Category Archives: Performance

Earthquake Leadership

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There was an earthquake in L.A. last week.  Did you feel it? It was almost an non-event.  I only knew about it because a few of the people I follow on Twitter were making fun of how ‘small’ it was when it happened and cracking earthquake jokes.

It is telling, though, in watching earthquake reaction.  The reaction of people in an earthquake is almost verbatim of how a below average leader behaves in almost any organization.  Let me ‘drop’ these two facts on you of what happens when there is an earthquake:

1. Everyone looks around to see if anyone else felt it.

The group need for validation is very high in an event like this. “Did you feel that?”   You know if you felt it or not, why do you need validation that someone else felt it!?  Below average leaders do this.  They don’t respect their own ability to make a decision, or move a certain direction, so they look for constant validation from the group.  “Mary isn’t doing very well, is she?  What do you think?  Maybe we, I mean I, should let her go. Do you think that is the right thing to do?”

2. Organizations evacuate the building you are in.

Science, and history, have shown us, over a long period of time, that the safest place to be in an earthquake is not running down a stairwell of a building, or in an elevator, and then out into the open street – with pieces of building falling down upon you.  But, when an earthquake happens the first thing that organizations do is start evacuating the building.  Even though they know it’s not the smartest thing, there is a necessity to do some sort of action.  Even a negative action.  Below average leaders like to do something.  If I’m doing something, I must be leading.  If I’m not doing something, I must not be leading. Action, even ineffective action, is something below average leaders do in times of uncertainty.

Earthquake leadership, you definitely know what it is when you ‘feel’ it and see it!

 

 

 

The Only Way To Hire A Recruiter

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I’m always on the lookout for a silver bullet to make great recruiter hires! But, I haven’t found one, yet!

I’ve met and been around thousands of recruiters in my career, and most have a few similar traits that make them successful at recruiting, think:

  • Self Motivated
  • Ability to drag information out of an individual
  • No phone fear
  • Quick minded
  • Connector of people
  • Etc.

The reality is, though, no one has really found the secret sauce to hiring great ‘potential’ recruiters.   I say potential because it’s rare I that I hire experienced recruiters.  It’s not that I have a problem with experienced recruiters…wait, I probably do have a problem with experienced recruiters.  Here’s my deal, if you’re a really good recruiter, I shouldn’t be able to afford you. If I can afford you, you’re not a good recruiter.  I like to grow my own.  No recruiting experience, come on in and we’ll show you the ropes.  By the time you end up being really good, I’ll be paying you really well and everyone is happy.

That still leaves me with a better way to find those who, potentially, could be really good at recruiting. There isn’t any ‘recruiter starter’ program at the local community college, and while Enterprise Rent A Car kids have been a good breeding ground, that isn’t perfect either.  Sure, Allegis/Aerotek has used the Fraternity and Sorority route for years, and that has done well for them, but I want something that is more of a sure thing.

And, I think I might have it.

For my next Recruiter hire, I’m going to have the candidates actually recruit someone for their interview process.  Game show style!  Bring in three people we like from a personality standpoint, give them a requisition on a need we have with all the details, and send them home.  First one to come back with a valid candidate that we would want to hire, get’s the job!

I know, I know – you can thank me later – I solved it!

Think about it for a minute.  If the candidate truly wants to recruit they should be able to fumble there way through one requisition to find some candidates that are relatively close.  The reality is, I want to see how they go about it, I want to talk to them once they find the person and ask them a million questions about how they did it, what they would do different, etc. I want to know that they actually want to do this.  My guess is 2/3 of the candidates won’t complete the task and I’m completely fine with that, because I don’t them, and they probably don’t want me!

What do you think?  Would you take on the task?

Client Respect and Love

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I dropped a vision on my team a couple weeks ago.  I think it’s important for any leader to do this, but it’s also important that it be completely authentic and transparent.  I say ‘dropped’ on my team, because that’s exactly what I did.  I didn’t let anyone know I was ‘working’ on my vision, because I wasn’t.  It came to me.  Like a vision.  It took me about a week to get the thoughts down in my own style, and add a grammatical error or two.

I’m not sharing my vision with you.  It’s for me and my team.

I will share a concept from it.  I want to work with clients who want to work with us.  Not just work with us, but want to partner with us.  Now, I know we throw that word ‘partner’ around a bunch.  My vision of a partner is a client who respects us and loves us.  We have to have both, love and respect, to get to my vision.  Respect isn’t enough.

In HR many times we will say something like “I don’t need that hiring manager to like me, as long as they respect me.”  That’s just a nice way we lie to ourselves that this will be a functional relationship.  It’s not.  You need more than respect, to be wildly successful.  You need Love.

I want love.

I want respect.

I want to work with clients who respect what we bring to them from a skill and support side.  But I also want clients who love us, and we love them.  That I look forward to talking to them, to seeing them, and they feel the same way.  That isn’t easy.  But it is something I think we owe to ourselves.  To work with people we love to work with, whether it’s those sitting next to us as coworkers, or those clients we work with daily.

I don’t care if I was selling staffing solutions, or the cure for cancer, my vision would not change.   I don’t care if I’m running a business or running a department, my vision stays the same.  In HR you have ‘clients’, all those who you support.  Are you trying to get your clients to love and respect you?  If you reach that level, where they do, it will make your job, your life, glorious.

Great is the Enemy of Good

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You know what I find really funny?  That we take a really interesting concept like “Good is the enemy of Great” from the 2001 book Good to Great, and we make it law.  It’s now wildly held belief by most well-read leaders that Good is the enemy of Great.  That is you truly want to be Great, being Good hurts you because it gives you a false sense of accomplishment.

I think this is bullshit.

In fact, it’s such B.S. that I think the opposite might be a more true statement: Great is the enemy of Good!  Think about this for a moment:

  • Great performers are usually difficult to deal with:
    • They are more demanding
    • They tend to share diva qualities
    • Many will ostracize their coworkers because they don’t understand their relative ‘lower’ performance
  • Great performers tend to blow up your compensation bands and raise overall compensation of the position they’re in.
  • Great performers want preferential treatment.

From a corporate sense many great performers are a major pain in the butt.  Plus, great performers don’t raise the bar for everyone else, this is another false premise, just for themselves.  Great performers also raise the expectations of your leaders on what performance should be on average performers which tend to drop engagement of the majority rank and file.

Don’t get me wrong.  Great performers do add their value.  Remember what this post is all about, not great performers, but good performers.  “Good is the enemy of Great” sounds proactive and sexy, but it doesn’t stand up to reality.  The reality is, as corporate leaders, we want to surround out great performers with a bunch of good performers.  Saying good is the enemy, goes against this entire mindset.

To be wildly successful in any organization, I don’t need great performance,  I need good performance from everyone.  I could have a few great performers, and no good performers, and still the great performers, or more precisely our organization, will end up failing.  Give me no great performers, and everyone else are good performers, as we’ll do really, really well!

Next time you find your mouth saying “good is the enemy of great” think about what you’re really saying.  That isn’t leadership speak, it’s just being naive to your reality.

Why Do We Hire Horrible Leaders?

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Have you ever worked for a boss that was horrible?  That’s an easy question to answer, isn’t it!  The person came immediately to your mind (for my staff reading this, if I came to your mind first, you’re fired! I tease – you’re not fired – just come see me after your done reading this…) Almost all of us, probably 99.99% of us, have worked for a boss/leader we thought was just God awful.  It’s the perplexity of leadership.  I like to blame the entire leadership book industry.  Someone gets a promotion to a leadership position and they instantly get online for the latest leadership babble that’s being sold by some idiot that was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time of a successful company and now she or he is going to tell us how to be a great leader using 7 simple steps!  BS!

But, really, why do we hire such bad leaders?  CNN had an article recently that looked into this:

“The short answer is, we focus on all the wrong things, like a candidate’s charm, their stellar résumé or their academic credentials. None of this has any bearing on leadership potential. And despite claims to the contrary, even a candidate’s past results have little bearing on whether the promoted individual will succeed once promoted.

At best, a “track record” tells only half of the story. In a new position, the candidate will have to face new obstacles, deal with a new team, manage more people introduce new products and do it all without a clear road map.”

Ok, so we aren’t focused on hiring the right traits that makes a great leader.  The reality is, in most of our organizations, we hire “next-man-up” philosophy.  “Hey, Jill, is the best producer in the group, congrat’s Jill! you’re now the next boss!”  About 90% of leadership hires happen like this!  Most of you will attempt to call that “Succession Planning”, but it’s not, it’s “convenience planning” and it’s bad HR.

Can we all agree to one thing (this statement is a setup because I know we can’t agree to this!)?  Being able to do the “job” (meaning the specific tasks of the functional area you’re a leader for) has very little to do with one’s success at being a leader.  Can we?  And yet, it becomes the first thing we focus on when going to hire a leader.  “Well, how good of a coder are they? How do you expect them to manage coders if they aren’t the best coder?”  You’ve had this conversation haven’t you!?  Most of the best leaders of all time, had very little functional skill of the leadership position they were successful in.  What they did have, were these things:

  • Integrity
  • Passion
  • Courage
  • Vision
  • Judgement
  • Empathy
  • Emotional Intelligence

We pick bad leaders because we don’t focus on the traits above.  It doesn’t matter if the person can do the job of those they are managing – great leaders will overcome this fact very easily.  If that’s your biggest worry, they probably won’t be a good leader anyway.  When you have a great leader – the conversation never goes around whether the person can do the job of those they manage – it’s a non-issue.  They can lead and leaders know how to engage those who can do to make their departments great.

How to tell your Work Critics to “Suck It”!

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In the corporate world everyone is a critic!  Everyone!  We’ve gotten really good at a learned behavior.  No longer can we just send out a final product the first time. Why?  Because everyone wants to trash it and change it, so it can be this really nice piece of plain old vanilla cake!  Welcome to Corporate America. But you know what? This isn’t new. Critics have been around since Jesus, and critics have been wrong since before Jesus!   I wanted to share with you some famous things that critics got wrong:

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, by Ludwig van Beethoven (1824)

What the critics said in 1825: “We find Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to be precisely one hour and five minutes long; a frightful period indeed, which puts the muscles and lungs of the band, and the patience of the audience to a severe trial…” –The Harmonicon, London, April 1825

Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (1851)

And the critics response: When Melville died in 1891, Moby-Dickhad moved a grand total of 3,715 copies…in 40 years! The below was typical at the time of the book’s release:

“…an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition…Our author must be henceforth numbered in the company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us with indications of genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities, carelessnesses, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring or disordered ingenuity can devise…” -Henry F. Chorley, London Athenaeum, October 25, 1851

Animal Farm, by George Orwell (1945)

What the critics said about the book we all had to read in high school: “It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.” –Publisher’s rejection

 

Here’s what I know, true creativity in what we do, does not come from running our ideas through everyone and their brother for approval.  If your organization wants your employees to be truly creative and innovative, stop pushing teams.  Teams don’t make masterpieces. They can do some pretty cool stuff, but pure creativity isn’t one of them.  We push “Team” so hard in HR and in most organizations it sometimes makes you think like this the only way everyone in the world must work, but it’s not.  An HR Pro that can determine the proper work structure throughout their organization is truly valuable.  “Team” isn’t always the answer, and you should have other tools in your toolbox.

 

You hear artist all the time say, “I don’t listen to my critics”. This is valuable in that they know listening to a critic will hurt their art.  Unfortunately, in business, we don’t always have the ability/decision to not listen to our critics (who could be bosses, peers, friends, etc.).  In business telling your critics to “Suck It”, could be a big career derailer!  So, when do we go all “Suck It – It’s my project” in the workplace?

 

First, I would never suggest you approach it beginning with “Suck It”!  While it will get their attention, it will also shut off communication.  I think we all need the ability in our work environment to push back appropriately when you truly know you have something that will make a difference.  But, it’s really about having the conviction to stand behind it and not let it get changed.  That’s your indicator,  “am I willing to put my career/credibility/bank of influence on the line for this idea/project/etc.?” If you are, it’s time to pull out the “Suck It” card and push forward.  For most of us, this might never happen in our work lives.  It’s rare to have to do this, if you find yourself doing it often, you’ve got an interpersonal issue to deal with!

 

I think what we learn over time is that not all of our critics are bad, and some actually might help truly make us better.  The key is to continue to have confidence in what you do, without it, your work critics will make your work life less than artistic.

The Ghost of Athlete Past

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I have three sons.  Two of whom are current high school athletes having successful high school careers.  Both have potential to move onto college and play the sport they want, if they choose that is the path they want to take.  Both are considered very hard working kids in their sports by their coaches and teammates.  They get that from their Mom, I was more of a gamer type.  Their Mom was the type of player other teammates hated playing against in practice because she never took a play off.  It made her very successful as a college athlete.  She has passed this down to our sons.  I’m grateful.

You see, anyone who has been around high school athletics will recognize this, not all kids give their all.  Many times you have kids on these teams with super high potential and athletic ability who seem to just piss it away for no real reason.  They don’t work hard.  Coaches play them anyway.  They screw around in school because they think their future is playing professional sports, or that colleges won’t care they’re a crappy student.  People treat them differently because their the local star of the moment.  They float through life believing this will never end.

Flash-forward 10 years and they are usually sitting in the stands of the same local school’s games carrying around their regret like a backpack.  Working at the local factory or some crappy sales job, talking about how they were so close to ‘making it’.  But they didn’t.

I wish I could send these kids a Ghost like in the movie The Christmas Carol.  A Ghost of Athlete Past to show them where they are and where they are going.  Where they are truly going is not where they think.  It’s not dropping out of college because they didn’t prepare themselves. It’s not sleeping in their parents basement at 28 because they can’t find a job to pay them enough money to have their own place.  It’s certainly not sitting a some random game at their local high school talking to anyone who will listen how they were better than the current version of themselves on the field right now.

I know people like to blame coaches.  The coach should have been able to get ‘that’ kid to see how they were throwing it all away.  Some blame the parents for not disciplining them enough and showing them how their path was broken.  I tend to blame the collective.  All of us who each, at one time or another, gave the kid a pass.  Well, he’s the best player, you need to put up with his attitude.  We won’t win with out him so, you’ve got to put up with him not practicing hard.  Well, we need him for this Friday’s game, so let’s just give him a passing grade ‘this’ time.  We’ve all failed him.

We all had the chance to make this kid a great kid.  Great athlete, great student, great person.  Instead we filled him with regret that he’ll have to carry around for a lifetime.  I lifetime of regret at 18.  It’s heavy at 18, and it only gets heavier each year after.  I love athletics.  Athletics have given me a ton in my life, as they have for so many people in our society.  It breaks my heart to see a young kid getting ready to sling that backpack on, though. To know you’re looking at someone who has already seen their best days at such a young age.

Just a reminder to give it your all today.  Some will only have one shot. Did you do everything you could have done to be ready?

 

The #1 way to tell someone they Suck!

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Every Monday morning we have a recruiter meeting at HRU.  The purpose of the meeting is for our recruiting department to share with each other what they are working on, what they’ve accomplished the prior week, and give in updates that the full group might need to know.  Something came up this morning that I wanted to share.  Like most recruiting departments/companies/etc. we have our “Repeat Offenders”  – these are the people who just won’t give up.  At one point, a recruiter probably called them, and maybe even interviewed them, possibly even hired them – but now, they won’t leave you alone – they call, they email, they LinkedIn, send Facebook Friend requests, etc. Basically, they become a stalker!

This morning, one of the recruiters says “Mr. Jones (I’ve changed the name to protect the guilty) won’t stop bugging me, he emails his resume to me ‘every’ day!”  We all know Mr. Jones, because Mr. Jones use to work for us at a client, and it didn’t turn out so well.  Now, Mr. Jones wants us to find him his next assignment.  The problem with Mr. Jones isn’t skill related, it’s personality related – he’s annoying.  He was annoying to the client and to his work group peers, he is annoying to us, and I’m pretty sure he was annoying to his ex-wife – thus the “ex”!

So, the BIG question. How do you get Mr. Jones to stop bugging you?  This happens to every single recruiter I know eventually.

Here are the steps I use:

1. Tell Them!

That’s it – no more steps.  Here’s our problem as recruiters – we never want to burn a bridge.  “Well, Tim, you don’t know where he might go, who might hire him, I don’t want to ruin my reputation”  We have to think about our “Candidate Experience”! Bullshit.  You’re being conflict avoidant, and if you look at your last performance review, I bet under “opportunities” is probably says something about avoiding conflict or not confronting issues head on.  I had a very good HR mentor once tell me – “it’s best to deliver them that gift, then to allow them to walk around not knowing”.  Once you start being straightforward you’ll be amazed at how many people will say, “No one has ever told me that!”  That’s the problem – no one ever tells them the truth, thus they keep doing the wrong thing, instead of trying to fix what is wrong.

How do you get an annoying candidate to stop bugging you?  You tell them exactly, very specifically, very calmly, with no ill intent – “I want to give you a gift.  You might not see it as a gift right now, but I hope in time you’ll understand it to be a very valuable gift.  I (don’t use “we” or “us” or “the company – you’re avoiding again by using those) – I think you have a very bad personality flaw that comes across annoying to me, and from the feedback I have received, to those you work with.  If this does not change, I won’t be finding you any job in the future, and you’ll probably struggle to find one on your own as well.”  OUCH! That hurt right?  But, read it again, was there anything mean or untrue in the statement? If this person actually listens to the statement and acts on it, will they be better for it?  You can change the reason for whatever issue the person might have – maybe it’s hygiene, maybe it’s a crazy laugh, who knows – but the basic message stays the same.  You need to change, or I never want to speak to you again.

It’s hard for recruiters to understand this, because 99% have been taught to be nice, thoughtful people – not to be rude.  This sounds a bit rude.  In reality, I think it’s rude to string a person along and not care enough about them to actually tell them what is wrong and to help them.  Stop telling candidates your blow off lines and start telling candidates the truth.  At the very least, you’ll have more time on your hands to talk to the candidates you really want to speak to!

HR’s Biggest Irony: We think we’re Contrarian

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When you get a group of HR Pros together there is one thing I can count on – the majority believe they somehow think differently than everyone else.  Then you look at their words and actions, and you discover they’re just like everyone else.  HR isn’t the only ones who believe this, in fact it’s rampant throughout our organizations.  The reality is, when we get around others, it’s really difficult for us to act and think differently. Hello ‘Group-think’!   The Motely Fool had a great piece on this in regards to investing, but it works for organizations as well:

“In the 1950s, Solomon Asch brought a group of students together and asked them to solve a set of problems, such as whether two lines were the same length. These were simple problems with obvious answers. But several of the students weren’t trying to pick the right answers. They were actors working for Asch, purposely giving the wrong answers in front of their peers. 

Asch repeated the study with varying numbers of actor-students blurting out the wrong answers. His conclusion: Three-quarters of the test subjects went along with the actors’ wrong answers at least once. In any given experiment, at least one-third of test subjects ignored the obvious answer and followed the actors. Just one in four consistently gave the right answer even when their acting peers disagreed with them.

Even when everyone around you is giving an obviously wrong answer, your tendency to second-guess yourself, not want to embarrass yourself, and your natural desire to fit in can trump every bit of rationality you think you have.”

Sound familiar?

The contrarian in most organizations is either the CEO, or the first one fired!  Contrarianism is not valued in the majority of our organizations.  CEO, and many senior executives, will tell you it is, and it’s what they want, but the facts don’t lie.  Most people who go against the grain don’t fit in well in corporate structures.  Which makes it even more funny when I hear HR Pros tell how they are the contrarian voice in their organizations.  No you’re not.  Plus, I would question is that what you really want to be?

I believe HR doesn’t need to be contrarian, HR needs to be conformist.  HR needs someone who is going to take that executive vision and completely conform to it.  Full buy-in, drink the kool-aid, get the tattoo on your ass, conformity.   In away that is contrarian, if you are lead by a visionary leader, either way it’s what our organizations need out of HR.  HR thinks the opposite.  They think our leaders need someone to tell them their full of it.  They don’t. Your leaders don’t want to hear they’re full of it. In fact most, really, just want to hear you think they’re right.  Those who are very self aware still only want to hear how you can help them make their ideas reality, not that their ideas are crap.

That isn’t what you expected was it? HR needs to conform, there, I said it.  Conform to the vision. Conform to the mission. Leading through conformity.

 

The Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers

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I’m a sports geek and recently the sports talk shows and Twitter have been blowing up over The Mt. Rushmore of the NBA.  This happened because Lebron James came out and said he wants to be on the Mt. Rushmore of the NBA when his career is done.  His current NBA Mt. Rushmore is: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Oscar Robinson.  The reality is, is had no bearing on anything, but people love to argue the concept!  Why Oscar? What about Russell or Wilt?! Wouldn’t you put Lebron on it right now!? It’s a never ending argument that sports geeks, like me, love to have.

The Mt. Rushmore got me to thinking about my own world and the Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers.  People can start the argument with just the title! Why not just HR? Aren’t those two separate mountains!?  I don’t think so. While there are thousands of bloggers in the space, I don’t differentiate the two, because to me Talent is part of the HR function, not a separate thing (although I do think it will be out of HR in the future!).

So, here is my Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers:

– Kris Dunn – Mostly HR, writes every freaking day for the past 5+ years at the HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent, has great opinions on topics, ties in pop culture, sports, politics, etc. He entertains and educates. First and foremost he is and has been an actual practitioner in the field – he has gotten his hands dirty cleaning up after an employee picnic, had to do I-9 audits, design hiring processes, facilitate on-boarding and open enrollment meetings. KD knows your world and knows how to give you information to help you get better at what you do.

 – Jessica Merrill-Miller – Jessica is one of the few HR blogger types who has actually made this a paying career.  Also a one-time real HR person, over the past few years she now only blogs and consults, but is a content machine with great opinions, and super helpful advice to HR pros, candidates and leadership alike.  JMM loves this stuff!  In fact, I would put money down that if you made JMM chose between Blogging4Jobs.com (her website) and her husband, it would be a quick divorce! You feel her passion when you read her stuff and go to her site.  Everyone wants to make money blogging, but no one puts in the time and effort that JMM does.

 – Glen Cathey – Many will know Glen by his site Boolean Blackbelt.  Glen gets recruiting and sourcing at a completely different level than 99.9% of people in this industry, and that isn’t an exaggeration!  While some will be intimidated by his writing – it can get technical – the information he provides is more valuable than a Master’s degree in HR.  Also, he does have a beginners guide to get people started, and he loves to use screen shots of what he’s doing to help visual learners.  Of all the people I read, Glen puts the most effort into his posts. Super detailed, great research, it’s like my own personal training guide on how to find talent better and faster – and he just keeps delivering!  Glen is also a working Talent pro – so he’s giving you real, live up-to-date stuff. Not something he did 10 years ago and is still trying to sell as relevant.

 – Laurie Ruettimann – While LFR is currently on blogging hiatus, or sabbatical, or vacation, it really doesn’t matter – she’s the queen of HR blogging.  No one is more opinionated and spot on, usually, with those opinions.  That’s why I love her writing – she can make me laugh and not like her all in the same post.  That’s what a great blogger does, she challenges the way you think.  LFR is the also the only HR/Talent blogger I know who can talk about her bathroom habits and have a thousand people comment. She’s got a great audience and the HR folks love to read her take on things.  She the prototypical anti-HR lady, who was an HR lady, lady.  She’s a CHRO, who decided not to be a CHRO.  For those who need a LFR fix – she has a Tumbler, or you can read her years of content still up at The Cynical Girl.  

People always want to know who I read – it’s these four consistently.  I also read all the folks at Fistful, I think they’re all great as well.  Who would be on your Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers?