
In my next WorkPuzzle entry, I will reveal the one common trait that researchers claim is shared among those who are successful at turning failure into success.  If your candidate is lacking this trait, it’s a huge red flag!  Stay tuned…

Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.