Do you want to find more happiness at work? Here’s how!

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In 1942 Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist, was taken to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. Three years later, when his camp was liberated, his pregnant wife and parents had already been killed by the Nazis. He survived and in 1946 went on to write the book, “Man’s Search For Meaning“. In this great book, Frankl writes:

“It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”

What Frankl knew was that you can’t make happiness out of something outside yourself. Riding a Jetski doesn’t make you happy. You decide to be happy while doing that activity, but you could as easily decide to be angry or sad while doing this activity (although Daniel Tosh would disagree!). Frankl also wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

I get asked frequently by leaders about how they can make their employees or workplace happier.  I want to tell them about Frankl’s research and what he learned in the concentration camps. I want to tell them that you can’t make your employees happy. They have to decide they want to be happy, first. But, I don’t, people don’t want to hear the truth.

Coming up with ‘things’ isn’t going to make your employees happy. You might provide free lunch, which some will really like, but it also might make someone struggling with their weight, very depressed. You might give extra time off and most of your employees will love it, but those who define themselves by their work will find this a burden.

Ultimately, I think people tend to swing a certain way on the emotional scale. Some are usually happier than others. Some relish in being angry or depressed, it’s their comfort zone. They don’t know how to be any other way. Instead of working to ‘make’ people happy, spend your time selecting happy people to come work for you.

In the middle of a concentration camp, the most horrific experiences imaginable, Frankl witnessed people who made the decision to be happy. Maybe they were happy to have one more day on earth. Maybe they were happy because, like Frankl, they discovered that the Nazis could take everything from them except their mind.

Provide the best work environment that you can. Continue to try and make it better with the resources you have. Give meaning to the work and the things you do. Every organization has this, no matter what you do at your company. Don’t pursue happiness, it’s a fleeting emotion that is impossible to maintain. Pursue being the best organization you can be. It doesn’t mean you have to be someone you’re not. Just be ‘you’, and find others that like ‘you.’

Want to be more competitive in this candidate market?

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Of course, you do! It’s one of the only things people want to talk about right now. How the heck can we hire more people, our competition is killing us for talent?! Then ten minutes later I talk to their competition and they say the exact same thing!

So, I’m going to tell you what a state government is doing to find talent, and most of you will say you can’t do this! By the way, state governments and federal governments are historically awful at hiring! Like the worse in any industry awful! They put tons of unnecessary rules and processes in place that make it almost impossible to hire, and then to fix it they create more rules and processes!

The State of Maryland, though, just broke ranks in government hiring and announced that they will be dropping educational requirements for many jobs that used to require various degrees!

“As an alternative qualification, Maryland will seek out  “STARs” (Skilled Through Alternative Routes) — those who are “age 25 or older, active in the labor force, have a high school diploma or equivalent, and have developed their skills through alternative routes such as community college, apprenticeships, military service, boot camps, and most commonly, on-the-job.”  

Okay, first, as HR pros, can we realize how funny it is that a state government HR office actually named their new hiring process (STARs) when since forever the most popular behavioral interview process is called “STAR”!? Only in government would you see something like this happen! “Hey, we need to come up with a cool/hip acronym for this new program! Let’s call it STARs!? No one has ever used that before in HR!”

Okay, enough making fun of our peers in Maryland, because this idea makes 110% sense and that is completely against the norm in government hiring and it should be celebrated! Also, thank you to all the tech companies that started doing this five years ago and showed big hiring entities, like governments, that education might be the most over-valued criteria in candidate selection!

Seriously, this is big news! If the great state of Maryland can change in such a major way so can your stupid hiring managers who are demanding degrees for positions that actually don’t need them! I mean, we should be screaming this from the highest hills! Someone actually has common sense in Maryland government! That is no small feat, for a government or a company!

If you are finding it super hard to find qualified talent and using degrees as criteria, eliminating this requirement could really open up your candidate pool, and without losing any quality! It’s called having the right skills to do the job, not a random four-year degree that is almost useless for that job you have open.

Don’t take this as I think education is worthless. I don’t! I love people going through formal education. I will force my three sons to get degrees. Yes, I said force. That’s how highly I value education in my household. So, I do not take the elimination of degrees lightly. I also have seen the light in my own company, as I use to require degrees and stopped and found amazingly talented people that were intelligent and had great learning agility and could perform as well or better than similar folks with degrees.

I also will never allow my family to get surgery from someone who doesn’t have a medical degree! Education still matters in many fields, but it also has no correlation to performance in most professions. So, like Maryland, we adjust and try new things. I think Maryland made the right decision and I really like where this trend is heading for so many people!

Loyalty is not Dead!

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Today will be the first day that I will not be working with the person I’ve had the single most tenure together as co-workers. Lori Johnson (LJ) has been with my company, HRUTech.com, for 22 years! She was a kid when she came here and I had the chance to see her get married, have three kids, grow into an amazing person. We have worked together for 15 of those 22 years. I got to see her on her first day of employment and on her last day of employment.

Now, you might be thinking, she’s leaving you! So she’s not loyal! Loyalty is dead, Tim!

But it’s not. Her 22 years of employment prove loyalty isn’t dead. While I’ve been there for her, through her ups and downs, she stood by me through my own. She believed in me and my vision when others didn’t. She never wavered. I’m proud to call her a co-worker and peer, and I’ve talked about her and her loyalty in so many talks I’ve given.

Tim & LJ

I would tell people that LJ would kill for me if I asked, and I was only half-joking. She has my back and I have her back. We are now family. I love her. I know that sounds weird to say you love a co-worker, but that is where this relationship has grown. She is moving on to an opportunity that she is very excited about and I’m excited for her. I’m heartbroken but excited! That’s part of life and work.

If we are lucky we’ll have some amazing people enter our lives through work. We will grow with them and at some point that work relationship ends and what you are left with is now a friendship. And I keep telling myself I’m okay with that! On Friday this past week, I walked into the office and said “Good Morning, Lori!” for the last time. I’ve done it thousands of times and she was always happy to see me and I was happy to see her. If I was ten minutes late for work she would call 911 believing something must have happened to me on the way to work!

Lori is one of the most loyal people I’ve ever met. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her because I believe there is nothing she wouldn’t do for me. To me, that’s loyalty.

Now, you might say to yourself, Tim, how the heck could you let such an amazing person leave your company? I’ve asked myself that same question about million times over the past two weeks. I could have offered her something that I know would have got her to stay, but that’s not what she wanted. She wanted to challenge herself, to prove that she can do this after only working one job her entire adult life, and as her friend, I want to support her and cheer her on to reach this goal. It’s important to her. More important than me keeping my comfort blanket.

Loyalty isn’t dead in my mind, because I’m being loyal to her by not trying to buy her to stay. Her doing this will make her stronger and better, and as her friend, I think that’s awesome. The first time I left HRU it made me exponentially a better person and smarter professional. When I came back I was a different person. My hope is the same thing will happen to LJ and when she comes back, she’ll be even more amazing! (Yes, I will hold out hope of a return!)

For all the HRU alumni, LJ leaving will come as a shock. She’s already told me of folks contacting her wanting to know the juicy details of why! That’s our nature, we think it has to be something, she would never leave HRU! What I know is we are stronger because of her and her tenure as a company, and I will always have a spot open for her because that’s what you do for the most loyal person you’ve ever worked with.

Good luck, LJ. I will always be here for you in life and work.

How to Not Suck at Recruiting

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If you ask people who are recruiters that work in an agency, RPO, or corporate TA, 90% would say “they” (meaning the organization they work for) don’t suck at recruiting. But, if you asked them about whether another organization sucks at recruiting, a much higher percentage would say others suck. Not surprisingly, you get this with most functions – IT, Finance, Sales, Marketing, etc.

We all love to believe we are awesome and others suck. At least they suck as compared to us!

If you ask a CEO if their recruiting sucks, way too many say “yes”. Now, there are a couple of reasons for this. First, they have no idea how to recruit or what’s being done in recruiting in their own barns. Two, CEOs usually come from a function within the business, and 99.99% of the time, that wasn’t recruiting! So, if you ask a CEO who came out of Sales if their Sales function sucks, absolutely they would say it does not suck! There’s a little functional bias at play with all of us, no matter our level.

I got a very simple question the other day from a webcast I did over at SHRM titled, Recruiting 2022: How Not To Suck! (just kidding – it was called “Recruiting 2022: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times) and you can see it on demand, it got a very strong reaction. That mostly speaks to how hard recruiting is right now. The question? “Tim, I’m brand spanking new to recruiting, out of HR, and I have no idea what I’m doing. How can I not suck!?”

How to Not Suck at Recruiting, a Primer

  • Sell! Sell yourself, sell your organization, sell your jobs, sell your hiring managers, sell the dream! Your stuff might not be what everyone wants, but someone does want it. You just have to sell it to those people.
  • Advertise the crap out of your jobs. We buy stuff not because we need it, we buy it because the power of advertising makes us believe we need it. Job advertising works in the same way. The grass is greener at your place!
  • Make candidates feel wanted. Respond to them. Pursue them. Tell them they are wanted, until you don’t want them, and then be honest enough to tell them that.
  • Don’t allow your hiring managers to F around. If they aren’t doing what you need, let them recruit on their own and tell them that’s what is happening. If they want to take that to people up the chain, welcome the opportunity to tell your executives what’s really happening in recruiting.
  • Use any recruiting technology you have to it’s fullest. It’s the only way you’ll know what you don’t have, what you need, and what you desire. Using your ATS 60% of the way, tells you nothing about whether it sucks or not.

At the end of the day, recruiting is about getting people in front of hiring managers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a hiring manager to interview a 60% of the way candidate that they ended up hiring and that person was amazing. Of course, that’s not ideal, but that’s reality. Find good people, who have skills, and want to work, and make hiring managers talk to them.

Almost every organization is a market recruiting organization. Meaning, you are only going to attract talent within your market who is looking to move. Unicorn brands can blend markets and pull from anywhere. You are not a unicorn brand. Remote helps, but it’s not perfect. You can find just as many crappy people in another state willing to work remotely as you find in your own market. I like to start hyper-local and slowly move out.

What I find is that recruiting functions that suck are ones that have given up. They think they have nothing to offer, that no one wants to work for them, etc. I never find an engagement recruiter or recruiting team that sucks. They might not have super high skill, but they are doing everything they can with high energy and hope, and so often that is enough to be average!

It’s hard out there right now. You have an entire global recruiting community will to support you and help. Keep the faith. Keep smiling. Know at any moment of any day in recruiting, you have the power to change someone’s life for the better!

Is Humor in the Workplace Dead?

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I have at times in my career been a part of teams where each day I laughed. The team was a joy to work with and while we still had work and stress, we found times to laugh. I had a group of folks I worked with in Omaha, NE that I specifically recall laughing so hard each week that my stomach hurt, sometimes daily!

I’m not known professionally as someone who is frequently serious. I joke a lot. I love humor and making fun of all the dumb stuff we do. It’s how Kris Dunn found me and I started my blogging career over a decade ago at Fistful of Talent. My entire job was to make people laugh on a Friday.

This past week I posted this tweet on Twitter:

Tim trying to be funny

Now, if you know me, you know this is a joke. If you don’t know me, but you spend twelve seconds looking at my feed, you know this is a joke.

Way too many people thought this tweet was serious and took offense to it!

Let’s dig into how strange it is that someone would believe this was an actual exercise I would do professionally:

  • Your on Twitter and you see this guy with 40K+ followers say he makes candidates write wedding vows and recite them back to him, and you immediately think to yourself, “Well, that’s not good! Why would he ever do that! I must comment! This offends me!”
  • At this point, you’re eihter clinically naive or flat out stupid.
  • What’s the offense you ask? “Well, if you only do this with “attractive” people, you have BIAS!” Okay, I’m listening, but understand, we all judge attractiveness in our own ways. Someone I might find attractive, you might find ugly. So, you’re fighting for a view that is nebulous at best. There was no gender attached to the tweet, so if you think that I’m talking about females, now you are showing your own bias. Maybe in this clearly hypothetical exercise I only do this with attractive men, or attractive non-bianary people!
  • The joke is really around the concept of an interview and wedding vows. That’s what makes it funny. Imagine being asked to write wedding vows to someone you’re interviewing with and then reciting them, in a sense, actually getting married in an interview? Which is in a sense what interviewing is all about, do I want to spend the rest of my life with this company.
  • Foks were beside themselves that I would actually have someone do this. They were OFFENDED! Of course, I would never actually do this, it was always a joke. And if I can pat myself on the back (which I love to do!) it was really well written! It was tight. Not overly wordy. It was, what I thought, fairly innocent, so clean fun in the workplace. It also made fun of crazy interview questions and exercises we make candiates jump through. All in 26 words.

Where are we at with Humor in the Workplace?

We are in a very strange place.

I grew up in my career where very offensive jokes were told in the workplace all the time. Stuff that would get you immediately fired and most likely canceled today. Thankfully, most of us are away from most of that today.

Today, we can basically have humor around very certain topics and can only be told by very certain people. The vehicle of humor is very important in today’s world. Here’s kind of how it’s broken down:

  1. People of the same gender, ethnicity, etc. can fun of each other, to each other.
  2. White dudes can make fun of white dudes, but nothing else. (Oh, there it is, Tim’s Fragility is showing!)
  3. Everybody else can make fun of white dudes, and their own identifiers.
  4. We can all make fun of people and things we’ve deemed culturally fair game – Putin, Kanye, Trump, old white men, Dudes getting yelled at by their spouses, the CEOs of big companies – but only the bad ones, not the ones we like, etc.
  5. You can’t make fun of anything someone would ever, at any time in histroy, find offensive in any slightest way. Like the color purple. “OMG! TIM! Purple stands for safe spaces for puppies! How could you!”
  6. You can always make fun of yourself! (hat tip: Patricia in the comments)

We right ditched, left ditched humor in the workplace, and in many cases socially as well. I hated that people in the workplace could feel attacked by what someone would consider ‘humor’ early in my career. I also hate that humor Nazis are now the norm in our lives believing they can regulate everything that can be considered humorous.

There’s a fine line with humor in the workplace and that line has gotten even thinner in recent years. The problem with humor Nazis is that many employees want to work in environments and cultures that include humor. They want to laugh each day. it helps with engagement. Of course, that humor must be appropriate.

Maybe we just have the dial turned so far up on our offensive meter we struggle to even recognize humor anymore. The best part of this is all those who found my tweet offensive would also say they love humor, just that I’m not funny, and nor was my tweet. That’s their right for sure, but I would argue they’ve lost context around what’s funny.

Bitter Recruiters, Hire Miserable Employees!

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Want great employees? Hire great recruiters, who love your company and love recruiting!

There are over 40,000 recruiter openings right now on LinkedIn. You are currently running lean because it is so hard to find talent. Every single employee you have, and every single new employee you hire, better be really strong, or you are going to be hurting.

During the most recent ten-year run of good fortune that most organizations have had, we’ve made some really crappy recruiter hires. Recruiters who don’t really like recruiting and most of them don’t even like working for you. They are miserable. Miserable, but need a job, so they aren’t going anywhere.

The pandemic actually helped some organizations weed out miserable recruiters, at first. But the last year has burned out a ton of recruiters that were left and many are flat out miserable. They hate you. They hate candidates. They hate hiring managers. They hate the job.

Sometimes you need to give someone a gift. If they are miserable working for you as a recruiter, they will recruit other miserable people.

On the opposite side, people who love your organization make the best recruiters even if they have never recruited before. That doesn’t mean run out and make those who love your company recruiters! That might actually make them miserable! It’s the balance of loving your org and loving to recruit which is the secret sauce! But I do think you can grow recruiters, especially if you use employees who love your organization!

I keep hearing about organizations that are paying insane salaries for average and below-average recruiters, simply because they have recruiting experience. I would rather hire two people with no recruiting experience that I know will actually, at a minimum, tell people how great it is to work with our organization.

When I work with organizations to improve their recruiting I usually find a few common threads. First, they do some dumb process elements that actually detract from recruiting not add to better recruiting. Second, they don’t use their technology to its fullest, Third, and this happens every single time, they have people recruiting who hate their job and hate the company! Every. Single. Time.

So, be better! 

There is actually one more common mistake organizations and Talent leaders are making, they are not investing in developing their recruiting teams. In fact, on average, recruiting teams might get fewer development dollars than any other department in the company!

Why?

That one is easy! Because no one knows how to recruit to begin with so they don’t know what to do when delivering recruiter training!

Great TA leaders are recruiting great recruiter talent right now like no other time in history. Most are overpaying for that talent, but that’s what the market is demanding. They are also investing in their recruiting teams with great training. When I’m speaking to recruiter training technology companies and stand-alone recruiter trainers their phones are ringing off the hook!

The last piece that makes you better, faster, is dropping those recruiters who hate their job and hate your organization. You think you can’t because you’re so desperate for recruiting capacity, but losing this dead weight will actually help much more than you know!

It’s Harder to be a Corporate Recruiter than an Agency Recruiter, Today!

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And in this corner, weighing at 185 and standing 6 feet 1 inch, from Shrimp Taco Capital of the World, Mr. Corporate Recruiter! And in this corner weighing in at, “wait, what? what do you mean she won’t give us her weight?” Weighing in at the same weight she was the day she got married, and standing 5 feet, 6 inches with heels, from City of Night Lights, Ms. Agency Recruiter!

It’s been an argument that is as old as the profession. Who is better? Who has the tougher job? Etc.

For the most part, it’s an easy breakdown. Corporate recruiting folks, on average, do far more inbound recruiting, than outbound recruiting. Agency folks do far more outbound recruiting than inbound recruiting. Corporate folks have way more meetings and politics. Agency folks have to way more ass-kissing, but get to do way more actual recruiting. Corporate folks do way more administering of the recruiting process. Agency folks do way more contacting of candidates.

All that being said…

Corporate Recruiters Have a More Difficult Job, Today!

Why?

Basically, in today’s market of ultra-low unemployment and way too many open jobs, corporate recruiters are put in a no-win, highly stressful situation. Yep, they get paid salary and very little performance pay, but they are being forced to perform right now, so that big salary is really meaningless when your quality of life sucks!

Let’s breakdown all the reasons:

  • Corporate C-suites are pushing their TA teams over the edge. The c-suite thinks their TA teams suck, but really have no data to support it except for all the open jobs. But when you take a look at what those same TA teams did in 2019 vs. today, in almost all cases they are performing better. But, hey, the job isn’t getting done so let’s bash them over the head with extreme pressure.
  • Corporate recruiters can’t go tell a hiring manager who sucks to just f’off. Oh, you want me to find you someone but your JD sucks, you won’t give me feedback, you won’t give me interview times, and you throw me under the bus in board meetings! Agency recruiters won’t tell you to f’off, but they’ll just not work on your awful opening. Espeically right now when 99% of companies have needs and there is always someone better to work with.
  • Corporate recruiters have been conditioned and trained to do mostly inbound recruiting and for decades it’s actually worked okay. That is what made the job so desirable! Oh, hey, I get paid full salary and great benefits and I just have to post jobs and wait for someone to apply!? Yes! Sign me up! Inbound recruiting, by itself, is not working very well right now. Corporate recruiters are being forced to do heavy lifting and work longer hours. All the while, without the tools and training they need to be successful.
  • Corporate TA teams have worked for decades under this notion from our finance team that every year we should be able to reduce our budgets. Than we have a hiring crisis and some dumb corporate Accountant in finance who thinks they know everything says you can have 10% more to “help” out. When in reality you’re probably closer to around 300% underfunded to actually make it work. Agency folks are historically cheap, but they spend money when they can get the business! And they can turn that around over night!
  • This one stings a little, many Corporate Recruiters didn’t actually take the Corporate Recruiting job because they love to recruit. They took it because they love to administer a recruiting process. Those are two very different things, but now they are being forced t recruit. That sucks. If you took a job that you loved and now someone changed that job, that sucks.

All of this leads to the fact that being an Agency Recruiter, today, is a better job than most Corporate Recruiting jobs. Agency Recruiters have far less stress. There is still stress, but not like corporate. Agency recruiters can pick and choose, way more than corporate, on the openings they work and focus on. The commission stress that agency recruiting gets a bad rap for, isn’t really an issue, today, because everyone is so busy.

Do you agree or disagree? Give me your reasons in the comments!

Don’t Fall In Love With Your Work Robot!

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Okay, this isn’t some sex robot post! I mean those are creepy. This is about your super cool and hip work robots that we’ll all have at some point in the near future because for some reason we can’t grow enough humans to do all the work so we can watch TIkTok all day.

The University of Michigan did a study, which should have you already questioning its validity, because, well, it’s Michigan, but I digress. The study was about the relationship between humans and robots in a work setting and team dynamics:

A new study by the University of Michigan and Sungkyunkwan University (South Korea) researchers indicates that these bonds can be detrimental as workers become more attached to the robot than their colleagues.

Human-robot teams can actually fracture into subgroups functioning more like two competing teams rather than one overall coherent team, the study showed. Much attention has been directed at the positive outcomes of bonding, such as higher work engagement and enjoyment, but few studies have looked at the negative repercussions for team relationships and performance.

In the lab study, 88 people were assigned to 44 teams, each consisting of two humans and two robots, that would move bottles from different points in a competition. The participants answered questions about their performance and connection to their human and robot partners. Among the results: When humans connected more with the robot, a subgroup within the team pairings emerged, which negatively altered the teamwork quality and performance...

So, is it good or bad to fall in love with your robot co-worker?

Turns out, humans get jealous and robots don’t! Within a team setting, if you get tight with your robot co-worker more than your human co-worker, the team performance will suffer!

If you flip the script, and you get tight with your human co-workers, but you don’t get tight with your robot co-workers, the performance of the team does not fall, and actually increases a bit. Why? Because robots don’t give a shit about your feelings! Good or bad. They don’t care if you like them or don’t like them. Now, with advances in A.I. far above what we have now, that might change, but as of today, robots do robot stuff and they do it pretty well.

The funny part of all of this is that we, as humans, can actually think we build a relationship with a robot that is more fulfilling than what you can build with a real human. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. Most of us would rather spend time with our pets than most people, so spending time with a robot that never talks back and just works really hard, is probably a great alternative to real human co-workers!

What if you’ve already fallen in love with your Robot co-worker?

Well, all I can say is:

Love is love is love is love is love…

Also, don’t push it in Debbie’s face around the lunch room table. That’s never good for team dynamics.

 3 Communication Mistakes That Make Recruiters Look Like Fools

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There are a lot of things we can do as recruiters to make ourselves look like fools. Most of them deal with the way we communicate with candidates and the hiring managers we support. Many of the communication mistakes we make also are from our lack of experience, as you rarely see senior-level recruiters make as many communication mistakes as newer recruiters!

These are 3 of the biggest mistakes we make:

1. You lack understanding of the function you are recruiting for, and that lack of understanding comes across to both candidates and hiring managers in a way that makes you look foolish.

Part of this is a lack of understanding and part of it is your unwillingness to try and understand. What I find is if you’re reaching out and trying to understand the function you are recruiting for, those hiring managers will have much more respect for you. No one expects you to come in knowing what your business does by function, but they do expect you’ll dig in and find out.

2. You act like you know how to do the job you are recruiting for and that makes you look foolish.

Unless you did the job, you don’t know how to do the job. I’ve worked with Nurses and Engineers who have become recruiters, and they clearly knew how to do the job and did the job. But just because you know some buzzwords doesn’t mean you know the job. There are too many recruiters out there acting like they are experts in a job they never did, and they look foolish!

3. You don’t use the medium candidates or hiring managers want to communicate in and it makes you foolish.

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen a recruiter force a candidate and/or a hiring manager to only communicate in a way they wanted to communicate. A candidate wants to connect via text, but you only want to use email. A hiring manager would prefer email, but you are forcing them into the ATS, etc. While neither the candidate nor the hiring manager will necessarily see you as foolish, you are foolish because you are missing an opportunity to make more connections and deeper connections by having a willingness to communicate across multiple mediums.

Here’s the thing, all of these are super easy fixes!

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to show interest in the functions you support, to ask questions, to get invited to team meetings, etc. The functions you support are actually waiting for you to get involved. They want you involved.

Instead of acting like you know everything, try acting like you know nothing to a candidate! It seems counterintuitive. “Well, if I act like I know nothing then they’ll think I’m an idiot!” No, they actually won’t. They don’t expect you to know anything about what they do, but when you act like you do by asking questions a hiring manager gave you that you don’t understand, well, it’s a back look. Just once try asking a question and then asking the candidate to explain it to you because you don’t really understand. You’re new to this position and trying to learn. Candidates are masters at teaching you what you don’t know!

Stop trying to use your positional power to get others to do things your way. The best recruiters on the planet have developed processes that allow them to work in a variety of ways depending on the needs of the candidates and the hiring managers. It’s a process run through data points, not steps. I need to gather certain things and as long I can get those things, the steps don’t really matter!

As a Leader, do you want to be loved or feared?

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The most famous quote from Machiavelli’s book “The Prince” is:

“Better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”

Uh, oh, Tim is quoting Machiavelli, this blog has jumped the shark!

I heard this quote recently in a virtual HR event. HR speakers seem to come in two types:

1. Love is greater than fear. This is popular and most fall into this camp. It’s a feel-good play. The first rule of HR speaking, it’s always better to make the audience feel good, than to give them something they actually need.

2. Machiavelli’s assessment, It’s better to be feared. Less popular take, but I do hear it in the form of stuff like, “I’m not here to be your friend, I’m here to get results!”

I also have smart friends who pull Machiavelli’s name out anytime they want me to feel like I’m on the wrong side of something, “How ‘Machiavellian’ of you, Tim!” Okay, I get it, you’re smarter than me, how ‘Machiavellian’ for you!

The normal breakdown of leadership goes like this. You would rather be a beloved leader than a feared leader. Those leaders who are loved will be more successful than those who are feared. You have to be one or the other. Or do you?

I think all leaders deep down in places we don’t talk about at parties (A Few Good Men reference!) want to be loved, or at the very least, well-liked. It’s human nature. No one really wants to be hated. It’s stressful, people don’t want to be around you, it makes for uncomfortable hugs, etc.

On the love side, love can make you do some crazy things, but so can fear. I would drive all night to help my wife or kids with something if I thought they really needed me, even if they or I could probably find another alternative. I would also probably work all night if I thought I might lose my job and I need to pay my mortgage. Love and fear are powerful in getting us to act.

I think fear is bigger when it comes to crunch time scenarios. I might ‘love’ my boss a ton, but when the project is on the line and the company might lose a major project and cost us hundreds of jobs, fear is driving the truck, not love. Love won’t bring those jobs back, fear might just win those jobs back.

As leaders, this our dilemma. I want my team to love me, but I also need a touch of fear on the edge. It’s an imperfect balance.

What I know is love isn’t the only answer, no matter how many memes you make or posters you put it on. I don’t know if Love is bigger, it’s definitely more popular, for obvious reasons, but great leaders have used both. I want you to love me, I need you to fear me a bit, in the end, I’ll probably use both to get the job done.