The ‘It’ Factor Is A Cop Out – Know How To Define ‘It’

Recently I was in a discussion with a hiring manager for a Chicago marketing company and he brought up he just can’t find talent that has the ‘It’ factor right now. I looked at him and asked him what is ‘It’. His response was less than satisfactory to me, “You know, when an employee just gets ‘it’. It was then I realized that I too had used the ‘it’ factor in the past to describe what I wanted in a canidate. Hell, I’ve heard about having ‘it’ or just getting ‘it’ in every industry I’ve been involved in. ‘It’ is not limited to just business. The greatest athlete of all time had the ‘it’ factor. Why? In my opinion, laziness or lack of effort to define ‘it’ by the person describing someone as having ‘it’.
 
If my product team manager came to me and said I need a new employee for position xyz, one item I would request from him is a list of the skills and attributes that his choice canidate would have. If he put ‘they get it’ on the scorecard or job description I’d throw it back at him and tell him to come back when he’s thought it out more.
 
So why do managers continually wonder why they can’t find another candidate who just gets it? Because they don’t know what ‘it’ is. If you are referring to the ‘it’ factor then you haven’t put the time in to define what the it factor is. ‘It’ is a generalization for something that is that is probably quite important to getting what you want or don’t want out of an employee or canidate. Using ‘it’ as a descriptive feature is also bad communication. There is no way to measure ‘it’ because it isn’t properly defined and people are going to define and measure it differently.
 
Let’s use Michael Jordan as an example because there are very few people who are as recognizable globally as being so extremely skilled in his former profession. Many people when looking at MJ and his accomplishments say, “man, that guy just had ‘it’.” So let’s play the role of an NBA GM looking for the next MJ. If I tell my scouts I need someone who has the ‘it’ factor of Michael Jordan, they’ll be confused, probably go out and find a very talent player who they believe has ‘it’ and bring them back to me. If I’m lucky I’ll they player will fit what I’m looking for, but more likely I’m going to have a good player that doesn’t meet my expectation of having ‘it’. That because I didn’t define ‘it’ so lets do that. This is the same thing that happens when you pass a job description off to HR to hire or just hire on your own. If ‘it’ isn’t defined and measured then you are only lucky if you get what you’re looking for.
 
*Unfortunately, I’ve only coached MJ in my imagination on my driveway court as a kid or in video games and my career as Chicago Bulls GM never got started, so I’m going to use some assumptions on skills and experience.
 
Defining what ‘it’ is starts by creating three lists. One list should be what does this person does that others who don’t have ‘it’ don’t. Second and third is then listing the skills and attributes of the ‘it’ individual and the non ‘it’ individuals and comparison of the two list to identify the ‘it’ factors. I personally like starting with the list of what the someone who just has it or gets it does that others don’t first because it helps me then list the attributes out that make the most difference and not every attribute.
 
What does Michael Jordan have that I want above and beyond a talented basketball player?
- he was one of the most clutch athletes of all time
- he is the leading all time scorer
- he made the players around him better / relentless leader
- he is a marketing and sponsor giant.
 
What skills or attributes lead to these (For sake of the length I’ll only do it for the first point)
- Michael was an exceptionally conditioned athlete
- he was mentally sound individual. He missed as many last second shots as he made, but it never changed he desire to be the one in control of the outcome. He was able to forget the misses and focus on his next opportunity to make one.
- he practiced almost additively
- his preparation for games included studying video and knowing the trends and skills of players on the other team
 
What are the skills he had that other didn’t? (I’m making assumptions here, but you will be able to have more concrete knowledge of your positions and expectations)
There are plenty of exceptionally conditioned atheletes, players that practice almost around the clock, and players, coaches and teams that prepare and study for games.
- Michael’s mental fortitude
 
In this case, one ‘it’ factor is mental fortitude. It doesn’t mean that all those other features that other players are attributes that I want in my next player. Actually in this case those are all elements I want, but want it means is I have defined an ‘it’ factor that I can now go to my scout and work with them to figure out the best way for us to measure this attribute.
 
If you have a great employee who gets it and you want to replicate them; take some time, step back and define what are their ‘it’ factors. Believe me its worth your time and while you’re not able to clone employee (just yet at least ) you’re going to have a much higher likelyhood of replicating the success employee in future hires if you’ve define ‘it’.