Category Archives: influence

It Sucks Getting Turned Down for a Promotion!

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The hardest part of being a leader is promoting an employee internally when there are more than one viable candidate for the position. The fact of the matter is someone is going to get that job, and one or more are not. That usually ends with one of your really good employees being pissed off.

I’ve read countless articles on how to handle this situation and they’re mostly crap, and I think written by people who have, 1. Never actually dealt with this situation and/or 2. Never be turned down for a promotion they truly felt they deserved!

For some reason the the Dallas Cowboys current quarterback situation reminds me of this issue. Rookie Dax Prescott came in when Tony Romo got hurt. He’s been awesome and the Cowboys are currently one of the best teams in the NFL. Tony Romo, a great quarterback in his own right, is now no longer injured and ready to return. Almost every team in the NFL would love having Tony Romo start for them.

So, it’s a bit different from the promotion scenario, but not really. Tony should be promoted into the role of starting quarterback. He’s proven, he’s good, he used to be the starter, but he’s not going to. In his absence, they found a replacement that is really good as well and you don’t want to screw up that chemistry.

Here’s what I really like about Romo. He came out and became the ‘team’ guy. He’s letting everyone know, including Dax, this isn’t about Tony Romo, this is about the Dallas Cowboys winning the Super Bowl. He’s supporting Dax and the team to keep winning and will do whatever it takes to make that happen, including supporting them on the sidelines and not playing. Oh boy, you know that’s tough for him to say!

Not getting a promotion at your job, feels exactly what Tony Romo is feeling. Don’t kid yourself about the money. He would play for free this year if he could win a Super Bowl. You really, really wanted that promotion, but someone else got it. Probably, someone you feel you’re as good as, or maybe even a bit better, but the ‘team’ choose to pick someone else for that role.

You have a choice to make:

  1. Be disgruntled and pissed off, believing you got screwed, probably leave the company, eventually.
  2. Be that ‘team’ player. Keep being the high performing employee that got you in a position to be considered for promotion, and support your peers, waiting for your next opportunity.

Most people will choose number one.

In almost every single situation in a corporate environment where I’ve been a part of these decisions, no matter how hard we tried to let the other person know how valued they are and what are our plan was to get them to that level they desired, they still choice to go the route of number one. It takes a really strong person to go the route of number two and be Tony Romo.

In the end, choosing to go the path of number two actually says more about you as a leader, than your actual performance as an employee.

Do Your Leaders Need to be Technocrats to be Successful?

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With the U.S. Presidential elections behind us, we’ll continue to see fallout for some time.  Hillary Clinton was considered by many in Silicon Valley to be a “Technocrat“. What’s a technocrat you ask?

A technocrat is someone who’s an advocate or proponent of a Technocracy, and part of the technology skilled elite. A technocracy is a theoretical organized structure of governance where the leaders are actually selected based on their technological knowledge. Like most things, though, the media has used the term to describe an individual who is pro-technology, for the most part.

On the flip side, President-elect Trump (boy that was odd writing!) is not considered to be a technocrat.

One of the reasons millennials voted for Clinton in such huge numbers was she was considered to be more technology savvy than Trump and advocated for technology more than her opponent. The reality is both are 70-year-old baby boomers, who probably couldn’t set up their own email on an iPhone, but one had a better marketing team than the other!

Regardless of actual technological skill, I still believe it comes back the mindset, not age, that you’re either pro-technology (technology is good and will help us be better), or you see technology as fine, but it’s not life-changing (yeah, I can see what you’re saying, but the old way works as well). So few are now anti-technology that it’s not even worth talking about.

It begs the question, though, that if a younger workforce has shown they prefer leaders who are Technocrats, should you be looking for that trait when you go and select leaders?

I believe we should be selecting leaders who are Technocrats and here are some reasons why:

1. A younger workforce is more likely to follow a leader who is pro-technology.

2. We need our leaders pushing our organizations forward and one of the best ways is through technology advances.

3. Having a technocrat mindset is more akin to having a strategic mindset. If you’re constantly thinking about how technology can advance your business, you’re being strategic, as compared to just running your operations the same way they always have been.

The hard part of selecting technocrats is almost anyone in today’s work world under the age of sixty will tell you, “of course, I’m pro-technology!” When in fact, most have no idea what that even means. Saying you’re pro-technology and being pro-technology are two very different things.

Yeah, I use Netflix. No, I have no idea how my kids set it up. Just because you watch Netflix doesn’t make you pro-technology. Liking technology and taking a keen interest in how it works to make your life better are two different things. Technocrats want to know more. They might not be able to write code, but they dig in beyond just the surface.

The key to selecting technocrat leaders is to have them give you specific examples around how they’ve used technology to push their organization or department forward? What was their role in the selection process? Why did they select one technology over another? Technocrats will love these questions and will really take you into the weeds with their answers.

Just being a technocrat won’t make a leader candidate a good leader. We all know all of the other leader traits we are looking for in selecting our next leaders. It’s my belief, though, that as we move forward, our leaders need to be technology savvy if they truly want to connect and lead a younger workforce.

 

How focused Are Your Leaders In Making Your Organization Successful?

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We all like to think we have a leader or two that is freaking dialed in at a level far superior to everyone else. They’re freaks. In early, usually, one of the first ones, out late, if not last. They seem to know what’s going on in every part of the organization before you do.

Our top leaders are ultra-focused on making their organizations great. Nothing seems to distract them and throw them off their game. So much so they probably have very questionable work-life balance, if they have any at all.

Want a real-life example of one of these freaks!? Let’s take a look at Alabama head football coach, Nick Saban:

Nick Saban said he wasn’t aware that millions of Americans went to the polls on Tuesday to vote for the next president of the United States.

“It was so important to me that I didn’t even know it was happening,” Alabama‘s head football coach told reporters in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday evening. “We’re focused on other things here.”

To be fair, news media isn’t part of Saban’s routine.

The 65-year-old coach typically wakes up every morning, has a Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie and a cup of coffee and watches about 10 minutes of The Weather Channel, which promised no political coverage on Election Day…

Nick Saban wasn’t aware there was a Presidential election going on! Brother! That’s focus!

I’m not sure I buy into the fact he had no idea. Most leaders, especially leaders of 18-22-year-old young men, would have made a very specific point to encourage those men to be a part of the American process. To show their leadership within the community by voting. But, Nick is a freak!

Nick Saban is not like most leaders, he’s an outlier in every definition of the term, which makes him extremely good and extremely successful at what he does.

Do you think you have a leader in your organization that is so focused on making you successful that they didn’t even realize there was a Presidential election going on?  I doubt most of us have one of these folks in our organizations, but if you do, you need to pay attention to that person! I’m not saying it’s healthy, all I’m saying is success is hard, and sometimes you have to have unhealthy habits to get it and maintain it. We all face that balance

We all face that balance. Don’t judge Saban for his choices, they’re his to make. He’s addicted to success, even if it means not knowing what’s going on in the world around him.

Vets, We Love You, but We Still Aren’t Hiring You!

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One of the most politically correct lies that employers spout off constantly is how desperate they are to hire Veterans! There’s a reason for this. In America, we love to honor our Vets! There’s nothing better than propping your brand up against that American flag with a soldier standing right next to it.

The reality is, most Vets are still struggling to find solid careers. Sure, everyone wants to offer them a $15/hr bust-your-ass-job, but Vets are looking for salaried positions with great benefits, in jobs they can work the rest of their career, that won’t destroy their body. Not many employers are offering Vets those jobs!

I’ve been writing about this problem for the past five years and I get a healthy stream of Vets who write me behind the scenes and share their stories and struggles to find solid career level positions. I just recently had an individual who came out of his service with a degree in HR, service of constant promotion, supervised upwards of one hundred soldiers at a time. In that role, he had constant performance management, training, process improvement, etc.

He was applying for an entry-level HR Generalist role. He got turned down because he didn’t have enough experience!

So, why are companies still struggling when it comes to hiring Vets into higher level roles? Here’s what they don’t tell you:

  1. Less than 1% of Americans have ever served in any branch of the military. We fear what we don’t know, and we definitely don’t hire what we don’t know! We only see pictures of Vets holding guns and in combat, but that’s a small part of their every day activities.
  2. Movies have given us a warped sense of what professionals in the military actually do. Today’s modern military is rarely portrayed as it actually is in the movies because it wouldn’t be very exciting. It’s the same reason you don’t see movies about the day to day happenings of a large company. It’s mostly boring! What most military pros do on a daily basis, away from battle zones, is mostly the same stuff you do on a daily basis. It’s HR, logistics, accounting, administration, training, development, etc.
  3. We overvalue work experience within an industry. If someone worked at your competitor for 3 months, you would value that more highly than a military professional doing the same job for 3 years. We so overvalue industry experience it’s not even funny! I’ve worked in four different industries and each time had people tell me, “Oh, Tim, this is the craziest industry you’ll ever be in”, ever time! Guess what? It wasn’t. It’s all the same! Get over yourself!

I recently hired a Vet into my own company. We mostly hire new recruiters and train them up, but it’s definitely a career job. Great recruiters can find work anywhere for the rest of their life, in every industry. It’s mostly a desk job. Recruiting companies love to hire former college athletes. What I’ve found is Vets come with the same motivations and skills, but their work ethic might be a bit stronger!

I constantly have CEOs tell me they just want people who want to work. Yet, when it gets down to their hiring managers, there’s a mental block happening. If these military folks were minority or women we would call this discrimination, but for some reason, we don’t say that with Vets. But, that’s mostly what’s happening.

We love to hide behind the fact we found someone with more ‘industry’ experience, or someone who has done the same job, etc. It’s all excuses. You don’t hire Vets because you don’t think they can handle your jobs. The fact is, they can, they just need you to give them a shot!

Do yourself a favor this Veteran’s Day. Take a chance and hire a Vet into a job you’ve never tried before. Sure, they’ll need some training, but they’ll bring the rest, and you might just find your organizations next great talent pool!

Notes to HR Tech Vendors – #10 – Your Real Competition

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I’ve done a few presentations titled something like, “HR Tech Buyers Guide”, “How to Buy HR Tech”, etc. The presentation is designed for HR and TA practitioners to help them become better buyers of HR Tech. To understand the crap that HR and TA Tech vendors do and say to get you to buy stuff you might not need, want, or will use.

The interesting thing about these presentations is that half the audience turns out to be the actual vendors themselves wanting to hear what it is I’m telling the real HR and TA leaders! It’s smart for the vendors. It helps make the better sellers as well. Well, at least some that actually listen!

Based on these interactions I decided to build a series of what has come out of interactions to the vendors themselves, aptly named “Notes to HR Tech Vendors”. Look I don’t alway have to be creative! Enjoy!

#10 – Your Real Competition

Unless you’re buying some giant watered-down enterprise level HRIS or ATS/Talent Suite you almost never have competition!

Yes, you read that correctly. 90% of HR Tech vendors have “NO” competition! But, you believe the opposite.

Here’s the deal. HR and TA Tech buyers are fairly naive to the industry. It’s not our full-time job to track every new ATS that is being launched. We’re just trying to get people hired and stop people from quitting. Takes up about 99.9% of our job! So, when it’s time to buy new Tech we usually buy the first thing we’re sold!

The competition you face is not your real competitors. The competition you face is a “no sale”.

Almost all HR Tech buyers will buy your product, or they won’t buy anything. Primarily because they don’t even know you have competition. Well, they didn’t until you actually told them! “Hey, we’re the #1 CRM on the market, so much better than #2, #3 and #4.” What? There is more than one CRM!?

If you’re Smashfly (a CRM Tech) almost every single sale is going to be a “Yes” or a “No, we’ve decided we don’t need this right now”. It’s almost never “hey, we’ve decided to buy Clinch, or Avature, or Ascendify, or Talemetry, or Beamery, or”…you get the picture!

Almost never!

Your real competition is you. It’s your ability to sell your solution to a buyer that has some sort of pain around HR or TA. It’s shocking at how often this fails. I mean what can go wrong when you throw a 15-year-old on the phone with a twenty year HR vet on the other end, telling them how to fix her shop!?

And you think I exaggerate on the age! Almost every single HR and TA Tech sales person I speak is under the age of 30 and most have never worked a day in HR or TA. This leads to a ton of “no sales”.  If you can’t tell me how your solution is going to solve my pain, in my language, I’m probably not buying.

HR and TA Tech vendors, your competition isn’t the problem. Your technology isn’t the problem (it’s usually really awesome). Your sales strategy is killing you. The cute, little, naive babies selling your products is the problem. They don’t know me. They don’t know my pain. They don’t speak my language.

Your real competition is you.

Falling In Love With Your Job

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Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and facebook messages and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some it’s been a while and you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But, you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love, it doesn’t last that long and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say “I love my job” and I never use to pay much attention, in fact, I’ve said it myself.  The reality is, I don’t love my job. I mean I like it a whole lot, but I love my wife, I love my kids, I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7am on a Monday morning. The important things in life!  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro, I’m supposed to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second. Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not the cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stop caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it. I’ll just tell you!

Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  Which seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love, and lose their minds.  Once that calms down – the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.

You get a new job and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter. Hell, you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your 1 year anniversary and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.

This is when falling in love with your job really begins. When you know about all the stuff the company hid in the closet. The past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now, is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching. Not for a better job, or a better company. They’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will, not without them working for it.

The best love has to be worked for. Passion is easy and fleeting. Love is hard to sustain and has to be worked, but can last forever.

Your Recruitment Strategy Needs Focus!

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I’ve been in Chicago a couple of times this fall. The restaurant scene in Chicago is off the charts, just like it is right now in New York, LA, etc. It’s a great time to be a person who loves food!

If you like going to new restaurants you’ll find out quickly that the restaurants of today are not like the ones we grew up with. In Michigan, and my wife still makes fun of this, any non-chain restaurant serving “American” food basically has the same menu where they serve burgers, seafood, Italian dishes, Mexican dishes, breakfast, hell they would serve Ethiopian if people would order it!

Basically, they serve a little of everything, but nothing especially noteworthy!

The new restaurant scene has changed this completely and now you’re lucky to have 8 main dishes that are served on a menu, BUT every single thing kills! The entire menu is one side of page and seems like almost no options but each dish is better than the next. Chefs of these new restaurants found out the way to make money is to focus your menu and make fabulous dishes.

You have lower food costs because of less wasted ingredients, you’re more efficient in cooking fewer items, less complaints because you know each dish is awesome and you create signature asked-for dishes. Focus = success.

When I speak with most TA Leaders they are trying to serve a menu that caters to everyone with their TA strategy.

When you ask what they are focusing on you get an answer that sounds like this, “Well, candidate experience for sure, and branding, that’s really important to us, our tech stack is a disaster we need to figure that out, big project right now with onboarding, looking at some CRM products, new career site in the works, definitely analytics is a priority and working to really get our arms around the employee experience as well.”

What!? Sound familiar?

Their “focus” is to focus on everything! It’s the I can’t see the trees through the forest mentality of focus. It’s also a huge strategic recipe for failing in talent acquisition.

What should your focus be?  Well, that depends on what’s important you to and your organization, but it surely isn’t everything. What I find is that great TA shops have one main focus and one or two minor things they’re working on.  The main focus might be analytics and to help with that they’re also implementing some new technology and building out what impact those results will have. Those results will then become the next focus, and so on.

Do a few things really, really well, then move on to develop something else that will be world-class.

 

Great Culture in Born from Great Leadership!

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You know what doesn’t work but we keep hoping it might? Grassroots culture!

The kind of culture where you want your employees to establish. The kind of culture that vendors keep telling you that you must have to be sustainable. The reality is a grassroots culture is mostly chaotic and differs wildly between managers, locations, etc.

The greatest work cultures that we can point to all come from a great leader deciding what culture they want, then living it! Completely living it! You can’t have this cool, flip flops, ping pong, and free beer culture, then your leader walks around all day in a suit and tie, sipping an $12 bottle of water. It will fail.

Case in point. T-Mobile was the #4 cell phone carrier in the U.S. It’s a super-competitive marketplace. In 2012 when the new CEO John Legere was hired, he looked and acted like every single big time CEO you see on Wall Street. Suit and tie, said all the right things, always under control.

The problem was, that was not going to get T-Mobile and their #4 culture to move up. So, he decided to make a change:

This would require T-Mobile to behave like a startup disrupting the industry run by giants AT&T and Verizon, who Legere dubbed “dumb and dumber.” He may have already been in his mid-50s, but he needed to look the part. He began experimenting with different combination of loud clothing options, eventually settling with long hair, a bright magenta T-Mobile T-shirt and accessories, and usually a black jacket of some kind.

Accompanying this came the penchant for dropping f-bombs and hurling no-holds-barred insults at the competition (which occasionally got out of hand as he pushed the boundaries).

“On my very first day at T-Mobile, I demanded that every time I spoke publicly to the company, all employees across the country would be invited to watch,” he said. Legere also initiated a stock program with employees, and made sure to not omit any performance details from his speeches to employees. He said he tells them, “Listen, if some of this doesn’t make sense to you, what should make sense is the reason I’m telling you — I respect you as an owner and as a partner and I’m going to tell you this all the time. Feel free to tune out.”

Legere also has a section in his calendar book that contains a color-coded list of how many times he’s visited each of T-Mobile US’s 18 major call centers. When we spoke, he was about to finish his fifth round of trips to each of them.

“It’s not that complicated,” he said. “I go in, they meet me outside, we take selfies as I stand like a piece of furniture, I tell them about how things are going — but most importantly, I say thank you and help them see that their behavior and their work has driven the culture of the company that’s changed the industry and the whole world. It’s a bit of a love affair.”

I know so many culture consultants will say it’s not about long hair and crazy clothing. I disagree. If a leader truly wants to change their culture, to whatever that vision is they have, they must live that vision 100%. They can’t fake it! You’re either all-in, or your culture continues to be flat and goes nowhere.

So many executives try and live two lives as leaders. The leader they believe the board and the public want to see, and the visionary leader they believe their employees want to see. Most of these folks fail. The ones who succeed are the ones who live one life as a leader. They’re the same person to their board and investors that they are to their employees.

It doesn’t take ping pong and snacks to make a great culture. It takes a great leader will to be 100% invested in a vision, and allow those around them to follow that vision with the same passion.

Michigan Recruiter’s Conference 2016 Takeaways

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Last week the 3rd annual Michigan Recruiter’s Conference took place in Grand Rapids, MI onsite at our corporate host Amway World Headquarters. 150 Corporate Talent Acquisition Leaders and Pros participated and heard from an outstanding lineup of speakers including Gerry Crispin, Laurie Ruettimann, Chris Bailey, Kerri Mills and Katie Born.

I leave each time amazed at the talent we are able to bring into Michigan! Some of the brightest minds and ideas in the talent acquisition industry, but also the passion the TA pros in Michigan show in coming in and engaging with each other on a peer level.

My Takeaways from MRC 2016: 

– It takes a very confident HR and/or TA Leader to want to bring in another 150 corporate TA pros into their own shop. We’ve been extremely lucky with Accident Fund, Spectrum Health and now Katie at Amway over the past three years. I think it demonstrates how important TA is to the organizations that host and how important developing their team is to that leader.

– Gerry Crispin comes in and looks like he’s been in TA for 40 years. Wait, he has! But, for those who haven’t seen him, they believe, “oh, here comes some old dude to tell us how he recruited people back in WWII!” Gerry always blows them away!!! He is so on top of how the best, most innovative TA shops are doing it on the planet, he leaves with jaws dropped. I always chuckle at the young bucks who had no idea they are about to get completely schooled by an old dude!

– You know you have a great speaker when people can’t write down the ideas fast enough! Kerri Mills had pens burning up at MRC. I had a feeling she would kill after seeing her presentation at SourceCon and she did awesome. Side note: when you work at Indeed, people expect you to know everything about Indeed!

– People who can tell a good story, are great speakers. Laurie Ruettimann and Chris Bailey both killed with great stories! They had great content as well, but you could tell me how to make Mac and Cheese and if it’s wrapped in a great story I’ll be entertained for an hour! Also, if you have a British accent you’re automatically considered brilliant, funny and adorable by an American audience. (Note to self: work on British accent)

– In classic HROS.co fashion, Amway’s TA Leader Katie Born figuratively opened her Kimono and shared what she and her team were working on to the entire talent market in their area. The good and the bad. What’s working and what they still need to get better at? What tech we’re using and what tech we’re looking at? It was a great example of what we should all strive for as TA Leaders.  Bravo!

I had one trainwreck moment. The idea was to speed network. I hate when people go to a conference and either sit alone or sit with the only people they know, so my idea was to get them to meet 4-5 new people and make some connections. Great idea! But 150 people trying to find smaller groups of three in a room was comical and loud! In the end, people did meet new people!

Our goal for MRC 2017 is to be in the Detroit Metro Area! To bring Detroit its first ever corporate talent acquisition conference specifically for Michigan TA Pros and Leaders! Want to be a part of it?  We are currently looking for a corporate host! What does that mean? We need a big room that can hold 150 or so people, with tables and some AV equipment!

We’ll bring the food, the talent, and the TA Pros!  We just need to use your space for the day. Let me know if you’re interested (timsackett@comcast.net).

 

5 Steps to Becoming the Most Liked HR Pro Ever!

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The old adage “I’d rather be respected than liked” was made up by people who didn’t have any friends!  And it’s been perpetuated for centuries by HR Pros who didn’t think it was professional to have friends in their organizations.  “I’m not their friend, Tim, I’m in HR and there is a reason we lock the doors to our department!”

I look it this a bit differently. Make friends first.  That is all.  No, “then” or “after that”, just make friends.  Do you know why HR Pros don’t make friends with employees? Yes, you do, it’s because “We don’t want to fire our friends!” or “We need to remain impartial” or “I’m stupid” (I made that last one up, which if your stupid you probably didn’t know).

The reality is, we do things attempting to stop stuff that probably will never happen.  When is the last time you truly had to fire a friend?  “Never – because I don’t have friends that work for me!” No, really, when? Most of us would say, “Never”.

The problem with not allowing yourself to be friends with non-HR employees is that you lose a major source of influence within your organization.  Also, it sucks eating at your desk every day.  And you decrease your eventual dating pool. But, really it’s the influence!  So, here are 5 steps you can do to be more liked and make more friends at work:

1.  Stop being a know it all.  HR people act like they created Congress, everything is legal this or legal that. Stop it! Be normal. 99% of stuff HR thinks might happen, doesn’t happen. Trying to mitigate 100% of the risk in your organization makes people hate you and it doesn’t help you do your job better.

2. Make a fool out of yourself once in a while.  You’re not that important that you have to act like Mr. Manners all the time. Having employees laugh at you because you did something silly, foolish and/or crazy, will help them believe you might be normal.

3. Hang out with the smokers! Let’s face it smokers are cool and know everything that goes on in your organization – you want them as friends.  I don’t smoke because it’s gross, smells and will kill you, but I love hanging with smokers, especially if they have one of those voice boxes they talk out of!

4. Go out to Lunch with Non-HR Employees.  Preferably not with the smokers because that isn’t appetizing at all.

5. Kiss another employee on the mouth at the office Christmas party! Kidding, just making sure you were paying attention.  Don’t do this, unless you’re really drunk and want to leave a legacy. Here’s the real #5 – Spend 50% of your time away from your desk visiting employees and hiring managers, even the ones you don’t like.  This will change your professional life forever.

Being liked in HR is important it allows you to do your job in a much more efficient manner than when people don’t want you around.  It’s not about respect – you can have both – and given the choice of having respect and being hated or having respect and being liked – well, let’s just say I hang out with smokers.