Recruit globally
Cymer’s perspective on business is global in nature. With a headquarters in San Diego and a marketplace largely within Asia, Akins and his management team spend a great deal of their time interacting with people from different parts of the world.
The experiences have taught Akins a lesson about team building: Different people bring different perspectives to innovation, problem solving and other issues. It’s something Akins has used as a recruiting principle over his years at the helm of Cymer.
“I have been in many meetings in my history where a group of people are all of one basic type or background,” Akins says. “They all came from one area; they all went to the same two or three universities. They think the same way; they have the same thought culture. As a result, in the face of a problem, they may run into a brick wall where they can’t move forward because they’re all thinking the same way.
“It takes someone from a place like India, someone who has a completely different educational background than everyone else on the team. If you stick that person in the room with everyone else, you might find out five minutes later that the group is on their way to a new solution path. With that basic concept, we have hired from all over the world and tried to create a cross-cultural environment within the company, a culture that can circumvent some of these more common problems.”
Creating an international perspective requires developing a recruiting presence in the countries you want to tap. Akins and his leadership team establish relationships with business partners overseas, and through those networking relationship, find much of their international talent.
“We usually find our talent through some kind of direct contact or reference from individuals that we know,” he says. “To that end, you need to develop presences all over the world. We’re heavily participative in the industry through direct contact with our customers and suppliers as well as participating in various conferences.”
Once the talent has been secured, it needs to be integrated. Akins focuses on creating global teams, which starts with aligning them around the company’s mission and strategy. The mission, vision and strategy of Cymer are frequently reinforced to all employees so everyone in the company is building from the same foundation.
“You try to get high levels of alignment, and that means having an open and often-discussed vision and strategy for the company, so there is no question as to what needs to be accomplished and by what set of rules you’re going to play,” Akins says. “When we staff cross-functional teams for the execution of some major project, we get to know each individual personally, their strengths and weaknesses. From there, a project manager will identify the individuals they need to best execute a project within the company. It’s a working cooperation to make sure that you get appropriate staffing across a number of programs.”
To get to know employees’ individual characteristics and attributes on a more personal level, you need to plant the seeds during the recruiting and interviewing process by drilling down in your questioning and compiling extensive background information. But even with that aspect in place, Akins says there is still no substitute for having a would-be project team member in the company for a period of time prior to installation into a team.
“It gives you time to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses as well as the cultural fit,” Akins says. “But in the end, we kind of believe in a sink-or-swim approach to integration. We don’t allow people much time to get the feel of the road here. It’s very common that people here almost immediately find themselves in a critical path or developing some kind of new program.
“I find that by throwing people in, putting them headfirst into major projects, it’s ultimately the best way to see what they can really do. And it’s also a measure of what kind of mentality they’re going to bring to your company. Here, we need people who are just fighting for the chance to do something important.”
