Category Archives: Selection

Employee Communication 101 – Tebow Style

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I need to catch up on my HR/Sports related posts!  My teammates over at the 8 Man Rotation are probably feeling like I’m not pulling my weight lately, and what better way to get back in their good graces but to throw out a Tebow post!

So, the big news from John Elway over at the Denver Bronco’s camp is that Tim Tebow has earned the right to be called the starting quarterback going into next season’s Training Camp.  Basically, that means that during off-season conditioning Mr. Elway is not going to allow any other quarterback to beat out Tebow – Oh! Thanks for the vote of confidence Mr. Elway! I’m not surprised by Elway’s announcement.  What I’m surprised about, and probably shouldn’t be, was by Tim Tebow’s response:

“Nice,” Tebow said of Elway’s pledge of support. “It’s a great honor to be a quarterback for the Denver Broncos. I take that very seriously. I’m very excited about this offseason and I can’t wait to get to work and get better.”

He couldn’t have been coached better by a team of PR specialist to respond this way!

Look, Tebow gets that Elway’s endorsement, was really a partial non-endorsement – and he had a choice on how to react, and took the higher road.  He responded in the way we would like anyone of our employees to respond when put in a similar situation, and believe me, we put our employees in these situations!   We constantly have hiring managers deliver performance and succession messages to employees that sound very similar to what Elway gave Tebow:

“Mary, keep doing what you’re doing and good things will happen.”

“Bob, you control what you can control and it will all work out.”

“Gayle, with hard work, you can go as far as you want in this organization.”

“Ray, the only person who is going to stop you, is you.”

This is the classic performance management response/non-response – and we allow this to happen to often – but more amazingly than how much we allow this to happen, is how upset we get with our employees when they become frustrated with this non-feedback, and don’t give us a “Tebow” response!

Tebow is a winner in life because he understands the art of communication.  He understands that, while he has a huge platform on which to speak, using it as a weapon will get neither himself or his organization any closer to their final goal.  Elway screwed up – he should have been honest – “We’ll give Tim every opportunity to compete to be the starting QB of the Denver Bronco’s next season.  We will work this off-season with Tim to make him the best possible QB for our ororganization.” Period. Shut up, no further questions.  Tim showed the organization how to communicate – be humble, be appreciative and be gracious – you will come out a winner every single time!

Want Change? Hire Pirates!

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Dollars for donuts, Fast Company is the best publication out their for anyone in the business world!  They hit a home run in my book recently with the article: An HR Lesson from Steve Jobs – If you want Change Agents, Hire Pirates!  “Why? Because Pirates can operate when rules and safety nets breakdown.”  More from the article:

A pirate can function without a bureaucracy. Pirates support one another and support their leader in the accomplishment of a goal. A pirate can stay creative and on task in a difficult or hostile environment. A pirate can act independently and take intelligent risks, but always within the scope of the greater vision and the needs of the greater team.

Pirates are more likely to embrace change and challenge convention. “Being aggressive, egocentric, or antisocial makes it easier to ponder ideas in solitude or challenge convention,” says Dean Keith Simonton, a University of California psychology professor and an expert on creativity. “Meanwhile, resistance to change or a willingness to give up easily can derail new initiatives.” So Steve’s message was: if you’re bright, but you prefer the size and structure and traditions of the navy, go join IBM. If you’re bright and think different and are willing to go for it as part of a special, unified, and unconventional team, become a pirate.

The article is an excerpt from Steve Jobs book: What Would Steve Jobs Do?: How the Steve Jobs Way Can Inspire Anyone to Think Differently and Win by Peter Sander, and it goes into some of the hiring philosophy that Jobs had while he was at Apple.

So, what did Jobs Pirates have to have:

1. It’s not enough to be brilliant and think differently- a Pirate has to have the passion, drive and vision to deliver to the customer a game-changing product.

2. Will the person you hire, fall in love with your organization and products?

3. A Pirate is a traveler who comes to you with diverse background and experiences.

4. Even though they’re a Pirate they still have to fit into the team and come with or be able to make connections.

“So, in Steve’s book–recruit a team of diverse, well-traveled, and highly skilled pirates, and they’ll follow you anywhere.”

5 Reasons Facebook is the Future of Recruiting

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On February 2nd, at 1pm EST, Kris Dunn, The HR Capitalist and FOT01, and I will be putting on a 1 hour webinar called: Social Recruiting MacGyver Style!   Our goal is to give the HR/Talent/Recruiting Pro who are busting there butts each day to bring better talent into their companies – so quick and easy tips on how to recruit and source talent on Facebook for little or no money.

So, what will it be all about – basically why and how we think Facebook will dominate the future of recruiting!

Why?

Here’s a few reasons:

1. 1 Billion Facebook members (they’ll hit that number soon) who are more active than LinkedIn’s core member. (Think about it – how many times per day do you check FB vs. LinkedIn?)

2. Facebook has everyone – I need to recruit many different functions  – not just professional or technical. I need clerks, line workers, customer service reps, skilled trades, Nurses, lab techs…see where I’m going with this!  Staffing and Recruiting departments just don’t recruit professionals – we need all levels of talent in our organizations.

3. I want to fish in a pond where there a few fishermen/women – not one where there is one fisherman for every fish.  Recruiters are the most prevalent single profession on LinkedIn – or so it seems!

4. Referrals are my best hires and all of my employees (at every level) are on Facebook – I need to tap their networks.

5. Facebook and some of its App Developer partners, like BranchOut, have figured out some great ways for you to tap into their membership – to see who might have interest in your company or be willing to refer your company to their friends and family.  We HR Pros love Easy Buttons!

Come check it out – if you know Kris and I we will guarantee 2 things:1. There is a good chance you will be entertained for an hour; 2. We love to share things that make HR and Talent Pros lives easier!

Register Today!

 

 

 

Burning Down Your HR Department

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A couple of years ago my parents house burned down.  They were away on vacation and lighting struck the roof. Before the fire department could get there and put it out, most of the house was destroyed.  60+ years of memories and possessions, gone.   In hindsight, it was a bit of a blessing,  there house was at the age where everything was starting to need replacing, and my father was at the age, where he wanted to retire.  Those two things don’t go well together!  Major home improvements equals major expense, and a fixed income.  So, long-story-short, mother nature, and the insurance company, gave my folks a new house for a retirement gift!  All is well that ends well, I guess.

This situation, though, led to some deep emotional conversations about what the wish they could have pulled out, if they new this was going to happen.  As you can imagine it was all the stuff you and I would want – our photos, our mementos, some favorite things that remind us of loved ones, or things that we were proud of.  I thought about his recently when having a conversation with a friend who just started a new position as the head of a large HR shop.  His comment to me was:

“What I really need to do is burn this place down and start over!”

To which I replied, “well, isn’t there anything you would keep?”  Bam!  That is what he needed – he did need to burn it down, but there were definitely some things he needed to take out before lighting the match.

It’s a common practice that Leaders tend to do when taking on a new position – we tend to burn down our departments.  Oh, we say we won’t, as we go around throwing gasoline on everything, and we say we aren’t rebuilding as strap our tool belt on and start hammering away, but the truth is, most leaders want to remake their new departments into what they want, not what it was.

So, I’ll ask you to take a few moments today and think about the concept of burning down your HR department.  What would you pull out and save?  What would you happily allow to burn up?  What would you miss?

Everyday we owe it to our organizations to get better.  You don’t have to burn down the department to get better – but you do need to get rid of those things you know you would easily allow to burn up!

Hire More Beautiful People!

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What do you think of, in regards to smarts, when I say: “Sexy Blond model type”?

What about: “Strong Athletic Jock?”

What about: “Scrawny nerdy band geek?”

My guess is most people would answer: Dumb, Dumb, Smart – or something to that context.

In HR we call this profiling – and make no mistake – profiling – is done by almost all of our hiring managers.  The problem is everything we might have thought is probably wrong in regards to our expectations of looks and brains.  So, why are ugly people more smart?

They’re Not!

Slate recently published an article that contradicts all of our ugly people are more smart myths and actually shows evidence to the contrary. From the article:

 Now there were two findings: First, scientists knew that it was possible to gauge someone’s intelligence just by sizing him up; second, they knew that people tend to assume that beauty and brains go together. So they asked the next question: Could it be that good-looking people really are more intelligent?

Here the data were less clear, but several reviews of the literature have concluded that there is indeed a small, positive relationship between beauty and brains. Most recently, the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa pulled huge datasets from two sources—the National Child Development Study in the United Kingdom (including 17,000 people born in 1958), and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the United States (including 21,000 people born around 1980)—both of which included ratings of physical attractiveness and scores on standard intelligence tests. When Kanazawa analyzed the numbers, he found the two were related: In the U.K., for example, attractive children have an additional 12.4 points of IQ, on average. The relationship held even when he controlled for family background, race, and body size.

 

That’s right HR Pros – Pretty people are smarter.  I can hear hiring managers and creepy executives that only want “cute” secretaries laughing all over the world!

 

The premise is solid though!  If you go back in our history and culture you see how this type of things evolves:

1. Very smart guy – gets great job or starts great company – makes a ton of money

2. Because of success, Smart guy now has many choices of very pretty females to pursue as a bride.

3. Smart guy and Pretty bride start a family – which results in “Pretty” Smart Children

4. Pretty Smart Children grow up with all the opportunities that come to smart beautiful families.

5. The cycle repeats.

 

Now – first – this is a historical thing – thus my example of using a male as our “Smart guy” and not “Smart girl” – I’m sure in today’s world this premise has evolved yet again. But we are talking about how we got to this point, not where are we now.  Additionally, we are looking at how your organization can hire better.  So, how do you hire better?  Hire more pretty people.

 

Seems simple enough. Heck, that is even a hiring process that your hiring managers would support!

And when I woke up, I was 70…

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My friend Kris Dunn has a saying in his family that started with his father – “We Work” – it speaks to the work ethic his father instilled in him, and he is attempting to instill into his own boys.  I tend to think that my father and Kris’s father would have gotten along really well!  I’m sure my boys are sick of me telling stories of things my father made me do growing up in his household.  My dad was classic in saying “I don’t care how late you want to stay out – but you will be going to school/work the next morning.”  I never questioned it, I just got up and went to work.  Both my parents were that way – I never once remember them staying home from work because they were sick.   During my high school years my dad would wake me up at 7am to go chop wood – we lived in the city!  He always was helping someone out with some project, that somehow included me – which was his way of just getting my butt out of bed.  But you know what – it worked.  I work.

I was thinking about this a lot this week as I interviewed a bunch of candidates for recruiters, to work with me at HRU.   I find myself interviewing, really only concentrating on one thing: Do I think this person is a “worker”?  You know what I mean – someone who doesn’t even realize that the clock struck 5pm – that doesn’t even take a second to question whether they should come into work when they have a sniffle.  Someone who has it wired into their DNA – to work.  I tend to really like those kinds of employees! Like Kris’s dad – like my dad.

My dad turns 70 next year – he still works a professional position – 50+ hours a week.  I beg for him to retire.  It’s selfish of me – I have 3 sons – I want my sons to have memories of my Dad, like I had of my grandfather – but the bastard works to much!   Plus, it would certainly help logistically – since Kim and I are trying to cart 3 boys to 3 different practices, events, etc. – I need a full time driver – who better than their grandfather!  He feels that is a company is still willing to pay him a good salary at 70, and he still enjoys and feels respected by those he works with and supports – why shouldn’t he keep working.  I can’t argue with that.

I know people – you know people – who want to retire “young” – 40, 45, 50 – you hear them all the time.  I don’t ever think that.  I work.  Doesn’t matter if it’s in this office, or at home, or somewhere else – I’m going to work.   I have a strong feeling that one day about 30 years from now, I’m going to wake up one morning and realize, I’m 70.  Then I’m going to throw my legs over the side of the bed, take my shower, have a glass of Metamucil, and go to work.  I’m a Sackett, that’s what we do.

 

Selection, Assessments and the MLB

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Major League Baseball is back this week, which means I now have something to do each night until November!  Yeah me, I’m winning!

More importantly the MLB gives us some great things to write about throughout the season.  I don’t know of a sport where more there is more of a correlation to HR than Major League Baseball.  Think about what the MLB does as compared to our daily jobs as HR Pros across the country:

  • No one does more analysis and assessments before hiring (drafting) than the MLB
  • No one has a larger succession plan in place than the MLB (minor leagues)
  • Pay for Performance compensation (Ok, I’ll give you a pitcher who has a 9-13 record and a 5.79 ERA should not get paid $5.6M per year – but we all have our market)
  • Constant employee motivation and leadership development – Employee Relations Issue (hitters in an 0 – 21 slump at the plate, Manager calls him out in the newspaper, etc.)

You get the picture – the MLB is like one giant HR laboratory – but with an unending budget – and a heck of lot more Dominicans than your average U.S. workplace.

The one thing I wonder is how long we (HR/Talent Pros) would have our job – if we had the same success rates in selection as our MLB counterparts?

There are up to 50 rounds each year in the Major League draft – and a MLB team can sign as many Free Agents (those who didn’t get drafted or no longer have rights held by another team) as they want.   In the end the failure rate of selection is astronomically high.  From a Sports Illustrated article in 2010:

…major league teams selected 436 high school players after the 13th round. Only nine of those kids signed a contract that year and eventually made it to the big leagues — a 98 percent failure rate. After Round 26, teams selected 213 high school players, only one of whom, Victor Diaz, an outfielder who appeared in 147 games for the Mets and Rangers, played even a day in the big leagues — a 99.5 percent failure rate…

Can you imagine a 99.5% failure rate in hiring in your organization!  You would have your job for about 26 minutes!  You think you have a hard time assessing talent, the folks working for MLB teams, it would seem, could use some help from some HR Pros and assessment vendors in revamping their selection process, because something isn’t working right – and you thought the athletes weren’t held accountable!

There are good lessons to learn from their failure of MLB’s selection science (or should I say lack of selection science):

1. Don’t get caught up in the hype.  What happens when 13 old guys stand outside the fence watching some 17 year old kid throwing 91 mph fastballs – they all lose their minds – HR folks aren’t much different – have you been to a college career fair for hard to find grads!  Just because they have 1 skill doesn’t make them a star, and even if they have more, they might not be the fit for your “team”.

2. Past Performance Doesn’t Always Predict Future Performance.  Oh, that one stings a bit.  It’s definitely one major criteria to look at, but it doesn’t always ring true – many factors come into play – culture of previous organization, former leadership, position, industry, etc. 

3. Don’t overlook small town, small school kids. It’s easy to pick up great business hires from Harvard – but what about one from Northern Iowa?  Not every kid who goes to an Ivy League school is going to be great, and not every kid going to B and C business schools are idiots. 

 

HR Law of Diminishing Returns

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I was talking to friend recently about an interview process they were going through – I’ll take you through the steps:

  1. First contact – came in the form of a referral – my friend was on the phone with a person from their organization – who referred my friend to their HR department.
  2. Second contact – Recruiter from the organization called my friend up to see if he might have some interest in a position they have open (basic phone screen)
  3. Third contact – next call came from another person in recruiting, doing a more in depth phone screen – basically – so-they-are-interested-in-the-position-but-are-we-interested-in-them
  4. Fourth contact – online behavioral assessment, personality type profiling, etc.
  5. First Interview- basic phone screen with potential hiring manager – your online assessments came back and you aren’t completely crazy, so we would like you to move on.  This call is really for hiring manager to see if there is somewhat of a personality match.
  6. Second Interview – phone interview with Hiring Manager’s boss – if all goes well – we want to do an in-person personality assessment.
  7. Third Interview and in-person profiling – on sight at organization, doing some profiling and finally meeting face-to-face with hiring manager and few others from department
  8. Fifth Contact – interview debrief, some more clarifying questions – everything seems to be progressing nicely.  Then he’s told, we should be getting back to you within 2-3 weeks with an answer.

For the most part nothing surprises me about this interview process – actually pretty average from a corporate standpoint.  The entire process to get to #8 took about 3 weeks – assuming the decision will take another 3 weeks – you have 6 weeks invested into finding a mid-manage level candidate.  The problem with this being normal – is that’s the type of candidate you’re going to get – normal.  My friend is an exceptional talent, wasn’t looking, but through a referral was interested enough to engage this companies process.  As soon as he heard it would take 2-3 weeks to have a decision – he made up his mind that he was no longer interested.  His feeling, why should it take 2-3 weeks more for you to make up your mind – after all those steps – you either know you want the person, or you know you don’t.

I believe we in HR are great at setting up processes to the point we get diminishing returns on whatever it is we are trying to accomplish.  Thought being: “well if one assessment is good, two must be better and if two is better, three must be tremendous” – but after a while more isn’t better.  When I was at Applebee’s we have a tremendous performance management process in place. Twice a year we (the leadership teams across the country) would sit down and specifically talk about each management level person we had, and how they were performing to set of competencies we had.  We would force rank, and determine how to help develop people to move up within the rankings – or did we have someone that just needed to be off the bus (because development wasn’t working).

I made one small change to this process – which usually would take an entire day or more to complete.  We could only talk about an individual for 10 minutes, max. Why 10 minutes? Because once you talk about someone for more than 10 minutes – they turn into a piece of garabage!  They could be #1 on your list, your best performer – and by minute 11 – they turned into someone who couldn’t tie their shoes and chew gum – The HR Law of Diminishing Returns. Too much of something doesn’t give you better – just gives you more – and many times more isn’t what you need.  HR Pros – don’t add, just to add – add only if it’s going to get you a better result, faster.

Hiring, Culture and the Bookmobile

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In HR we talk a lot about “hiring for culture” – it’s a nice, professional way to say, we want to hire people who “fit” in with the rest of us.  We try and define our culture constantly – but usually end up with a list of every great quality we wish our employees had and our new employees “will” have before they can get hired.  Then we start mixing our new “perfect” employees with our old “broken” employees and we don’t understand what went wrong with our “culture”.   It’s a pretty simple concept, that most HR Pros don’t get, and leadership ignores – you can’t change culture by hiring some people to mix in with the old people. 

Changing culture, by changing people, only works (and maybe not even than) if you do everyone at one time – walk the entire staff out at 5pm on Tuesday (including yourself) and the new team shows up on Wednesday morning.  It’s like getting rid of cancer – you don’t just cut out one piece, you cut out the whole thing – or it grows back.   I’ve seen this in play – I’ve watched a line leader replace every single member of his team (12 in total) over a 2 year period – and he ended up with the exact same culture. Why? Because as a new member is brought in, they pick up the culture beginning the moment they step in the doors – so, even though you replaced everyone – they were still infected by those who were still left, and then went on to infect the new ones that came in. 

So, how do you change culture?  The easy answer is little by little, over a very long time – in most cases.  If your leadership wants to change your culture fast – you have a couple of options: 1. Quit (always an option); 2. Create a major event that is completely outside the normal culture.  Sounds easy, right!?!  Companies that have major cultural shifts in short period usually gain this by doing something totally out of your norm – major layoffs, major compensation design changes (think salaried to hourly, or bonus to commission) – something changes that disrupts the culture so much – change has to result.  The problem with this, is you really can’t design the new culture – it’s just going to happen, and what you end up with is a new culture – just not maybe the one you want!

My solution – I do it slowly over time – and I use the Bookmobile method.  I want a culture where people work hard, and weren’t given a lot – because I think they appreciate stuff more.  So, I have one selection criteria I use during the interview process to “pre-select” for the culture I want.  I ask 1 question: “How many times, growing up, did you go to the Bookmobile?”  There are really only 2 answers to this question: 1. I never went to the bookmobile, because they didn’t have that in my area (suburban rich kids, mommy took them to the library in their SUV); or 2. I went all the time, because when it came to the neighborhood, all the kids showed up.  In the end I want Bookmobile People – they got their education off a bus, that showed up in their neighborhood, and allowed you to take a book and trusted you would bring it back. 

Bookmobile people are the culture I want: Willing to do a little more to get their education, you can trust them (or the Bookmobile lady wouldn’t let them get anymore books) and no one’s mom drove them to the Bookmobile – they had to have their own initiative if they wanted to read.  So, little by little I’m building a Bookmobile Culture.