Ogilvy & Mather is one of the most prolific advertising agencies in the world. There is one Ogilvy office in 83 countries and 132 offices. Its co-founder and creative genius David Ogilvy (1911–1999) designed some of the world’s most successful and iconic marketing campaigns
In his bestselling Ogilvy on Advertising, Ogilvy described how recruiting smart people was the key to transforming his advertising agency into a global advertising, marketing and public relations giant.
He wrote,
When someone is made the head of an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send him a Matrioshka doll from Gorky. If he has the curiosity to open it, and keep opening it until he comes to the inside of the smallest doll, he finds this message:
“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”
The same thoughts are seconded by the famous entrepreneurship guru Guy Kawasaki. In his book Reality Check, he recalls his days in Apple in 1984, “In the Macintosh Division, we had a saying, ‘A players hire A players; B players hire C players’—meaning that great people hire great people. On the other hand, mediocre people hire candidates who are not as good as they are, so they can feel superior to them. If you start down this slippery slope, you’ll soon end up with Z players; this is called the Bozo Explosion (what causes a lean, mean, fighting machine of a company to slide into mediocrity)
So if you are a wise manager, you hires employees who are smarter, more creative, and more talented than yourself. The new employees’ talents will improve the entire team’s performance and reputation—even yours.
In contrast, if you are a mediocre manager, you might feel insecure by juniors who seem more intelligent than yourself. So you would tend to hire down—in the fear that a superior employee could make you look inferior and perhaps hold back your career progress.
People make or break businesses; so hire people who are smarter than you are.
Regards
Sonia Singal