The Butterfly Effect: Count on Claudia for Wisdom and Light

Claudia Faust, a well-known personality here on RecruitingBlogs, has had her share of life-changing experiences. She has candidly told of her son's drug addiction, divorce, and her near miss with the Count - apparently, you have to kiss a count before you meet your prince. These trials were instrumental in a complete uprooting from the great Northwest to where she happily now calls home, Florida. Staying in Florida wasn't even on the plate until a fateful walk that literally, put her on a collision course to meet her true destiny.

Her destiny was not only her wonderful husband but also Improved Experience - a feedback software to help employers better attack hiring and retention issues within their companies. Claudia is thoughtful when she takes a peek at her history, "When you look at it from this side, you can see the outcome of everything in my life, everything that happened. If you could attach a thread to each point and pull, aw, the effect. Very powerful, looking back and seeing that thread of connectivity." She touches briefly on the pay it forward principle, a common theme today and quickly moves on to the significant impact we, as recruiters and HR professionals, can have on someone's life.

"Every recruiter has this kind of story. Back when I was at Amazon, I was working on a pretty difficult search, a lot of cherry picking and hand-sourcing, no heavy google work at the time. This person was a beautiful fit for the role, went through the entire interview process. The Hiring Manager and team were extremely fussy when it came to hiring. He was the second or third candidate they had seen and they extended an offer that would require relocation. It was that same time that he called me to share the news that his wife had just been diagnosed with cancer." He would not be taking the job. What do you say? The job was at corporate headquarters, no chance for remote employment.

Claudia spoke with this candidate about the future and it turned into a conversation about what Amazon was going to do - he had been the guy, the placement. This was a selective team and he had already established such rapport with Claudia, the HM and team; he cared about what they would now do. He offered the names of some potential candidates that could do the job, perhaps even better than he. One of those referrals did end up being the hire. "The Hiring manager and candidate connected so strongly, that they still maintain a relationship today." Sometimes, it is about the one that got away.

How do we incorporate the Butterfly Effect into our lives? "We clearly have to be aware, you can't be aware of every nuance. The brilliance of it is that it is imperceivable, that ripple effect." She shared advice that had been passed to her, Wherever you are, be there. Be present in the moment. "Be aware of the sensitivity of this. Be aware of those relationships. The ripple effect is what it is. Hopefully, you bring good intentions." This is part of Claudia's rules of engagement, "If your intentions are good, if your clarity is high, then at least the consequences of an interaction can be better aligned with your values." Karma..., how sweet it is.

The term The Butterfly Effect is based in chaos theory and is resultant of the idea that merely a slight change in the flap of a butterfly's wings may illicit minuscule changes that could, ultimately, alter the path of a tornado. A small change could have large effects.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Recruiting Animal on March 27, 2009 at 1:37pm

Ray, I think I missed something.

This is what I heard. Claudia found a needle in a haystack guy. He was well into the hiring process when his wife became ill. Any decent person would regret having to drop out at that point, so, he offered a referral to another good guy who got the job.

The conclusion you drew was.... something about indirect consequences. (As in: you sneeze on the subway and that leads indirectly to a future world war). I don't get it.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Recruiting Animal on March 27, 2009 at 4:32pm

Claudia just called to ask me if I was mental or something. Why? Because I pointed out that Rayanne's story about Claudia does not describe the Butterfly Effect.

If only she would have said, "Animal, no one expects Rayanne's posting to make sense. Are you so tone deaf that you couldn't see that she was using poetic licence?"

If that's what she said, I would have caved in. But she didn't. She tried to prove Rayanne's point. So I have to point out that the Butterfly Effect refers to the ability of a small difference in the starting point leading to a huge difference in the ending.

Let's say Joe bent down to tie his shoe-lace on Monday. Because he paused, he was on that spot to meet an old friend as he passed by. They went out that evening and Joe got drunk. He wasn't his best on Tuesday morning and was careless in his driving. He cut Claudia off while she was on her way to work. As soon as she got in this candidate called and because of her road rage she wasn't at her best. As a result the candidate didn't like her. So when he dropped out of the process he didn't offer a referral. Amazon really needed that person and lost millions of dollars as a result his not being there and this contributed to its eventual demise.

Now, let's imagine that Joe didn't care if his shoe was loose. Claudia was nice to her candidate and everything that happened subsequently followed from that.

That's the butterfly effect. And there's no Joe in Rayanne's story.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Recruiting Animal on March 28, 2009 at 11:14am

Rayanne, Thanks for explaining the Butterfly Effect to me. I'm so stupid I thought it was the way they explained it on wikipedia. But everyone knows how unreliable that site is. Thanks again.