Essential vs. Non-Essential Employees

Posted on by
5

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?

How are you treating your Muse?

Posted on by
Reply

I stumbled upon a really cool site a while ago called, Letters of Note – Correspondence deserving of a wider audience – check it out.  While picking through the posts/letters I found one that was awesome written by Nick Cave regarding his rejection of his 1996 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Male Artist. This is the full letter:

21 Oct 96

To all those at MTV,

I would like to start by thanking you all for the support you have given me over recent years and I am both grateful and flattered by the nominations that I have received for Best Male Artist. The air play given to both the Kylie Minogue and P. J. Harvey duets from my latest album Murder Ballads has not gone unnoticed and has been greatly appreciated. So again my sincere thanks.

Having said that, I feel that it’s necessary for me to request that my nomination for best male artist be withdrawn and furthermore any awards or nominations for such awards that may arise in later years be presented to those who feel more comfortable with the competitive nature of these award ceremonies. I myself, do not. I have always been of the opinion that my music is unique and individual and exists beyond the realms inhabited by those who would reduce things to mere measuring. I am in competition with no-one.

My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature.

She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves — in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. My muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness her to this tumbrel — this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely!

So once again, to the people at MTV, I appreciate the zeal and energy that was put behind my last record, I truly do and say thank you and again I say thank you but no…no thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Cave

In the last line of the 2nd paragraph he says, “I am in competition with no-one”.  That wasn’t meant to be a cocky statement in any way – it was meant to be humble.  He does his music for him, not for recognition, not for awards – he would be doing his music if no one paid him.  Now, because someone is paying him, he’s not going to change his feelings.  That is integrity!

Do you feel this strongly for anything in your life?  You would be fortunate if you did.

 

#23 Rap Lyric That Shaped My Leadership Style

Posted on by
1

For the background of this list – see my post from 2-10-12.

The #23 Rap Lyric that shaped my leadership style comes from KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions song “Love’s Gonna Get’cha”:

“ya know a lot of people believe that that word Love is real soft, but
when you use it in your vocabulary like your addicted to it it sneaks right
up and takes you right out.

So, for future reference remember it’s alright to like or want a
material item, but when you fall in love with it and you start scheming and
carrying on for it, just remember, it’s gonna get’cha”


To often in my career I see really, really talented people who cross a line trying to go after titles.  They go beyond the normal self-building, and get into a game of sabotaging and tearing down of others as they aspire up the corporate ladder.  It took me a long time to learn that the title played a far less role in your ability to influence, than your actual ability to influence.

In HR we have a saying that is used frequently called “Up and Out”.  This refers to individuals who rise so quickly, or for the wrong reasons, in our organizations that they surpass their ability to do the actual title they’ve reached.  Move up to quickly, and you get moved out.   I don’t think I’ve ever found a good way to slow these people down, who aspire to be a VP before 30, etc.  There is no good way to tell them, slow down, you’ll be better for it.  For every example of a failure I have for them, they have an example of someone who did it and made it.   I try to tell them I was them once – I had the goal of VP by 35 and made some bad career moves to try and scale that wall, but it makes no difference – they’re (I) was different.  I eventually got my title at 39 – and by then, I had stopped looking for it…

So, remember, only love something that is suppose to be loved – your family, your friends, your peace in the world.  Loving material things like money, title, etc., never ends well.

Bad Hires Worse

Posted on by
1

If I could take all of my HR education, My SPHR and 20 years of experience and boil it down to this one piece of advice, it would be this:

Bad Hires Worse.

In HR we love to talk about our hiring and screening processes, and how we “only” hire the best talent, but in the end we, more times than not, leave the final decision on who to hire to the person who will be responsible to supervise the person being hired – the Hiring Manager.   I don’t know about all of you, but in my stops across corporate America, all of my hiring managers haven’t been “A” players, many have been “B” players and a good handful of “C” players.  Yet, in almost all of those stops, we (I) didn’t stop bad hiring managers from hiring when the need came.  Sure I would try to influence more with my struggling managers, be more involved – but they still ultimately had to make a decision that they had to live with.

I know I’m not the only one – it happens every single day.  Everyday we allow bad hiring managers to make talent decisions in our organizations, just as we are making plans to move the bad manager off the bus.   It’s not an easy change to make in your organization.  It’s something that has to come from the top.  But, if you are serious about making a positive impact to talent in your organization you can not allow bad managers to make talent decisions.  They have to know, through performance management, that: 1. You’re bad (and need fixing or moving); 2. You no longer have the ability to make hiring decisions.  That is when you hit your High Potential manager succession list and tap on some shoulders.  “Hey, Mrs. Hi-Po, guess what we need your help with some interviewing and selection decisions.”  It sends a clear and direct message to your organization – we won’t hire worse.

Remember, this isn’t just an operational issue – it happens at all levels, in all departments.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is look in the mirror at our own departments.  If you have bad talent in HR, don’t allow them to hire (“but it’s different we’re in HR, we know better!” – No you don’t – stop it).   Bad hires worse – over and over and over.  Bad needs to hire worse, they’re desperate, they’ll do anything to protect themselves, they make bad decisions – they are Bad.  We/HR own this.  We have the ability and influence to stop it.  No executive is going to tell you “No” when you suggest we stop allowing our bad managers the ability to make hiring decisions – they’ll probably hug you.

It’s a regret I have – something I will change.  If it happens again, I won’t allow it.  I vow from this day forward, I will never allow a bad hiring manager to make a hiring decision – at least not without a fight!

The 8 Man Rotation – 2011 Season

Posted on by
Reply

In what is probably the most anticipated eBook release of 2012 the The 8 Man Rotation crew (Matt Stollack, Steve Boese, Lance Haun, Kris Dunn and I) today release to the world version two of our most famous HR/Sports related blog posts of 2011:  The 8 Man Rotation – the 2011 Season.   The forward is written by two of our HR friends and great writers in their own right – Trish McFarlane and William Tincup – who get to poke fun at our obsession with the weird combination of sports and HR that we just won’t give up writing about.  Check it out –

The 8 Man Rotation – The 2011 Season
View more documents from steveboese

Do You Have a Jeremy Lin on Your Staff?

Posted on by
1

“Linsanity” has taken over New York and the NBA!  Do you even know what it is?

Let’s begin with some background – Linsanity refers to Jeremy Lin the up-start Point Guard for the New York Knicks which seems to have materialized out of thin air.  How up-start? In his first 4 NBA starts, with the Knicks, he has scored more than Allen Iverson, more than Shaquille O’Neal, more than Michael Jordan, tops since the NBA and ABA merged in 1976.  Where did he come from?  Harvard – was a good player in college, but not a star.  Was signed and released by both Golden State and Houston, spent some time in the NBA Developmental league, before signing a 10 day contract with the Knicks (which has turned into a longer term deal).

Jeremy Lin coming onto the scene in the NBA is keen to you knocking down a wall in your house and finding $50 million.  It doesn’t happen.  Professional sports are professional because they have and find the best – they scout talent 24/7/365 – they do make mistakes – but rarely does potential get missed.  So, how did this Asian-American Ivy League educated Point Guard fall through the cracks?  No one really has a good explanation.  I can assume being on the only Ivy League educated, Asian-American in the NBA didn’t help him get noticed – for the simple fact – that wouldn’t get you noticed in the NBA.  He didn’t have Duke, UConn or UNC on his resume, the NBA doesn’t care that he’s smart, and so few Asians (under 7 foot) actually ever get looked at for their basketball talent.  He was a plow horse hidden behind a stable full of race horses.

While this type of thing doesn’t happen in the NBA – it does happen in your organizations all-the-time!

The majority of HR Pros just don’t have the background and scouting ability professional sports teams have in tracking potential talent.  We give it our best shot, instituting Employee Development Programs, Succession Programs, etc.  But our reality is, we still have a very long way to go to be truly effective.  So, how can you ensure you don’t have a Jeremy Lin sitting on your bench, that you aren’t utilizing, or worse yet, you allow your competition to have?  Look for some of these traits on your staff:

1. Smarts.  There is a common saying in athletics, you can’t “coach” size. Meaning no matter how good of coach you are, it is still very hard to overcome a team with superior size and athletic ability.  Smarts is the same way in business.  You can hustle your way out of a lot of situations in business – but eventually Smarts will get you!

2. Desire. Give me someone with a desire to be the best, and I’ll take them a long way.  Too many of our employees have the components to be great, but lack the true desire to be great.  Doesn’t matter if your an engineer, accountant, software developer, teacher – little or no desire will kill your talent every time.

3. Love. You’ve got to Love what you do, Love your organization and Love your team.  Those people are set up for success, because there is no place else they would rather be, and they’ll fight to keep themselves in that position.

Just because you have one or two of these doesn’t make you great, or even good – you need a lot of all 3.  To often HR Pros hang onto people way to long because “they work so hard” but lack core talent (smarts), or “they have more talent than anyone else on team”, but lack the desire to do the job anymore.  Stop that!  You’ve got too many good people sitting on the bench, waiting for their opportunity, like Jeremy Lin.  Open up your mind, really look for the combination of talent, desire and those who want to be with you – and put them into the starting lineup!  You won’t be sorry.

#24 Rap Lyric That Shaped My Leadership Style

Posted on by
2

For the background of this list – see my post from 2-10-12.

The #24 Rap Lyric that has shaped my leadership style is from Little Wayne, from a song he did with Eminem called “No Love”:

“I think about more than I forget
But I don’t go around fire expecting not to sweat”

 

Two things here that pop out:

1. As a leader I forgive – heck as a person I’m just someone who forgives and moves on – but as a leader I won’t forget.   It’s an important trait to have in business because people are going to make mistakes and we need to move forward, but I would fail as a leader if I continue to put individuals into situations where they’ll fail again.  At that point, they didn’t fail, I did.

2. There are times when a leader has to make tough calls – and it’s going to get a little hot.  You can’t be surprised by this, you also have to have enough awareness of when these decisions have the potential to get hot, and making the proper call for the organization if the organization has the ability to handle it at that time or not.  Just because you can handle the heat, doesn’t mean your boss, or the board, or your customers will be able to.  You can never turn a blind-eye to your decisions, for the simple fact you feel you can handle it – most decisions have domino effects – solid leaders understand which dominoes will fall before they tip the first one.

I promise – I’ll go old school on you as well as we move forward!  Next week – Boogie Down Productions (BDP) will make an appearance.

 

Do You Know What Really Matters?

Posted on by
Reply

I had a friend die this week.  43 years old, married 3 kids under 12.  He was diagnosed with ALS a little over two years ago. We played basketball together in the mornings with a bunch of old guys – you see young guys won’t get up at 5:30 am to hoop – so it’s just a bunch of out of shape old guys leaning on each other trying to keep alive the dream.  He was telling me something was wrong with his leg – “it’s not doing what I want it to do” – we both cracked jokes about getting old.  Within a couple of months he could no longer talk or use his arms.   ALS sucks!

He was a writer at heart – which I never knew – the disease gave him his chance to write – just sitting there in your mind all day, unable to move, gives you the motivation – technology allowed him to get his trapped thoughts out onto his blog.  The worse his ALS got, the more he wrote.  His last post was in his own words on the day he died – because he knew he was going to die – with ALS it’s just a matter of time, and usually very little time (what would you write to everyone for your last thoughts?).  When I got the message – I was instantly heartbroken.  When I read his post, I cried.  I cry every time a reread it.  No one should have to go through this.  (Here is his final post)- I love the fact he didn’t sugar coat anything – until his final day he was real, genuine. This sucked for him and he wasn’t going to fake it for the sake of making someone feel better.  He didn’t want to die. He wanted more time with his wife and kids.  He wanted to live.

Perspective.

My friend spent his final two years or so pleading with anyone who would listen to have perspective.  His list of worries before ALS:

1. Bills

2. Money

His list of worries with ALS:

1. My wife

2. My kids

It shouldn’t take a devastating disease to give us perspective.  We go around each day making small issues, big issues and worrying about stuff that we can’t even remember a few days later.  Then life comes around and slaps you across the face and kicks you in the ass.   I hope I learn from this.  I hope I remember this pain I feel now.  I hope they find a cure for ALS so no one else has to go through this.

As Curt would say – Fuck ALS!

The Only Interview Questions You’ll Ever Need

Posted on by
1

About a year ago Forbes had an article, Top Executive Recruiters Agree There Are Only 3 True Job Interview Questions, that shared the “wisdom” of a handful of Executive Dinosaurs Recruiters on the only things that you should really have to ask a candidate.  There 3 questions where:

1. Can you do the job?

2. Will you love the job?

3. Can we tolerate working with you?

Simple enough – straight to the point – and you can assume for the $75,000 you’re paying, this is probably the extent of their screening as well!

In my Recruiting/HR career it’s probably the single most often asked question I get – from other Talent Pros, Hiring Managers, random people who know I’m in HR – “What are your best interview questions?”  Then you get to hear their questions, and how Google has some really great ones, and I even heard once about a company that asked people if they were an animal which animal would they be, and if you only pick one vegetable to eat the rest of your life, would it be carrots?  It goes on, and on – until you want to vomit!

The actual interview questions have very little impact in the success of the interview.  If you are interviewing anyone with some decent smarts, they are going to be able to ace your questions with little effort.  What is important in interviewing is what you allow the candidate to get away with.  I find that most recruiters and hiring managers to be way (I mean WAY!) to easy when it comes to questioning candidates.  See if this example sounds familiar:

Interviewer: “John, looks like you left your last next to last company in May, but didn’t start your current position until July. Can you explain that gap?”

John: “Sure, you know I was doing a great job and I didn’t see myself moving up in that company, so I wanted to go find somewhere I could move up the ladder.”

Bam! At this point – most – interviewers move on to the next questions.  When clearly, John deflected, and someone needs to rip into some Gestapo interrogation tactics and find out what’s really going on.  But they don’t, it would be conflict, he might think we are rude – we’ll move on…

Follow-up questions to original answers during an interview is a skill in itself.  The only interview questions you really ever need are the questions a Jealous Girlfriend asks when you come home on a Saturday morning around 3am.  Shoot – just hire Jealous Girlfriends as your interviewers – they’ll get to the bottom of a candidates background!  The hardest interview I ever had was with a woman that was eventually my boss, who was a former U.S. Army interrogator – it was exhausting, it was painful, it was Awesome – I actually lost my voice (after the 7th hour – True Story!).    She was the ultimate Jealous Girlfriend, in fact I think she trains Jealous Girlfriends in her spare time.  There wasn’t an answer I could give her that she was satisfied with, she just kept at it, until I would slip and say something I really didn’t mean to, and once she smelled the blood, it was over.  The result – she hired the best talent (excluding me) in the entire organization by far!  Bad hired did not make it past here interviewing technique.

So, don’t worry about having the “best” interview questions – really any will do – just don’t accept the first answer you get!

 

Do You Know What Your Employees Are Doing Tonight?

Posted on by
1

I love Fast Company – if I could only read one magazine ever – it would be FC.  If I could read two – I would re-read Fast Company.  Article for article the best publication on the market. (Editor note: Fast Company, please send the check care of The Tim Sackett Project)

Recently, FC had an article about the expectations you put on your employees, after hours: “It’s 10 pm, Do you know where your employees are? 4 Steps to set after-hour “work” expectations.” From the article:

“Leaders fail to clarify their personal preferences for staying connected to work with technology, and don’t share their expectations of the responsiveness with their direct reports. This leads to misguided assumptions that can wreak havoc on the work/life balance of their employees. And most leaders have no idea any of this is happening.”

There advice:

1. Recognize that you have to initiate the conversation with your direct reports.

2. Decide what you really expect in terms of response and connection.

3. Have a meeting, state the parameters clearly, and then be consistent.

4. Finally, keep the lines of communication open and encourage ongoing clarification.

So, what is the big dilemma about setting after-hour work expectations?  It invades upon our personal life, right!?  Wrong!  Here’s the deal – if you want work-life balance, you need to have balance both ways. That means, taking a phone call from the boss or the client at 9pm on a Wednesday, or finishing a project on Saturday afternoon, etc. But you should also be able to negotiate what “normally” will look like (knowing we all have exceptions that will crop up from time to time).

Here’s are the expectations I’ve set with my team:

1. If you are a Director or above:

A. If I call you after-hours, you pick up the phone – or call back within 10-15 minutes – or I read that you’re dead in the morning paper. (I rarely call my direct reports after-hours, so if I do, it’s important, you can step out of your son’s basketball game for 5 minutes and take my call)

B. I don’t make you work nights or weekends – but if you have to for some reason – don’t tell me you did it, like you just cured cancer – you didn’t, you did your job.

C. Let me when a client is upset, no matter what time it is, if I’m on vacation, if I’m at a funeral, my son’s wedding, meeting with Obama – I need to know – now!

2. Managers:

A. If I call you after-hours, you pick up the phone – or call back within 10-15 minutes – or I read that you’re dead in the morning paper. (see the trend yet?)

B. If recruiters are always staying later than you are staying – eventually I’ll pick one of them to be manager.  You don’t have to stay late every night, but don’t be the first out the door everyday.

3.  Recruiters:

A. If I call you after-hours, you pick up the phone – or call back within 10-15 minutes – or I read that you’re dead in the morning paper. (I think we are clear on this)

B. Unfortunately, recruiting isn’t a 9-to-5, Monday thru Friday job. Well, at least for recruiters who are actually good. Doesn’t matter if your agency or corporate – the best connect with talent on nights and weekends, especially to close deals.  There is an expectation you will do this.

It doesn’t have to be complicated.  Just be straightforward about it and set the proper expectations that “you” have – not organizational expectations – many times those don’t align – have enough self-insight to know what you need from your team – you’ll be happier, and they’ll be happier.