To lead a Magnet Place (‘I’d love to be there, work there’, ‘I’d love to be part of it’, ‘I wish I could have him/them as my boss(es), I wish I could work in that company/that division’) is a privilege. The goal to create places that are magnets, is the most noble goal of leadership. To achieve it, to have created one, is the ultimate test of leadership success’
We live in a push and pull world ( see my book Homo Imitans [1]) where in pull terms we are ‘pulled by other people’s behaviours’. With our own behaviours, we pull others to us. We are sophisticated copying machines, for good or bad. Organisational cultures are similarly spaces and places of pull (or rejection). To attract people is a blessing. To attract them emotionally, not only in terms of perks or benefits, the ultimate goal as well. The test I ask my clients to run is simple: how many people do you have in the queue wanting to join (your division, group, company or simply team?
When I ask the question, and once my clients understand I am talking seriously, not just using a semantic trick, the answers vary from ‘I don’t know’ to ‘good question’, which is in itself an answer for when you don’t have an answer.
Magnetism should be a feature of our organizational cultures. And we should have an index for it. Perhaps the ‘People-in-the-queue’ Index.
Many people say that once of the reasons they joined a particular company was then type of people they met at the interview process. Hardly a surprise in itself, but it is usually expressed as ‘ a bit of revelation’, that extra element that made them decide.
Your level of magnetism is a good index. It may be that you are in a particular situation of the life cycle of the company that does not sound too magnetic. Don’t despair, but ask yourself what would it take to be magnetic, perhaps be magnetic again.