Why We Pick Bad Leaders

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Tim Sackett

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, your 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 were 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.

Make HR Suck Less

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Are you working in a HR department that sucks? You know if you are, it’s alright, you can admit it – it’s the first step of changing it.

I bet I talk to over a hundred HR Pros a year that begin the conversation with – “our HR department sucks!” or “my company doesn’t get it when it comes to HR” or “Our HR department is terrible”. It’s not the outlier, it’s the norm. So, many HR Pros working in HR functions where the organization has the feeling that “HR” sucks in our company. If you’re not in one now – great – but chances are you have either been in one before, or eventually you’ll make a “grass is greener” decision and put yourself into this situation.

You know what? We have the power to make HR Suck Less. Yes, you do. Stop it, you do. No really, you do. Alright that’s enough, just play along with me at least!

Here are the 3 steps to making HR Suck Less:

1. Stop doing stuff that Sucks. But Tim! We have to do this stuff. No you don’t – if your HR shop blew up tomorrow – your organization would still go on. Over time you’ve “negotiated” to do all this sucky stuff – thinking it would “help” the organization, or give you “influence”, etc. Stop that. Give it away, push it out to other departments – start doing stuff that doesn’t suck, more than doing stuff that does suck. It’s not easy, but it can be done, little by little.

2. Get rid of people in HR who Suck. Some people get real comfortable with sucking. They wear their suckiness around like a badge of honor. You need to cut the suck out of your department – like cancer!

3. Stop saying that you Suck. We brand ourselves internally with everything we do – and if you say that you suck at something – the organizational will believe you suck at something. If you say we are the best in the industry at recruiting our competitions talent away from them – you’ll be forced to live up to that – and little by little you will live up to that and the organization will begin to believe it as well. Signs and Symbols!

Every single HR Shop who feels they suck – doesn’t have to suck. If you feel you don’t suck, but everyone else tells you that you suck – you suck. You’re just delusional and you keep telling yourself things like “we have to do this stuff”, “it’s the law”, “we don’t have a choice”, etc. This is the first sign you’re comfortable with sucking – you aren’t listening to your organization. No one has to suck – you can decide to do things in a complete different way. Perception is reality in terms of sucking. You need to change perceptions, not reality. You can still accomplish the exact same things, just do it in a way that people think you rock. Start saying “Yes” to everything – not “No”. “No” sucks.

Sucking less is a decision – not a skill. You all have the skills – you just need to make the decision – to stand up and believe – Today we will no longer Suck!

It’s Back! FOT’s Top 25 HR/Recruiting Blogs!

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Fistful of Talent – which I’m proud to be a member of – is releasing it’s Top 25 HR and Recruiting Blogs. What’s really cool about this list – unlike some other lists I have poetically mentioned in prior posts – is this isn’t made up by some random analysis, of random metrics – this thing is totally un-apologetically 100% subjective! That’s right, we (the FOT Tribe) sent in our own Top 25 HR and Recruiting Blogs that we love to read -the blogs we are fans of – and we ranked them 1 to 25. Simple – yet very effective!

I’m not saying that it’s easy to pick the Top 25 – for starters no FOTer blog can be a part of our list – which right there eliminates probably the 10 greatest blogs on the planet! So, I might have to recommend to Kris that next year we call the list – The Top 11-35 HR and Recruiting Blogs! That being said we looked at hundreds of blogs – many of us have our personal favorites – many of us really like and read blogs that our out of the HR world – as our personal favorites. What I can tell you – is the Top 25 – are solid! If you are looking for a list of HR and Recruiting blogs to follow – you won’t go wrong with any of these!

FOT’s own Steve Boese will be doing his thing tonight at the HR Happy Hour – unveiling the winners and talking HR with some of the top HR bloggers in the business – go check him out –

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/steve-boese/2012/03/23/hr-happy-hour-141–the-hr-blog-power-rankings

HR Happy Hour Episode 141 – ‘The HR Blog Power Rankings’

Losing Your Job – Tebow Style!

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Tim Sackett

By now most of the free world knows that Peyton Manning accepted the quarterback position with the Denver Broncos who already had a quarterback in Tim Tebow. Ouch.To be honest it was really the only way that the Denver Broncos were going to get out of this Tebow mess. I like the kid, but he isn’t one of the better NFL quarterbacks, and he certainly wasn’t going to take them to the Super Bowl. Now they have a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback in Manning – who, if he fails, will have at least accomplished one thing for the Broncos – he got rid of Tebow without the fans losing their minds! Tebow is a fan favorite, which is like saying, fat kids slightly like cake – Bronco fans, heck, NFL fans in general, lost their minds about Tebow run last season. Getting rid of him wasn’t an option for the organization – until something so good came along it made everyone forget how much they loved Tebow.

You see great Talent has a way of doing that – making you forget about your favorites. Do you have a Tebow in your organization? I bet you do – and you know if you tried to get rid of them, your employees would lose their minds, culturally it would be bad, productively it would be bad, moral-wise it would be bad. So, you don’t do it – even if the person really isn’t holding up their end of the bargain any longer.

So, what do you do?

You do what Elway did with the Broncos – you bring in better talent and cut bait with your employee favorite! You have to do this. You have no choice. To keep an under-performing employee, just because everyone likes that person – is HR death! But, what do you do if the person is an average employee and well liked, but you get a chance to bring in superior talent? You do the same thing – but you you have to very careful on how you make that transition. Unfortunately, the talent that you and I bring into our organizations usually isn’t as highly publicized as a Peyton Manning! So, we, as HR/Talent Pros, have to do some of our own internal PR work on the new talent.

What does internal PR on a new hire look like? It starts with getting your leadership team all on the same page – they need to be excited and 100% supportive of the new person. Then focus on the new person’s direct team/department. They don’t have to be excited – remember they just lost someone they love – but they have to be supportive. The best way to do this is through a structured transition meeting – where they get to learn about the new person, but also voice their pain of their loss – it’s good for both parties to be on the same page. The final step is to get of the news release to the rest of the organization if all the high points of the new talent. Be careful not to do this first, because people will instantly run to the new group and ask about it. A transition meeting has to be done, so they a ready to respond and be supportive of the new person. To often in our organizations we rush to “tell everyone” before the person starts, or soon after, it’s more important to wait on this communication and get those closest up to speed first.

No one ever wants to let go of an organizational favorite – but in HR it’s our job to increase the talent of our organizations – sometimes that means making an unpopular decision. The best HR Pros find ways to move the organization forward quickly and while be supportive.

Trying Not To Lose in HR

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I love March – primarily for March Madness and because I love basketball. I spent the weekend watching as many NCAA Tournament games as possible, including a trip to Columbus, OH to watch my Michigan State Spartans compete in the 1st and 2nd rounds (which technically is in accurate – it was actually the 2nd and 3rd rounds because of those stupid play in games on Tuesday and Wednesday are “really” the 1st round – but they’re not, we all know it – the only people who truly think that is the 1st round is the NCAA and the parents of the kids playing in those games – which BTW are the only people in those stands watching!).

While enjoying this pastime I heard very often the sports cliche: “They are playing not to lose versus trying to win”.

For those who have competed in sports (and for many in business), you know exactly what this looks and feels like. It’s playing keep away with the ball when you’re up 3 in the first half! No! Stop! Run your normal offense. It’s your favorite NFL team going into a prevent defense up 10 points with 15 minutes to play (Don’t do it – it’s going to “prevent” you from winning!). Playing not to lose is being conservative – maybe to conservative – to the point of you stop doing what it took that got you in the position to win.

We do this in HR.

Too many times we tell managers “No”, when we should be telling them “Yes” – we become some risk avoidant they we miss out on some very good opportunities for our organization. It’s not HR’s job to avoid risk – it’s HR’s job to measure the level of risk and work with our organizational partners to determine if they are comfortable with the level of risk we are about to take. Those are to very different things – many HR Pros misconstrue this issue. They try at all costs to avoid all risk, which isn’t necessarily the right thing for the business. They aren’t trying to win, they’re trying not to lose.

The next time you find yourself in a position of giving advice to your operations partners at work, ask yourself this one question –

Am I trying to make the company/organization better right now, or am I trying to eliminate risk?

Then determine, what should I be doing? For some of you the right choice will be to say – at this point, right now, I have to eliminate risk – it’s the right call. But for many of you, you will have to circle back and truly try to make your organizations better by managing the risk that is presented.

Spend today trying to win.

The First Lie You Hear in HR

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Many of you are now aware that Peyton Manning, All Pro NFL Quarterback, was released by the Indianapolis Colts (I wrote about here). Long story short – he was injured, he’s the back side of his career, he was due a boatload of money – Indianapolis made a business decision to let him go. There was this really heartfelt press conference with the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, Jim Irsay, and Peyton the day he was released where they both cried and talked about how much they loved and respected each other. But within all that – there was one Giant lie – one we hear all the time in HR.

Jim Irsay stood at the podium and said – This is not about money.

Boom! Liar!

It’s always about money – and this was about money. If Irsay would have kept Peyton on 1 more day – it would have cost his organization $28M. It was about and is about money – you don’t know if he’s going to perform at the level he has over the past 14 years, and you aren’t willing to risk $28M on that decision to keep him.

I can’t tell you how many times in HR I’ve hear this statement from employees who are leaving for another company – and 99.9% of the time they are flat out lying to your face! “Tim, I’m putting in my two weeks notice” “What can we do to keep you?” “Nothing – it’s not about the money – I’m looking for that next phase in my career” “So, you won’t stay if we pay you $100K more!” “Well, wait a minute – you would pay me $100K more?!” “No! I just wanted to show you it is about money – now go – I don’t like to work with Liars!”

That’s exactly how you do it – HR Newbies! When someone tells you it’s not about money – start negotiating and find that price – you’ll get to it pretty quickly. “But Tim, it isn’t about money – I want to spend more time with my kids – I need balance.” “I’ll give you a 50% increase” “You know my kids will sure like going to private schools, much more than public schools.” Everyone has a price – just some prices are more expensive than others – but never let anyone tell you – It’s not about the money – it is.

If Peyton would have went to Irsay and said – “Look Jimmy (I assume he calls him Jimmy) I want to do right by the Colts – I’ll accept the league minimum to stay hear” “Peyton, you got yourself a deal!” would have been the entire conversation. But Peyton is smart – he knows his value – as does Jimmy – so they cut him loose. We do this all the time with our employees. Mary from IT just came in and said she got a new job paying her 20% more – and we calculate how much that will cost to raise up Mary, and everyone else in her same position. We then look at Mary, shake her hand and tell her good luck. It’s about the money.

All Hail The Newest Job Board

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Tim Sackett

With the Death March of Monster that has been going on in the media lately (check out Jason Buss’s post on it from last week – 7 Warning Signs For Monster), I thought it was high time we start giving kudos to the new King of the Job Boards!

So, without further ado – Please give a warm welcome and many slaps on the back to…

What did you think I was going say – CareerBuilder?! They are just Monster with different shoes.

The real congratulations goes to LinkedIn! They put so much time and effort into building their next generation job board, I’m really proud of them. It wasn’t easy to reinvent the job board industry, but they found away. Sure it was by first establishing themselves as a credible “networking” site, before pulling wool over the eyes of its members and selling their contact information to corporate recruiters for $8500 per year. I mean it was pure genius! It actually brings a tear to my eye.

Monster and CareerBuilder could only have dreamed of making a site that looks like a legitimate networking site, one that HR folks actually encourage their employees to get onto – only to be systematically picked off by their competition. Pure magic!

Today I’m going to recommend, as a HR community, that we do something to recognize LinkedIn as the biggest HR innovation of the 21st century. Somebody call Bill Kutik to see if he can put this award together in time for HR Tech 2012. It was going to be no small task to reinvent the job boards – but as a Talent Pro I’m sure glad that somebody figured it out – Thank You LinkedIn! We bow to your greatness.

What would it take to get you to work 80 hours per week?

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I’ve interviewed a ton of people in my career. When I ask people what their normal work week looks like – I “often” hear – “Oh, I work 70-80 hrs per week, all the time!” I instantly know they are lying – because no one works 80 hours per week all the time! Do you really know what 80 hours per week looks like? Here’s some examples”

16 hours per day – Monday thru Friday – that’s coming in at 6am and not leaving until 10pm – EVERY day.

12 hours per day Monday thru Saturday with an EASY 8 on Sunday.

Oh, and by the way, the two above examples must be with paid lunches and breaks.

Liars.

The only way you work 80 hours per week is if you own the place. How much would I have to pay you to work 80 hours per week? Would you do it for $10,000 per week? $520K per year? No you wouldn’t – you would quit after a month or two – now you’re lying to yourself. Heck – most owners aren’t even willing to work 80 hours per week. That’s why so many small businesses fail – people underestimate how much it takes to make a business successful!

“Oh, I would work 80 hours per week if I LOVED what I did.” Really? You think you would still LOVE it after working 80 hours per week, week after week, month after month, year after year? I think it’s incredibly awesome when I meet someone who I truly see Loves their job – you know the type – even if they weren’t getting paid, they would be doing what they’re doing. Unfortunately 99.9% of us aren’t in a position where we can “work” for free – no matter how much we Love it. We have bills, responsibilities – we don’t have daddy or a spouse paying our way – we have real life.

80 hours per week – now you’re thinking about it, right? It’s a lot of time to put forth for one part of your life. How do you get your grocery shopping done? Watch your kids play at school? Get the cat to the vet? Get your haircut? Get your teeth cleaned? See your therapist?!

As HR Pros we put so much time, effort and thought into building our rewards and recognition systems. Many of us think we do this so we can get our employees to give us that extra discretionary effort – to work those hours over 40. To get our employees to want to work 80 hours per week. Unfortunately, most of us have rewards and recognition to just get our people to do the job they were hired for – not extra. When this happens – you no longer have a rewards and recognition system – this now becomes part of their full compensation package. Rewards and Recognition shouldn’t be put in place “to get the job done” – it should be put in place to reward and recognize those who do more.

I know what you’re thinking – “Tim if I could just have a rewards and recognition system that would get my employees to actually work 40 hours, I’d be happy! 80! You’re out of your mind!” Believe me, I understand, but that’s what we do, or should be doing for our organizations. Get great talent, keep great talent, find ways to get that great talent to give us everything they’ve got =’s great HR Pro.

So, what would it take to get you to work 80 hours per week?

Bad is Stronger than Good

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I spoke at the inaugural TLNT Transform event last week in Austin – my topic was – What Your CEO Wished HR Would Do. One thing that came up during my presentation was a conversation around “Must Do Moves”. Must do moves are those things in your organization that you grab a hold of, as an HR Pro, and make sure they happen. I asked the group a question:

Do you have anyone in your organization that you need to get rid of?

100% – all hands raised – Yes! If you work in an organization that has a decent size – let’s say 100+, you almost always have a least one or two folks you would be better without. (for the record – my staff is less than 100, and I don’t have anyone I need to get rid of – they all rock! Don’t hate, I just follow my own advice!) As HR Pros we hear about this in meetings with your executives and hiring managers – “Oh, if we could only replace John, we would be so much better!” My point to the HR Pros in the audience is this is a value item that we can own in our organizations. Must do moves – especially those that make our organizations stronger, need champions. When it comes to staff moves – we are that champion.

What we realize, but many of our hiring managers fail to realize, is that Bad is Stronger than Good, when it comes to employees. We hear all the time “Addition through Subtraction”, and yet we struggle in our organizations to make this happen. Most likely this happens in your organization because you are trying to make your hiring managers, manage, and have them make this decision. When in reality they have made the decision – they told you. They hate conflict, even more than you do, and this was their cry for help. Take it – run with it – make it happen. It’s the one thing in HR we are all good at – process and planning. Put a plan together to get rid of your Bad and make it happen.

I didn’t just say – go fire. That’s not a plan. Well, it is a plan, but not a very good one. I said make a plan to get rid of the bad. That means working with the hiring manager to determine timing, back-fill options, sourcing, recruiting, progressive discipline – all that good stuff – but make it happen. Really – make it happen. Executives like doers! They like doers that get rid of Bad in our organizations. We own the Bad people in our organizations. Any time you have a Bad person in your organization – you need to take on the persona – this Bad person is my fault, and I’m taking care of it. Bad is Stronger than Good – you have to fight hard against Bad.

Want to look and be better in HR – own Must Do Moves in your organization.

Want me to come and tell you what other things your CEO wants HR to do? Contact me – I’m cheap – not free – but cheap.

Essential vs. Non-Essential Employees

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I’ve had many conversations in my career with employees who “essentially” felt they were probably more important to the business than they really were. You know who I’m talking about! The ones who at some point let it slip: “This place would shut down if I wasn’t here” or “Let’s see how you do if I leave” or “I made this company what it is today”. It’s usually a sales person, or technical person who have had big roles, no doubt, but they begin to get a little to big for their own britches (as my grandmother would say). Over time I’ve developed a good two point test to determine if someone is Essential or Non-essential to your business:

1. In a snow storm, is this person required to make it into the office/facility no matter what? (think large storm – more than one day)

Example: I worked in a large Health System – Doctors & Nurses had to get in – we actually had plans on how to get them to work in an emergency. I on the other hand, being in HR – didn’t have anyone coming to pick me up in a 4 wheel drive SUV.

2. Does the person in question spend way too much of their time trying to convince you of how important they are to your operation?

Examples: “Without me are largest client wouldn’t be here.” ; “Our department (a non-revenue generating department) saved the organization over $500K last year.” – on a budget of $3.7M…

You know what is really interesting about looking at the life of an organization – when they start out, in their infancy, there is only Essential employees. We make widgets, all you need is someone to get widget material, someone to make widgets and someone to sell widgets and someone to collect the cash and pay the bills. Pretty basic. No HR, No Marketing or Finance, No customer service – it’s a very straight line organization. Most companies don’t even add an HR element to their organizations until they get over 100 employees – usually an office manager/payroll/accounting person or the owner takes on this responsibility.

I always like to remind myself of who is “really” essential in my organization. It’s important. It’s important that as a “client” to those people, I make sure I focus what I’m doing on things that will help them do what they are doing. That only happens when I actually talk to them, face-to-face, and ask them – “What can I do, to help you do what you do?” Doesn’t seem overly complicated – but somehow we try and make it harder than that. You see, that’s what non-essentials do – we convince you that what we do is really important!

I like to look at organizations the same way you pick a team on the playground. If you had the most essential person in your company begin picking a team – where would you get picked? First, 10th, last? It’s a good exercise to go through. What you’ll see is your most essential person will pick individuals who will/can help them get the job done – without hassle, without issues, without extra work.

Are you Essential to your organization?

The Tim Sackett Project

TA & HR Expert, Dad, Backup Point Guard on my over 40 men's team

Category Archives: The Recruiting Rules

Why We Pick Bad Leaders

Trying Not To Lose in HR

The First Lie You Hear in HR