Just heard the founder of Pan Testing (which was acquired by Equifax several years ago) : http://www.pantesting.com/.
Highly recommend considering them for testing potential hires.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Self - Hiring : How to really know what you should do
People often erroneously believe that they would enjoy doing a specific job.
Why? When people think about engaging in a profession they see it as a snapshot in time.
If they want to be big real estate developers, they think of the time when they become a developer and look outside their downtown suite at all the projects that they have done.
If they want to be the President of the United States, they think of when they would become inaugurated or elected as President.
The reality is that real estate developers spend 99.9% of their time doing contracts, negotiating, hiring, and etc. and .1% of their time looking out windows! Even the President of the United States spends 95%+ of his time dealing with real issues, and 5% glamorizing with the media.
This is what I mean when I say that people look at experiences as snapshots not as continuous activities.
This is where the problem lies.
Any sort of "high" you may experience from the prestige, power, or monetary benefits of a position are short lived. You best intrinsically enjoy the position or chances are you will burn out very quickly.
So how do you know whether you would enjoy a "job" or "position"?
Well the first thing you have to do is figure out the critical success factors or tasks of that job (including environment, interaction with others, etc). If you enjoy MOST of the tasks then chances are you will really enjoy the entire job or position (note, I say most not all, because there are no fairy tale 'I love every part of this' jobs).
If you don't know what the success factors and job requirements are.. then find out. Shadowing will do a lot in either confirming or contradicting your thoughts about a specific position (by the way, you can take a day off work and shadow someone even if you're 40 years old).
Note: The same concept must be applied when hiring employees. We tend to hire employees based on interviewing and presentation skills. Unless the job entails getting interviewed and presenting yourself, there is no correlation between interview success and job success.
This is why you must probe deep when interviewing candidates and get into real accomplishments and experiences that center around critical parts of the job. (read the post on Hire With Your Head).
Why? When people think about engaging in a profession they see it as a snapshot in time.
If they want to be big real estate developers, they think of the time when they become a developer and look outside their downtown suite at all the projects that they have done.
If they want to be the President of the United States, they think of when they would become inaugurated or elected as President.
The reality is that real estate developers spend 99.9% of their time doing contracts, negotiating, hiring, and etc. and .1% of their time looking out windows! Even the President of the United States spends 95%+ of his time dealing with real issues, and 5% glamorizing with the media.
This is what I mean when I say that people look at experiences as snapshots not as continuous activities.
This is where the problem lies.
Any sort of "high" you may experience from the prestige, power, or monetary benefits of a position are short lived. You best intrinsically enjoy the position or chances are you will burn out very quickly.
So how do you know whether you would enjoy a "job" or "position"?
Well the first thing you have to do is figure out the critical success factors or tasks of that job (including environment, interaction with others, etc). If you enjoy MOST of the tasks then chances are you will really enjoy the entire job or position (note, I say most not all, because there are no fairy tale 'I love every part of this' jobs).
If you don't know what the success factors and job requirements are.. then find out. Shadowing will do a lot in either confirming or contradicting your thoughts about a specific position (by the way, you can take a day off work and shadow someone even if you're 40 years old).
Note: The same concept must be applied when hiring employees. We tend to hire employees based on interviewing and presentation skills. Unless the job entails getting interviewed and presenting yourself, there is no correlation between interview success and job success.
This is why you must probe deep when interviewing candidates and get into real accomplishments and experiences that center around critical parts of the job. (read the post on Hire With Your Head).
The Smallest Things Mean Everything
You can tell a lot about someone from the smallest things. No, I'm not talking about their shoes or their car, I'm talking about real things.
Here are some examples:
Someone texts you and says, "I will call you in 5 minutes." Do they call you in 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 2 hours, or never?
The kind of words they use. Someone says, "I should do" something. What the hell does I should do something mean? Either do or don't, this shows a lack of commitment and character (and NO I'm not being nitpicky). I personally do not like to deal with people who can't say NO.
You assign someone to do something and they do it in the last day. This is especially the case if you give them 45 days to do it and they do it in 44 days. This shows a lack of ambition and self discipline. It shows that they have an external locus of control.
There are a million of different examples. You can notice a lot of clues from someone's life that is quickly transferable to business. To MY detriment (in the past) I ignored these personal clues and I told myself, "Well, it'll be different when he is conducting business" or "Well, he'll change." The TRUTH is that it's not different and people very rarely change. Change is so rare that you might as well assume that the individual will not change.
Are these words negative, pessimistic? Perhaps. But they are words that will save you a lot of pain. I hope we can be friends again after you digest this!
Here are some examples:
Someone texts you and says, "I will call you in 5 minutes." Do they call you in 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 2 hours, or never?
The kind of words they use. Someone says, "I should do" something. What the hell does I should do something mean? Either do or don't, this shows a lack of commitment and character (and NO I'm not being nitpicky). I personally do not like to deal with people who can't say NO.
You assign someone to do something and they do it in the last day. This is especially the case if you give them 45 days to do it and they do it in 44 days. This shows a lack of ambition and self discipline. It shows that they have an external locus of control.
There are a million of different examples. You can notice a lot of clues from someone's life that is quickly transferable to business. To MY detriment (in the past) I ignored these personal clues and I told myself, "Well, it'll be different when he is conducting business" or "Well, he'll change." The TRUTH is that it's not different and people very rarely change. Change is so rare that you might as well assume that the individual will not change.
Are these words negative, pessimistic? Perhaps. But they are words that will save you a lot of pain. I hope we can be friends again after you digest this!
The Biggest Shortcut in Business and Life
There are no shortcuts in your path to success, or so they say. I seriously disagree.
Before, I get into the biggest shortcut, let me say one thing: just because there is a shortcut doesn't mean things become easy or not challenging. Just because you can drop a 10,000lb weight to a 1000lb weight, doesn't make the 1000lb weight light. Now that we have that out of the way, let's focus on the shortcut:
The shortcut is so simple and obvious that... no one seems to use it.
I am talking about modeling, check out what the coach of US Presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs has to say on this topic:
"Virtually anything any human being does can be modeled. In many cases, a person may have spent years of trial and error to find the specific way to use his body or mind to produce a result. But you can step in, model the actions that took years to perfect, and product similar results in a matter of moments, months- or at least in a lot less time than it took the person whose results you desire to duplicate...
The movers and shakers of the world are often professional modelers - people who have mastered the art of learning everything they can by following other people's experience rather than their own. They know how to save the one commodity none of us ever get enough of - time. In fact, if you look at the New York Times bestseller list, you'll find that most of the books at the top- of the list contain models on how to do something more effectively."
Taken from Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins.
Before, I get into the biggest shortcut, let me say one thing: just because there is a shortcut doesn't mean things become easy or not challenging. Just because you can drop a 10,000lb weight to a 1000lb weight, doesn't make the 1000lb weight light. Now that we have that out of the way, let's focus on the shortcut:
The shortcut is so simple and obvious that... no one seems to use it.
I am talking about modeling, check out what the coach of US Presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs has to say on this topic:
"Virtually anything any human being does can be modeled. In many cases, a person may have spent years of trial and error to find the specific way to use his body or mind to produce a result. But you can step in, model the actions that took years to perfect, and product similar results in a matter of moments, months- or at least in a lot less time than it took the person whose results you desire to duplicate...
The movers and shakers of the world are often professional modelers - people who have mastered the art of learning everything they can by following other people's experience rather than their own. They know how to save the one commodity none of us ever get enough of - time. In fact, if you look at the New York Times bestseller list, you'll find that most of the books at the top- of the list contain models on how to do something more effectively."
Taken from Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins.
Profit Tracking
Tracking profits and margins seems difficult to many people. The truth is, there is nothing magical about it. All the programs and PHDs out there serve the purpose of improving company's efficiency from 95% to 99%. Any average person can get their efficiency from 50-95%.
Here is how you do it:
1) Make sure you are only testing one variable at a time. Make sure that your numbers are not affected by season or any outside force.
2) Change your margins on your products until you get around 50 orders, then keep on changing it in 1% or 5% intervals. You will see, for example that profit goes up when you go from 20% to 25% to 30%. As soon as you see the profit go down, scale back and try margins that are in the middle.
For example:
Profit:
20% - 100k
25% - 125k
30% - 110k
In the above example, go between 25% and 30% and try them out by 1% intervals.
Here is how you do it:
1) Make sure you are only testing one variable at a time. Make sure that your numbers are not affected by season or any outside force.
2) Change your margins on your products until you get around 50 orders, then keep on changing it in 1% or 5% intervals. You will see, for example that profit goes up when you go from 20% to 25% to 30%. As soon as you see the profit go down, scale back and try margins that are in the middle.
For example:
Profit:
20% - 100k
25% - 125k
30% - 110k
In the above example, go between 25% and 30% and try them out by 1% intervals.
Why do we measure?
The reason we measure is not to perfect but to improve. Many people say, subconsciously, let's not measure this because we can't know for certain.
In practice, they are saying that they rather take a complete guess then do something with 70% or 75% certainty. Don't fall into this trap.
Remember, the point of measuring and testing is to IMPROVE odds not to perfect a process.
In practice, they are saying that they rather take a complete guess then do something with 70% or 75% certainty. Don't fall into this trap.
Remember, the point of measuring and testing is to IMPROVE odds not to perfect a process.
Can you be too creative (for entrepreneurship)?
Yes. Creativity must be to some end. A business must be focused on its main objectives and priorities. All creativity should be channeled on how to make the core processes/core business better.
Of course, you can come up with a new business that becomes part of the core.
The point is, creativity for the sake of creativity can be very detrimental for a business and can cause it to go off course. This is what Gary Harpst refers to as "Innovate PURPOSEFULLY".
Of course, you can come up with a new business that becomes part of the core.
The point is, creativity for the sake of creativity can be very detrimental for a business and can cause it to go off course. This is what Gary Harpst refers to as "Innovate PURPOSEFULLY".
What do the best entrepreneurs and poker players have in common?
They are tight aggressive. They are careful about which hands to play, but once they are in a hand they go ALL out.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
William Haberle's Model for Acquiring Significant Equity in Entrepreneurial Company
1. Managing Multiple Dispersed Business Units
2. Succession Plan / Role Model
Identify a successful medium-sized, mature private business that does not have an obivous management or ownership succession plan. Or find an entrepreneur that you admire that owns a mature growth private business. Tell him why you have selected him as a role mode, offer to work anywhere in the organization, and progressively increase your worth and add value. Eventually offer yourself as a partner.
3. Grow Within a Company
Find employment with small operation that has potential. Learn the business and find substantial ways to improve it. Grow your ability as manager. Go to the owners offering this value in return for modest salary and equity position.
4. Monetize Passion
5. Discover and Monetize Passion
6. Get Traction While Working Elsewhere
Outside of the 40 hours to find an opportunity, and start business a business while you're on someone else's payroll.
7. Problem Solver
Look for problems that are not being solved. Once you define a problem, invent a solution or partner with a techie to invent a solution.
8. Partner with Techies
Look for techies that have a business but lack management skills. Offer to join full-time or part-time for a compensation package heavily loaded with equity.
9. Niche-Skill Set
After spending some time working for a large corp. or gov. develop a niche skill set and leave the job and start off on yoru own.
10. Special Insight/Resources
Think about a business you have insight in. Design and develop a better value proposition.
2. Succession Plan / Role Model
Identify a successful medium-sized, mature private business that does not have an obivous management or ownership succession plan. Or find an entrepreneur that you admire that owns a mature growth private business. Tell him why you have selected him as a role mode, offer to work anywhere in the organization, and progressively increase your worth and add value. Eventually offer yourself as a partner.
3. Grow Within a Company
Find employment with small operation that has potential. Learn the business and find substantial ways to improve it. Grow your ability as manager. Go to the owners offering this value in return for modest salary and equity position.
4. Monetize Passion
5. Discover and Monetize Passion
6. Get Traction While Working Elsewhere
Outside of the 40 hours to find an opportunity, and start business a business while you're on someone else's payroll.
7. Problem Solver
Look for problems that are not being solved. Once you define a problem, invent a solution or partner with a techie to invent a solution.
8. Partner with Techies
Look for techies that have a business but lack management skills. Offer to join full-time or part-time for a compensation package heavily loaded with equity.
9. Niche-Skill Set
After spending some time working for a large corp. or gov. develop a niche skill set and leave the job and start off on yoru own.
10. Special Insight/Resources
Think about a business you have insight in. Design and develop a better value proposition.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Six Disciplines and Weight Watchers
Concepts learned from Gary Harpst's conference call:
**The following is not a paid advertisement, though it could be..**
Weight watcher is a 4 Billion dollar business. Why? After all, there are many diet books/systems out there that are effective. The weighing in certainly doesn't create that much value, after all it is cheap to get your own scale.
The value in Weight Watchers (and Six Disciplines) comes in the following : a comprehensive program.
Weight Watchers = Proven Methodology (recipes/diet plans) + Accountability + Support Network of Other People Doing Same Activities
TOGETHER, this creates a complete system that is very valuable.
This is entrepreneurship at its finest, when the whole is significantly more valuable then the parts.
This is what Six Disciplines does:
Six Disciplines = Proven Methodology + Accountability Coaching (with an experienced coach that has gone through similar process with other firms) + Execution system (software to keep you on track) + Shared learning from community (and best practices).
That is why this system works and why I will never start another company (with more then 10 employees) without using Six Disciplines.
SixDisciplines.com
**The following is not a paid advertisement, though it could be..**
Weight watcher is a 4 Billion dollar business. Why? After all, there are many diet books/systems out there that are effective. The weighing in certainly doesn't create that much value, after all it is cheap to get your own scale.
The value in Weight Watchers (and Six Disciplines) comes in the following : a comprehensive program.
Weight Watchers = Proven Methodology (recipes/diet plans) + Accountability + Support Network of Other People Doing Same Activities
TOGETHER, this creates a complete system that is very valuable.
This is entrepreneurship at its finest, when the whole is significantly more valuable then the parts.
This is what Six Disciplines does:
Six Disciplines = Proven Methodology + Accountability Coaching (with an experienced coach that has gone through similar process with other firms) + Execution system (software to keep you on track) + Shared learning from community (and best practices).
That is why this system works and why I will never start another company (with more then 10 employees) without using Six Disciplines.
SixDisciplines.com
The Best Drucker Concept
"Every decision is like surgery," Drucker wrote in The Effective Executive, his 1967 classic. "It is an intervention into a system and therefore carries with it the risk of shock. One does not make unnecessary decisions any more than a good surgeon does unnecessary surgery." And yet, despite the dangers, Drucker was quick to add that "one has to make a decision when a condition is likely to degenerate if nothing is done."
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Re-Associating Feelings
If you follow my blog, you know that I have been posting quite a few articles on neuro-associative conditioning, in laymen's terms this means manipulating what associations we have with different activities.
Currently, I am working on several activities that I do not like to do but that are good for me and the business. I have started to manipulate my associations with them by rewarding myself with something really good after I achieve them... for example, do your taxes eat some ice cream.
You can associate even getting up with something positive that you only get once you get up..
I am still testing this and I would like to hear everyone's experience with this and how they have make this process more effective..
Currently, I am working on several activities that I do not like to do but that are good for me and the business. I have started to manipulate my associations with them by rewarding myself with something really good after I achieve them... for example, do your taxes eat some ice cream.
You can associate even getting up with something positive that you only get once you get up..
I am still testing this and I would like to hear everyone's experience with this and how they have make this process more effective..
Stress and Uncertainty
When we face uncertain times we feel stress. Duh...
While people understand this concept they do not apply it to their everyday lives.
Here's an example:
When do we experience the largest amount of uncertainty? The answer is: in times of growth. Growth, by nature (both business and personal), can only occur when we go into new areas or situations where the business/individual has not been.
Therefore, unfortunately, our greatest amount of stress is experienced during the most productive and most beneficial times of our personal and professional development.
The good news is that there is a way to significantly minimize this stress:
Just by understanding that growth = uncertainty = stress, will minimize your stress quite significantly. Just knowing that the stress is not randomly generated, but is a result of your personal and professional development will make you feel quite good about it.
What will also make you feel better is knowing how situations turn from stressful to unstressful through a process called adaptation. Let me give you an example.
Recently, we instituted a new way to process a certain type of ticket order (sorry for my vagueness but that's as much as I can tell you). In the last couple of days, things have been stressful, because I have been dealing with the many nuisances and decisions that have to be made around this process.
Here's the good thing, after a couple weeks I KNOW that these decisions will be easy and unconscious (once I see market data and test the process and theory against the real world) and the stress will go away. In the meantime, though I am stressed I know that it is temporary and at least I'm not STRESSED about being STRESSED.. you know?
It also helps that I've started to work out twice a day, but we'll see how long that lasts ; )
While people understand this concept they do not apply it to their everyday lives.
Here's an example:
When do we experience the largest amount of uncertainty? The answer is: in times of growth. Growth, by nature (both business and personal), can only occur when we go into new areas or situations where the business/individual has not been.
Therefore, unfortunately, our greatest amount of stress is experienced during the most productive and most beneficial times of our personal and professional development.
The good news is that there is a way to significantly minimize this stress:
Just by understanding that growth = uncertainty = stress, will minimize your stress quite significantly. Just knowing that the stress is not randomly generated, but is a result of your personal and professional development will make you feel quite good about it.
What will also make you feel better is knowing how situations turn from stressful to unstressful through a process called adaptation. Let me give you an example.
Recently, we instituted a new way to process a certain type of ticket order (sorry for my vagueness but that's as much as I can tell you). In the last couple of days, things have been stressful, because I have been dealing with the many nuisances and decisions that have to be made around this process.
Here's the good thing, after a couple weeks I KNOW that these decisions will be easy and unconscious (once I see market data and test the process and theory against the real world) and the stress will go away. In the meantime, though I am stressed I know that it is temporary and at least I'm not STRESSED about being STRESSED.. you know?
It also helps that I've started to work out twice a day, but we'll see how long that lasts ; )
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
An Easy Way to Spot Best Practices
One easy way to improve your business acumen is by paying attention to what companies are doing around you. Since nearly everything is run by private enterprise in the US this is quite easy to do.
Pay attention to changes, even small changes, that companies make. You can be sure these changes are not random but have been heavily tested, especially if it is a big company. Ask yourself WHY? Why has this company chosen to change this.
For example, recently Fed Ex changed their 2-day delivery to "Standard" Delivery. I can garauntee you hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars have gone into testing this.
Watch and learn. You are walking around anyways, you might as well benefit from it!
Pay attention to changes, even small changes, that companies make. You can be sure these changes are not random but have been heavily tested, especially if it is a big company. Ask yourself WHY? Why has this company chosen to change this.
For example, recently Fed Ex changed their 2-day delivery to "Standard" Delivery. I can garauntee you hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars have gone into testing this.
Watch and learn. You are walking around anyways, you might as well benefit from it!
Creating a Conscious Culture
One of the interesting topics that Scott Webber discussed yesterday was that of creating a conscious culture.
Being a very systematic thinker, Scott did not leave much to chance, even his culture. Before he started every one of his companies he thought of what he wanted his culture to be and created a statement of culture.
For example one of his provisions was:
1) People are promoted based on accomplishments not on politics.
Like everything in business leaving things up to chance is not a good idea.
You can not avoid the issue of culture by ignoring it. Every company has a culture whether they consciously thought about it or not. Since company culture is important, this is a good issue to consider when starting and growing a business.
Being a very systematic thinker, Scott did not leave much to chance, even his culture. Before he started every one of his companies he thought of what he wanted his culture to be and created a statement of culture.
For example one of his provisions was:
1) People are promoted based on accomplishments not on politics.
Like everything in business leaving things up to chance is not a good idea.
You can not avoid the issue of culture by ignoring it. Every company has a culture whether they consciously thought about it or not. Since company culture is important, this is a good issue to consider when starting and growing a business.
The Most Improtant Question You Can Ask Yourself
The question you should constantly ask yourself is:
What one task, if I achieved it, would make this day a success?
Once you answer this question, keep on refocusing on it. If you find that you need to, write it out, because you will easily get distracted.
What one task, if I achieved it, would make this day a success?
Once you answer this question, keep on refocusing on it. If you find that you need to, write it out, because you will easily get distracted.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Succession Planning that works (from a talk by Scott Webber)
How to increase the probability of good hiring.
For example, let's take a sales manager. How do you know if a salesperson will make a good sales manager? You don't.
Scott Webber's plan fixes this problem. Here is what he did/does at his companies:
1) Figures out the critical success factors within every business. For example: being able to lead sales meetings.
2) Over a period of 6-12 months give a small sample of these success factors. For example, one sales meeting a month, etc.
3) Evaluate performance across the success factors.
Scott Webber's claim (which I believe) is that this leads to 75-80% predictability of hires. Quite impressive considering the average is somewhere around 25%.
For example, let's take a sales manager. How do you know if a salesperson will make a good sales manager? You don't.
Scott Webber's plan fixes this problem. Here is what he did/does at his companies:
1) Figures out the critical success factors within every business. For example: being able to lead sales meetings.
2) Over a period of 6-12 months give a small sample of these success factors. For example, one sales meeting a month, etc.
3) Evaluate performance across the success factors.
Scott Webber's claim (which I believe) is that this leads to 75-80% predictability of hires. Quite impressive considering the average is somewhere around 25%.
Probabilities and Batching
Probability is the reason why you must batch activities. Let me explain by giving you an example.
Today, I finished my 7'th and final application for an MBA program. I am incredibly confident about getting into one of these programs and here is why.
Based on historical numbers and the opinion of my MBA consultant (Admissions Consultants), I have a 30% chance to get into each one of those programs. Doesn't sound too good does it?
Well let's look at the math.
The odds of not getting into each program is 70% or .7. Therefore the odds of not getting into all 7 programs is .7^7 or .08%.
In other words, the odds of my getting into one of these programs is 92%. Not bad, considering each program had only a 30% chance of admissions.
How is this relative to everyday life?
The point : if you really want to succeed in inprobable tasks you want to use numbers to help you. Instead of emailing your #1 prospect and "hoping", email TWELVE of your prospects and rely on the law of averages.
Here's the kicker: because of human psychology you are MUCH MORE LIKELY to give up if you fragment your pain, that means email first prospect - get rejected, email second prospect - get rejected, etc. Few people can get rejected 11 times on the same task. (The ones that can are usually the highest achievers in every profession).
The way you get around this is to assume rejection from most of your contacts (which is the reality) and batch your tasks into one large action. That way, you are emailing and calling people before you gain any kind of self doubt (there is no self doubt because you haven't been rejected yet).
You can conduct business and life in general through one of two ways: hope or science. My hope is that you choose science.
Today, I finished my 7'th and final application for an MBA program. I am incredibly confident about getting into one of these programs and here is why.
Based on historical numbers and the opinion of my MBA consultant (Admissions Consultants), I have a 30% chance to get into each one of those programs. Doesn't sound too good does it?
Well let's look at the math.
The odds of not getting into each program is 70% or .7. Therefore the odds of not getting into all 7 programs is .7^7 or .08%.
In other words, the odds of my getting into one of these programs is 92%. Not bad, considering each program had only a 30% chance of admissions.
How is this relative to everyday life?
The point : if you really want to succeed in inprobable tasks you want to use numbers to help you. Instead of emailing your #1 prospect and "hoping", email TWELVE of your prospects and rely on the law of averages.
Here's the kicker: because of human psychology you are MUCH MORE LIKELY to give up if you fragment your pain, that means email first prospect - get rejected, email second prospect - get rejected, etc. Few people can get rejected 11 times on the same task. (The ones that can are usually the highest achievers in every profession).
The way you get around this is to assume rejection from most of your contacts (which is the reality) and batch your tasks into one large action. That way, you are emailing and calling people before you gain any kind of self doubt (there is no self doubt because you haven't been rejected yet).
You can conduct business and life in general through one of two ways: hope or science. My hope is that you choose science.
Web Cast by My Hero: Gary Harpst
Details:
Because you've previously purchased books from Six Disciplines, I'm inviting you to attend an exclusive webcast presentation by veteran CEO, strategy execution expert, and best-selling author, Gary Harpst.
Gary's presentation, "Economic Acceleration: Breaking The 3% Speed Barrier" is an exclusive webcast production of his 50-city speaking tour, sponsored by Six Disciplines.
The presentation is based on Gary's newest book, Six Disciplines Execution Revolution, which was named a best-seller by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today and BusinessWeek.
During the presentation, Gary will offer his vision -- and a very specific business opportunity -- for accelerating economic growth for small and mid-sized businesses in your local community. Here's what you'll gain:
WHEN: Thursday, March 26, 2009 - from 12:00 pm to 1:15 pm Eastern
REGISTER: Visit: www.regonline.com/MarchWebcast
Looking forward to having you join us on Thursday, March 26th!
Because you've previously purchased books from Six Disciplines, I'm inviting you to attend an exclusive webcast presentation by veteran CEO, strategy execution expert, and best-selling author, Gary Harpst.
Gary's presentation, "Economic Acceleration: Breaking The 3% Speed Barrier" is an exclusive webcast production of his 50-city speaking tour, sponsored by Six Disciplines.
The presentation is based on Gary's newest book, Six Disciplines Execution Revolution, which was named a best-seller by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today and BusinessWeek.
During the presentation, Gary will offer his vision -- and a very specific business opportunity -- for accelerating economic growth for small and mid-sized businesses in your local community. Here's what you'll gain:
- Why on 3% of firms are considered "high-impact". What about the other 97% of businesses?
- What can we do to help every person, every day - to make better decisions, and perform more effectively?
- How can we create an organization that embraces "real" accountability
- What is the leapfrog opportunity for small and mid-sized businesses, and why those who miss it...will be left behind
WHEN: Thursday, March 26, 2009 - from 12:00 pm to 1:15 pm Eastern
REGISTER: Visit: www.regonline.com/
Looking forward to having you join us on Thursday, March 26th!
Regards,
Skip Reardon
Six Disciplines
Hire with Your Head : Using Performance-Based Hiring to Build Great Teams
The following are direct quotes taken from Lou Adler's book Hire with Your Head.
Preface:
One thing I did learn was that hiring great talent is the key to a manager's career progression.
Interesting facts:
-There is no correlation between interviewing and presentation skills and on-the-job performance. Judging people on how well they interview is a terrible way to assess ability.
-The best people use more decision variables when deciding whether to accept an offer. For the average candidate, a new job is a tactical move based on short-term criteria. For the best, it's a strategic move. This fundamental difference is rarely considered in a company's hiring processes.
-The best candidates don't typically have the exact mix of skills, experience, and education described in the job description. So if a company advertises and filters totally on skills, the best are wrongly excluded from consideration.
-Boring job descriptions exacerbate the problem. Unless a company is an employer of choice, top people aren't going to apply for run-of-the-mill jobs that seems the same as everyone else's.
-Most hiring managers and other members of the selection team aren't very good at interviewing, yet they all think they are.
The primary goal of this book is to show every manager and every recruiter how to hire one great person. The secondary goal is to show how to do it over again, and again, and again.
Here are 7 ways to get it done:
1. Stop using traditional boring job descriptions for advertising. Top people don't look for jobs based on their skills and experience. They look for jobs based on the challenges and opportunities involved.
2. Make the job description the real job. Most job descriptions list skills, required experiences, academics, competencies, and personality traits, with a little about duties and responsibilities.
3. When the supply of talent is less then the demand, you need to design your advertising and sourcing programs and systems based on how the best look for new jobs.
4. During the interview, forget the clever questions. Instead, dig deeply into a person's major accomplishments to observe trends of growth and patterns of behaviors. Then compare these to the performance objectives stated in the performance profile.
5. Hire people who are both competent and motivated to work. It's easy to measure competency, but don't stop there even if the person is affable, outgoing, and interested in your job. You'll need to look for multiple examples of where the person has excelled and the underlying environment and circumstances.
6. During the interview, put your emotions in the parking lot. The decision is made later in a formal meeting where all interviewers share their unbiased information to reach consensus. Watch your accuracy soar with this simple system.
7. As the competition for talent intensifies, strong recruiting skills are essential for hiring top people on a consistent basis. This requires strong consultative selling skills in combination with great jobs, an interviewing process based on deep job-matching, and the hiring manager's total involvement.
1. Chapter 1 - A Systematic Process for Hiring Top Talent
"Hire smart, or manage tough."
Many of the techniques presented in this book have been developed by observing people who consistently hire top people. This is a process called benchmarking.
The best hiring decision is not intuitive or based on gut feelings. Instead it involves a three-step process:
1. Remain objective throughout the interviewing process, fighting the impact of first impressions, biases, intuition, prejudices, and preconceived notions of success. This way, all information collected during the interview is both relevant and unbiased.
2. Collect information across multiple job factors, rather then deciding quickly if the candidate is suitable for the job based on a narrow range of qualities. Collecting the right information before deciding yes or no is the key here.
3. Use an evidence-based approach to determine whether the candidate is motivated and competent to meet all job needs. This involves some type of formal decision making process based on evaluating the evidence rather than using an up/down voting system.
A large percentage of these mistakes are made by smart people who use quick simplistic judgments largely based on first impressions and personality.
The key to hiring both competent and highly motivated people is to collect enough of the right facts.
If you want to hire superior people, use a system designed to hire superior people, not one designed to fill jobs.
At its core, hiring the best is about understanding how the best people look for new jobs and how they decide to accept one job over the other. It's about why they decide to take, or not take, a counteroffer. It's about why they take one job over another even if the pay is less.
The following 11 reasons are some easily correctable problems that prevent companies from attracting enough top people:
1. Hard-to-find job openings: Few companies use standard search-engine techniques to allow top people to quickly find their open positions. It's important that your openings are prominently features on the first page of your corporate website.
2. Poorly designed career websites. Most career sites make it too difficult for good people with little time to explore career opportunities and check out open jobs.
3. Boring ads: Most posted job descriptions are nothing more then lists of skills, qualifications, and required experiences. These commodity-like jobs certainly aren't written to compel a top person to apply or even check them out. In many cases the prospect can't even check them out of explore them further unless he or she formally registers with the site.
4. A cumbersome application process.
Applying for most jobs is so cumbersome and time consuming that it precludes the best people from even applying because they don't have time to waste. A Monster.com study revealed that if the application form is automatically filled in using techniques to extract information, there is a 75 percent chance the person will actually apply. If the form is blank, there is only a 20 percent chance the person will apply. Incorporate this into your site!
5. Lack of basic consumer marketing expertise.
6. Lackadaisical managers
7. Lack of clear understanding of the real job needs.
8. Lack of objectivity: emotions, biases, prejudices and first impressions dominate the hiring decision. Too many interviewers make quick judgments about candidates in the first few minutes of the interview, then use the balance of the time looking for facts to confirm their initial biased reaction.
9. The wrong perspective. The best candidates, passive or active, are looking for careers, not jobs. Yet most companies offer identical jobs and wonder why they can't find enough good people.
10. Weak interviewing and assessment process.
11. Thinking recruiting is selling.
-
The key is to examine all aspects of your hiring process from the perspect of a top person who has little time to spare and multiple opportunities.
Not only must real job needs be understood, it's also essential that everyone on the hiring team, especially the recruiter and the hiring manager, clearly understand these real job needs. This way, everyone who has to make a decision about a candidate's suitability for a job is on the same page.
Hiring is just a process that needs to be implemented just like any other process. Most important, it requires a commitment from the executive management of the company that hiring is important, and the resources and time will be devoted to making it happen.
One of the biggest problems is that too much emphasis is placed on the interaction between the candidate and the interviewer, and too little on the candidate's ability and motivation to do the job. This is the primary cause of hiring mistakes.
There is a certain halo effect that creates a bias in hiring. If you like a candidate, you tend to go into chat mode, ask easier questions, and look for information to confirm your initial impression.
Here's the difference. Getting the job includes things like personality, first impression, handshake, etc. while doing the job includes factors such as: drive, team skills, achieving objectives, technical competence, management and organizational skills, intellect, and leadership.
Everything changes when the hiring decision is based primarily on the candidate's ability to do the work.
Part of the success is remaining objective, overcoming the natural tendency to judge people based on first impressions, personality, and a few select traits.
Unfortunately, within 10 to 15 minutes we already make a decision. If you buy in too soon, you tend to ignore negative data, globalize strength, begin selling, and stop listening. You may dismiss a lack of skills as something easily learned and start selling, trying to convince the candidate why this is such a great job. You won't ask the tough questions necessary to make sure the candidate can do the job.
From our experience 30 to 50 percent of the candidates who make strong first impressions are just average performers!
A short course on interviewing: wait 30 minutes before making any decision about a candidate's ability to do the work and you can eliminate 50% of hiring mistakes!
To increase objectivity adhere to the following steps:
1. Measure first impressions at the beginning of the interview and write them down. Don't look at them until the end of the interview.
2. Disallow the yes/no decision unless the candidate is a complete dud. Make it a rule that you must suspend any decision for at least 30 minutes. During these 30 minutes, conduct a work-history review and get some details about the candidate's major accomplishments. A "no" is okay if the person is a complete mismatch, but if you have any doubts, put the person under "further evaluation needed" pool.
3. Delay the decision by redefining the purpose of the interview. Use the interview to college information, not to make a decision.
4. Give partial voting rights. Since most managers have a tendency to rush to judgment based on very narrow selection criteria, only let them vote on these factors. Don't give anyone full voting rights.
5. Demand evidence before you accept gut feelings. Facts, examples, and details must be provided to justify a ranking, good or bad. "I don't think the person would be a good fit," is inappropriate. However, a comment like "the environment, pace, available resources, and the lack of a formal decision-making process at the person's last two companies is a clear indication that the person would not survive here," is certainly sufficient.
6. Make a "no" harder to justify than a "yes." A "no" is safe and easy. It encourages laziness and it rewards interviewers who are weak or those who were unprepared. To eliminate this potential problem, demand more detailed information and evidence from those invoking the "no."
It took me about 10 years before I figured out that the best candidates aren't the best interviewers. After about 1,000 interviews, it became pretty clear there was no correlation between intervieiwing skills and job competency. This is pretty amazing and scary, because most interviewing methods measure interviewing skills, not job competency.
Interviewers need to train candidates to give complete information. If you leave it up to candidates to provide this information on their own, you're measuring interviewing and presentation skills, not job competency.
The performance-based interviewing methodology in this book help you get past those who simply interview well. Interviewers need to proactively take responsibility for obtaining complete information about job competency from each candidate.
A company needs to have a systematic process to hire the best talent during both up and down years. Outside of hiring, every other business process has improved profoundly over the past 20 years.
Each of these steps must be integrated in a systematic process:
1. Write compelling job descriptions that describe real job needs, not ads that emphasize skills and qualifications.
2. Design every aspect of sourcing to attract top people, which includes where you place exciting job descriptions, how you design the career web site, how you get referrals, and when you make phone calls.
3. Organize the interview to assess competency and create opportunity at the same time. You do this by asking tougher questions, not by overselling or overtalking.
4. Make recruiting, negotiating offers, and closing a natural, integrated part of each step in the hiring process.
A Road Map to the Organization of this Book:
1) Defining the Job
2) Finding Top Candidates
3) Interviewing and Assessments
4) Recruiting and Closing
You can't be myopic when desigining hiring systems. Everyone's perspective is important, but the most important of all is the one of the top person you're trying to hire. Making the job hard to earn but worthy of earning is how you hire top people.
You'll need to offer at least 30 percent increase if you want ot hire the best. However, to do it right, most of this needs to be in job stretch and job growth, not compensation. Recruiting, negotiating, and closing focus more on career counseling and creating TRUE opportunities than selling.
Performance-based Hiring is as much about good management as it is good hiring. As far as I can tell, the two are inseperable. You become a better manager in the process of hiring better people - which, in turn, makes you a better manager. And if you want to keep the top people you just hired, you need to be a great manager.
To hire with your head, you need to combine emotional control with good fact-finding skills and intuitive decision making. This whole-brain thinking provides the critical balance to match job needs, the interviewer's personality, and the candidate's abilities and interests. Combine this with state-of-the-art sourcing. Without enough good candidates, everything else is futile. Recruiting starts at the beginning, not at the end!
2. Performance Profiles: Define Success, not Skills.
If you want to hire superior people, first define superior performance. In the majority of cases, these job descriptions don't define the job at all, they define the person who will ultimately take the job.
Performance is about results, not about skills and qualifications. This is the execution part of the job. If someone can do the work, he or she obviously has the skills. Here's a historical example, Teddy Roosevelt purchased a used Brazilian ship under the proviso that it must arrive under its own power with a very short time frame. The contract didn't have any normal technical specificiations. Roosevelt knew that if the ship couldn't travel the distance requires by the date specified, it was worthless.
3. Once you've defined superior performance, all you need to do is find and hire people who are competent and motivated to do the work.
4. Don't compromise on performance, compromise on the qualifications. This will expand the pool of top performers without giving up anything.
Instead of saying the person must have five years of accounting experience and a CPA, say they must "Complete the implementation of the Sarbenes-Oxley reporting requirements by Q2."
Good people, even when they're slightly frustrated, can find seemingly better jobs relatively quickly. That is why you need to pay attention to this and give them opportunities for growth, this is called continuous rehiring.
Traditional Job Descriptions verses Performance Profiles
-BS degree, MBA a plus vs. Upgrade the product marketing and new product launch process>
-5 years of experience in consumer products vs. Develop new online and direct distribution channels.
-Strong market research vs. Prepare a comprehensive competitive analysis report in the first month.
Use the performance profile for external hiring and internal moves!
Internal move decisions are often 80 to 90 percent accurate. The reason for this is because we know the person's past performance, attitude, work habits, commitment, etc. All of these are educated guesses for the unknown outsider.
The decision-making process between outside hiring and internal moves is fundamentally different. Personality and qualifications dominate the selection for outside hiring.
Degrees, certifications vs. ability to delivery results. It's what you do with what you have, not what you have that counts.
There are many people who can do the job without having exactly the skills listed, especially if they're highly motivated (these are the people who have been successfully promoted or laterally transferred). Externally, these same high-potential poeple are automatically excluded from consideration because they don't have the skills. Worst, high-potential people who have the exact skills rarely want to do the same work, so they won't even apply. Limiting your sourcing to people who have all the skills and qualification is really a hunt for average performers.
Based on extensive interviews with thousands of people, they describe the best managers as those who first clearly define performance expectations for every job. These positions are then filled with people who have both the ability and the motivation to do the work required. General Electric measures talent by those who can execute and deliver predetermined results.
While the specific performance objectives are different for every job, they fall within similar categories, including effectively dealing with people, achieving objectives, organizing teams, solving problems, using technology and making changes. Creating these performance objectives starts by asking what the person taking the job needs to be successful, not what the person needs to have.
When this happens, interviewing accuracy is increased because the selection critera are based on objective criteria. This is the first step required to create an evidence based selection process as described in Chapter 4.
Candidate quality can be more easily assessed when all candidates are compared to a standard benchmarket.
Recruiters are better able to screen candidates based on measurable and objective criteria.
-Fewer candidates need to be seen because unqualified candidates are eliminated earlier in the process. Screening on performance rather than on qualifications also lessens the chance of eliminating a top person without the exact skill set.
-Managers become managers when they clarify expectations.
- The number one hiring mistake - hiring candidates who are competent but not motivated to do all the aspects of the work - is reduced, by specifically measuring motivation across all key job needs.
- Using objective criteria is fairer and legally sound. This approach also broadens the pool for more diverse and high potential candidates.
***Steps:
1. Define the main objectives. Determine what the person needs to do over the next 6 to 12 months to be considered successful. Most jobs have two to three major objectives (i.e. implement a new process, see 25 customers per day, conduct an analysis, etc.).
2. Develop subobjectives. For each major objective, determine the two or three things a successful person would need to do to achieve the major objective.
3. Ask questions to make sure you have all the key objectives. Ask, "Is there anything else that needs to be changed, fixed, upgraded, or improved over the next few months? What are the biggest challenges in the job?
4. Convert having to doing. Change "Five years of product marketing experience" to "Develop a product marketing plan for the new high-speed controller."
5. Convert technical skills into results.
6. Understand team skills. Draw a work chart describing all of the people the person will work with, including their titles and roles. As you find out in Chapter 4, you ask candidates to describe their most significant team projects, so this offers a great comparision.
7. Understand management and oragnizational objectives.
8. Understand long-term planning and strategy issues. A performance profile needs to address both short and long term job needs.
The best people evidence their ability to think strategically or creatively very early in their careers.
9. Benchmark the best. For entry-level or process-type jobs, as, "What do the best people in this job do differently then the average person? Think about your best person; what does he or she do differently?
Previously, product knowledge, overcoming objections, and affability were considered the prerequisites to success. At HealthEast Care System, we found through benchmarking that the best nurse aides proactively ensured patients were comfortable.
- The key here is to shift everyone's thinking from having to doing. Change to build, improve, establish from passive verbs like possessing, be responsible for, etc.
-Problems: Include any existing problems or those likely to be encountered. Minor ones don't matter, but major ones, such as lack of time, resources, or special situations.
-Focus more on the applications, expected outcome, or use of these technical skills rather than on the absolute level.
A good performance profile digs one or two levels deeper to understand the critical subtasks necessary to achieve success.
Define the Job, Not the Person
-Look on monster.com or any company's website if you need proof that most job descriptions incorrectly look for levels of experience, etc. which have been shown to be misleading predictors of success.
-The best candidates don't look for work based on what skills they possess, they look for work based on what they'll be doing and learning. Second, the best want to do different things. So if the job is exactly the same as what they're currently doing, there's no incentive for them to check it out. A job decription built around performance objectives eliminates these problems.
-If the candidate can achieve the performance objectives, she obviously has enough experience and skills.
Approaches to Preparing Performance Objective
Compare the best people already in the job and select traits that best predict success. Avoid the traits of under performers.
Consider the job needs over a one to two year time horizon, starting with the first 30 days.
Here's an example of an individual tactical objective for a salesperson, "Improve the ration of closes/calls by 15 percent by developing improved selling techniques. This gets at specific behaviors and traits much better then the classic, "have good sales and closing skills couples with five years' experience selling office products."
Many jobs require creative skills. You can get at these by describing the outcomes expected from these conceptual skills. For example, "Create a new marketing promotional program."
Ignorance isn't Bliss: Delegate Knowledge to the Candidate
Every now and then you'll want to hire someone with just a vague idea of what the person is supposed to do at the task level. In this case, make the creation of these requirements a primary objective. An appropriate performance objective in this case would be, "During the first month, prepare a detailed action plan identifying all of the key requirements for a direct marketing channel for the XYZ product line." Let the candidate tell you the needs of the job, the appropriate resource requirements, and the time line.
During the interview, have the candidate describe comparable accomplishments and discuss how she would implement the program if she were to get the job.
Here's an example. They wanted to hire a VP to head the new program. The major performance objective was to prepare a 5 year business plan within six months. During the first interview, the president and the candidate spent two hours together developing a detailed operational plan for the new business. This was after reviewing some of the candidate's acccomplishments in setting up similar ventures. So even before starting the job, the candidate and the CEO worked together on this project. The CEO later told me that the candidate exhibited the same insight, organizational skills, and approach to problem solving on the job that he did in the two hour session.
By delegating this "need to know" to the new person, it becomes a performance objective.
To convert "good team skills" rather say "Lead the process improvement team for order entry to reduce cycle time by two days." Using performance objective instead of skills can change the very nature of the job.
3. The Benchmarking Approach
Figure out what the best and worst performers do and judget them on this. For example, the dominant selection criteria for a telemarketer involves the ability to handle rejection. The interviewer needed to look for these same traits in the candidate hired. David's Note: This is called critical success factors by Brian Tracy. In all of these situations, these core traits were developed by finding out what top performers did differently once on the job.
1. Screen resumes based on comparable accomplishments not on skills, experience, or academics.
2. The best people are willing to make salary concessions if the job offers a strong career move. Performance profiles attract those that see the job this way. By describing the challenging and asking for examples of comparable accomplishment during the interview, candidates better understand the real job and the potential opportunities.
3. Lack of clear expectations is one of the biggest causes of employee turnover and poor performance. A performance profile is a great way to eliminate a serious potential problem.
4. Reduces employee turnover through continuous rehiring.
5. The time involved in managing an underperformer is far greater than the time it takes to create a performance profile. (prevention almost always pays off greatly).
3. Talent-Centric Sourcing: Finding the best Active and Passive Candidates
"If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think." - David Ogilvy
The best people are looking - finding and hiring them is the challenge.
Employees are capable and willing to leave for minor infractions or slightly better offers. Turnover is no longer considered a character flaw.
The common ingredient among the best people, whether they're somewhat looking, potentially looking, or deciding whether to accept an offer is that their criteria to move forward or not involves a long term goal and major career step. For this reason, career-oriented job descriptions need to be advertised and pushed to where the best people will see them.
If the ad isn't interesting and compelling, most top performers will instantly eliminate it from consideration.
The mission statement for any sourcing program should be to find the strongest people possible in the shortest period of time at the lowest reasonable cost.
Primary channels for a sequenced sourcing program:
-Resume databases
-Internal transfers (advantage of knowing their previous performance)
-Internet based advertising - compelling ads, targeted jobs, and web site optimization
-Employee referrals - proactively ask your top employees for names of best people they've workd with in the past.
-College recruiting
-Campaigns and career events
-External recruiters
Corporate recruiting departments all want to find the silver bullet, or the next tech toy, to solve their sourcing problems. A one-stop solution does not exist. This is a challenge that involves effective use of technology, implementation of a sequenced, multichannel sourcing strategy, and a strong team of recruiters and sourcing specialists who know how to deliver consistent results.
Before you write another ad understand that top people don't use the same criteria when applying, considering, or accepting an offer. When considering whether to apply, top people want the ad to clearly explain the challenges and growth opportunities.
Top people want:
1. The job match: The best people want to do work that challenges them and allows them to grow in areas they deem important.
2. The hiring manager. Top people want to work for leaders and mentors who can help them reach their goals.
3. The quality of the team. The team is a very important consideration for a top person.
4. The company : A strong company with a great brand makes it easier, but tying the actual job to some major company initiative is a great way to strengthen the link. This is called job branding and even small or less known companies can do this.
5. The compensation package: As long as the compensation package is reasonable, most top people don't consider it the number-one criteria.
Most advertising and sourcing programs are ineffective because they are targeting the wrong audience: those who need another job, not those who want a more challenging job or a long-term career.
Top people don't get excited about requirements. Not once have I ever heard a top person say the reason he or she was accepting an offer was to get more experience doing the same type of work. Yet, that's what most job descriptions offer. Change this if you want to start hiring more top people. Design your sourcing programs around the needs of top people, not average people.
The sourcing sweet spots: semi-active and semi-passive candidates.
Realistically, there are some very good active candidates and some pretty bad passive candidates.
Segmenting candidates based on need for a job:
Very-active: These are people who are desperate for a job, seeking short term compensation and security. This pool represents about 15 to 20 percent of the total employment market.
Semi-active: These are people who are fully employed but want a better job. They look infrequently, generally on bad days or just to test the market. 25 percent of the market. This is the sweet spot. To capture them, your ads needs to be visible and you must move fast. For a corporation with limited resouces, most of its efforts should be spent on sourcing people from this group.
Semi-passive: These are people who want to be found. They'll post their names on LinkedIn.com, but expect you to follow up to them. Make sure you have a compelling offer when you call or email this group or they won't be interested. 25 percent of market.
Very passive: These people don't want another job. Takes too much time and effort to recruit these types of people.
In slower economic times, the pool of semi-active and semi-passive candidates shrinks as these top people become reluctant to move from relatively safe jobs. If you aren't an employer of choice, you can do one of two things: 1) try to become one 2) make each job you're offering a job of choice. In my opinion, you should spend more time on the latter.
Good hiring is about hiring candidates who can achieve comparable results and are motivated to do it, so define great results and stop filtering out candidates for lack of skills. This eliminates many top performers who have 70 percent to 80 percent of the skills, but 150 percent of the desire and potential. By advertising on performance rather than skills, you'll increase the number of qualified candidates to select from.
Example, for an engineering company we benchmarked some existing top engineers and figured out six deliverables that were necessary around tech, quality, creativity, and we were able to filter candidates based on this criteria.
Don't post traditional skills-based job descriptions if you want to see more top people. This is akin to advertising the technical specifications for a consumer product and expecting people to buy it.
Ads need to describe what's in it for the candidate, not what's in it for the company.
**Sample Ad
Customer Service Rep, Juggler, and Master Organizer
Our client is growing fast in major part due to its focus on ensuring great customer service. As part of this expansion, the company wants to hire people who are looking for long-term careers in customer service, sales, or marketing. If you're interested in a career, not just a paycheck, then check this out:
1. You'll be put through a highly interactive three week training course.
2. You'll need to juggle a lot of tasks.
3. Attention to detail is critical. We take great pride in making sure every order is 100 percent correct.
4. We'd like a year or so in a call center or customer service position. More important though is a commitment to yourseld to be as good as you possibly can. We'll help you achieve this goal.
**
Here's another example:
**
CEO (circa 2010) Fast-Forward One Year
We'd like to thank you for making Philadelphia a great place to live. Here's what happened under your leadership:
1. You raised $50 million to create a City of Life center.
2. You introduced a new program for single moms, etc..
If you'd like this story to be yours...
**
If you want to attract the best people, ads should be written from their unique perspective - they don't need a job, but they might check out a better opportunity. If you want to gain their interest, recognize they're smart, savvy, insightful, and discriminating, but not desperate.
Strong people who already have good jobs need a few compelling reasons to leave their current position. Your ads must clearly describe three to four reasons why a top person should bother to spend his valuable time checking out your job opportunity.
In summary, great ads must meet three criteria:
1. Have a compelling title that's quickly seen on the long listings of open opportunities.
2. Write copy that's focused on what the candidate will learn, do, and become.
3. Describe the most critical skills in the context of how they're used.
An ads needs to overcome the inertia of not responding, or the pull of dozens of similar-sounding ads. Your ads must focus on the motivating needs of top performers. For most, it's a challenge or an opportunity. For some, it's better working conditions. For all, it's an opportunity to excel and to be recognized for doing outstanding work. Make sure your ads capture this concept.
The Primary Rule about Posting Ads: Make Sure They Can Be Found
1. Use SEO
2. Push your Ad on ZoomInfo and LinkedIn
Create a candidate profile to find connections to ideal candidates. Before you start using any of these marketing concepts draft a profile of your ideal candidate. Include all possible skills, keywords, connections, and links, as well as the types of people your candidate might know.
A survey of 500 candidates showed that 65 to 70 percent of candidates checked out a company's website before applying to a job. 75 perent decided not to pursue the job because of the website. Even passive candidates will look on your website before applying. Make sure your website looks good.
Web site tips:
1) Make it easy to find.
2) Post jobs of interest that are easy to find.
3) Ensure a quick and easy applicaton process (use autofill from resume if possible)
4) Call the best candidates within 24 hours. Semi-active candidates are fickle and you need to catch their attention.
5) Add a customer-relationship management program that captures emails and sends out customized emails.
6) Make sure your postings are on job site aggregators like Ineed.com or Jobster.com. eQuest.com offers a service to broadcast your job position on all these sites at once.
-Provide a bounty to current employees for referrals that get hired. This can range from $500 to $3000 for candidates who ultimately get hired.
-Use Zoom-Info, JigSaw, and LinkedIn to find potential people.
-Recruit the person first, then network. Offer them the job first and they will happy to supply other names of people that are interested.
-To be credible, you must know real job needs, have a great elevator pitch, and become an expert at the "recruit first, network second" approach described earlier.
-Be active about your recruiting not passive. This allows you to make better hiring decisions. A good workforce planning process consistants of a rolling quarterly forecast of all hiring needs for the next year. Hiring the best people can't just be delegated to HR, it must be on the mind of top executives (it was one of the top issues for Jack Welch and he played an active role in the hiring process).
-Planning is a prerequisite and provides the time needed to do it right. If you treat candidates as potential customers, rather than future subordinates, a whole shift in attitude takes place.
4. The Two Question Performance-Based Interview
The Four Core Traits of Universal Success
One of the two questions involves a candidate's past performance in great detail. The other question gets at the person's thinking, planning, and problem-solving abilities. The secret here is that you'll repeat the questions over and over again to see trends, links, and consistency.
GE leadership is defined as the ability to:
-energize yourself
-energize others
-the edge to make tough decisions
-the ability to execute
The best employees have the following characteristics:
1) Self motivation - everyone who achieved some level of success worked hard.
2) An ability to motivate others - inspiring others to work hard, including peers, superiors, as well as their own team.
3) Achievement of results that were comparable to what needed to be achieved.
4) An ability to solve comparable job problems in real time.
Performance-based Hiring Formula for Predicting Performance:
Success = Talent x Energy(squared) + Team Leadership + Comparable Past Performance + Job-Specific Problem Solving
In this formula, energy is by far the most important component. This is self motivation, and identical to the first of GE's four Es. We've all met people with great talent but little energy. Sadly, they never live up to their expectations. Others of average talent, but with extraordinary energy, often achieve success beyond all expectations.
The best people consistently deliver more results then expected, and they do it on time, all the time. This seperates the best from everyone else.
Don't be seduced by affability and social assertiveness, this is not correlated with success. If you've ever hired someone who is competent, but not motivfated, this is probably the cause. This is a very common hiring error. Another common error is to eliminate quiet people assuming there is a lack of energy.
The ability to cooperate with others is a component of this team leadership. Jack Welch said, "If you can't energize others, you can't be a leader." This is similiar to the concept of emotional intelligence: Why It Can matter more then IQ. Those who continually succeed have the core traits of personal energy and team leadership in abundance.
The likelihood of success in a new job increases if the applicant has a track record of accomplishments that are similar to the performance objectives of the job described in the performance profile.
The fourth trait of success involves thinking, planning, and job specific problem solving skills.
**The MOST IMPORTANT INTERVIEW QUESTION OF ALL TIME**
"Of all the things you've accomplished in your career, what stands out as the most significant? Now could you go ahead and tell me all about it?"
Getting the correct answer to this question can tell you about 65 to 75 percent of everything you need to make an accurate hiring decision.
Follow-Ups to this question:
-What were the three or four big challenges you had to overcome?
-What where the actual results obtained?
-When did this take place and at what company?
-How long did it take to complete the task?
-What was the situation you faced when you took the project?
-Where were you chosen, did you volunteer? Why?
-What was your actual ttile? Who were the people on your team?
-What technical skills were needed to accomplish the task? What skills were learned?
More on page. 104.
It's pretty remarkable when you think about what an interviewer could learn about a candidate by just asking about his or her biggest accomplishment. If I left it up to you to tell me about the accomplishment without the deliberate fact-finding, I would have been measuring presentation - what you wanted to tell me - not performance. The interviewer needs to take responsibility to obtain this information from the candidate. It's not the candidate's responsibility to provide it to you.
Accurate interviewing is about peeling the onion and digging deep into an accomplishment, not asking a bunch of clever questions.
The key to using the most significant accomplishment question is to ask it multiple times to observe long-term trends for individual, team, and job-related accomplishments.
1. The standard MSA question: Can you please describe a major career accomplishment you believe represents your best work?
2. The MSA for entry-level positions: Can you please describe a project or task you were involved in that made you quite proud, or where you really exceed expectations?
3. The MSA question for team skills: Can you please describe a major team accomplishment you believe represents a great example of you leading, building, or working on a team?
4. The MSA question for individual accomplishments: Can you please describe a significant individual accomplishment you believe best represents one of your individual strengths?
5. The MSA question for job-related accomplishments: One important project for us is ____. Can you please describe something you've been involved with that's most comparable?
MSA questions provide great insights into the first four core traits - talent, motivation to do the work required, team leadership, and comparable past performance.
Develop a trend line of performance and see whether the individual is still developing or whether he/she has flattened out.
The Second Most Important Question: Visualization and Problem Solving:
"If you were to get this job, how would you go about solving _____ (describe a typical problem).
The key here is to get into a give-and-take discussion about a realistic job problem. It's been my experience that top performers have the ability to discuss what's needed to solve typical problems. Even if the person can't provide the answer right away, she knows how to get to the answer.
If you're hiring a sales manager, ask "How would you go about ensuring that the team met quota every month?" For an engineer, it might be, "How would you design and develop this prodct to ensure it's production by next March?"
At the end of the interview categorize whether their reasoning is complex, advanced, or superficial. The best candidates demonstrate a good understanding of the cause and effect of their action.
-There is a general tendency for candidates to generalize and give one-minute answers. It's important to get details; that's why getting examples is so important. Once you get candidates to speak freely you'll discover that they tend to give more information on subsequent questions.
Two additional MSA team-leadership questions:
1. If the person isn't directly supervising others: "Please draw an organization chart and tell me about a team project you were involved in, and describe your role.
2. If the person is a manager: "Please draw an organization chart and tell me how you built and developed this team, and describe the group's biggest accomplishment.
Develop a Trend Line to Measure Long-Term Impact
The trend line isn't always obvious, but getting major objectives this way will help determine whether the candidate's performance is on an upward trend, has flattened out, or is declining.
Example: All of the candidates were strong and held similar positions, but only one was on an upward growth path and I recommended him, even though he was a little quiet. The other two had significant success early in their careers, but for the past 10 years had settled into comfortable situations. While both of them could do the current job and professed a desire to grow, neither had taken any action to invest in themselves. The other candidate was taking night classes, learning advanced distribution techniques and developing his staff. No matter what a candidate tells you, look for these signs of UPWARD growth.
"Greatness isn't handed to anyone; it requires a lot of hard work. The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what researchers call "deliberate practice." It's activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition."
Interestingly, the best candidates respond very favorably to this inquisitive approach. These people like to talk about their accomplishments. They also feel more positive about managers requesting this information. It tells the candidate that the manager has high standards, is thorough, and has probably built a team of strong people. Good people want to work for these kinds of managers. Weaker candidates get put off and squirmy with this inquisitive style.
Look for comparable accomplishments. Get details like staff size, comparable scope and complexity of the assignment, and similar company environments.
We've discovered that the process used to achieve sales success is more important than a specific product or customer. People who have track records of selling complex technology to extremely discriminating customers can do this whether it's telecommunications gear, computers, or capital equipment used in manufacturing.
-His answers were more general and shorter - two classic signs of lack of experience or interest. Even fact-finding didn't help. His best examples were superficial in nature.
-The visualization process is less like an interview and more like a real working session. This is how and what you would talk about after the candidate starts. Good people know how to go from point A to point B and are not afraid to discuss how they'd do it, or to ask for more information.
One of my clients used the visualization technique with great success to hrie someone to head up a new business unit. My client told me they spent the whole second half of the first interview laying out the plan on a flip chart. Both the candidate and my client believed this was one of the most revealing and insightful interview sessions either has ever had.
There are some great communicators who can visualize, but who have never actually done anything comparalbe (like consultants). I agree with their concern when visualiation questions are unrelated to the job. Job-related situational questions, however, are a great means to assess the required thinking skills used on the job.
At a retail pet-supply store, entry-level sales personnel, generally recent high school graduates, are asked how they would handle some typical customer complaints. Then they're asked to describe real world examples of handling similar interpersonal conflicts. With this dual approach, the anchor and visualize pattern can be used to increase hiring acccuracy for any type of position.
You'll never be able to complete all your questioning during the first interview, leave the remaining anchor questions for another interviewer or for the second interview.
Brief Outline of the Interview Process:
Step 1: Warm-up; do a quick interview and understand the candidate's motivation for looking.
Step 2: Wait 30 minutes and measure the impact of first impressions at the end of the interview.
Step 3: Conduct a comprehensive work history review. Go through every job and find out what the person accomplished, what the person didn't accomplish, the team the person worked with, why the person took the job, and any recognition they received. If you spend half of the opening interview on this, you'll know what you need to do in the second half.
Step 4: Ask about major individual accomplishments. Ask about high accomplishments and then select ones that best meet your job needs to learn more about.
Step 5: Ask about a major team accomplishment. Use specific team fact-finding follow up questions.
Step 6: Ask a problem-solving question. During the visualization question, start a discussino about a realistic job problem, not some hypothetical situation.
Step 7: Recruit and close.
Step 8: Measure first impressions again. You'll be dumbstruck when you measure first impressions at the end of the interview and compare them to your inital reaction. Many of the people you initially thought were great won't be, and many of the ones you thought were weark will turn into stars.
On a recent survey we conducted with over 500 candidates, 80 percent indicated they were somewhat or very nervous during the opening moments of the job interview. Even top performers and top salespeople fell in this group. So don't dismiss candidates for this during the first 30 minutes. Wait to make your impressions. Accept the fact that nobody likes to interview and that a nervous candidate is just a nervous candidate. Don't assume this is related to performance.
OPENING QUESTION:
"As you know, we're looking for ______ position. Let me give you a quick overview of the importance of this position. (Give a two minute overview of the position and the company). Tell me how your background has prepared you for this type of important position."
This narrows down the focus by requesting only relevant background information.
When you make the job compelling, applicats tell you more about themselves. They sell you, rather than you having to sell them. A good interview is a fact finding mission, not a sales pitch.
-I openly tell candidates that I'm more concerned with specific examples about a few major accomplishments than lots of broad generalities.
Assessing Character and Values
"Can you give me the best example of something you accomplished where you were totally committed to the task?" This quickly gets at the heart of character. The ability to perservere under difficult conditions is an essential trait of top performers. It's the character component of energy because it's easier to work hard under ideal conditions than difficult conditions. While this approach doesn't cover every aspect of character, it covers the most important. Use this question in the later part of the interview when candidates are likely to be more candid.
Ask about failures. It might be time to raise the caution flag if the candidate can't openly describe some failures.
The Close: Use Recruiting to End Round Round One
"Although we're seeing some other fine candidates, I personally think you have a very strong background. We'll get back to you in a few days, but what are your thoughts about this position?"
This question does the following:
1) First, you created supply. Good jobs are more attractive when other good people are being considered.
2) Created demand by expressing sincere interest in the candidate.
3) Asking the candidate for interest level is important because you want candidates to openly discuss their thoughts, feelings, and concerns.
4) If a candidate is not interested you want to understand her concerns. Your objective with reluctant candidates is to get them to stay open-minded and come back for another series of interviews.
Fact-Finding: The Most Important Interviewing Technique
Get lots of information about the candidate's top five or six major accomplishments. This is all that's necessary to make an accurate hiring decision. The key for each accomplishment is to understand the results achieved, the process used to achieve the results, and the environment in which these results took place.
THE DIFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD ANSWERS AND BAD HIRING DECISIONS LIES WITH FACT-FINDING.
One of my candidates told me her greatest accomplishmetn was in never making a hiring mistake. She told me she clearly understood the work that needed to get done, she didn't initially care whether she liked or disliked the candidate, and she spent the first interview only getting examples, facts, and figures to verify a candidate's past performance. This is the way interviewing and hiring needs to be done.
There is a tendency on the part of candidates to overstate or mislead, either through outright fraud or generalizations. Fact-finding peels away the onion to get at reality. By asking for specific examples to support any generalization, you force the candidate to justify a response.
Most interviewers ask too many general questions. A few questions with lots of fact-finding is a better approach. TURN GENERALITIES into SPECIFICS by getting EXAMPLES of everything.
Tips:
-Reread the resume before an interview, even if you have already conducted a phone interview. If you haven't conducted a phone interview, going over the resume is even more important.
-During the interview, ask for specific examples to validate strengths and clairfy concerns.
-Floundering interviews turn off the best candidates.
-The rule is to listen four times more than you talk.
-IF IT DOESN'T PERTAIN TO JOB PERFORMANCE DON'T ASK IT, it may be ILLEGAL and it won't gain you any more insight on the individual's potential performance. Get legal advice if you're unsure, but the key is to avoid all personal questions and you'll be fine.
5. The Evidence-Based Assessment
-Most decisions are made with little evidence. Managers tend to have preconceived biases, beliefs, and perceptions. Facts are then collected to support these preconceived ideas and contrary information is avoided, ignored, or dismissed as irrelevant.
-Consensus is good - unless it's reached too easily. In other words, it's okay to argue and disagree about a point of view: this way, more information is considered analytically.
-The only time you should make a gut decision is when you don't have any time. "Gut decisions are made in moments of crisis when there is no time to weigh arguments and calculate the probability of every outcome" the Harvard study showed. This is RARELY the case so don't make these gut decisions.
-In the big scheme of things, hiring a top person does not take much more time. It's the rush to decide that causes most of the problems. It takes much more time to correct a bad hiring decision.
-This "decide and collect" approach to assessing competency needs to be eliminated from the hiring decision-making process. The best way to do this is to "systemize it out."
GENERALITIES, GUT FEELINGS, and INTUITION are unacceptable inputs for ranking a candidate.
-Assess all candidates using a formal assessment tool across the best predictors of job success using a clear ranking system. The book introduces a 10-Factor Candidate Assessment template, which serves this purpose.
10-Factor Assessment:
1. Overall Technical Competency
2. Motivation for Required Work
3. Overall Team Skills
4. Problem Solving
5. Achieve Comparable Results
6. Planning and Organization
7. Environment/Culture
8. Trend of Growth
9. Character & Values
10. Potential
etc.
Team Projects, Tasks
Tech Projects, Key Tasks
Problem Questions
Recruit/Close
Interest Level
Different levels of hires:
Level 1: Doesn't work to do the work and can't do the work. Easy to figure out.
Level 2: Competent to do the work, says he or she will do the work, but won't do it. This is the most common hiring mistake. It's caused by juding people on their skills, not their motivation.
Level 3: Competent and motivated to do most, if not all, of the work described.
Level 4: Quickly promotable and exceeds expectations.
Level 5: Promotable at least two levels in a short period of time. This person not only puts effort into self-improvement, but also improves the company and the team.
No Level 2's
One of the primary goals of the Performance-based Hiring interviewing process is to prevent Level 2's from being hired.
The 10 Best Predictors of On-the-Job Success:
1. Talent to Do the Work
When evaluating the talent needed to do the work, don't look just for technical brilliance. Instead, look at how a candidate will use his technical ability in achieving practical results.
2. Motivation to Do the Work
Don't EVER compromise on this factor. It's the universal trait of success.
Don't make the leap that a highly motivated person is always highly motivated. Most people work hard doing work they like to do. Sometimes it's due to working for a great manager or in a perfect environment. Be extra diligent trying to find the circumstances underlying the motivation.
An extroverted personality is neither proof of, nor a prerequisite for, self-motivation on the job.
3. Team Leadership : The Ability to Persuade, Motivate, and Cooperate with Others
The ability to persuade and motivate people who don't work for you is a critical component of leadership. Get examples of dealing with conflict or persuading others to change their position and determine how compromises were made. Introverted people can also be great team leaders.
Remember, if a person only has vague examples this is a good example of a Level 2 employee and should be avoided!
4. Problem-Solving and Critical-Thinking Skills
How the candidate organizes a major task or evaluates a current problem requires insight and understanding. The quality of the questions asked by the candidate are a strong indicator of the candidate's thinking and reasoning skills, adaptability, communication skills, logic, decision making, knowledge, and problem-solving ability.
Many great questions but limited experience are a good sign of a high-potential person. Raise the caution flag if the candidate's experience is strong but the questioning is weak.
Level 5 would have not only answered the question well, but would have asked more in-depth questions and then would have provided a series of realistic alternatives never before considered.
5. Comparability of Past Accomplishments
When the interview is conducted this way, past performance is a a great predictor of future performance.
The key here is to find people who have successfully handled the complexities of the required tasks, rather then the exact tasks. Not only does this open the job to other top performers, these other top people often find the challenge of working in different industries and on different challenges more exciting and motivation.
Level 5 ranking is deserved on this category if the person thrives in your type of environment and has demonstrated not only great success for each major performance objective, but also takes this performance to a totally unexpected level.
6. Planning, Management, and Organization
A Level 2 ranking means the person is very unorganized. This would be revealed by a pattern of excuses for failing to meet deadlines, reacting to problems rather than anticipating them, and an approach to planning that does not seem to improve over time.
7. Environment and Culture Fit
This is a critical factor for job success that's often overlooked during the interviewing process. To increase the accuracy of the assessment, compare a candidate's accomplishments and the environment where they took place to the performance objectives listed in the performance profile and the environment at your company.
When assessing cultural fit, don't undervalue the candidate's use of referance to :
A) Working alone
B) Belong to a team
C) In charge of a team
At the end of the interview, count up the number of ticks under I, we, etc.
A Level 3 on environmental and cultural fit would be justified, if the person's accomplishments took place in an environment that was very comparable to your company's. A Level 4 or 5 is appropriate if the person thrives in an environment like your company's.
8. Trend of Performance Over Time
While he was a very self-motivated person, he had been at the same management level for the past 10 years, an indication that he had plateaued careerwise (not necessarily bad but should be taken into consideration for the specific position).
9. Character: Values, Commitment, and Goals
Understanding a peron's value system allows you to predict how he'll react under various work-related circumstances.
Compare the size of the goals already achieved to any future goals and to the needs of the job. Ask if the goals are in writing. This helps validate the candidate's real, versus stated, philosophy. Goals always require a series of substeps before they're completed. Ask about this progress.
If a candidate wants to be promoted ask what he/she has done to improve herself. Only a few people spend time at personal development. This could be in the form of continuous outside education, volunteering for new work, or taking the initiative of expanding the role of their current job without any expectations of a reward.
Commitment is a critical component of character that complements energy and potential. Ask the candidate to give you an example of when he or she was totally committed to a task. Some high-energy people are great starters but poor finishers.
When assessing character, look for frank and open responses especially regarding failures. Determine whether the candidate takes responsibility for both the successes and failures. Be concerned if this is one-sided or vague.
10. Potential
Review trend lines, critical thinking skills, team leadership skills, and personal commitment to grow and develop.
It would be hard to rank a person too high on potential if he didn't have a bunch of Level 4s and 5s in the other nine critical factors.
Spotting Fatal Flaws
Don't overlook fatal flaws. Clues to Some Fatal Flaws:
-Great communicator, but person's management role doesn't seem to be growing. Maybe a great consultant type but weak manager.
-Vague, superficial or short answers.
-Inconsistent track record blamed on outside circumstances.
-Lots of drive and ambition but maybe too assertive, potential ego problem.
-Too fast of a track record, maybe promoted past his capacity.
-Extremes in any behavior - too analytical, too assertive, too friendly, too persuasive. Usually this leads to problems regarding flexibility or balance.
-Lots of energy but answers are too general.
-Lots of excuses about why things weren't achieved.
-If you observe any of these signs, you must get proof to overcome the potential concern. The best way to get an example of a significant example that disproves the potential fatal flaw.
The Professionalism and Quality of the Interview Counts
Candidates judge the quality of the company and the quality of their potential supervisor by, the quality of the interviewing process.
6. Everything Else after the First Interview: Completing the Assignment
Stay Objective: The first interview represents less than half of the total assessment.
-Additional interviews, reference checks, and testing are all invaluable. Frequently these steps are ignored or minimized. Once a candidate is on the short list, most managers use the added time to look for information to confirm a "yes" decision.
An unstructured interview is only 57 percent accurate in predicting subsequent performance, using a performance profile the number goes to 75 percent, when combined with some of the other tools suggested in this chapter, accuracy can increase to 80 or 90 percent.
Some fo the things you do after the first interview include reference checking, background verification, drug testing, assessment testing, and more interviews. These are all critical to making the process of hiring a professional an effective business process.
The Important of Reference Checking
Strong candidates have strong references who will openly tell you about them. Lack of good reference is a sign of a potential problem. There are VERY FEW EXCEPTIONS to this rule. Here's one: once in awhile, a candidate's job search is extremely confidential. Under these circumstances it's sometimes hard to find a colleague willing to vouch.
An additional concern is negligent hiring when employers do not take the sufficient care to check an applicant's background.
How to Really Conduct a Reference Check
Conduct the reference check just like the interview by getting specific examples to prove a generality and then by fact-finding. Even those people who do give you a reference may talk in glowing terms or generalities. If someone says the candidate has great team skills, ask for specific examples.
The key to good interviewing and good reference checking is to ask many questions and get examples. Use peers, subordinates, and supervisors as references. Subordinates are sometimes the best references, so don't ignore these people.
References, even from strong candidates, need to be validated. First, determine the quality of the reference, then get the reference to give specific examples to validate the hyperbole and generalities.
1. Qualifying the Reference
-Determine the relationship to the candidate.
-Obtain the reference's current title, company, scope of the job.
-Determine the reference's scope of responsibility.
-Determine what the company environment was like.
2. Qualifying the Candidate
The key to good reference checking is to get details and examples. If the reference states that the candidate was really committed, ask the reference to give you an example that best demonstrates this trait. If you probe like this a few times, the reference will realize you're serious. Most reference checkers just want to check boxes. By showing your professionalism this way, the reference will be more open and frank.
If initiative was mentioned as a key strength, ask for a specific accomplishment demonstrating initiative. Do the same for weaknesses.
GET PROOF with good examples.
Ask the reference to compare the candidate to others at the same level. "How would you rank this person among other people you know at this level. Ask what percentile this individual falls in. Ask what it would take for the candidate to move into the top 10 or 5 percent (good weakness question).
Ask the reference whether he/she would rehire or work with the candidate again and under what circumstance (very revaling). Probe this to confirm previous statements (Zero-based thinking).
Conduct the reference check with an open mind. If you really want to hire the candidate, you might unintentionally avoid asking the tough questions. Reference checking allows you to validate the candidate's true role in each major accomplishment.
Conducting the Second Interview
Focus less on chitchatting and more on asking questions. Use the performance-based interviewing techniques for all subsequent interviews. The key is to dig into accomplishments and failures to understand true performance.
Find examples of where the candidate excelled at doing work comparable to what you need done. During the interview, candidates will often tell you that they have no problem doing portions of the work that aren't too exciting. Be skeptical here. Once on the job, these parts of the job are often ignored or done poorly. If a candidate needs a job, he will say anything. This is how competent but unmotivated people get hired. To overcome this, obtain recent examples of the candidate going the extra mile to complete the type of work required. Raise the caution flag if you don't find some reasonable exeprience.
If you want to increase assessment accuracy and save time, conduct more panel interviews. These are much better than an all-day series of one-on-one 45 to 60 minute interviews. Even weaker interviews learn something, if they just observe. Panel interviews also provide a great means for subordinates to get involved in the hiring process.
Note: Subordinates should never conduct one-on-one interviews. Since they usually prefer to work for someone they like, they focus on the wrong issues.
Preface:
One thing I did learn was that hiring great talent is the key to a manager's career progression.
Interesting facts:
-There is no correlation between interviewing and presentation skills and on-the-job performance. Judging people on how well they interview is a terrible way to assess ability.
-The best people use more decision variables when deciding whether to accept an offer. For the average candidate, a new job is a tactical move based on short-term criteria. For the best, it's a strategic move. This fundamental difference is rarely considered in a company's hiring processes.
-The best candidates don't typically have the exact mix of skills, experience, and education described in the job description. So if a company advertises and filters totally on skills, the best are wrongly excluded from consideration.
-Boring job descriptions exacerbate the problem. Unless a company is an employer of choice, top people aren't going to apply for run-of-the-mill jobs that seems the same as everyone else's.
-Most hiring managers and other members of the selection team aren't very good at interviewing, yet they all think they are.
The primary goal of this book is to show every manager and every recruiter how to hire one great person. The secondary goal is to show how to do it over again, and again, and again.
Here are 7 ways to get it done:
1. Stop using traditional boring job descriptions for advertising. Top people don't look for jobs based on their skills and experience. They look for jobs based on the challenges and opportunities involved.
2. Make the job description the real job. Most job descriptions list skills, required experiences, academics, competencies, and personality traits, with a little about duties and responsibilities.
3. When the supply of talent is less then the demand, you need to design your advertising and sourcing programs and systems based on how the best look for new jobs.
4. During the interview, forget the clever questions. Instead, dig deeply into a person's major accomplishments to observe trends of growth and patterns of behaviors. Then compare these to the performance objectives stated in the performance profile.
5. Hire people who are both competent and motivated to work. It's easy to measure competency, but don't stop there even if the person is affable, outgoing, and interested in your job. You'll need to look for multiple examples of where the person has excelled and the underlying environment and circumstances.
6. During the interview, put your emotions in the parking lot. The decision is made later in a formal meeting where all interviewers share their unbiased information to reach consensus. Watch your accuracy soar with this simple system.
7. As the competition for talent intensifies, strong recruiting skills are essential for hiring top people on a consistent basis. This requires strong consultative selling skills in combination with great jobs, an interviewing process based on deep job-matching, and the hiring manager's total involvement.
1. Chapter 1 - A Systematic Process for Hiring Top Talent
"Hire smart, or manage tough."
Many of the techniques presented in this book have been developed by observing people who consistently hire top people. This is a process called benchmarking.
The best hiring decision is not intuitive or based on gut feelings. Instead it involves a three-step process:
1. Remain objective throughout the interviewing process, fighting the impact of first impressions, biases, intuition, prejudices, and preconceived notions of success. This way, all information collected during the interview is both relevant and unbiased.
2. Collect information across multiple job factors, rather then deciding quickly if the candidate is suitable for the job based on a narrow range of qualities. Collecting the right information before deciding yes or no is the key here.
3. Use an evidence-based approach to determine whether the candidate is motivated and competent to meet all job needs. This involves some type of formal decision making process based on evaluating the evidence rather than using an up/down voting system.
A large percentage of these mistakes are made by smart people who use quick simplistic judgments largely based on first impressions and personality.
The key to hiring both competent and highly motivated people is to collect enough of the right facts.
If you want to hire superior people, use a system designed to hire superior people, not one designed to fill jobs.
At its core, hiring the best is about understanding how the best people look for new jobs and how they decide to accept one job over the other. It's about why they decide to take, or not take, a counteroffer. It's about why they take one job over another even if the pay is less.
The following 11 reasons are some easily correctable problems that prevent companies from attracting enough top people:
1. Hard-to-find job openings: Few companies use standard search-engine techniques to allow top people to quickly find their open positions. It's important that your openings are prominently features on the first page of your corporate website.
2. Poorly designed career websites. Most career sites make it too difficult for good people with little time to explore career opportunities and check out open jobs.
3. Boring ads: Most posted job descriptions are nothing more then lists of skills, qualifications, and required experiences. These commodity-like jobs certainly aren't written to compel a top person to apply or even check them out. In many cases the prospect can't even check them out of explore them further unless he or she formally registers with the site.
4. A cumbersome application process.
Applying for most jobs is so cumbersome and time consuming that it precludes the best people from even applying because they don't have time to waste. A Monster.com study revealed that if the application form is automatically filled in using techniques to extract information, there is a 75 percent chance the person will actually apply. If the form is blank, there is only a 20 percent chance the person will apply. Incorporate this into your site!
5. Lack of basic consumer marketing expertise.
6. Lackadaisical managers
7. Lack of clear understanding of the real job needs.
8. Lack of objectivity: emotions, biases, prejudices and first impressions dominate the hiring decision. Too many interviewers make quick judgments about candidates in the first few minutes of the interview, then use the balance of the time looking for facts to confirm their initial biased reaction.
9. The wrong perspective. The best candidates, passive or active, are looking for careers, not jobs. Yet most companies offer identical jobs and wonder why they can't find enough good people.
10. Weak interviewing and assessment process.
11. Thinking recruiting is selling.
-
The key is to examine all aspects of your hiring process from the perspect of a top person who has little time to spare and multiple opportunities.
Not only must real job needs be understood, it's also essential that everyone on the hiring team, especially the recruiter and the hiring manager, clearly understand these real job needs. This way, everyone who has to make a decision about a candidate's suitability for a job is on the same page.
Hiring is just a process that needs to be implemented just like any other process. Most important, it requires a commitment from the executive management of the company that hiring is important, and the resources and time will be devoted to making it happen.
One of the biggest problems is that too much emphasis is placed on the interaction between the candidate and the interviewer, and too little on the candidate's ability and motivation to do the job. This is the primary cause of hiring mistakes.
There is a certain halo effect that creates a bias in hiring. If you like a candidate, you tend to go into chat mode, ask easier questions, and look for information to confirm your initial impression.
Here's the difference. Getting the job includes things like personality, first impression, handshake, etc. while doing the job includes factors such as: drive, team skills, achieving objectives, technical competence, management and organizational skills, intellect, and leadership.
Everything changes when the hiring decision is based primarily on the candidate's ability to do the work.
Part of the success is remaining objective, overcoming the natural tendency to judge people based on first impressions, personality, and a few select traits.
Unfortunately, within 10 to 15 minutes we already make a decision. If you buy in too soon, you tend to ignore negative data, globalize strength, begin selling, and stop listening. You may dismiss a lack of skills as something easily learned and start selling, trying to convince the candidate why this is such a great job. You won't ask the tough questions necessary to make sure the candidate can do the job.
From our experience 30 to 50 percent of the candidates who make strong first impressions are just average performers!
A short course on interviewing: wait 30 minutes before making any decision about a candidate's ability to do the work and you can eliminate 50% of hiring mistakes!
To increase objectivity adhere to the following steps:
1. Measure first impressions at the beginning of the interview and write them down. Don't look at them until the end of the interview.
2. Disallow the yes/no decision unless the candidate is a complete dud. Make it a rule that you must suspend any decision for at least 30 minutes. During these 30 minutes, conduct a work-history review and get some details about the candidate's major accomplishments. A "no" is okay if the person is a complete mismatch, but if you have any doubts, put the person under "further evaluation needed" pool.
3. Delay the decision by redefining the purpose of the interview. Use the interview to college information, not to make a decision.
4. Give partial voting rights. Since most managers have a tendency to rush to judgment based on very narrow selection criteria, only let them vote on these factors. Don't give anyone full voting rights.
5. Demand evidence before you accept gut feelings. Facts, examples, and details must be provided to justify a ranking, good or bad. "I don't think the person would be a good fit," is inappropriate. However, a comment like "the environment, pace, available resources, and the lack of a formal decision-making process at the person's last two companies is a clear indication that the person would not survive here," is certainly sufficient.
6. Make a "no" harder to justify than a "yes." A "no" is safe and easy. It encourages laziness and it rewards interviewers who are weak or those who were unprepared. To eliminate this potential problem, demand more detailed information and evidence from those invoking the "no."
It took me about 10 years before I figured out that the best candidates aren't the best interviewers. After about 1,000 interviews, it became pretty clear there was no correlation between intervieiwing skills and job competency. This is pretty amazing and scary, because most interviewing methods measure interviewing skills, not job competency.
Interviewers need to train candidates to give complete information. If you leave it up to candidates to provide this information on their own, you're measuring interviewing and presentation skills, not job competency.
The performance-based interviewing methodology in this book help you get past those who simply interview well. Interviewers need to proactively take responsibility for obtaining complete information about job competency from each candidate.
A company needs to have a systematic process to hire the best talent during both up and down years. Outside of hiring, every other business process has improved profoundly over the past 20 years.
Each of these steps must be integrated in a systematic process:
1. Write compelling job descriptions that describe real job needs, not ads that emphasize skills and qualifications.
2. Design every aspect of sourcing to attract top people, which includes where you place exciting job descriptions, how you design the career web site, how you get referrals, and when you make phone calls.
3. Organize the interview to assess competency and create opportunity at the same time. You do this by asking tougher questions, not by overselling or overtalking.
4. Make recruiting, negotiating offers, and closing a natural, integrated part of each step in the hiring process.
A Road Map to the Organization of this Book:
1) Defining the Job
2) Finding Top Candidates
3) Interviewing and Assessments
4) Recruiting and Closing
You can't be myopic when desigining hiring systems. Everyone's perspective is important, but the most important of all is the one of the top person you're trying to hire. Making the job hard to earn but worthy of earning is how you hire top people.
You'll need to offer at least 30 percent increase if you want ot hire the best. However, to do it right, most of this needs to be in job stretch and job growth, not compensation. Recruiting, negotiating, and closing focus more on career counseling and creating TRUE opportunities than selling.
Performance-based Hiring is as much about good management as it is good hiring. As far as I can tell, the two are inseperable. You become a better manager in the process of hiring better people - which, in turn, makes you a better manager. And if you want to keep the top people you just hired, you need to be a great manager.
To hire with your head, you need to combine emotional control with good fact-finding skills and intuitive decision making. This whole-brain thinking provides the critical balance to match job needs, the interviewer's personality, and the candidate's abilities and interests. Combine this with state-of-the-art sourcing. Without enough good candidates, everything else is futile. Recruiting starts at the beginning, not at the end!
2. Performance Profiles: Define Success, not Skills.
If you want to hire superior people, first define superior performance. In the majority of cases, these job descriptions don't define the job at all, they define the person who will ultimately take the job.
Performance is about results, not about skills and qualifications. This is the execution part of the job. If someone can do the work, he or she obviously has the skills. Here's a historical example, Teddy Roosevelt purchased a used Brazilian ship under the proviso that it must arrive under its own power with a very short time frame. The contract didn't have any normal technical specificiations. Roosevelt knew that if the ship couldn't travel the distance requires by the date specified, it was worthless.
3. Once you've defined superior performance, all you need to do is find and hire people who are competent and motivated to do the work.
4. Don't compromise on performance, compromise on the qualifications. This will expand the pool of top performers without giving up anything.
Instead of saying the person must have five years of accounting experience and a CPA, say they must "Complete the implementation of the Sarbenes-Oxley reporting requirements by Q2."
Good people, even when they're slightly frustrated, can find seemingly better jobs relatively quickly. That is why you need to pay attention to this and give them opportunities for growth, this is called continuous rehiring.
Traditional Job Descriptions verses Performance Profiles
-BS degree, MBA a plus vs. Upgrade the product marketing and new product launch process>
-5 years of experience in consumer products vs. Develop new online and direct distribution channels.
-Strong market research vs. Prepare a comprehensive competitive analysis report in the first month.
Use the performance profile for external hiring and internal moves!
Internal move decisions are often 80 to 90 percent accurate. The reason for this is because we know the person's past performance, attitude, work habits, commitment, etc. All of these are educated guesses for the unknown outsider.
The decision-making process between outside hiring and internal moves is fundamentally different. Personality and qualifications dominate the selection for outside hiring.
Degrees, certifications vs. ability to delivery results. It's what you do with what you have, not what you have that counts.
There are many people who can do the job without having exactly the skills listed, especially if they're highly motivated (these are the people who have been successfully promoted or laterally transferred). Externally, these same high-potential poeple are automatically excluded from consideration because they don't have the skills. Worst, high-potential people who have the exact skills rarely want to do the same work, so they won't even apply. Limiting your sourcing to people who have all the skills and qualification is really a hunt for average performers.
Based on extensive interviews with thousands of people, they describe the best managers as those who first clearly define performance expectations for every job. These positions are then filled with people who have both the ability and the motivation to do the work required. General Electric measures talent by those who can execute and deliver predetermined results.
While the specific performance objectives are different for every job, they fall within similar categories, including effectively dealing with people, achieving objectives, organizing teams, solving problems, using technology and making changes. Creating these performance objectives starts by asking what the person taking the job needs to be successful, not what the person needs to have.
When this happens, interviewing accuracy is increased because the selection critera are based on objective criteria. This is the first step required to create an evidence based selection process as described in Chapter 4.
Candidate quality can be more easily assessed when all candidates are compared to a standard benchmarket.
Recruiters are better able to screen candidates based on measurable and objective criteria.
-Fewer candidates need to be seen because unqualified candidates are eliminated earlier in the process. Screening on performance rather than on qualifications also lessens the chance of eliminating a top person without the exact skill set.
-Managers become managers when they clarify expectations.
- The number one hiring mistake - hiring candidates who are competent but not motivated to do all the aspects of the work - is reduced, by specifically measuring motivation across all key job needs.
- Using objective criteria is fairer and legally sound. This approach also broadens the pool for more diverse and high potential candidates.
***Steps:
1. Define the main objectives. Determine what the person needs to do over the next 6 to 12 months to be considered successful. Most jobs have two to three major objectives (i.e. implement a new process, see 25 customers per day, conduct an analysis, etc.).
2. Develop subobjectives. For each major objective, determine the two or three things a successful person would need to do to achieve the major objective.
3. Ask questions to make sure you have all the key objectives. Ask, "Is there anything else that needs to be changed, fixed, upgraded, or improved over the next few months? What are the biggest challenges in the job?
4. Convert having to doing. Change "Five years of product marketing experience" to "Develop a product marketing plan for the new high-speed controller."
5. Convert technical skills into results.
6. Understand team skills. Draw a work chart describing all of the people the person will work with, including their titles and roles. As you find out in Chapter 4, you ask candidates to describe their most significant team projects, so this offers a great comparision.
7. Understand management and oragnizational objectives.
8. Understand long-term planning and strategy issues. A performance profile needs to address both short and long term job needs.
The best people evidence their ability to think strategically or creatively very early in their careers.
9. Benchmark the best. For entry-level or process-type jobs, as, "What do the best people in this job do differently then the average person? Think about your best person; what does he or she do differently?
Previously, product knowledge, overcoming objections, and affability were considered the prerequisites to success. At HealthEast Care System, we found through benchmarking that the best nurse aides proactively ensured patients were comfortable.
- The key here is to shift everyone's thinking from having to doing. Change to build, improve, establish from passive verbs like possessing, be responsible for, etc.
-Problems: Include any existing problems or those likely to be encountered. Minor ones don't matter, but major ones, such as lack of time, resources, or special situations.
-Focus more on the applications, expected outcome, or use of these technical skills rather than on the absolute level.
A good performance profile digs one or two levels deeper to understand the critical subtasks necessary to achieve success.
Define the Job, Not the Person
-Look on monster.com or any company's website if you need proof that most job descriptions incorrectly look for levels of experience, etc. which have been shown to be misleading predictors of success.
-The best candidates don't look for work based on what skills they possess, they look for work based on what they'll be doing and learning. Second, the best want to do different things. So if the job is exactly the same as what they're currently doing, there's no incentive for them to check it out. A job decription built around performance objectives eliminates these problems.
-If the candidate can achieve the performance objectives, she obviously has enough experience and skills.
Approaches to Preparing Performance Objective
Compare the best people already in the job and select traits that best predict success. Avoid the traits of under performers.
Consider the job needs over a one to two year time horizon, starting with the first 30 days.
Here's an example of an individual tactical objective for a salesperson, "Improve the ration of closes/calls by 15 percent by developing improved selling techniques. This gets at specific behaviors and traits much better then the classic, "have good sales and closing skills couples with five years' experience selling office products."
Many jobs require creative skills. You can get at these by describing the outcomes expected from these conceptual skills. For example, "Create a new marketing promotional program."
Ignorance isn't Bliss: Delegate Knowledge to the Candidate
Every now and then you'll want to hire someone with just a vague idea of what the person is supposed to do at the task level. In this case, make the creation of these requirements a primary objective. An appropriate performance objective in this case would be, "During the first month, prepare a detailed action plan identifying all of the key requirements for a direct marketing channel for the XYZ product line." Let the candidate tell you the needs of the job, the appropriate resource requirements, and the time line.
During the interview, have the candidate describe comparable accomplishments and discuss how she would implement the program if she were to get the job.
Here's an example. They wanted to hire a VP to head the new program. The major performance objective was to prepare a 5 year business plan within six months. During the first interview, the president and the candidate spent two hours together developing a detailed operational plan for the new business. This was after reviewing some of the candidate's acccomplishments in setting up similar ventures. So even before starting the job, the candidate and the CEO worked together on this project. The CEO later told me that the candidate exhibited the same insight, organizational skills, and approach to problem solving on the job that he did in the two hour session.
By delegating this "need to know" to the new person, it becomes a performance objective.
To convert "good team skills" rather say "Lead the process improvement team for order entry to reduce cycle time by two days." Using performance objective instead of skills can change the very nature of the job.
3. The Benchmarking Approach
Figure out what the best and worst performers do and judget them on this. For example, the dominant selection criteria for a telemarketer involves the ability to handle rejection. The interviewer needed to look for these same traits in the candidate hired. David's Note: This is called critical success factors by Brian Tracy. In all of these situations, these core traits were developed by finding out what top performers did differently once on the job.
1. Screen resumes based on comparable accomplishments not on skills, experience, or academics.
2. The best people are willing to make salary concessions if the job offers a strong career move. Performance profiles attract those that see the job this way. By describing the challenging and asking for examples of comparable accomplishment during the interview, candidates better understand the real job and the potential opportunities.
3. Lack of clear expectations is one of the biggest causes of employee turnover and poor performance. A performance profile is a great way to eliminate a serious potential problem.
4. Reduces employee turnover through continuous rehiring.
5. The time involved in managing an underperformer is far greater than the time it takes to create a performance profile. (prevention almost always pays off greatly).
3. Talent-Centric Sourcing: Finding the best Active and Passive Candidates
"If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think." - David Ogilvy
The best people are looking - finding and hiring them is the challenge.
Employees are capable and willing to leave for minor infractions or slightly better offers. Turnover is no longer considered a character flaw.
The common ingredient among the best people, whether they're somewhat looking, potentially looking, or deciding whether to accept an offer is that their criteria to move forward or not involves a long term goal and major career step. For this reason, career-oriented job descriptions need to be advertised and pushed to where the best people will see them.
If the ad isn't interesting and compelling, most top performers will instantly eliminate it from consideration.
The mission statement for any sourcing program should be to find the strongest people possible in the shortest period of time at the lowest reasonable cost.
Primary channels for a sequenced sourcing program:
-Resume databases
-Internal transfers (advantage of knowing their previous performance)
-Internet based advertising - compelling ads, targeted jobs, and web site optimization
-Employee referrals - proactively ask your top employees for names of best people they've workd with in the past.
-College recruiting
-Campaigns and career events
-External recruiters
Corporate recruiting departments all want to find the silver bullet, or the next tech toy, to solve their sourcing problems. A one-stop solution does not exist. This is a challenge that involves effective use of technology, implementation of a sequenced, multichannel sourcing strategy, and a strong team of recruiters and sourcing specialists who know how to deliver consistent results.
Before you write another ad understand that top people don't use the same criteria when applying, considering, or accepting an offer. When considering whether to apply, top people want the ad to clearly explain the challenges and growth opportunities.
Top people want:
1. The job match: The best people want to do work that challenges them and allows them to grow in areas they deem important.
2. The hiring manager. Top people want to work for leaders and mentors who can help them reach their goals.
3. The quality of the team. The team is a very important consideration for a top person.
4. The company : A strong company with a great brand makes it easier, but tying the actual job to some major company initiative is a great way to strengthen the link. This is called job branding and even small or less known companies can do this.
5. The compensation package: As long as the compensation package is reasonable, most top people don't consider it the number-one criteria.
Most advertising and sourcing programs are ineffective because they are targeting the wrong audience: those who need another job, not those who want a more challenging job or a long-term career.
Top people don't get excited about requirements. Not once have I ever heard a top person say the reason he or she was accepting an offer was to get more experience doing the same type of work. Yet, that's what most job descriptions offer. Change this if you want to start hiring more top people. Design your sourcing programs around the needs of top people, not average people.
The sourcing sweet spots: semi-active and semi-passive candidates.
Realistically, there are some very good active candidates and some pretty bad passive candidates.
Segmenting candidates based on need for a job:
Very-active: These are people who are desperate for a job, seeking short term compensation and security. This pool represents about 15 to 20 percent of the total employment market.
Semi-active: These are people who are fully employed but want a better job. They look infrequently, generally on bad days or just to test the market. 25 percent of the market. This is the sweet spot. To capture them, your ads needs to be visible and you must move fast. For a corporation with limited resouces, most of its efforts should be spent on sourcing people from this group.
Semi-passive: These are people who want to be found. They'll post their names on LinkedIn.com, but expect you to follow up to them. Make sure you have a compelling offer when you call or email this group or they won't be interested. 25 percent of market.
Very passive: These people don't want another job. Takes too much time and effort to recruit these types of people.
In slower economic times, the pool of semi-active and semi-passive candidates shrinks as these top people become reluctant to move from relatively safe jobs. If you aren't an employer of choice, you can do one of two things: 1) try to become one 2) make each job you're offering a job of choice. In my opinion, you should spend more time on the latter.
Good hiring is about hiring candidates who can achieve comparable results and are motivated to do it, so define great results and stop filtering out candidates for lack of skills. This eliminates many top performers who have 70 percent to 80 percent of the skills, but 150 percent of the desire and potential. By advertising on performance rather than skills, you'll increase the number of qualified candidates to select from.
Example, for an engineering company we benchmarked some existing top engineers and figured out six deliverables that were necessary around tech, quality, creativity, and we were able to filter candidates based on this criteria.
Don't post traditional skills-based job descriptions if you want to see more top people. This is akin to advertising the technical specifications for a consumer product and expecting people to buy it.
Ads need to describe what's in it for the candidate, not what's in it for the company.
**Sample Ad
Customer Service Rep, Juggler, and Master Organizer
Our client is growing fast in major part due to its focus on ensuring great customer service. As part of this expansion, the company wants to hire people who are looking for long-term careers in customer service, sales, or marketing. If you're interested in a career, not just a paycheck, then check this out:
1. You'll be put through a highly interactive three week training course.
2. You'll need to juggle a lot of tasks.
3. Attention to detail is critical. We take great pride in making sure every order is 100 percent correct.
4. We'd like a year or so in a call center or customer service position. More important though is a commitment to yourseld to be as good as you possibly can. We'll help you achieve this goal.
**
Here's another example:
**
CEO (circa 2010) Fast-Forward One Year
We'd like to thank you for making Philadelphia a great place to live. Here's what happened under your leadership:
1. You raised $50 million to create a City of Life center.
2. You introduced a new program for single moms, etc..
If you'd like this story to be yours...
**
If you want to attract the best people, ads should be written from their unique perspective - they don't need a job, but they might check out a better opportunity. If you want to gain their interest, recognize they're smart, savvy, insightful, and discriminating, but not desperate.
Strong people who already have good jobs need a few compelling reasons to leave their current position. Your ads must clearly describe three to four reasons why a top person should bother to spend his valuable time checking out your job opportunity.
In summary, great ads must meet three criteria:
1. Have a compelling title that's quickly seen on the long listings of open opportunities.
2. Write copy that's focused on what the candidate will learn, do, and become.
3. Describe the most critical skills in the context of how they're used.
An ads needs to overcome the inertia of not responding, or the pull of dozens of similar-sounding ads. Your ads must focus on the motivating needs of top performers. For most, it's a challenge or an opportunity. For some, it's better working conditions. For all, it's an opportunity to excel and to be recognized for doing outstanding work. Make sure your ads capture this concept.
The Primary Rule about Posting Ads: Make Sure They Can Be Found
1. Use SEO
2. Push your Ad on ZoomInfo and LinkedIn
Create a candidate profile to find connections to ideal candidates. Before you start using any of these marketing concepts draft a profile of your ideal candidate. Include all possible skills, keywords, connections, and links, as well as the types of people your candidate might know.
A survey of 500 candidates showed that 65 to 70 percent of candidates checked out a company's website before applying to a job. 75 perent decided not to pursue the job because of the website. Even passive candidates will look on your website before applying. Make sure your website looks good.
Web site tips:
1) Make it easy to find.
2) Post jobs of interest that are easy to find.
3) Ensure a quick and easy applicaton process (use autofill from resume if possible)
4) Call the best candidates within 24 hours. Semi-active candidates are fickle and you need to catch their attention.
5) Add a customer-relationship management program that captures emails and sends out customized emails.
6) Make sure your postings are on job site aggregators like Ineed.com or Jobster.com. eQuest.com offers a service to broadcast your job position on all these sites at once.
-Provide a bounty to current employees for referrals that get hired. This can range from $500 to $3000 for candidates who ultimately get hired.
-Use Zoom-Info, JigSaw, and LinkedIn to find potential people.
-Recruit the person first, then network. Offer them the job first and they will happy to supply other names of people that are interested.
-To be credible, you must know real job needs, have a great elevator pitch, and become an expert at the "recruit first, network second" approach described earlier.
-Be active about your recruiting not passive. This allows you to make better hiring decisions. A good workforce planning process consistants of a rolling quarterly forecast of all hiring needs for the next year. Hiring the best people can't just be delegated to HR, it must be on the mind of top executives (it was one of the top issues for Jack Welch and he played an active role in the hiring process).
-Planning is a prerequisite and provides the time needed to do it right. If you treat candidates as potential customers, rather than future subordinates, a whole shift in attitude takes place.
4. The Two Question Performance-Based Interview
The Four Core Traits of Universal Success
One of the two questions involves a candidate's past performance in great detail. The other question gets at the person's thinking, planning, and problem-solving abilities. The secret here is that you'll repeat the questions over and over again to see trends, links, and consistency.
GE leadership is defined as the ability to:
-energize yourself
-energize others
-the edge to make tough decisions
-the ability to execute
The best employees have the following characteristics:
1) Self motivation - everyone who achieved some level of success worked hard.
2) An ability to motivate others - inspiring others to work hard, including peers, superiors, as well as their own team.
3) Achievement of results that were comparable to what needed to be achieved.
4) An ability to solve comparable job problems in real time.
Performance-based Hiring Formula for Predicting Performance:
Success = Talent x Energy(squared) + Team Leadership + Comparable Past Performance + Job-Specific Problem Solving
In this formula, energy is by far the most important component. This is self motivation, and identical to the first of GE's four Es. We've all met people with great talent but little energy. Sadly, they never live up to their expectations. Others of average talent, but with extraordinary energy, often achieve success beyond all expectations.
The best people consistently deliver more results then expected, and they do it on time, all the time. This seperates the best from everyone else.
Don't be seduced by affability and social assertiveness, this is not correlated with success. If you've ever hired someone who is competent, but not motivfated, this is probably the cause. This is a very common hiring error. Another common error is to eliminate quiet people assuming there is a lack of energy.
The ability to cooperate with others is a component of this team leadership. Jack Welch said, "If you can't energize others, you can't be a leader." This is similiar to the concept of emotional intelligence: Why It Can matter more then IQ. Those who continually succeed have the core traits of personal energy and team leadership in abundance.
The likelihood of success in a new job increases if the applicant has a track record of accomplishments that are similar to the performance objectives of the job described in the performance profile.
The fourth trait of success involves thinking, planning, and job specific problem solving skills.
**The MOST IMPORTANT INTERVIEW QUESTION OF ALL TIME**
"Of all the things you've accomplished in your career, what stands out as the most significant? Now could you go ahead and tell me all about it?"
Getting the correct answer to this question can tell you about 65 to 75 percent of everything you need to make an accurate hiring decision.
Follow-Ups to this question:
-What were the three or four big challenges you had to overcome?
-What where the actual results obtained?
-When did this take place and at what company?
-How long did it take to complete the task?
-What was the situation you faced when you took the project?
-Where were you chosen, did you volunteer? Why?
-What was your actual ttile? Who were the people on your team?
-What technical skills were needed to accomplish the task? What skills were learned?
More on page. 104.
It's pretty remarkable when you think about what an interviewer could learn about a candidate by just asking about his or her biggest accomplishment. If I left it up to you to tell me about the accomplishment without the deliberate fact-finding, I would have been measuring presentation - what you wanted to tell me - not performance. The interviewer needs to take responsibility to obtain this information from the candidate. It's not the candidate's responsibility to provide it to you.
Accurate interviewing is about peeling the onion and digging deep into an accomplishment, not asking a bunch of clever questions.
The key to using the most significant accomplishment question is to ask it multiple times to observe long-term trends for individual, team, and job-related accomplishments.
1. The standard MSA question: Can you please describe a major career accomplishment you believe represents your best work?
2. The MSA for entry-level positions: Can you please describe a project or task you were involved in that made you quite proud, or where you really exceed expectations?
3. The MSA question for team skills: Can you please describe a major team accomplishment you believe represents a great example of you leading, building, or working on a team?
4. The MSA question for individual accomplishments: Can you please describe a significant individual accomplishment you believe best represents one of your individual strengths?
5. The MSA question for job-related accomplishments: One important project for us is ____. Can you please describe something you've been involved with that's most comparable?
MSA questions provide great insights into the first four core traits - talent, motivation to do the work required, team leadership, and comparable past performance.
Develop a trend line of performance and see whether the individual is still developing or whether he/she has flattened out.
The Second Most Important Question: Visualization and Problem Solving:
"If you were to get this job, how would you go about solving _____ (describe a typical problem).
The key here is to get into a give-and-take discussion about a realistic job problem. It's been my experience that top performers have the ability to discuss what's needed to solve typical problems. Even if the person can't provide the answer right away, she knows how to get to the answer.
If you're hiring a sales manager, ask "How would you go about ensuring that the team met quota every month?" For an engineer, it might be, "How would you design and develop this prodct to ensure it's production by next March?"
At the end of the interview categorize whether their reasoning is complex, advanced, or superficial. The best candidates demonstrate a good understanding of the cause and effect of their action.
-There is a general tendency for candidates to generalize and give one-minute answers. It's important to get details; that's why getting examples is so important. Once you get candidates to speak freely you'll discover that they tend to give more information on subsequent questions.
Two additional MSA team-leadership questions:
1. If the person isn't directly supervising others: "Please draw an organization chart and tell me about a team project you were involved in, and describe your role.
2. If the person is a manager: "Please draw an organization chart and tell me how you built and developed this team, and describe the group's biggest accomplishment.
Develop a Trend Line to Measure Long-Term Impact
The trend line isn't always obvious, but getting major objectives this way will help determine whether the candidate's performance is on an upward trend, has flattened out, or is declining.
Example: All of the candidates were strong and held similar positions, but only one was on an upward growth path and I recommended him, even though he was a little quiet. The other two had significant success early in their careers, but for the past 10 years had settled into comfortable situations. While both of them could do the current job and professed a desire to grow, neither had taken any action to invest in themselves. The other candidate was taking night classes, learning advanced distribution techniques and developing his staff. No matter what a candidate tells you, look for these signs of UPWARD growth.
"Greatness isn't handed to anyone; it requires a lot of hard work. The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what researchers call "deliberate practice." It's activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition."
Interestingly, the best candidates respond very favorably to this inquisitive approach. These people like to talk about their accomplishments. They also feel more positive about managers requesting this information. It tells the candidate that the manager has high standards, is thorough, and has probably built a team of strong people. Good people want to work for these kinds of managers. Weaker candidates get put off and squirmy with this inquisitive style.
Look for comparable accomplishments. Get details like staff size, comparable scope and complexity of the assignment, and similar company environments.
We've discovered that the process used to achieve sales success is more important than a specific product or customer. People who have track records of selling complex technology to extremely discriminating customers can do this whether it's telecommunications gear, computers, or capital equipment used in manufacturing.
-His answers were more general and shorter - two classic signs of lack of experience or interest. Even fact-finding didn't help. His best examples were superficial in nature.
-The visualization process is less like an interview and more like a real working session. This is how and what you would talk about after the candidate starts. Good people know how to go from point A to point B and are not afraid to discuss how they'd do it, or to ask for more information.
One of my clients used the visualization technique with great success to hrie someone to head up a new business unit. My client told me they spent the whole second half of the first interview laying out the plan on a flip chart. Both the candidate and my client believed this was one of the most revealing and insightful interview sessions either has ever had.
There are some great communicators who can visualize, but who have never actually done anything comparalbe (like consultants). I agree with their concern when visualiation questions are unrelated to the job. Job-related situational questions, however, are a great means to assess the required thinking skills used on the job.
At a retail pet-supply store, entry-level sales personnel, generally recent high school graduates, are asked how they would handle some typical customer complaints. Then they're asked to describe real world examples of handling similar interpersonal conflicts. With this dual approach, the anchor and visualize pattern can be used to increase hiring acccuracy for any type of position.
You'll never be able to complete all your questioning during the first interview, leave the remaining anchor questions for another interviewer or for the second interview.
Brief Outline of the Interview Process:
Step 1: Warm-up; do a quick interview and understand the candidate's motivation for looking.
Step 2: Wait 30 minutes and measure the impact of first impressions at the end of the interview.
Step 3: Conduct a comprehensive work history review. Go through every job and find out what the person accomplished, what the person didn't accomplish, the team the person worked with, why the person took the job, and any recognition they received. If you spend half of the opening interview on this, you'll know what you need to do in the second half.
Step 4: Ask about major individual accomplishments. Ask about high accomplishments and then select ones that best meet your job needs to learn more about.
Step 5: Ask about a major team accomplishment. Use specific team fact-finding follow up questions.
Step 6: Ask a problem-solving question. During the visualization question, start a discussino about a realistic job problem, not some hypothetical situation.
Step 7: Recruit and close.
Step 8: Measure first impressions again. You'll be dumbstruck when you measure first impressions at the end of the interview and compare them to your inital reaction. Many of the people you initially thought were great won't be, and many of the ones you thought were weark will turn into stars.
On a recent survey we conducted with over 500 candidates, 80 percent indicated they were somewhat or very nervous during the opening moments of the job interview. Even top performers and top salespeople fell in this group. So don't dismiss candidates for this during the first 30 minutes. Wait to make your impressions. Accept the fact that nobody likes to interview and that a nervous candidate is just a nervous candidate. Don't assume this is related to performance.
OPENING QUESTION:
"As you know, we're looking for ______ position. Let me give you a quick overview of the importance of this position. (Give a two minute overview of the position and the company). Tell me how your background has prepared you for this type of important position."
This narrows down the focus by requesting only relevant background information.
When you make the job compelling, applicats tell you more about themselves. They sell you, rather than you having to sell them. A good interview is a fact finding mission, not a sales pitch.
-I openly tell candidates that I'm more concerned with specific examples about a few major accomplishments than lots of broad generalities.
Assessing Character and Values
"Can you give me the best example of something you accomplished where you were totally committed to the task?" This quickly gets at the heart of character. The ability to perservere under difficult conditions is an essential trait of top performers. It's the character component of energy because it's easier to work hard under ideal conditions than difficult conditions. While this approach doesn't cover every aspect of character, it covers the most important. Use this question in the later part of the interview when candidates are likely to be more candid.
Ask about failures. It might be time to raise the caution flag if the candidate can't openly describe some failures.
The Close: Use Recruiting to End Round Round One
"Although we're seeing some other fine candidates, I personally think you have a very strong background. We'll get back to you in a few days, but what are your thoughts about this position?"
This question does the following:
1) First, you created supply. Good jobs are more attractive when other good people are being considered.
2) Created demand by expressing sincere interest in the candidate.
3) Asking the candidate for interest level is important because you want candidates to openly discuss their thoughts, feelings, and concerns.
4) If a candidate is not interested you want to understand her concerns. Your objective with reluctant candidates is to get them to stay open-minded and come back for another series of interviews.
Fact-Finding: The Most Important Interviewing Technique
Get lots of information about the candidate's top five or six major accomplishments. This is all that's necessary to make an accurate hiring decision. The key for each accomplishment is to understand the results achieved, the process used to achieve the results, and the environment in which these results took place.
THE DIFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD ANSWERS AND BAD HIRING DECISIONS LIES WITH FACT-FINDING.
One of my candidates told me her greatest accomplishmetn was in never making a hiring mistake. She told me she clearly understood the work that needed to get done, she didn't initially care whether she liked or disliked the candidate, and she spent the first interview only getting examples, facts, and figures to verify a candidate's past performance. This is the way interviewing and hiring needs to be done.
There is a tendency on the part of candidates to overstate or mislead, either through outright fraud or generalizations. Fact-finding peels away the onion to get at reality. By asking for specific examples to support any generalization, you force the candidate to justify a response.
Most interviewers ask too many general questions. A few questions with lots of fact-finding is a better approach. TURN GENERALITIES into SPECIFICS by getting EXAMPLES of everything.
Tips:
-Reread the resume before an interview, even if you have already conducted a phone interview. If you haven't conducted a phone interview, going over the resume is even more important.
-During the interview, ask for specific examples to validate strengths and clairfy concerns.
-Floundering interviews turn off the best candidates.
-The rule is to listen four times more than you talk.
-IF IT DOESN'T PERTAIN TO JOB PERFORMANCE DON'T ASK IT, it may be ILLEGAL and it won't gain you any more insight on the individual's potential performance. Get legal advice if you're unsure, but the key is to avoid all personal questions and you'll be fine.
5. The Evidence-Based Assessment
-Most decisions are made with little evidence. Managers tend to have preconceived biases, beliefs, and perceptions. Facts are then collected to support these preconceived ideas and contrary information is avoided, ignored, or dismissed as irrelevant.
-Consensus is good - unless it's reached too easily. In other words, it's okay to argue and disagree about a point of view: this way, more information is considered analytically.
-The only time you should make a gut decision is when you don't have any time. "Gut decisions are made in moments of crisis when there is no time to weigh arguments and calculate the probability of every outcome" the Harvard study showed. This is RARELY the case so don't make these gut decisions.
-In the big scheme of things, hiring a top person does not take much more time. It's the rush to decide that causes most of the problems. It takes much more time to correct a bad hiring decision.
-This "decide and collect" approach to assessing competency needs to be eliminated from the hiring decision-making process. The best way to do this is to "systemize it out."
GENERALITIES, GUT FEELINGS, and INTUITION are unacceptable inputs for ranking a candidate.
-Assess all candidates using a formal assessment tool across the best predictors of job success using a clear ranking system. The book introduces a 10-Factor Candidate Assessment template, which serves this purpose.
10-Factor Assessment:
1. Overall Technical Competency
2. Motivation for Required Work
3. Overall Team Skills
4. Problem Solving
5. Achieve Comparable Results
6. Planning and Organization
7. Environment/Culture
8. Trend of Growth
9. Character & Values
10. Potential
etc.
Team Projects, Tasks
Tech Projects, Key Tasks
Problem Questions
Recruit/Close
Interest Level
Different levels of hires:
Level 1: Doesn't work to do the work and can't do the work. Easy to figure out.
Level 2: Competent to do the work, says he or she will do the work, but won't do it. This is the most common hiring mistake. It's caused by juding people on their skills, not their motivation.
Level 3: Competent and motivated to do most, if not all, of the work described.
Level 4: Quickly promotable and exceeds expectations.
Level 5: Promotable at least two levels in a short period of time. This person not only puts effort into self-improvement, but also improves the company and the team.
No Level 2's
One of the primary goals of the Performance-based Hiring interviewing process is to prevent Level 2's from being hired.
The 10 Best Predictors of On-the-Job Success:
1. Talent to Do the Work
When evaluating the talent needed to do the work, don't look just for technical brilliance. Instead, look at how a candidate will use his technical ability in achieving practical results.
2. Motivation to Do the Work
Don't EVER compromise on this factor. It's the universal trait of success.
Don't make the leap that a highly motivated person is always highly motivated. Most people work hard doing work they like to do. Sometimes it's due to working for a great manager or in a perfect environment. Be extra diligent trying to find the circumstances underlying the motivation.
An extroverted personality is neither proof of, nor a prerequisite for, self-motivation on the job.
3. Team Leadership : The Ability to Persuade, Motivate, and Cooperate with Others
The ability to persuade and motivate people who don't work for you is a critical component of leadership. Get examples of dealing with conflict or persuading others to change their position and determine how compromises were made. Introverted people can also be great team leaders.
Remember, if a person only has vague examples this is a good example of a Level 2 employee and should be avoided!
4. Problem-Solving and Critical-Thinking Skills
How the candidate organizes a major task or evaluates a current problem requires insight and understanding. The quality of the questions asked by the candidate are a strong indicator of the candidate's thinking and reasoning skills, adaptability, communication skills, logic, decision making, knowledge, and problem-solving ability.
Many great questions but limited experience are a good sign of a high-potential person. Raise the caution flag if the candidate's experience is strong but the questioning is weak.
Level 5 would have not only answered the question well, but would have asked more in-depth questions and then would have provided a series of realistic alternatives never before considered.
5. Comparability of Past Accomplishments
When the interview is conducted this way, past performance is a a great predictor of future performance.
The key here is to find people who have successfully handled the complexities of the required tasks, rather then the exact tasks. Not only does this open the job to other top performers, these other top people often find the challenge of working in different industries and on different challenges more exciting and motivation.
Level 5 ranking is deserved on this category if the person thrives in your type of environment and has demonstrated not only great success for each major performance objective, but also takes this performance to a totally unexpected level.
6. Planning, Management, and Organization
A Level 2 ranking means the person is very unorganized. This would be revealed by a pattern of excuses for failing to meet deadlines, reacting to problems rather than anticipating them, and an approach to planning that does not seem to improve over time.
7. Environment and Culture Fit
This is a critical factor for job success that's often overlooked during the interviewing process. To increase the accuracy of the assessment, compare a candidate's accomplishments and the environment where they took place to the performance objectives listed in the performance profile and the environment at your company.
When assessing cultural fit, don't undervalue the candidate's use of referance to :
A) Working alone
B) Belong to a team
C) In charge of a team
At the end of the interview, count up the number of ticks under I, we, etc.
A Level 3 on environmental and cultural fit would be justified, if the person's accomplishments took place in an environment that was very comparable to your company's. A Level 4 or 5 is appropriate if the person thrives in an environment like your company's.
8. Trend of Performance Over Time
While he was a very self-motivated person, he had been at the same management level for the past 10 years, an indication that he had plateaued careerwise (not necessarily bad but should be taken into consideration for the specific position).
9. Character: Values, Commitment, and Goals
Understanding a peron's value system allows you to predict how he'll react under various work-related circumstances.
Compare the size of the goals already achieved to any future goals and to the needs of the job. Ask if the goals are in writing. This helps validate the candidate's real, versus stated, philosophy. Goals always require a series of substeps before they're completed. Ask about this progress.
If a candidate wants to be promoted ask what he/she has done to improve herself. Only a few people spend time at personal development. This could be in the form of continuous outside education, volunteering for new work, or taking the initiative of expanding the role of their current job without any expectations of a reward.
Commitment is a critical component of character that complements energy and potential. Ask the candidate to give you an example of when he or she was totally committed to a task. Some high-energy people are great starters but poor finishers.
When assessing character, look for frank and open responses especially regarding failures. Determine whether the candidate takes responsibility for both the successes and failures. Be concerned if this is one-sided or vague.
10. Potential
Review trend lines, critical thinking skills, team leadership skills, and personal commitment to grow and develop.
It would be hard to rank a person too high on potential if he didn't have a bunch of Level 4s and 5s in the other nine critical factors.
Spotting Fatal Flaws
Don't overlook fatal flaws. Clues to Some Fatal Flaws:
-Great communicator, but person's management role doesn't seem to be growing. Maybe a great consultant type but weak manager.
-Vague, superficial or short answers.
-Inconsistent track record blamed on outside circumstances.
-Lots of drive and ambition but maybe too assertive, potential ego problem.
-Too fast of a track record, maybe promoted past his capacity.
-Extremes in any behavior - too analytical, too assertive, too friendly, too persuasive. Usually this leads to problems regarding flexibility or balance.
-Lots of energy but answers are too general.
-Lots of excuses about why things weren't achieved.
-If you observe any of these signs, you must get proof to overcome the potential concern. The best way to get an example of a significant example that disproves the potential fatal flaw.
The Professionalism and Quality of the Interview Counts
Candidates judge the quality of the company and the quality of their potential supervisor by, the quality of the interviewing process.
6. Everything Else after the First Interview: Completing the Assignment
Stay Objective: The first interview represents less than half of the total assessment.
-Additional interviews, reference checks, and testing are all invaluable. Frequently these steps are ignored or minimized. Once a candidate is on the short list, most managers use the added time to look for information to confirm a "yes" decision.
An unstructured interview is only 57 percent accurate in predicting subsequent performance, using a performance profile the number goes to 75 percent, when combined with some of the other tools suggested in this chapter, accuracy can increase to 80 or 90 percent.
Some fo the things you do after the first interview include reference checking, background verification, drug testing, assessment testing, and more interviews. These are all critical to making the process of hiring a professional an effective business process.
The Important of Reference Checking
Strong candidates have strong references who will openly tell you about them. Lack of good reference is a sign of a potential problem. There are VERY FEW EXCEPTIONS to this rule. Here's one: once in awhile, a candidate's job search is extremely confidential. Under these circumstances it's sometimes hard to find a colleague willing to vouch.
An additional concern is negligent hiring when employers do not take the sufficient care to check an applicant's background.
How to Really Conduct a Reference Check
Conduct the reference check just like the interview by getting specific examples to prove a generality and then by fact-finding. Even those people who do give you a reference may talk in glowing terms or generalities. If someone says the candidate has great team skills, ask for specific examples.
The key to good interviewing and good reference checking is to ask many questions and get examples. Use peers, subordinates, and supervisors as references. Subordinates are sometimes the best references, so don't ignore these people.
References, even from strong candidates, need to be validated. First, determine the quality of the reference, then get the reference to give specific examples to validate the hyperbole and generalities.
1. Qualifying the Reference
-Determine the relationship to the candidate.
-Obtain the reference's current title, company, scope of the job.
-Determine the reference's scope of responsibility.
-Determine what the company environment was like.
2. Qualifying the Candidate
The key to good reference checking is to get details and examples. If the reference states that the candidate was really committed, ask the reference to give you an example that best demonstrates this trait. If you probe like this a few times, the reference will realize you're serious. Most reference checkers just want to check boxes. By showing your professionalism this way, the reference will be more open and frank.
If initiative was mentioned as a key strength, ask for a specific accomplishment demonstrating initiative. Do the same for weaknesses.
GET PROOF with good examples.
Ask the reference to compare the candidate to others at the same level. "How would you rank this person among other people you know at this level. Ask what percentile this individual falls in. Ask what it would take for the candidate to move into the top 10 or 5 percent (good weakness question).
Ask the reference whether he/she would rehire or work with the candidate again and under what circumstance (very revaling). Probe this to confirm previous statements (Zero-based thinking).
Conduct the reference check with an open mind. If you really want to hire the candidate, you might unintentionally avoid asking the tough questions. Reference checking allows you to validate the candidate's true role in each major accomplishment.
Conducting the Second Interview
Focus less on chitchatting and more on asking questions. Use the performance-based interviewing techniques for all subsequent interviews. The key is to dig into accomplishments and failures to understand true performance.
Find examples of where the candidate excelled at doing work comparable to what you need done. During the interview, candidates will often tell you that they have no problem doing portions of the work that aren't too exciting. Be skeptical here. Once on the job, these parts of the job are often ignored or done poorly. If a candidate needs a job, he will say anything. This is how competent but unmotivated people get hired. To overcome this, obtain recent examples of the candidate going the extra mile to complete the type of work required. Raise the caution flag if you don't find some reasonable exeprience.
If you want to increase assessment accuracy and save time, conduct more panel interviews. These are much better than an all-day series of one-on-one 45 to 60 minute interviews. Even weaker interviews learn something, if they just observe. Panel interviews also provide a great means for subordinates to get involved in the hiring process.
Note: Subordinates should never conduct one-on-one interviews. Since they usually prefer to work for someone they like, they focus on the wrong issues.
Why panel interviews?
Panel interviews are more objective. There is less personal interaction, and it's hard to chitchat, which is a good thing, since chitchatting is a waste of time.
There is a chance to think more about the candidate's responses, since you're not the only one asking questions.
You don't make instant judgments about the quality of an answer while the candidate is answering because others are clarifying information. More indepth answers are required when others are probing.
Strong candidates like panel interviews if they're well organized and if the candidate is not put into an intimidating situation.
It's a great way for subordinate to meet the candidates without the typical awkwardness.
Wearker interviewers can be involved.
The assessment is more accurate and consistent (David's Note: see probabilities, if you have 75% of getting it right and you put two people together, then the combined odds are 94%! (if the events are indepentent)
The panel should include no more than three or four people or it can be intimidating. One interviewer should be the leader and everyone else should be in a support position.
Secondary Interviewers
Every other member of the panel interviewing team is in a support role. However, each person should be active during the interviewing, asking for examples and clarifying information.
It's okay if one of the secondary interviewers becomes a primary for a different question or for a different section of the interview (especially for some technical competency).
Make the thrust of the interview a discussion of the candidate's major accomplishments. It's okay to ask the candidate to come prepared to discuss a few of her most relevant major accomplishments.
One potential problem with panel interviews is that they can be intimidating to the candidate. Describe the format of the session a few days before hand to ease the candidate's fears.
Take Home Case Study
The take-home project is something the candidate does outside of the interview that's discussed at a subsequent meeting. Topics for this include reviewing reports, solving real job related problems, evaluating new products, etc. The take-home study approach has a number of tangible benefits. For one, it reveals true motivation and desire. Candidates won't spend much time preparing if they're not truly interested in the job (also by trying hard they will internalize wanting the job more). This approach does a better job of revealing competency through direct observation compared to opinion or gut feelings.
If you use take-home projects, give the candidate a few days to prepare, and then only if the candidate has expressed a desire to be considered a finalist. Make sure the issues explored are relevant and job specific.
You don't need to have a panel session to review take-home projects, but if you do, you get the benefit of both assessment techniques. Here are ideas for take-home projects:
1) Review reports, financial statements, studies or plans.
2) Have an engineer assess a design and present some alternative solutions or approaches.
3) Describe a problem ina process and have the candidate come up with a solution.
4) Have a salesperson tell you how he would attempt to secure a big account.
5) Have a product manager describe how she would develop and launch a product.
Background Checks
You must conduct background check on every candidate including degree verification, employment history, credit review, driving record, and criminal background. The cost is low and the protection is high. For $100 you can conduct a background check for every finalist. This will help ensure that you don't hire the wrong person and it will minimize legal liability (www.HireRight.com for a reputable firm).
In general, don't trust resumes. From the candidate's perspective, the resume is a marketing tool, not a historical document. While a clever layout is okay, fraud is not.
On your applications, state that you'll be conducting a background check and then require the candidate to validate the truthfulness of the information, affirmed by his or her signature.
Assessments to Confirm, not Predict, Competency
Divide assessment tests into four broad categories:
1) Assessing skills: Determine whether someone can use Excel for example.
2) Assessing personality: For example Myers-Briggs.
3) Measuring cognitive ability: Testing, the use of verbal and numeric reasoning.
4) Measuring competencies: watching for factors such as drive, honesty, and dependability.
Preinterview assessments are less useful for staff and management positions and usless when you want to hire an A-level passive candidate. The problem here is that the best people won't spend the time to take the rest.
There is a high correlation between the Wonderlic Personnel Test and on the job competence as evidenced by a study. I strongly recommend that you use a cognitivie test to confirm performance, not to predict it. The smartest people don't always deliver the results you want. However, people who deliver the results you want are usually smart enough to do the job. And that is what you really want to confirm.
Never use personality tests to predict performance. Personality tests like Myers-Briggs measure preferences not competencies.
Of all the techniques in the book, the most important is the preparation of a performance profile before interviewing any candidates. When everyone on the hiring team knows what they're looking for, there is a natural tendency to ask the right questions.
I know of one CEO who conducts three different interviews: one in the office, one during a meal, and one in a social gathering.
7. Recruiting, Negotiating, and Closing Offers
There are two fundamental recruiting principles. Violate them at your own peril. First, never make a formal offer until it's accepted. This way, there's no time for the candidate to shop it around. Second, provide your candidate a compelling future vision that overwhelms the past. This way, there's no chance of the person taking a counteroffer.
Implementing these rules is what recruiting is all about. As far as I'm concerned, recruiting is the most important part of the hiring process.
-Recruiting is not something you do at the end of the interview. It starts at the beginning of the hiring process, when you write the performance profile and post a compelling ad.
-Recruiting is more about consultative needs analysis than transactional selling. It must be good for the person or else he will not be happy nor succeed.
-Recruiting and closing are not about compensation, it's about opportunity. If your job is not different from the competition's, then all you have left is the money.
-The best candidates will never make the decision alone. Part of the recruiting process is to provide the right information for the candidate to use to persuade others (great sales tip).
The key to recruiting: Create a compelling opportunity, present it early and often, and make the candidate earn the right to have it. Listen four times more than you talk to get recruiting right.
It's never about the money. It's always about the opportunity. I've been recruiting for over 25 years and training recruiters and managers for over 15 years. The best people rarely take the job for money; they take it for the opportunity to meet their personal life plans, ambitions, and goals. Another lesson is that there is never enough money in the budget, someone can always pay more. So never make it about the money.
When you give someone the job, he doesn't want it. When you make it hard to get, he wants it more.
The 30% Plus Solution
To get a top person to accept an offer, you will need to offer at least a 30 percent increase, but it doesn't have to be strictly compensation. If the job is 15 percent bigger, you are halfway there. You can get another 5 to 10 percent in long term job growth by demonstrating realistic future opportunities. That leaves 5 to 10 percent which can be in the form of compensation increase.
Suggest to your candidate that the decision to take an offer with your company should not be based on the money. It should be based on the opportunity represented by the job, primarily the job stretch and the job growth components.
Go on to say that the person should turn this or any offer down, regardless of the compensation increase, if the job growth piece is not obvious. This is how you have to posture the hiring and recruiting process at your company if you want to hire more top people and minimize counteroffers and competitive offers.
Think about new products, new strategies, or new markets as you create your compelling offer. Forget, "This is a great place to work." Be specific and say, "The person taking this job will lead the sales effort to open the Northeast territory, a critical part of the company's growth strategy."
Emphasize the plus (non compensation factors) factor. Strong candidates want to work for strong managers. This increases the likelihood that they'll grow, develop, and improve themselves if they take the job.
Bottom Line: Differentiating the job is how you beat out the competition. Someone will always be able to offer more money.
Challenging questions are another way to create interest by pushing the candidate away to see whether the candidate pushes back. "While I like your background, I'm concerned about your lack of experience in developing international account systems. Have I missed something? If not, can you describe what you've accomplished that you feel is most related to our needs?" This approach, used judiciously throughout the interview, can increase a candidate's interest in a job.
Remember, end the interview on a positive note: "Although we're seeing some other fine candidates. I'm very impressed with your background. What are your thoughts now about the position?" The positive affirmation is important. This feedback tells the candidate he's in contention.
In the past 20 years in my search firm, with over 1000 different salary negotiations, less then 5 percent fell apart because of compensation. Candidates are always more realistic after they understand the opportunity, and companies are always more flexible when they meet a strong candidate.
By the end, both parties thought the fit was perfect and basically split the difference. This deal would never have come together if salary had been used as a yes/no filter instead of just an important discussion point. When it comes time to accept an offer, compensation is number five on the top five reason why candidates accept offers. When you first call, it's number one.
To prevent discussions about the salary early on say: our compensation structure is heavily based on bonus, with a low starting base salary. Is this something you would consider as we move on to the second round of interviews?
Never make a formal offer until every aspect of the offer has been tested and agreed on before hand.
"Assuming we can make an attractive offer, how does the job and challenge appeal to you?" This allows you to address any concerns about the job first (and save on having to raise compensation). Compensation should not be the primary reason a person takes your job. You'll never be able to build a great team that way.
Here are the factors that people consider:
1) Salary
2) Bonus
3) Car
4) Other cash compenastion
5) Title-Position
6) Benefits
7) Options
8) Relocation package
9) Next Review
10) Other
Here's the basic question to use as you test components of the offer. "As part of your final offer, we're considering a relocation package that consists of [describe]. Is this consistent with your expectations?"
The Close: Putting it All Together
"Since it seems like we're in agreement on all the terms, when do you think you could start if we could formalize this package in the next few days? In classic selling, this is called a secondary close, since giving a start date indicates total acceptance of all the terms.
Probing like this will uncover any potential deal breakers and give you the time you need to address them properly. Anything other than "immediately" or "by tommorow evening" is a cause for concern. Probe deeper, find the problem and address it.
While there are no garauntees, the above process brings better results then other processes that are used.
Ask the person whether should would be open to accept the offer if you could provide an early review or offer a signing bonus.
Get confirmation, "Are you suggesting that if we can't meet your salary needs you're withdrawing yourself from consideration?" If the answer is "yes", you can either say you'll see what you can do, or terminate the process. Often the candidate will acquiesce.
Counteroffers
This is where the PLUS in the 30% plus solution becomes important. If your candidate has strong ties to her current boss and team members, you'll need to counteract this by establishing a stronger bond with the new manager and new team. Present your offer over lunch or dinner, inviting the spouse if it helps. Make the person feel like part of the new team during the recruiting an testing phase.
Apparent Lack of Promotional Opportunities issue: to refinroce this, you can say that the candidate will be given as much responsibility as she demonstrates she can handle. Follow this up by stating that promotions are given to those who meet their performance objectives.
-If a candidate contends the job isn't big enough, make it bigger. Titles are also important. If the job title is not comparable to the candidate's previous title, make sure to discuss the comparability of the job.
-If someone is hestitant tell them that he obviously wouldn't move unless it was a top 1 percent opportunity, so it was at least worth exploring (sales technique that can be applied to anyone buying).
- "As mentioned during the course of your interview, we're a little concerned about your lack of international experience. This is a critical area for us and will represent a great area for personal grwoth for you. As you develop, we'll certainly compensate you accordingly, but right now we believe the offer is fair."
Recruiting Mistakes to Avoid:
-Don't put a damper on the job like saying there are few long-term opportunities or that they'll have to stay in the same job for 2-3 years.
-If you're unprepared, appear unprofessional, and ask stupid questions, you'll drive away even average candidates.
-Don't sell too soon.
-Don't talk about money too soon, or too late.
-Stay away from personal, ethnic or family matters.
-Don't demean the candidate or go overboard on technical grilling.
-Don't wait until the end of the interviewing process to make an offer. You've given up your bargaining position because candidate knows he's the only one left.
-Don't stop recruiting after the offer is accepted. Great candidates get counteroffers and competing offers. Don't stop recruiting until the candidate starts the job.
Every college sports coach is rated primarily on being a good recruiter. If you can get the talent, being the coach is relatively easy. But even a great coach can't compensate for weak talent. The hiring manager must proactively take on the responsibility of recruiting.
8. Implementing Performance-Based Hiring
Anarchy rules - at most companies hiring is not an integrated system, but an out-of-control bunch of independent processes and steps. Build a hiring culture that's talent-centric. Most companies today have an administrative-driven hiring process, certainly not one that's market or talent-driven.
Hiring the best requires a dedicated executive management team who recognizes the importance as a core business process.
This is the essence of a talent-centric culture - treating candidates as customers. Understand how top people make career decision.
-If you want to hire more top people, recognize that the time they invest in looking for a new opportunity is minimal. To address this constraint, publicize your jobs well and promote them quickly.
-The best people are more selective and more discriminating. When considering new opportunities, they balance short term considerations with long term opportunities.
Offer Careers, Not Jobs
-Winging it in an interview is equivalent to winging it during a product presentation to a new customer.
Throughout this book I've made it clear that understanding the performance needs of the job is essential to finding, assessing, recruiting, and hiring top performers on a consistent basis. I'll also make the claim that the quality of a company's ongoing performance management process is the core component of a talent-driven culture.
If you're reacting, you're not planning. If you want to hire someone for an important position six months from now, start the sourcing process today.
As soon as you prepare a performance profile, you'll begin to experience the benefits of Performance-based Hiring. Just use the guidelines in chapter 2.
Once you are comfortable using performance profiles and clarifying expectations, you'll discover that not only will you hire better people, but you will become a better manager.
If someone starts listing skills and personality traits as requirements, ask her to describe what the candidate needs to do with the skill, so it're more measurable. This is how you make the shift from having to doing.
Write a compelling ad that can be found.
-Ask at least one problem-solving question. Appendix C there are three interview templates.
GOLDEN RULES for Hiring Great People
1. Prepare a performance profile before every new job requisition gets approved.
2. Everyone must use the performance-based interviewing techniques and ask two core questions.
3. Do not hire a candidate unless a group of 10-Factor Candidate Assessment template has been prepared.
4. Do not hire Level 2s.
Take it Further
Most learning is experienced a bit further then most people are willing to take things.
Why? Because we only gain experience through NEW experiences. New experiences are outside of our comfort zones and therefore require us to stretch ourselves, something most people are not willing to do.
I have personally found the greatest rewards and experience by taking it just one step further.
I have held on tighlty to this idea that experience is more important then short term rewards. This is the only way that I am willing to put up with the extra stress and pain that comes along with new situations and experience.
Experience, like education, is binary in nature. You can go a month reading or doing different tasks getting no experential benefit (0,0,0,0), but then the one experience or one idea jumps out and you get a very fast boost, and it means EVERYTHING.
The problem is that you never know when it will happen, but if you stick with it, I garauntee you it will surely happen... and when it does write it down and it will be ingrained in your mind for good.
Why? Because we only gain experience through NEW experiences. New experiences are outside of our comfort zones and therefore require us to stretch ourselves, something most people are not willing to do.
I have personally found the greatest rewards and experience by taking it just one step further.
I have held on tighlty to this idea that experience is more important then short term rewards. This is the only way that I am willing to put up with the extra stress and pain that comes along with new situations and experience.
Experience, like education, is binary in nature. You can go a month reading or doing different tasks getting no experential benefit (0,0,0,0), but then the one experience or one idea jumps out and you get a very fast boost, and it means EVERYTHING.
The problem is that you never know when it will happen, but if you stick with it, I garauntee you it will surely happen... and when it does write it down and it will be ingrained in your mind for good.
The First 100 Minutes
The first 100 minutes of an individual's day accounts for 80% of their success.
Sure, I have no research or "hard" evidence to prove this, but if you are a part of the working world you will soon discover that this is indeed correct?
Why is that?
After the first 100 minutes it is very difficult to get important things done because most people are hassled by putting out fires and working on short term tasks. Therefore, it is in the first 100 minutes that everything gets done.
This is probably the reason for the high level of success correlated with early risers (there IS research on this). Those that come in to work 30 minutes - couple hours earlier have a distinct advantage over their peers.
Sure, I have no research or "hard" evidence to prove this, but if you are a part of the working world you will soon discover that this is indeed correct?
Why is that?
After the first 100 minutes it is very difficult to get important things done because most people are hassled by putting out fires and working on short term tasks. Therefore, it is in the first 100 minutes that everything gets done.
This is probably the reason for the high level of success correlated with early risers (there IS research on this). Those that come in to work 30 minutes - couple hours earlier have a distinct advantage over their peers.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Management is Intervention
"For managers to be effective, management philosophies and theories have to be converted into things managers "do" that influence people's performance. Management has to be recognized as an intervention the same way mechanical maintenance. " - Ferdinand Fournies
You need to ANTICIPATE the need for managerial assistance or you will be shocked when it happens and will not actively and consciously be a proactive manager.
You need to ANTICIPATE the need for managerial assistance or you will be shocked when it happens and will not actively and consciously be a proactive manager.
Why Employees Don't Do What They are Supposed to Do
1. They Don't Know Why They Should Do It
Enlightened managers know that it is alright for employees to ask, "Why?" Unfortunatley, not enough managers make the effort to answer the question before it is asked. As a result, employees fail because they don't know why they should do it.
Frequently in business, people are required to do things in a certain way for reasons that are very clear to managers but are not so clear to employees. Here are some examples for the first category:
-My boss is really weird. She gets aggravated when you don't grab the phone as soon as it rings. (The reason the telephone should be answered within two rings is because we want to create the image of effective service to our customers).
Preventive Solution
The reason for doing things must be important enough to employees to influence their choices of how to perform when the boss is not watching.
1. Before you put people to work, let them know why they should do the things you pay them to do. The first category includes the benefit to the organization for doin the task right and/or the harm to the organization for doing it wrong.
2. When you want people to change for the purpose of solving problems or improving quality or productivity:
a. Explain the problem in detail
b. Explain the goals in detail
c. Discuss the solutions in detail
d. Explain the expected benefit of success, and
e. Expected agony of defeat
3. When a task is undesirable or difficult to do, or if the immediate consequences of the task are not rewarding, make an extra effort to explain the five items just given.
4. Don't make the mistake of touting "The Honor & Glory of the Company" as the reason people should do things, if all you give them for their work is pay. Unless you are in imminent danger of going out of business and there will soon be no jobs, "Honor and Glory of the Company" translate into "For the Good of the Owners." If workers really received honr and glory for their work, some of them would work for nothing. If you want to give employees something to work for, give them some of the profits.
5. Explain the second category of reasons: why they should do the task, the consequences.
Detail the personal punishments they receive for not performing that task successfully: the loss of prestige, opportunity, finances, comfort, security, and so forth. Explaining the latter is not only a good action to eliminate reasons for nonperformance, it also fulfills a legal need if you eventually must terminate someone's employment. Judges and arbitrators usually as, "Did you tell them what would happen if they did not perform appropriately?" If the answer is "No," the judge makes you put them back on the job or awards them a lot of money.
2. They Don't Know How to Do It
The second most common reason people at work don't do what they are supposed to do is that "They don't know how to do it."
Merely telling and demonstrating is not enough. For learning to occur, it is imperative that trainees actually practice (simulate) doing the task being taught. If a supervisor only explains and demonstrates to a new sales clerk how to process a credit for returned merchandice without letting the clerk practice, the rest of the learning will occur in front of a customer. Mistakes made while practicing in front of customers are always more costly than mistakes made during practice (simulation) in training.
A common approach to trianing in business is to assign an experienced employee to teach a new employee how to do a job. Although the experienced person might be the best performer in that job, the big question is, "Does he or she know how to teach?" The answer, invariably is "no". Teaching is not something you do naturally, it requires specific skills.
Unfortunatley, when people who do things expertly use this method, they don't bother to describe all the little details of how or why they are doing what they do. As a result, there are some things the trainee does not see and more things he does not understand.
Selling is one job; teaching selling is another job. Telling someone to do something is definetly not teaching them how to do it.
Managers make assumptions about what people know without checking their assumptions. They promote the best accountant or accounting supervisor without providing any training in how to supervise people.
3. They Don't Know What They Are Supposed to Do
As amazing as this sounds , the most common reason managers give as to why people at work won't do what they are supposed to do is, "They don't know what they are supposed to do."
-They know they are supposed to do something, bu tthey don't know when they are supposed to begin.
-They know they are supposed to do something and know when they are supposed to begin, but they don't know when they are supposed to finish.
-They know what to do, when to begin it, and when to end it, but they don't know what finished is supposed to look like.
Managers usually have an idea in their headss of what constitutes the job, but they don't completely describe that job to the person who must do it. So the employee has to guess a lot.
There is a big discrepancy between what managers think is the employee's responsibility and what employees think they are supposed to do.
Managers complain that employees are late for work frequently, but those same managers can't describe "allowable lateness." There are managers who complain that their sales representatives don't make enough sales calls, but the salespeople have not been told how many sales calls they should make per day, per week, or per month.
Here are some employees' interpretation of "being on time" for an 8:00 A.M. start:
-Punching the time clock at 8
-Hanging up your coat at 8
-Getting a cup at cafeteria at 8
-Leaving locker room at 8
Should the sales clerk be setting up merchandise on counters at 8 or should that have been done before 8 so customers could be served at eight? (David's note: Trivial in this example but explains an important concept). The same ambiguity also occurs at the end of the day.
Knowledgeable teachers of management have said for years, "If you want to increase productivity, start with a good job description." Unfortunately, most job descriptions are written for the purpose of deciding what the job is worth rather than helping people know what they should do on their job.
Managers also do other weird things with job descriptions, such as restricting the job description to one page. This means that when you write a job description, if you haven't finished describing the job after one page, tough luck, the employee must guess the rest.
A lot of these behaviors exist but they are in procedure manuals. If you had accurate job descriptions in your organization, you would need fewer prcedure manuals.
Recently an administrative manager told me that one of the responsibilities of the cafeteria manager was to provide an appetizing menu but he didn't know what that meant. After a lengthy discussion, we came up with the following:
An appetizing menu provides food that is purchased by a majority of people served. Dissatsifaction would mean more then two complains per day and or more then 15 percent of any prepared appetizer or entree not being sold.
Those behaviors the cafeteria manager must do to meet his responsibility for maintaining appetizing menus are as follows:
-Measure and record daily percent of unused appetizer and entree.
-Prepare and conduct a written user survey once every three months.
-Conduct verbal surveys by talking to a minimum of five cafeteria patrons.
Some managers avoid describing the job on purpose because they mistakingly believe it will give them more productivity. "If I don't tell them how much I wan thtem to do, the chance is they will do more then I want." That certaintly is a possibility but is it a probability? The answer is "no."
More people at work will do what you expect if you tell them specifically what they are supposed to do, when to begin it, when to end it, and what finished is supposed to look like. Giving them vague instructions will get you vaguely related results.
5. They Think Their Way is Better Or Yours will not work
Enlightened managers know that it is alright for employees to ask, "Why?" Unfortunatley, not enough managers make the effort to answer the question before it is asked. As a result, employees fail because they don't know why they should do it.
Frequently in business, people are required to do things in a certain way for reasons that are very clear to managers but are not so clear to employees. Here are some examples for the first category:
-My boss is really weird. She gets aggravated when you don't grab the phone as soon as it rings. (The reason the telephone should be answered within two rings is because we want to create the image of effective service to our customers).
Preventive Solution
The reason for doing things must be important enough to employees to influence their choices of how to perform when the boss is not watching.
1. Before you put people to work, let them know why they should do the things you pay them to do. The first category includes the benefit to the organization for doin the task right and/or the harm to the organization for doing it wrong.
2. When you want people to change for the purpose of solving problems or improving quality or productivity:
a. Explain the problem in detail
b. Explain the goals in detail
c. Discuss the solutions in detail
d. Explain the expected benefit of success, and
e. Expected agony of defeat
3. When a task is undesirable or difficult to do, or if the immediate consequences of the task are not rewarding, make an extra effort to explain the five items just given.
4. Don't make the mistake of touting "The Honor & Glory of the Company" as the reason people should do things, if all you give them for their work is pay. Unless you are in imminent danger of going out of business and there will soon be no jobs, "Honor and Glory of the Company" translate into "For the Good of the Owners." If workers really received honr and glory for their work, some of them would work for nothing. If you want to give employees something to work for, give them some of the profits.
5. Explain the second category of reasons: why they should do the task, the consequences.
Detail the personal punishments they receive for not performing that task successfully: the loss of prestige, opportunity, finances, comfort, security, and so forth. Explaining the latter is not only a good action to eliminate reasons for nonperformance, it also fulfills a legal need if you eventually must terminate someone's employment. Judges and arbitrators usually as, "Did you tell them what would happen if they did not perform appropriately?" If the answer is "No," the judge makes you put them back on the job or awards them a lot of money.
2. They Don't Know How to Do It
The second most common reason people at work don't do what they are supposed to do is that "They don't know how to do it."
Merely telling and demonstrating is not enough. For learning to occur, it is imperative that trainees actually practice (simulate) doing the task being taught. If a supervisor only explains and demonstrates to a new sales clerk how to process a credit for returned merchandice without letting the clerk practice, the rest of the learning will occur in front of a customer. Mistakes made while practicing in front of customers are always more costly than mistakes made during practice (simulation) in training.
A common approach to trianing in business is to assign an experienced employee to teach a new employee how to do a job. Although the experienced person might be the best performer in that job, the big question is, "Does he or she know how to teach?" The answer, invariably is "no". Teaching is not something you do naturally, it requires specific skills.
Unfortunatley, when people who do things expertly use this method, they don't bother to describe all the little details of how or why they are doing what they do. As a result, there are some things the trainee does not see and more things he does not understand.
Selling is one job; teaching selling is another job. Telling someone to do something is definetly not teaching them how to do it.
Managers make assumptions about what people know without checking their assumptions. They promote the best accountant or accounting supervisor without providing any training in how to supervise people.
3. They Don't Know What They Are Supposed to Do
As amazing as this sounds , the most common reason managers give as to why people at work won't do what they are supposed to do is, "They don't know what they are supposed to do."
-They know they are supposed to do something, bu tthey don't know when they are supposed to begin.
-They know they are supposed to do something and know when they are supposed to begin, but they don't know when they are supposed to finish.
-They know what to do, when to begin it, and when to end it, but they don't know what finished is supposed to look like.
Managers usually have an idea in their headss of what constitutes the job, but they don't completely describe that job to the person who must do it. So the employee has to guess a lot.
There is a big discrepancy between what managers think is the employee's responsibility and what employees think they are supposed to do.
Managers complain that employees are late for work frequently, but those same managers can't describe "allowable lateness." There are managers who complain that their sales representatives don't make enough sales calls, but the salespeople have not been told how many sales calls they should make per day, per week, or per month.
Here are some employees' interpretation of "being on time" for an 8:00 A.M. start:
-Punching the time clock at 8
-Hanging up your coat at 8
-Getting a cup at cafeteria at 8
-Leaving locker room at 8
Should the sales clerk be setting up merchandise on counters at 8 or should that have been done before 8 so customers could be served at eight? (David's note: Trivial in this example but explains an important concept). The same ambiguity also occurs at the end of the day.
Knowledgeable teachers of management have said for years, "If you want to increase productivity, start with a good job description." Unfortunately, most job descriptions are written for the purpose of deciding what the job is worth rather than helping people know what they should do on their job.
Managers also do other weird things with job descriptions, such as restricting the job description to one page. This means that when you write a job description, if you haven't finished describing the job after one page, tough luck, the employee must guess the rest.
A lot of these behaviors exist but they are in procedure manuals. If you had accurate job descriptions in your organization, you would need fewer prcedure manuals.
Recently an administrative manager told me that one of the responsibilities of the cafeteria manager was to provide an appetizing menu but he didn't know what that meant. After a lengthy discussion, we came up with the following:
An appetizing menu provides food that is purchased by a majority of people served. Dissatsifaction would mean more then two complains per day and or more then 15 percent of any prepared appetizer or entree not being sold.
Those behaviors the cafeteria manager must do to meet his responsibility for maintaining appetizing menus are as follows:
-Measure and record daily percent of unused appetizer and entree.
-Prepare and conduct a written user survey once every three months.
-Conduct verbal surveys by talking to a minimum of five cafeteria patrons.
Some managers avoid describing the job on purpose because they mistakingly believe it will give them more productivity. "If I don't tell them how much I wan thtem to do, the chance is they will do more then I want." That certaintly is a possibility but is it a probability? The answer is "no."
More people at work will do what you expect if you tell them specifically what they are supposed to do, when to begin it, when to end it, and what finished is supposed to look like. Giving them vague instructions will get you vaguely related results.
5. They Think Their Way is Better Or Yours will not work
Your first reaction might be that "they think their way is better" is same as "yours will not work". But it is not. The emphasis here is on their way, not yours.
Discuss the issue at length and decide which way is better. It may not be your way, which is good in the scheme of things.
6. The Think Something Else is More Important
Managers initially describe this reason for nonperformance as "The employee doesn't have enough time." When I ask managers if they mean the employee is asked to do mor ethen he can do in the time available, they answer, "No, they are merely doing something else of a lower priority." When I ask why this is happening, the answer is usually that the employee thinks something else is more important.
This is often the result of the boss not assigining priorities to tasks and the boss labeling all tasks as "top priority."
Sometimes managers introduce high-priority projects to subordinate with careful and dramatic emphasis but when the priorities change, the chance is communicated as incidential information.
There is a limited amount of time in any work day. If your employees spend that time working on unimportant things, you and your organization are in trouble. Sometimse the only difference between a successful and unsuccessful organization is that the employees in the successful organization are working on the right things. (David's Note: often times this is the main issue).
7. There is No Positive Consequences to Them for Doing It
A lot of managers consider the last possible reason for nonperformance to be "There is no positive consequences to them" because they simply don't understand what a positive consequence is from the employee's point of view or how rewards affect performance.
Also, other managers don't believe there should be positive consequences because they feel that employees should do it because "it is their job." This is an example of managing based on hope instead of reality. Needless to say, this type of management fails.
"People don't come to work to get paid, they come to work so the pay doesn't stop." said psychologist B.F Skinner. David's Note: Tim Ferriss says that the breakeven of a positive reward to negative consequence for himself is 8 to 1, I find mine is close (example, the pain of losing $1 is as great as making $8).
Human behavior research indicates that people do things for which they are rewarded and, conversely, do not do those things for which they are not rewarded. Rewards can be external or internal in nature.
External rewards can be tangible: trophy, money or intangible such as verbal compliment or smile. All internal rewards are intangible, such as when people say to themselves:
"I am an honest person," "I am a kind person," "I am a hard worker."
Small awards received immediately and frequently seem to have more effect on performance than larger rewards delivered long after performance and infrequently.
Unfortunatley, it is not common for employees to compliment fellow employees on their good work. Often times, managers think that their employee will not do as good of work if he/she is complimented. This is false. Managers should realize that rewarding employees for appropriate performance is a performance maintenance intervention. It helps you get what you pay for.
Here are some guidelines on rewards:
-Make them specific about the things done. Avoid generalizations.
-If you take the time to ask someone to improve performance, follow up on it.
-Don't wait for people to complete projects to compliment them. Compliment them for doing the right things which will lead to completed projects.
-Other tangible rewards are bonus and commission payments but these must be done at a high frequency. But remember, verbal compliments about work well done are least expensive and highly effective.
8. They Think They Are Doing It
Obviously, these employees are not getting enough feedback about their work. All psychologists agree that feedback is one of the most critical requirements for sustained, high-level performance of any human act.
Managers usually understand their own need for feedback, for example knowing how their department stacks up against their competition. Unfortunatley, managers rarely give that information to subordinates as feedback until weeks or months later, or only when a problem occurs and it is too late to change performance.
Telling your employee that a report is completed incorrectly is late feedback, follow up while the report is being done.
Giving nonspecific feedback is another big feedback problem. Make it SPECIFIC.
9. They Are Rewarded for Not Doing It
-Employees who do difficult tasks poorly are given only easy tasks to perform.
-Employees who are difficult to control receive job assignments giving them a lot of freedom.
-Employees who repeatedly complain to the boss about certain work assignments are given those work assignments less frequently.
When a department manager is asked to recommend someone for promotion, frequently a bad employee is recommended, rather than a good employee, because the manager cannot run the department without the good performer.
10. They Are Punished for Doing What They Are Supposed to Do
Did one of your employees ever approach you during your hectic, busy, demanding day to announce a problem or request your help and your response was, "What have you people screwed up this time?" or "Can't you do anything yourself?"
11. They Anticipate a Negative Consequence for Doing It
"Anticipating a negative consequence for an action" is not the same as being punished. The threat of punishment is a different issue.
12. There is No Negative Consequence to Them for Poor Performance
13. Obstacles beyond their Control
14. Their Personal Lives Prevent Them from Performing
There certainly are situations when employees fail becasue of personal limts, but these situations rarely occur as frequently as managers claim.
If you taught me how to fly, my reason for nonperformance would dissapear. My "not knowing" how to fly without training is totally different from my "not being able" to fly no matter how much training you give me.
One of managers' biggest errors is to treat situations of "not knowing" as situations of "personal limit." From my personal observation, at least 80 percent of people who are identified as failing because of personal limits are not actually failling for that reason. They are failing because they were never taught how to do it.
Personal limits can be divided into two categories: permanent or temporary. Color blindness is an example of a permanent limit, only for jobs requiring proper color discrimination.
A close look at the so-called intelligence problems can usually be traced to "not knowing" and "not enough practice." David's Note: believe it or not, this applies even to RUNNING and MANAGING a company. The concepts are not that difficult, they just require understanding. You can teach anyone of average intelligence who is self responsibile and relient how to be a good manager. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
15. Personal Problems
Personal problems refers to those happenings in a person's private life outside the work environment that appear to be reasons for nonperformance on the job.
In this case, make yourself available to talk but require that employees continue to perform, perhaps after a day or two off.
16. No One Could Possibly Do it
17. Using Preventative Manamgent to Maintain Good Performance
If, at this point, I asked you why don't employees do what they are supposed to do, you would probably answer, "poor management."
There is a false belief that if you hire the right welder, PHD chemist, or senior accountant, you will not have to manage them. It is really amazing that so many intelligent people believe such a ridiculous idea. That approach is not management, it is hoping for the best.
As common as this practice is today, some managers continue to resist preventive maintenance in their operations because they can't afford to lose productivity caused by short shutdown periods.
The Bottom Line: The saying, "1 minute of planning saves 10 in execution" is wise indeed and is applicable in management. Invest in preventative management!
How to Break Your News Addiction
Part of the way our news addiction works (as well as many others) is based on the false idea that if we don't do what it is that we are addicted to something bad will happen or we will "lose" something.
For example, you might see a headline that says, "Obama's secret plan", immediately you feel like if you don't read the article you would have lost something great (even though a second ago you didn't even know of its existence).
The way to overcome this existence is through forcing yourself not to take the action this one time. Two minutes later, after you have already forgot about it, think to yourself, "Did something terrible really happened?" This is called exposure therapy, and it works.
For example, you might see a headline that says, "Obama's secret plan", immediately you feel like if you don't read the article you would have lost something great (even though a second ago you didn't even know of its existence).
The way to overcome this existence is through forcing yourself not to take the action this one time. Two minutes later, after you have already forgot about it, think to yourself, "Did something terrible really happened?" This is called exposure therapy, and it works.
Business Process Outsourcing
Is outsourcing a good idea or bad idea for your company? People want to know. The answer is, it depends.
Let's discuss business process outsourcing and I believe you will gain insight on the entire process.
It is interesting that many people consider whether they should outsource an activity before they even know what really goes into that activity. Actually, it's typical of how our brains work (if we had to think details before big picture we would not be able to function).
One of the main benefits of business process outsourcing is that it makes you think HARD and in-an-operations-manner on what exactly you need to get done. For example, before you even place a quote on VendorSeek.com you need to think about what exactly you need to get done.
Now, there are several activities that you need to be done. Let's reference a repetitive activity as an example.
There are two types of recurring repetitive activities: skilled and unskilled. There are also two types: one time and recurring.
Skilled activities make much more sense to outsource then non skilled. Skilled-one time, activities are the best candidates for outsourcing. No use hiring someone if it is only a one time activity. In fact, the only thing skilled-one time should be compared against is hiring an independent contractor (either directly or through a temp agency).
Skilled-recurring. Of course, it depends on how recurring it is but if it is a daily task you definetly want to hire out or at least negotiate a very good deal with an outsourcing firm.
Non-skilled activities are much the same.
The main argument for outsourcing is the "hidden" benefit you get from not having to focus on the issue. Basically, you leverage the outsourcing company's brand to ensure that you get good service (rather then hit-or-miss with different employees and contractors). This can be an added benefit especially if it is something that is difficult to check or must be repeated hundreds or thousands of times.
In terms of outsourcing as a competitive price advantage, this is of course possible. Rarely, however, is this a significant source of competitive advantage for anyone but a public company (though it surely could be).
Perhaps a better use of your time would be to think how you could check (easily and quickly) whether the job is getting done right. For example, keep a folder of all the confirmations and check every 15'th one.
**I will write more on this process as time goes on. For now, check out VendorSeek.com**
Let's discuss business process outsourcing and I believe you will gain insight on the entire process.
It is interesting that many people consider whether they should outsource an activity before they even know what really goes into that activity. Actually, it's typical of how our brains work (if we had to think details before big picture we would not be able to function).
One of the main benefits of business process outsourcing is that it makes you think HARD and in-an-operations-manner on what exactly you need to get done. For example, before you even place a quote on VendorSeek.com you need to think about what exactly you need to get done.
Now, there are several activities that you need to be done. Let's reference a repetitive activity as an example.
There are two types of recurring repetitive activities: skilled and unskilled. There are also two types: one time and recurring.
Skilled activities make much more sense to outsource then non skilled. Skilled-one time, activities are the best candidates for outsourcing. No use hiring someone if it is only a one time activity. In fact, the only thing skilled-one time should be compared against is hiring an independent contractor (either directly or through a temp agency).
Skilled-recurring. Of course, it depends on how recurring it is but if it is a daily task you definetly want to hire out or at least negotiate a very good deal with an outsourcing firm.
Non-skilled activities are much the same.
The main argument for outsourcing is the "hidden" benefit you get from not having to focus on the issue. Basically, you leverage the outsourcing company's brand to ensure that you get good service (rather then hit-or-miss with different employees and contractors). This can be an added benefit especially if it is something that is difficult to check or must be repeated hundreds or thousands of times.
In terms of outsourcing as a competitive price advantage, this is of course possible. Rarely, however, is this a significant source of competitive advantage for anyone but a public company (though it surely could be).
Perhaps a better use of your time would be to think how you could check (easily and quickly) whether the job is getting done right. For example, keep a folder of all the confirmations and check every 15'th one.
**I will write more on this process as time goes on. For now, check out VendorSeek.com**
Thursday, March 19, 2009
If the business world has its own ten commandments..
The first commandment would be: Know Thyself. The rest, as Rabbi Hillel would say, is all details..
Why It's IMPOSSIBLE to be right
I was looking at our weekly meeting notes over the last three weeks and I realized something.. I was either psychofrenic (terrible spelling) and/or ADD, or there was something else at work.
When I analyzed it further, there was indeed something else going on at work..
In school, answers are right or wrong, good or bad. This is not how the business world works (or any world for that matter).
It's not even the fact that there is often multiple right answers or multiple wrong answers and that right/wrong answers can be right or wrong on a continuum. Nope, it's something that runs deeper.
Here's the tricky part: because of business's dynamic nature, the right answer CHANGES every day. More importantly, the right ACTION changes every day.
What was right for me to work on yesterday makes no sense today. Something that was inconsequential yesterday, and often justifiably so, becomes very relevant today.
I was neither right or wrong. It could be that I was not even misinformed. It's just that things change and this makes all the difference.
So how do you manage with this apparent chaos? There is, after all, an infinite amount of issues to deal with. Simple, you apply two principles:
1) The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule), which says that 20 percent of activities will lead to 80 percent of results. Everything else is details and not relevant.
2) Bottleneck theory - The function of a leader/company/employees should be on focusing on the most urgent high value tasks. These can change on a daily basis which is OK. In Tom Peter's book, the most successful companies created committees to tackle issues that took 2-3 months each. They would then disband the committee and focus on the next bottlenecks. (Needless to say, these companies outperformed other companies significantly, read the highly researched In Search of Excellence on this topic).
Unfortunatley, this touches a lot of people's egos. I have found that people have trouble refocusing their attention because they have been taught two fallacious concepts:
1) If you change your opinion, mind, or focus you are wrong.
2) Being wrong is bad and should be avoided.
(thanks education system for being terrible, btw President Obama if you want to get rid of pork look at our education system which is something like 28'th in the world despite being funded more then any other system in the world)
Read the Goal, Tom Peters, and Brian Tracy for more on this topic.
When I analyzed it further, there was indeed something else going on at work..
In school, answers are right or wrong, good or bad. This is not how the business world works (or any world for that matter).
It's not even the fact that there is often multiple right answers or multiple wrong answers and that right/wrong answers can be right or wrong on a continuum. Nope, it's something that runs deeper.
Here's the tricky part: because of business's dynamic nature, the right answer CHANGES every day. More importantly, the right ACTION changes every day.
What was right for me to work on yesterday makes no sense today. Something that was inconsequential yesterday, and often justifiably so, becomes very relevant today.
I was neither right or wrong. It could be that I was not even misinformed. It's just that things change and this makes all the difference.
So how do you manage with this apparent chaos? There is, after all, an infinite amount of issues to deal with. Simple, you apply two principles:
1) The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule), which says that 20 percent of activities will lead to 80 percent of results. Everything else is details and not relevant.
2) Bottleneck theory - The function of a leader/company/employees should be on focusing on the most urgent high value tasks. These can change on a daily basis which is OK. In Tom Peter's book, the most successful companies created committees to tackle issues that took 2-3 months each. They would then disband the committee and focus on the next bottlenecks. (Needless to say, these companies outperformed other companies significantly, read the highly researched In Search of Excellence on this topic).
Unfortunatley, this touches a lot of people's egos. I have found that people have trouble refocusing their attention because they have been taught two fallacious concepts:
1) If you change your opinion, mind, or focus you are wrong.
2) Being wrong is bad and should be avoided.
(thanks education system for being terrible, btw President Obama if you want to get rid of pork look at our education system which is something like 28'th in the world despite being funded more then any other system in the world)
Read the Goal, Tom Peters, and Brian Tracy for more on this topic.
Momentum and Inspiration
Momentum is inspiring.
Let me give you an example. This is a conversation (paraphrased) that I had with another student two years ago:
***
The student came in very excited and happy.
Student: I just met Dr. K for the first time, he really helped me with my business, he's a great guy.
Me: That's awesome.
Student: Yes, I am very confident about my prospects.
Me: Great, what did you talk to him about?
Student: (Pause) Hmm... I don't even remember.
***
What is the point of this story? The point is the POWER of momentum and inspiration. Obviously, Dr. K and the student talked about relevant business issues. But the specific advice that Dr. K gave was almost irrelevant compared to the inspiration and passion that he inspired in the student.
Of course, Dr. K is a outlier when it comes to energy and passion, but this issue is something that effects people on a continuum, let's say a 1-10 scale.
This is where environment and having energetic employees/partners come in hand. This is especially relevant to a startup and an up and coming company that has little backing. It is also relevant in times of crisis for any company.
It means A LOT (especially if you consider that it is given no attention by "serious" business people). Note: Of course, this is just one dimension across several others that should be considered, check out Hire with Your Head for hiring help.
When I am surrounded by inspired and motivated people I feel like anything is possible. When I am isolated the smallest things prove hard to achieve.
Take this into serious consideration when you consider:
1) Who you partner with
2) Who you employee
3) Who you surround yourself with
Let me give you an example. This is a conversation (paraphrased) that I had with another student two years ago:
***
The student came in very excited and happy.
Student: I just met Dr. K for the first time, he really helped me with my business, he's a great guy.
Me: That's awesome.
Student: Yes, I am very confident about my prospects.
Me: Great, what did you talk to him about?
Student: (Pause) Hmm... I don't even remember.
***
What is the point of this story? The point is the POWER of momentum and inspiration. Obviously, Dr. K and the student talked about relevant business issues. But the specific advice that Dr. K gave was almost irrelevant compared to the inspiration and passion that he inspired in the student.
Of course, Dr. K is a outlier when it comes to energy and passion, but this issue is something that effects people on a continuum, let's say a 1-10 scale.
This is where environment and having energetic employees/partners come in hand. This is especially relevant to a startup and an up and coming company that has little backing. It is also relevant in times of crisis for any company.
It means A LOT (especially if you consider that it is given no attention by "serious" business people). Note: Of course, this is just one dimension across several others that should be considered, check out Hire with Your Head for hiring help.
When I am surrounded by inspired and motivated people I feel like anything is possible. When I am isolated the smallest things prove hard to achieve.
Take this into serious consideration when you consider:
1) Who you partner with
2) Who you employee
3) Who you surround yourself with
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A Great Article on Luck
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/17/o.how.to.get.lucky/index.html
Brushing with Success
There is one specific highly underrated dimension of success: being around successful people, more specifically being MENTORED closely by successful people.
Yes, I know that you know, but do you really know? Regardless of whether you know or not, the REAL question is do you ACT based on this knowledge?
Let me explain, in the last year I have come to realize one universal truth: the smartest, most perseverant, and even charismatic people aren't always the most successful. Yes, luck has something to do with it, but more importantly it's who you surround yourself with, your peers and the company/industry/boss you work for.
I say this so that you become very conscious of it because I see it manifested in almost every individual that I have ever come across.
So how do you apply this knowledge? For one, you can apply it to your career.
Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward. For example, if I was not going to get my MBA right now I would probably sell my company (in the near future) and go try to get a job with David Becker. Why? Because he has taken 3 companies to the Inc 500 list and that is who I want to be around.
Of course, this is just one aspect of why people are successful but it is often one that people do not consider.
Yes, I know that you know, but do you really know? Regardless of whether you know or not, the REAL question is do you ACT based on this knowledge?
Let me explain, in the last year I have come to realize one universal truth: the smartest, most perseverant, and even charismatic people aren't always the most successful. Yes, luck has something to do with it, but more importantly it's who you surround yourself with, your peers and the company/industry/boss you work for.
I say this so that you become very conscious of it because I see it manifested in almost every individual that I have ever come across.
So how do you apply this knowledge? For one, you can apply it to your career.
Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward. For example, if I was not going to get my MBA right now I would probably sell my company (in the near future) and go try to get a job with David Becker. Why? Because he has taken 3 companies to the Inc 500 list and that is who I want to be around.
Of course, this is just one aspect of why people are successful but it is often one that people do not consider.
Waking Up and Getting Things Done
For me, getting up is the most difficult part of getting things done. Once I get up I am off to the races and going strong. This is not an issue when I workout with my friend at 7:30 and 8 Tuesday/Thursday morning.
The secret to doing this everyday is scheduling things early on every day. Perhaps it is a morning call or a morning breakfast meeting.
Speaking of Getting Things Done, here is a paragraph from an abstract on David Allen's Book:
Appropriate Ripples
"To put yourself in the right mental state for getting things done, imagine that you
have a mind like a body of calm water. If you throw a pebble into it, the water reacts
appropriately. The ripples created on the surface are in proportion to the pebble’s
mass and force of impact, and once the water has absorbed the impact, it returns to
a calm, tranquil state. Try to approach your tasks like that, so you give each one the
appropriate amount of attention and effort – neither overreacting nor underreacting to
the challenges."
The secret to doing this everyday is scheduling things early on every day. Perhaps it is a morning call or a morning breakfast meeting.
Speaking of Getting Things Done, here is a paragraph from an abstract on David Allen's Book:
Appropriate Ripples
"To put yourself in the right mental state for getting things done, imagine that you
have a mind like a body of calm water. If you throw a pebble into it, the water reacts
appropriately. The ripples created on the surface are in proportion to the pebble’s
mass and force of impact, and once the water has absorbed the impact, it returns to
a calm, tranquil state. Try to approach your tasks like that, so you give each one the
appropriate amount of attention and effort – neither overreacting nor underreacting to
the challenges."
A Great Henry Ford Quote
Henry Ford put it best many decades ago: "The competitor to be feared is the one who doesn't bother about you at all, but goes about making his own business better all the time."
Taken from http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/taylor/2008/11/how_obama_became_ceo_of_the_us.html (recommended read).
Taken from http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/taylor/2008/11/how_obama_became_ceo_of_the_us.html (recommended read).
The Cost/Benefit of Stress
(The following are a couple views on stress. Unlike some other posts they are not exhaustive nor heavily researched, so take what you will from it, but I recommend significant further reading.)
"Stress" has taken on a negative connotation in society. The truth is that stress has both positive and negative dimensions to it. Stress can serve purposes that stimulate action and get people moving.
It is hard to say what is good stress, so I'll start with bad stress. The worst type of stress is non-value added stress. That is becoming stressed when you have no control over a situation, for example, waiting in traffic. A person that experiences this type of stress gives up health and happiness for no realizable return. This is also experienced when one is waiting for someone else to complete a task and there is nothing that individual can do to accelerate the process. This is bad stress.
Good stress, in small doses, can be beneficial but it is outside of the scope of this post to discuss it (it is a tough subject).
There is a third dimension in which to consider this topic. Rather then focus on good stress vs. bad stress, you can also focus on coping/living with stress. It is quite unrealistic to try to avoid all stress, an individual can get stressed trying to do just that! Therefore, it is important to work in stress neutralizers into your life such as:
1) Running/exercise
2) Just walking outside every hour or so for a 5 minute break (this will INCREASE productivity)
3) Having a pet: like my dog Reggie!
To sum up, before you get stressed apply the stress test (no pun intended): will stressing bring any productive value or am I just stressing just for no return? (Perhaps I should coin this Return on Stress (ROS) ; )
P.S. Not having order in your life and not having a boss to tell you exactly what to do can create anxiety and stress. Keep this in mind and work from conscious and realistic goals to counteract this issue.
"Stress" has taken on a negative connotation in society. The truth is that stress has both positive and negative dimensions to it. Stress can serve purposes that stimulate action and get people moving.
It is hard to say what is good stress, so I'll start with bad stress. The worst type of stress is non-value added stress. That is becoming stressed when you have no control over a situation, for example, waiting in traffic. A person that experiences this type of stress gives up health and happiness for no realizable return. This is also experienced when one is waiting for someone else to complete a task and there is nothing that individual can do to accelerate the process. This is bad stress.
Good stress, in small doses, can be beneficial but it is outside of the scope of this post to discuss it (it is a tough subject).
There is a third dimension in which to consider this topic. Rather then focus on good stress vs. bad stress, you can also focus on coping/living with stress. It is quite unrealistic to try to avoid all stress, an individual can get stressed trying to do just that! Therefore, it is important to work in stress neutralizers into your life such as:
1) Running/exercise
2) Just walking outside every hour or so for a 5 minute break (this will INCREASE productivity)
3) Having a pet: like my dog Reggie!
To sum up, before you get stressed apply the stress test (no pun intended): will stressing bring any productive value or am I just stressing just for no return? (Perhaps I should coin this Return on Stress (ROS) ; )
P.S. Not having order in your life and not having a boss to tell you exactly what to do can create anxiety and stress. Keep this in mind and work from conscious and realistic goals to counteract this issue.
Monday, March 16, 2009
How Betting Works in Business
Today, my partner made me conscious of a business fundamental that I have always tacitly known.. but before I go into it let's look at something I experienced several weeks ago at my Rabbi's house.
**
I was at the Rabbi's house for dinner with my friend Jessica. There were several other people there including one individual that looked a lot like the Rabbi. I thought it might be his nephew or cousin. After telling Jessica this, she answered that she was 99% sure that they weren't related.
She challenged to bet me on this. I told her I wouldn't bet her that they were related but I would bet her that the chances of them being related was over 1%.
Of course, this made no sense and went over her head.. (although she was right as always).
**
this is EXACTLY how business bets work.
In business, there are very few bets analogous to the real world, YES/NO or 50-50 bets. Business betting, or gambling is a little more complex and a little more tilted towards the the individual betting, that is if he/she is good.
I was reminded by this concept today when we were discussing an issue with my partner. I told him, I don't think it's worth spending the equivalent of $40/year on something that was more then likely to be inconsequential. My partner, intelligently pointed out that if it became of consequence then it would save us more then $10,000/year, therefore the "break-even" of the bet would be somewhere around 1/250. We both knew that the odds of it being consequential were much greater, perhaps 1/20.
Therefore, we were making the right business bet.
THAT is exactly how you win in business. Good business betting is not about how many times you are right, it is not a binary 0 or 1, yes or not, right or wrong. It is all about making the right bets with the right probabilities that pay off in the LONG term.
Thank you Rob for straightening me out on this issue.
**
I was at the Rabbi's house for dinner with my friend Jessica. There were several other people there including one individual that looked a lot like the Rabbi. I thought it might be his nephew or cousin. After telling Jessica this, she answered that she was 99% sure that they weren't related.
She challenged to bet me on this. I told her I wouldn't bet her that they were related but I would bet her that the chances of them being related was over 1%.
Of course, this made no sense and went over her head.. (although she was right as always).
**
this is EXACTLY how business bets work.
In business, there are very few bets analogous to the real world, YES/NO or 50-50 bets. Business betting, or gambling is a little more complex and a little more tilted towards the the individual betting, that is if he/she is good.
I was reminded by this concept today when we were discussing an issue with my partner. I told him, I don't think it's worth spending the equivalent of $40/year on something that was more then likely to be inconsequential. My partner, intelligently pointed out that if it became of consequence then it would save us more then $10,000/year, therefore the "break-even" of the bet would be somewhere around 1/250. We both knew that the odds of it being consequential were much greater, perhaps 1/20.
Therefore, we were making the right business bet.
THAT is exactly how you win in business. Good business betting is not about how many times you are right, it is not a binary 0 or 1, yes or not, right or wrong. It is all about making the right bets with the right probabilities that pay off in the LONG term.
Thank you Rob for straightening me out on this issue.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Changing Your Neuro-Associations: Short vs. Long Term Gratification
Neuro-associations drive our behavior.
I find it easy to complete tasks that give instant gratification. I don't need much will power to process an order that will result in my having 100 more dollars in the bank.
The problem is some other tasks that are equally important (and more likely more important) but that do not bring an instant reward.
These are the tasks, such as weekly meetings, that I might find myself reluctantly doing because "I have to / I should."
That is where the problem starts. Before you can change your neuro-associations you need to investigate your should statements.
There is nothing that you should or should not do. If you want to enjoy the positive consequences or avoid the negative consequences or doing/not doing the action then you do it. If not, then you don't.
(In fact, if doing or not doing it leads to no consequences then you SHOULDN'T do the activity, because it is by definition value-less).
Once you think about why you are doing this behavior, for example: to increase capacity so that you can make more money, you need to reprogram your mind from thinking that you "should" do the activity to thinking about WHY you are doing the activity.
The way you make these changes permanent is by constantly re-remembering why it is that you are doing a certain activity (if it makes it easier imagine that every time you do the activity you bank a certain amount of money, for example ever weekly meeting you mentally bank $200). It will take at least a couple weeks to reprogram your mind because thoughts are habitual and these negative thought patterns are ones that you have probably had for a while.
I find it easy to complete tasks that give instant gratification. I don't need much will power to process an order that will result in my having 100 more dollars in the bank.
The problem is some other tasks that are equally important (and more likely more important) but that do not bring an instant reward.
These are the tasks, such as weekly meetings, that I might find myself reluctantly doing because "I have to / I should."
That is where the problem starts. Before you can change your neuro-associations you need to investigate your should statements.
There is nothing that you should or should not do. If you want to enjoy the positive consequences or avoid the negative consequences or doing/not doing the action then you do it. If not, then you don't.
(In fact, if doing or not doing it leads to no consequences then you SHOULDN'T do the activity, because it is by definition value-less).
Once you think about why you are doing this behavior, for example: to increase capacity so that you can make more money, you need to reprogram your mind from thinking that you "should" do the activity to thinking about WHY you are doing the activity.
The way you make these changes permanent is by constantly re-remembering why it is that you are doing a certain activity (if it makes it easier imagine that every time you do the activity you bank a certain amount of money, for example ever weekly meeting you mentally bank $200). It will take at least a couple weeks to reprogram your mind because thoughts are habitual and these negative thought patterns are ones that you have probably had for a while.
What has stuck from Tony Robbins
I am hesitant to call anything the "best ever" or "incredible" because there is a certain bias that comes with ideas/concepts/companies that are new.
Two weeks later, however, I can say with the utmost confidence that Tony Robbins has definetly changed my life for the better, and quite significantly at that.
The #1 concept I learned from Tony Robbins:
Tony Robbins has given me a framework to understand why I am happy/not happy at any pointof time. Every good day and bad day that I have is now explainable. While I can't change my bad days (as of yet) I now know exactly why I am having a bad day, and this makes me feel more in control of everything.
Here is why people are happy/not happy. These are the drivers of happiness/unhappiness (as mentioned in earlier post):
-Certainty (having a sense of security) is a great thing. In fact, it is the most basic need, especially when related to needs such as food, shelter, clothes, etc. But it also relates to work related functions. Do you know that your business will be around tommorow? Will you have a job? (Note: these are needs that are experienced on a continuum 1-10, not just yes or not).
-Uncertainty (variety) - if you know everything that is going to happen to you, things become boring. As human beings we love variety and experiencing different things, otherwise we fall in a rut.
-Love/Connection - We need to feel as if we are part of something or close to someone.
-Significance - We need to feel unique, different, or important in some aspect of our lives.
Two weeks later, however, I can say with the utmost confidence that Tony Robbins has definetly changed my life for the better, and quite significantly at that.
The #1 concept I learned from Tony Robbins:
Tony Robbins has given me a framework to understand why I am happy/not happy at any pointof time. Every good day and bad day that I have is now explainable. While I can't change my bad days (as of yet) I now know exactly why I am having a bad day, and this makes me feel more in control of everything.
Here is why people are happy/not happy. These are the drivers of happiness/unhappiness (as mentioned in earlier post):
-Certainty (having a sense of security) is a great thing. In fact, it is the most basic need, especially when related to needs such as food, shelter, clothes, etc. But it also relates to work related functions. Do you know that your business will be around tommorow? Will you have a job? (Note: these are needs that are experienced on a continuum 1-10, not just yes or not).
-Uncertainty (variety) - if you know everything that is going to happen to you, things become boring. As human beings we love variety and experiencing different things, otherwise we fall in a rut.
-Love/Connection - We need to feel as if we are part of something or close to someone.
-Significance - We need to feel unique, different, or important in some aspect of our lives.
Sales & HR
After listening to many entrepreneurs over the last two years, two drivers of growth have been mentioned significantly more then anything else:
Sales and hiring the best people.
Perhaps this is a sign of how an entrepreneur should spend his/her time:
SELLING (or focusing on sales) & recruiting/hiring/interviewing the top talent (arguably a sales position as well).
Sales and hiring the best people.
Perhaps this is a sign of how an entrepreneur should spend his/her time:
SELLING (or focusing on sales) & recruiting/hiring/interviewing the top talent (arguably a sales position as well).
A Quick Voicemail Shortcut
I've been holding something from you, a quick shortcut voicemail shortcut:
Instead of listening to an entire voicemail hit 1 and you will hear a beep 90% of the time.
Instead of listening to an entire voicemail hit 1 and you will hear a beep 90% of the time.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
There's No Crying in Leadership
Tony Robbins has an interesting thing to say about leadership (paraphrased):
In order to be a good leader we must see the reality as it is, we must be realistic. Once we see the reality we must see and act as if things will be BETTER then the current reality. That is leadership (first see reality, then perceive it to be better in future).**
My view:
There's no crying in leadership. At the end of the day, everything falls down on the leader. Good leaders must consciously see things as slightly better then they are. There is no room for complaining.
If a leader finds it necessary to complain and talk things out, it should be done OUTSIDE the organization. Inside the organization people are looking at the leader to lead. A leader MUST be optimistic.
Easier said then done. None-the-less, it is rule that should not be broken by leaders under any consequence, especially in times of crisis..
In order to be a good leader we must see the reality as it is, we must be realistic. Once we see the reality we must see and act as if things will be BETTER then the current reality. That is leadership (first see reality, then perceive it to be better in future).**
My view:
There's no crying in leadership. At the end of the day, everything falls down on the leader. Good leaders must consciously see things as slightly better then they are. There is no room for complaining.
If a leader finds it necessary to complain and talk things out, it should be done OUTSIDE the organization. Inside the organization people are looking at the leader to lead. A leader MUST be optimistic.
Easier said then done. None-the-less, it is rule that should not be broken by leaders under any consequence, especially in times of crisis..
Right Under Our Noses..
My experience has taught me to listen to my impulses, ESPECIALLY when it comes to people.
A part of becoming a mature person and businessman is about making decisions on how things ARE rather then how they SHOULD be.
Also, in order to see whether someone is truly good it's good to look at an executable or deliverable, what they have done, rather then "their potential" or "their soft skills." If we do not consciously look at deliverables, it's very easy to judge someone on how good they SHOULD be rather then how good they REALLY are.
A part of becoming a mature person and businessman is about making decisions on how things ARE rather then how they SHOULD be.
Also, in order to see whether someone is truly good it's good to look at an executable or deliverable, what they have done, rather then "their potential" or "their soft skills." If we do not consciously look at deliverables, it's very easy to judge someone on how good they SHOULD be rather then how good they REALLY are.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Market/Profit Watching
Amateur business people watch their profits/market daily: today they are the greatest business people in the world, tomorrow they are the worst business people in the world.
What do great business people do - they put their head into the sand and focus on improving their business. I have observed this consistently among the top business people. They focus on improving something rather then "reacting to every dip and pop in their daily profit or stock." Sure enough, the profits always follow this behavior.
My partner has grasped this concept far better then I have, it is something that I am working on.
What do great business people do - they put their head into the sand and focus on improving their business. I have observed this consistently among the top business people. They focus on improving something rather then "reacting to every dip and pop in their daily profit or stock." Sure enough, the profits always follow this behavior.
My partner has grasped this concept far better then I have, it is something that I am working on.
Reverse Bottle Neck & Perfectionism/Anxiety
I consider reverse bottle neck theory to be my greatest theory? Why? Because it is the one (from all my other theories) that I take into consideration the most.
What is reverse bottle neck theory?
It is the concept that you don't put effort or focus into issues that are not bottle necks.
For example, let's say that you had one employee, whom you couldn't use for anything else processing your orders from 9-5. This employee could process one order an hour and you received 3 orders in a day.
There would be NO NEED to improve processing times to 15 minutes/order. Why? Because there is no impact on the bottom line in terms of profit increasing or cost cutting. The reason is that it is not a bottle neck.
Why is it relevant / Who does it help the most?
I am assuming that you want to increase your business. There is an almost infinite amount of ways in which you can approach this (both from revenue and cost side, significant studies, including one by Harvard Business School, have shown that companies should focus more on revenue increasing then cost cutting).
Reverse bottle neck theory allows you to put your time and focus into issues that really matter. It shocks me to think back about all the aspects of my company my partner and I tried to maximize that weren't bottle necks.
As an added bonus, reverse bottle neck can significantly decrease your anxiety and make you focus on issues that MATTER.
What is reverse bottle neck theory?
It is the concept that you don't put effort or focus into issues that are not bottle necks.
For example, let's say that you had one employee, whom you couldn't use for anything else processing your orders from 9-5. This employee could process one order an hour and you received 3 orders in a day.
There would be NO NEED to improve processing times to 15 minutes/order. Why? Because there is no impact on the bottom line in terms of profit increasing or cost cutting. The reason is that it is not a bottle neck.
Why is it relevant / Who does it help the most?
I am assuming that you want to increase your business. There is an almost infinite amount of ways in which you can approach this (both from revenue and cost side, significant studies, including one by Harvard Business School, have shown that companies should focus more on revenue increasing then cost cutting).
Reverse bottle neck theory allows you to put your time and focus into issues that really matter. It shocks me to think back about all the aspects of my company my partner and I tried to maximize that weren't bottle necks.
As an added bonus, reverse bottle neck can significantly decrease your anxiety and make you focus on issues that MATTER.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Counter-Gut
Our gut is usually right. Unfortunately our gut is influenced by a phenomenon I can only refer to as the counter-gut. The counter gut is the negative feelings that we want to avoid, thereby ignoring our intuition and gut.
We must be conscious of the counter-gut so that we know how to look for it in order so that we don't have a cognitive bias when we make decision.
What are some examples of the counter gut:
1) The aversion to admitting that you made a mistake. (You can overcome this by applying Zero-Based Thinking).
2) Laziness. (Sometimes our counter gut tells us not to do something because it takes more effort. Our counter-gut will try to rationalize why not taking action is actually a better decision).
and so on..
We must be conscious of the counter-gut so that we know how to look for it in order so that we don't have a cognitive bias when we make decision.
What are some examples of the counter gut:
1) The aversion to admitting that you made a mistake. (You can overcome this by applying Zero-Based Thinking).
2) Laziness. (Sometimes our counter gut tells us not to do something because it takes more effort. Our counter-gut will try to rationalize why not taking action is actually a better decision).
and so on..
The Re-Trying Journal
It should not be big news for you to learn that the most successfull entreprenuers are those that never give up and keep on trying.
The problem is this, how do you know whether you are beating your head up against a wall or successfully adjusting and putting up good attempts?
Can we really know?
YES, we can.
The truth is that it is very hard for us to subconsciously know this (because of a human trait known as adaptation). HOWEVER, by self monitoring we get a very clear objective picture of what it is that is going on.
We must keep a re-try journal in order to see whether we are banging our head against the wall or really achieving incremental progress.
Let me give you an example of a thief that tries to steal something from Target:
Attempt 1: The thief walks into the front door, and he is tackled by the police and arrested. Result: Fail.
Attempt 2: The thief walks into the front door, gives a donut to the policeman, and walks into the jewelry aisle. As soon as he touches the watch he plans on stealing, he is tackled by policeman and arrested. Result: Fail.
Attempt 3: The thief walks into the front door, gives a donut to the policeman, and walks into the jewelry aisle. He takes another donut and gives it to the policeman. He takes the watch through the doors of the store, once again he is tackled and arrested.
Attempt 4: The thief walks into the front door, gives a donut to the policeman, and walks into the jewelry aisle. He takes another donut and gives it to the policeman. He takes the watch through the doors of the store, comes home. 2 weeks later a band of police come, and yes tackles and arrest him!
Our brains, if we are hard on ourselves, will often interpret the top process as fail,fail,fail,fail, with almost no distinction. However, it is quite possible that with one minor adjustment the thief will make it scot free.
However, if we interpret it as fail, fail, fail, fail it makes it very difficult to create the type of success mentality that is needed to be a peak performer... and quite frankly to become rich ; )
In reality, things do not work as linearly as they did in this situation. However, much can be learned both by this post and by consciously keeping an attempts-results journal.
As long as you are making progress and failing forward, you are on track to become very successful. Just keep this between us.
The problem is this, how do you know whether you are beating your head up against a wall or successfully adjusting and putting up good attempts?
Can we really know?
YES, we can.
The truth is that it is very hard for us to subconsciously know this (because of a human trait known as adaptation). HOWEVER, by self monitoring we get a very clear objective picture of what it is that is going on.
We must keep a re-try journal in order to see whether we are banging our head against the wall or really achieving incremental progress.
Let me give you an example of a thief that tries to steal something from Target:
Attempt 1: The thief walks into the front door, and he is tackled by the police and arrested. Result: Fail.
Attempt 2: The thief walks into the front door, gives a donut to the policeman, and walks into the jewelry aisle. As soon as he touches the watch he plans on stealing, he is tackled by policeman and arrested. Result: Fail.
Attempt 3: The thief walks into the front door, gives a donut to the policeman, and walks into the jewelry aisle. He takes another donut and gives it to the policeman. He takes the watch through the doors of the store, once again he is tackled and arrested.
Attempt 4: The thief walks into the front door, gives a donut to the policeman, and walks into the jewelry aisle. He takes another donut and gives it to the policeman. He takes the watch through the doors of the store, comes home. 2 weeks later a band of police come, and yes tackles and arrest him!
Our brains, if we are hard on ourselves, will often interpret the top process as fail,fail,fail,fail, with almost no distinction. However, it is quite possible that with one minor adjustment the thief will make it scot free.
However, if we interpret it as fail, fail, fail, fail it makes it very difficult to create the type of success mentality that is needed to be a peak performer... and quite frankly to become rich ; )
In reality, things do not work as linearly as they did in this situation. However, much can be learned both by this post and by consciously keeping an attempts-results journal.
As long as you are making progress and failing forward, you are on track to become very successful. Just keep this between us.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Looking to accelerate your business book search?
http://www.amazon.com/100-Best-Business-Books-Time/dp/1591842409/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236534796&sr=8-1
Even I couldn't top that ; )
Even I couldn't top that ; )
My News Fast
That's it. I've had enough of the big bad media. It seems that with all the time I have spent listening to "the news" I either waste it or get depressed.
Therefore, I am constituting one month news fast (I did this several years back).
Since checking the news is an addiction I wanted to share with you how I will quickly overcome it, and how you can overcome any addiction quickly as well:
1) You can't break an addiction by stopping to "not do it". It is nearly impossible to stop "not smoking". The trick is to replace it with a bigger YES. Every time I feel like reading/listening to "the news" (by the way, I put the news in quotation because it is rarely an accurate description of what is going on in the world, it is incredibly skewed towards the negative side) I will instead replace the activity with a BLOG reading.
That's right, this neuro-reprogramming is an effective strategy that is proven with the science of NLP (neuro-linguistic-programming).
2) I can not drop cold turkey. I will start by dropping my #1 news source: DrudgeReport, which will be difficult. Then, I'll drop espn.com (which is incredibly worthless, no offense), then I'll drop CNN.com and I should be off my addiction in 2 weeks.
For the short term, I plan on adding at least 20-30 new blogs. It so happens that I read over 100 news articles a day. Send me your recommendations and why you like it (one sentence just so I get it). Thanks, and wish me luck.
Therefore, I am constituting one month news fast (I did this several years back).
Since checking the news is an addiction I wanted to share with you how I will quickly overcome it, and how you can overcome any addiction quickly as well:
1) You can't break an addiction by stopping to "not do it". It is nearly impossible to stop "not smoking". The trick is to replace it with a bigger YES. Every time I feel like reading/listening to "the news" (by the way, I put the news in quotation because it is rarely an accurate description of what is going on in the world, it is incredibly skewed towards the negative side) I will instead replace the activity with a BLOG reading.
That's right, this neuro-reprogramming is an effective strategy that is proven with the science of NLP (neuro-linguistic-programming).
2) I can not drop cold turkey. I will start by dropping my #1 news source: DrudgeReport, which will be difficult. Then, I'll drop espn.com (which is incredibly worthless, no offense), then I'll drop CNN.com and I should be off my addiction in 2 weeks.
For the short term, I plan on adding at least 20-30 new blogs. It so happens that I read over 100 news articles a day. Send me your recommendations and why you like it (one sentence just so I get it). Thanks, and wish me luck.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
The 4 Steps of Self Actualization
I believe that any individual that reads for the goal of self actualization can read on different levels (whether it is in the realm of business or psychology). With each level comes a new benefit for the reader:
First Level: Pure entertainment. Reading/listening to peak performance coaches and authors is stimulating. It is like talking to a really smart relevant person. The information by itself is quite often entertaining and amusing.
Second Level: Awareness. With awareness, comes an understanding of why certain people act certain ways. The next time you see someone doing something peculiar, you think to yourself, "Oh, THATS why he/she is doing this.
The HIGHER levels:
Third Level: Self improvement. Self improvement is why most people read in the self actualization area. Unfortunately, though I do not know the statistics, I would guess that only 5% (at most) actually gain any significant self improvement from the literature/media.
The reason for this that most people do not understand the science behind creating lasting change. Those that want to create lasting change must:
Create a new mental thought process through repetition. It is something that must be ingrained as a habit, usually this takes 14-21 days of daily action for a significant change. After this, it is second nature.
Fourth Level: Helping creating change in others and across society. The fourth level can only be reached once the third level is reached. This is, in my opinion, the goal of all self actualization and the time when we become most connected to the world and those around us.
The fourth level is about using the information to help create lasting change in others.
First Level: Pure entertainment. Reading/listening to peak performance coaches and authors is stimulating. It is like talking to a really smart relevant person. The information by itself is quite often entertaining and amusing.
Second Level: Awareness. With awareness, comes an understanding of why certain people act certain ways. The next time you see someone doing something peculiar, you think to yourself, "Oh, THATS why he/she is doing this.
The HIGHER levels:
Third Level: Self improvement. Self improvement is why most people read in the self actualization area. Unfortunately, though I do not know the statistics, I would guess that only 5% (at most) actually gain any significant self improvement from the literature/media.
The reason for this that most people do not understand the science behind creating lasting change. Those that want to create lasting change must:
Create a new mental thought process through repetition. It is something that must be ingrained as a habit, usually this takes 14-21 days of daily action for a significant change. After this, it is second nature.
Fourth Level: Helping creating change in others and across society. The fourth level can only be reached once the third level is reached. This is, in my opinion, the goal of all self actualization and the time when we become most connected to the world and those around us.
The fourth level is about using the information to help create lasting change in others.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Chunking (Inspired/Directly From Tony Robbins Personal Power II)
Chunking (not to be confused with batching) is something that I have naturally started to do. It is an activity that all successful leaders must understand.
Here is what people that are overwhelmed think when thinking about going on a vacation. Steps:
1) Look online on all the places that are available
2) Figure out all the dimensions that are important to me
3) Go online and compare prices on airlines
4) Book the flight
5) Go online and compare prices for hotels
... etc.
Here is what a leader does through chunking:
1) Go to my trusted travel agent who knows me well and have him book my vacation.
Looking for a business example?
The best entrepreneurs don't spend 100's of hours thinking about all details of their marketing plan or whatever it is that they need to do. They HIRE the best people and get the hell out of their way. They practice servant leadership with the consciousness to know that if they hired the right person they should know less then the employee about the topic. Therefore, their goal should be to assist their employee in their task NOT manage or direct them.
Here is what people that are overwhelmed think when thinking about going on a vacation. Steps:
1) Look online on all the places that are available
2) Figure out all the dimensions that are important to me
3) Go online and compare prices on airlines
4) Book the flight
5) Go online and compare prices for hotels
... etc.
Here is what a leader does through chunking:
1) Go to my trusted travel agent who knows me well and have him book my vacation.
Looking for a business example?
The best entrepreneurs don't spend 100's of hours thinking about all details of their marketing plan or whatever it is that they need to do. They HIRE the best people and get the hell out of their way. They practice servant leadership with the consciousness to know that if they hired the right person they should know less then the employee about the topic. Therefore, their goal should be to assist their employee in their task NOT manage or direct them.
No Time Planner will .. (Inspired/Directly from Tony Robbin's Personal Power II)
No Time Planner will change your life. The reason?
The real question is not how do I achieve the activities? The real question is what goals am I trying to achieve with these activities? Or even more importantly WHY do I want to achieve these goal?
Think this is a semantic difference or a thought that is "new age".
Consider this, how often do you start doing activities without actually thinking why you are doing them? I can't speak for you, but personally I do this 99% of the time.
And this is the problem. This act-without-thinking disease is one that has been ingrained in our minds through repetition and habit.
Of course, no one is asking you to become an anxious individual who constantly asks himself why am I doing this, now why am I doing that?
There is a very important reason to ask why am I doing something and specifically what is the reason for my wanting to accomplish this bigger goal.
If we have a strong why we are given an almost unlimited source of power and motivation. We no longer have to "motivate" ourselves on a daily basis, rather it becomes automatic.
Let me give you an example:
-Today, I am working on my Harvard Business School essays. Before starting, I pump myself up by thinking "I know I have to do these essays." I don't even stop to think about why I need to do them: because I want to get into HBS. As ridiculous as it sounds, the thought doesn't even come up. I automatically focus on completing the task.
More importantly, I don't even consider the reason behind wanting to go to HBS. Which for me is to: become a great business man and a leader of consequence.
More importantly, it is to create a legacy of Weisburds many generations deep that will continue to become great business people and go to Harvard Business School. It is my desire to change the fate of my children and their children that drives these activities.
Pretty deep eh? With this mindset and with the hope for the future it becomes quite easy to accomplish this and every other goal.
Just think WHY is it that I want to accomplish the goal?
***Bonus***
As a bonus aside, rather then thinking "I need to go to the gym", think "I want to lose 20 pounds" or more importantly think "I want to lose 20 pounds so that I can have more energy, look better, etc." BTW, an even more effective way to motivated yourself is to say "I want to lose 20 pounds... and have fun doing it." Words matter.
The real question is not how do I achieve the activities? The real question is what goals am I trying to achieve with these activities? Or even more importantly WHY do I want to achieve these goal?
Think this is a semantic difference or a thought that is "new age".
Consider this, how often do you start doing activities without actually thinking why you are doing them? I can't speak for you, but personally I do this 99% of the time.
And this is the problem. This act-without-thinking disease is one that has been ingrained in our minds through repetition and habit.
Of course, no one is asking you to become an anxious individual who constantly asks himself why am I doing this, now why am I doing that?
There is a very important reason to ask why am I doing something and specifically what is the reason for my wanting to accomplish this bigger goal.
If we have a strong why we are given an almost unlimited source of power and motivation. We no longer have to "motivate" ourselves on a daily basis, rather it becomes automatic.
Let me give you an example:
-Today, I am working on my Harvard Business School essays. Before starting, I pump myself up by thinking "I know I have to do these essays." I don't even stop to think about why I need to do them: because I want to get into HBS. As ridiculous as it sounds, the thought doesn't even come up. I automatically focus on completing the task.
More importantly, I don't even consider the reason behind wanting to go to HBS. Which for me is to: become a great business man and a leader of consequence.
More importantly, it is to create a legacy of Weisburds many generations deep that will continue to become great business people and go to Harvard Business School. It is my desire to change the fate of my children and their children that drives these activities.
Pretty deep eh? With this mindset and with the hope for the future it becomes quite easy to accomplish this and every other goal.
Just think WHY is it that I want to accomplish the goal?
***Bonus***
As a bonus aside, rather then thinking "I need to go to the gym", think "I want to lose 20 pounds" or more importantly think "I want to lose 20 pounds so that I can have more energy, look better, etc." BTW, an even more effective way to motivated yourself is to say "I want to lose 20 pounds... and have fun doing it." Words matter.
A Trait of Leaders
There is one trait in the greatest leaders that I find myself admiring and attempting to replicate: that of commitment and making the leap of faith.
As a leader you can not lead strictly by numbers, statistics, and probabilities. Ultimately, at some point in some way you need to be able to make the leap of faith. In fact, the only way you can lead is if you act as if.
Every politician must act as if they will be elected. Every entrepreneur must act as if the project/business will work. Even though in both cases the odds are sometimes slim.
There is no hedging. Yes, you can set up contingency plans before hand. But once you determine the course of action you must put your act as if it will work. This is the only way others will follow. This is the only way you will be able to persist in the face of adversity.
As a leader you can not lead strictly by numbers, statistics, and probabilities. Ultimately, at some point in some way you need to be able to make the leap of faith. In fact, the only way you can lead is if you act as if.
Every politician must act as if they will be elected. Every entrepreneur must act as if the project/business will work. Even though in both cases the odds are sometimes slim.
There is no hedging. Yes, you can set up contingency plans before hand. But once you determine the course of action you must put your act as if it will work. This is the only way others will follow. This is the only way you will be able to persist in the face of adversity.
The Multivitamin I take (once a day)
Easy to keep up since it only needs to be taken once a day. Relatively cheap (around $25 or so for 90 days).
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00424/nutritional-diet-vitamin-supplements
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00424/nutritional-diet-vitamin-supplements
How Easy It is...
It is quite fascinating how easy it is to be distracted by short term tasks. I find myself like a dog with my tongue out chasing the next task driving by.
One thing I do not know, is it just me that is so ADD that every new email or phone call breaks my focus? I suspect it is common in all of us.
Luckily, I use my sheet with goals to counteract this. Yes, even despite this sheet of paper I sometimes lose focus for 5 to 10 seconds but I am then reminded by this paper of what it is that I should be working on and get back to the task at hand immediately.
One thing I do not know, is it just me that is so ADD that every new email or phone call breaks my focus? I suspect it is common in all of us.
Luckily, I use my sheet with goals to counteract this. Yes, even despite this sheet of paper I sometimes lose focus for 5 to 10 seconds but I am then reminded by this paper of what it is that I should be working on and get back to the task at hand immediately.
My Productive Week
This week have been incredibly productive. I have accomplished more in business, physical fitness, MBA applications and even partying then I have in several past weeks (which is typically quite a lot).
What is the reason for this?
A simple goal setting system (by the way, I am a big believer in the power of repetition so expect to read about this issue in the near future).
The system that I learned is both incredibly simple and effective. (As an aside: one of my societal pet peeves is that people believe that in order for something to be effective it must be "magical", or completely radical or out of the box.)
Every morning, I take 5 minutes to CONSCIOUSLY think about what I am going to do for the day. I write everything out on a piece of paper that is in my mind. I next classify everything into A, B, and C goals. After this, I start working on the A goals and work my way down, forgetting to worry about the non-consequential C or D goals.
Then at the end of the day, I can transfer those things that I didn't finish to the next day. However, the next day I will RE-PRIORITIZE my goals and start with A goals. It is OK to procrastinate on goals as long as they are C and D goals.
One innovation that I have applied to this system is adding short rewards between different tasks that motivate me in the short term.
I am looking forward to hearing on your experiences with this issue.
What is the reason for this?
A simple goal setting system (by the way, I am a big believer in the power of repetition so expect to read about this issue in the near future).
The system that I learned is both incredibly simple and effective. (As an aside: one of my societal pet peeves is that people believe that in order for something to be effective it must be "magical", or completely radical or out of the box.)
Every morning, I take 5 minutes to CONSCIOUSLY think about what I am going to do for the day. I write everything out on a piece of paper that is in my mind. I next classify everything into A, B, and C goals. After this, I start working on the A goals and work my way down, forgetting to worry about the non-consequential C or D goals.
Then at the end of the day, I can transfer those things that I didn't finish to the next day. However, the next day I will RE-PRIORITIZE my goals and start with A goals. It is OK to procrastinate on goals as long as they are C and D goals.
One innovation that I have applied to this system is adding short rewards between different tasks that motivate me in the short term.
I am looking forward to hearing on your experiences with this issue.
Significance and Esteem
Once of the fundamental needs that every person must satisfy is the need for significance.
This is the reason behind why people join gangs as well as why people feel the need to criticize others and attack them.
I have found that the highest self esteem individuals have this need satisfied and do not go around criticizing others and breaking others down. This is what every individual must strive for. The most self obsessed and self observed people are those that constantly think "what do those people think of me" or "look at what that girl is wearing" (often the quietest and "shyest" people).
Remember: if people are criticizing you and trying to break you down it is because they are coming from a place of insecurity. It is literally impossible to hold the thoughts of complete self acceptance and criticism of others in your mind at one time.
That is all I am going to say on this issue!
This is the reason behind why people join gangs as well as why people feel the need to criticize others and attack them.
I have found that the highest self esteem individuals have this need satisfied and do not go around criticizing others and breaking others down. This is what every individual must strive for. The most self obsessed and self observed people are those that constantly think "what do those people think of me" or "look at what that girl is wearing" (often the quietest and "shyest" people).
Remember: if people are criticizing you and trying to break you down it is because they are coming from a place of insecurity. It is literally impossible to hold the thoughts of complete self acceptance and criticism of others in your mind at one time.
That is all I am going to say on this issue!
Project Management 101
I believe that the 80/20 rule is very applicable in terms of project management. 80% of the results will come from 20% of the effort that you put into it. This is ESPECIALLY true of small and medium sized business which do not need the intricate project management applications that public companies use.
So what is the point and use of a project management program? For our company, we use it as a strategic big company view.
Here are the main benefits that my partner and I have attributed to using project management to manage our strategic pipeline of projects (translation: using project management to figure out what we should be working on):
1) To make sure that nothing splits through the cracks. After every weekly meeting we look at and re-update our one page excel worksheet of every project that we are working on. This way, we don't have to feel anxiety over "forgetting" something important.
It also focuses us to reconsider the big picture for 5-10 minutes on a WEEKLY basis.
2) Prioritization and re-prioritization. Things happen. It is quite shocking to see how much priorities can change within our company in only several months (keep it mind this is a small company, imagine what happens in large companies). The one page simple excel worksheet allows us to RE-PRIORITIZE our priorities on a weekly basis based on what is going on in the marketplace.
So what does our excel worksheet look like?
It is quite simple. We have our projects on a high to low priority scale in descending order. In the next column over we have contingencies (for example, some projects can't be started until someone gets back to us or another project is done).
It is amazing how important and beneficial this excel worksheet has become in managing our company. It allows us to spot bottlenecks (what is it that is keeping us from growing) as well as automatically create a laser-like focus and purpose to everything that we do.
Remember, don't worry about making the OPTIMAL project management worksheet. Just ask yourself the following question: does this make doing business better, does this lead to more focus and higher profits? If the answer is Yes, you know what to do.
So what is the point and use of a project management program? For our company, we use it as a strategic big company view.
Here are the main benefits that my partner and I have attributed to using project management to manage our strategic pipeline of projects (translation: using project management to figure out what we should be working on):
1) To make sure that nothing splits through the cracks. After every weekly meeting we look at and re-update our one page excel worksheet of every project that we are working on. This way, we don't have to feel anxiety over "forgetting" something important.
It also focuses us to reconsider the big picture for 5-10 minutes on a WEEKLY basis.
2) Prioritization and re-prioritization. Things happen. It is quite shocking to see how much priorities can change within our company in only several months (keep it mind this is a small company, imagine what happens in large companies). The one page simple excel worksheet allows us to RE-PRIORITIZE our priorities on a weekly basis based on what is going on in the marketplace.
So what does our excel worksheet look like?
It is quite simple. We have our projects on a high to low priority scale in descending order. In the next column over we have contingencies (for example, some projects can't be started until someone gets back to us or another project is done).
It is amazing how important and beneficial this excel worksheet has become in managing our company. It allows us to spot bottlenecks (what is it that is keeping us from growing) as well as automatically create a laser-like focus and purpose to everything that we do.
Remember, don't worry about making the OPTIMAL project management worksheet. Just ask yourself the following question: does this make doing business better, does this lead to more focus and higher profits? If the answer is Yes, you know what to do.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Tony Robbin's Summary of CD 6
Direct quotes/ideas from Tony Robbins Disc 6 of Personal Power II. This is not a substitute for listening to this DVD but will give you a good idea of where it's heading.:
We as humans take part in 4 different activities:
Class 1: We feel good doing them, good for us, and serves greater good.
Class 2: We feel bad doing them, good for us, and serves greater good.
Class 3: We feel good doing them, bad for us, and doesn't serve greater good.
Class 4: We feel bad doing them, bad for us, and doesn't serve greater good. (we get into this because of bad habits and routines).
The way to become incredibly successful is to turn Class 2 activities into Class 1 (more on this later).
ALL Human needs, across all culture is determined by 6 NEEDS. David's Note: This is the human genome equivalent of why people do things.. pretty important.
These NEEDS often conflict with each other that is why people self sabotage.
Four Primary Needs (6 Complete Needs):
1) Need for Certainty
2) Need for Uncertainty/Variety
3) Need for Significance
4) Need for Connection/Love
&
5) Need for Growth
6) Need for Contribution
These needs are so great that people will violate their values to fulfill these needs.
Until you organize your activities to fulfill your needs you will have to consciously "re-motivate" and "hype" yourself up. Very hard to sustain in long term. You must GIVE yourself these needs not WAIT for them to come to you by re-organizing or re-thinking your activities.
If you effortlessly enjoy something (even though others may find it difficult) it is because you are being satisfied in at least 4 of these 6 Needs.
Let's take me for example, or my writing my column in the paper (and the 4 primary needs):
1) Need for Certainty - 8 out of 10
2) Need for Uncertainty/Variety - 9 out of 10
3) Need for Significance - 10 out of 10
4) Need for Connection/Love 10 out of 10.
Versus Ironing My Clothes
1) Need for Certainty - 3 (I kind of suck at it)
2) Need for Uncertainty/Variety - 0
3) Need for Significance - 0
4) Need for Connection/Love - 0
Now do the same exercise for yourself..
So what do you do?
The idea is to CREATE these needs in your job at task.
What are some positive ways to increase your certainty in the task?
How can you get more variety into your job?
That is the million dollar question, and if you can do that then your opportunity for success is limitless.
We as humans take part in 4 different activities:
Class 1: We feel good doing them, good for us, and serves greater good.
Class 2: We feel bad doing them, good for us, and serves greater good.
Class 3: We feel good doing them, bad for us, and doesn't serve greater good.
Class 4: We feel bad doing them, bad for us, and doesn't serve greater good. (we get into this because of bad habits and routines).
The way to become incredibly successful is to turn Class 2 activities into Class 1 (more on this later).
ALL Human needs, across all culture is determined by 6 NEEDS. David's Note: This is the human genome equivalent of why people do things.. pretty important.
These NEEDS often conflict with each other that is why people self sabotage.
Four Primary Needs (6 Complete Needs):
1) Need for Certainty
2) Need for Uncertainty/Variety
3) Need for Significance
4) Need for Connection/Love
&
5) Need for Growth
6) Need for Contribution
These needs are so great that people will violate their values to fulfill these needs.
Until you organize your activities to fulfill your needs you will have to consciously "re-motivate" and "hype" yourself up. Very hard to sustain in long term. You must GIVE yourself these needs not WAIT for them to come to you by re-organizing or re-thinking your activities.
If you effortlessly enjoy something (even though others may find it difficult) it is because you are being satisfied in at least 4 of these 6 Needs.
Let's take me for example, or my writing my column in the paper (and the 4 primary needs):
1) Need for Certainty - 8 out of 10
2) Need for Uncertainty/Variety - 9 out of 10
3) Need for Significance - 10 out of 10
4) Need for Connection/Love 10 out of 10.
Versus Ironing My Clothes
1) Need for Certainty - 3 (I kind of suck at it)
2) Need for Uncertainty/Variety - 0
3) Need for Significance - 0
4) Need for Connection/Love - 0
Now do the same exercise for yourself..
So what do you do?
The idea is to CREATE these needs in your job at task.
What are some positive ways to increase your certainty in the task?
How can you get more variety into your job?
That is the million dollar question, and if you can do that then your opportunity for success is limitless.
How our mind cheats us from taking significant action..
Our mind plays a clever trick on us when it doesn't want us to do something important. It has us focus on something not as important.
Don't want to do the 3 hour paper? How about we just clean our desk for 15 minutes.
And for a long time our mind rewarded us with the same "feel good endorphins" for both activities.
That is, until today. Silly habits and tacit tricks can only hold up as long as we don't shine the light of awareness on them.
In order to truly reach a high level of success we must be conscious of our mind's ability to trick us into doing small unimportant tasks. If we are to achieve our potential we must violently reject this tendency. In fact, we must override this tendency by consciously reminding ourselves, and re-reminding ourselves of our top priorities on a daily basis (can't hurt to number them). (It gets easier with time but we must not get out of the habit of writing down our daily goals to overcome our tendency to engage in small useless activities).
Only with the courage to overcome the laziness inherent in our minds can we hope to achieve great success.
**BONUS**
On an aside, what is important? In order to figure out what is important apply the consequences test created by Brian Tracy: 1) What are the results of doing this activity? 2) What are the results of not doing this activity?
Don't want to do the 3 hour paper? How about we just clean our desk for 15 minutes.
And for a long time our mind rewarded us with the same "feel good endorphins" for both activities.
That is, until today. Silly habits and tacit tricks can only hold up as long as we don't shine the light of awareness on them.
In order to truly reach a high level of success we must be conscious of our mind's ability to trick us into doing small unimportant tasks. If we are to achieve our potential we must violently reject this tendency. In fact, we must override this tendency by consciously reminding ourselves, and re-reminding ourselves of our top priorities on a daily basis (can't hurt to number them). (It gets easier with time but we must not get out of the habit of writing down our daily goals to overcome our tendency to engage in small useless activities).
Only with the courage to overcome the laziness inherent in our minds can we hope to achieve great success.
**BONUS**
On an aside, what is important? In order to figure out what is important apply the consequences test created by Brian Tracy: 1) What are the results of doing this activity? 2) What are the results of not doing this activity?
Wow
I am rarely blown away by information. After all, I've read a lot of information on peak performance and personal and professional development.
But today, I was blown away.
Now, I see why Tony Robbins is the #1 sought after consultant amongst Fortune 500 executives (ahead of Gates and Buffett). Now I see why this program is the #1 best selling CD program of all time.
Now, I get it.
Here it is: the most pragmatic important program I have ever listened to: http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Power-II-Driving-Compelling/dp/B000BFVC7O/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1236266391&sr=8-4.
Specifically, watch DVD 6. Don't wait, just order it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
But today, I was blown away.
Now, I see why Tony Robbins is the #1 sought after consultant amongst Fortune 500 executives (ahead of Gates and Buffett). Now I see why this program is the #1 best selling CD program of all time.
Now, I get it.
Here it is: the most pragmatic important program I have ever listened to: http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Power-II-Driving-Compelling/dp/B000BFVC7O/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1236266391&sr=8-4.
Specifically, watch DVD 6. Don't wait, just order it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Thing About Goal Setting is that...
It's not a one time event. In order for them to be effective they must be done on a systematic basis. Daily, Weekly, Monthly. Don't get overwhelmed, even if you only do them once a week you are still better off then the majority of the population.
The main point is that in order for goals to be effective they must be looked upon as a recurring tool.
The main point is that in order for goals to be effective they must be looked upon as a recurring tool.
Never, Ever, Ever take a break after..
Completing a task. This is the mistake that 99% of people do.
Only take a break after STARTING a new task. It doesn't matter if you get 1 minute into it or 1 hour into a new task, just starting the new task breaks the inertia of "starting a new task". When you come back to it it will be 10x easier to finish.
(I wish I could take credit for this idea but it is one of Neil Fiore, you guessed it, the author of The Now Habit).
Only take a break after STARTING a new task. It doesn't matter if you get 1 minute into it or 1 hour into a new task, just starting the new task breaks the inertia of "starting a new task". When you come back to it it will be 10x easier to finish.
(I wish I could take credit for this idea but it is one of Neil Fiore, you guessed it, the author of The Now Habit).
Goal Setting Workshop in Bloomington
Hello all,
Recently I have greatly benefited from an improved goal setting methodology.
I would like to pass this on to 5 other people.
I do not promise any said curriculum (since I do not have time to work on this), but I can promise a pragmatic solution that really works that can be taught and conditioned within 10-15 minutes.
The cost is free, the 5 people can just split my cost of lunch and that will do.
If you are interested, please reply in the comments. First come first serve. No discrimination, only against Purdue grads.
Thanks,
David
P.S. For this to work one person must volunteer to coordinate everyone's schedule.
Recently I have greatly benefited from an improved goal setting methodology.
I would like to pass this on to 5 other people.
I do not promise any said curriculum (since I do not have time to work on this), but I can promise a pragmatic solution that really works that can be taught and conditioned within 10-15 minutes.
The cost is free, the 5 people can just split my cost of lunch and that will do.
If you are interested, please reply in the comments. First come first serve. No discrimination, only against Purdue grads.
Thanks,
David
P.S. For this to work one person must volunteer to coordinate everyone's schedule.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Commitment, Anxiety, and Maxing Out
I could write a book on these issues, but I'll keep it short.
Here is one of the biggest misconceptions out there: people don't do certain things because they are hard. The misconception is that the difficulty of the task is the driver of whether or not someone does something.
Wrong.
One of the interesting phenomenons that I have found through weight lifting is that the physical difficulty of a task does not determine how mentally difficult it is.
When I started out working out it was incredibly mentally and physically difficult. It is good I used a personal trainer or I surely would not have made it. After a while it got significantly easier. In fact, at this point I neither dread nor even think about lifting or going into the gym.
What happened?
Something interesting happened which I can explain although I can not define. It seems that our brains become conditioned to know that they can achieve at a certain level.
Although I pushed myself as much physically (if not more) I no longer felt the mental strain.
This is the sort of will power and stamina that can be accomplished in both weight lifting and business.
BUT I DIGRESS...
One very interesting phenomenon in business is that all anxiety that I have ever experienced is based on commitment and clarity issues.
Once I narrow down the specific goal and clearly know what it is that needs to be achieved anxiety is significantly decreased and it is replaced by action.
Here is one of the biggest misconceptions out there: people don't do certain things because they are hard. The misconception is that the difficulty of the task is the driver of whether or not someone does something.
Wrong.
One of the interesting phenomenons that I have found through weight lifting is that the physical difficulty of a task does not determine how mentally difficult it is.
When I started out working out it was incredibly mentally and physically difficult. It is good I used a personal trainer or I surely would not have made it. After a while it got significantly easier. In fact, at this point I neither dread nor even think about lifting or going into the gym.
What happened?
Something interesting happened which I can explain although I can not define. It seems that our brains become conditioned to know that they can achieve at a certain level.
Although I pushed myself as much physically (if not more) I no longer felt the mental strain.
This is the sort of will power and stamina that can be accomplished in both weight lifting and business.
BUT I DIGRESS...
One very interesting phenomenon in business is that all anxiety that I have ever experienced is based on commitment and clarity issues.
Once I narrow down the specific goal and clearly know what it is that needs to be achieved anxiety is significantly decreased and it is replaced by action.
The Now Habit as a Weapon
Lately, I have done two things to significantly improve my productivity:
1) Act proactively instead of reactively. Rather then going into the office and seeing "what needs to be done" I write down my goals for the day and get to work on them. The reality is that not everything can be done so I just focus on getting the most important things done (thank you Brian Tracy, thank you Sam Yudes). It is OK to procrastinate as long as it is on low value tasks.
2) Being conscious of my procrastination. Just being conscious of my procrastination has been incredibly helpful. The procrastination bug in you can not hide long once it is called out.
As soon as I find myself procrastinating, for example, going to check Facebook I ask myself: Why am I doing this?
Most of the time it is because I fear of self judgment or not performing the task adequately. At this point I remember a Mark Twain quote that I live by: "Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain."
I also am able to overcome procrastination by focusing on starting vs. finishing. I know that starting is what most people get hung up on so I focus on just starting. It is amazing how much easier it is.
The Now Habit Post
1) Act proactively instead of reactively. Rather then going into the office and seeing "what needs to be done" I write down my goals for the day and get to work on them. The reality is that not everything can be done so I just focus on getting the most important things done (thank you Brian Tracy, thank you Sam Yudes). It is OK to procrastinate as long as it is on low value tasks.
2) Being conscious of my procrastination. Just being conscious of my procrastination has been incredibly helpful. The procrastination bug in you can not hide long once it is called out.
As soon as I find myself procrastinating, for example, going to check Facebook I ask myself: Why am I doing this?
Most of the time it is because I fear of self judgment or not performing the task adequately. At this point I remember a Mark Twain quote that I live by: "Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain."
I also am able to overcome procrastination by focusing on starting vs. finishing. I know that starting is what most people get hung up on so I focus on just starting. It is amazing how much easier it is.
The Now Habit Post
"They Can't Eat You"
This was an important concept that David Becker brought up at a speech yesterday. David will soon join a small handful of people that has gotten 3 different companies into the Inc 500 list, an incredible feat.
David's point was that at the end of the day, nobody can eat you or physically hurt you if your business goes down so there is not as much to be afraid of as people think.
David's point was that at the end of the day, nobody can eat you or physically hurt you if your business goes down so there is not as much to be afraid of as people think.
Routines
As entrepreneurs or any business people for that matter, it is important not to get too locked into routine tasks. By nature, routine tasks are not high value tasks.
Routine tasks kill creativity and make coming in every day dreadful, at least for entrepreneurs. The last thing I want to do today is the same thing I did yesterday and on and on.
Here's the good news:
1) Since routine tasks are low value they are easy to hire out
2) Many people actually like knowing exactly what it is that they need to do.
#2 came as a huge shocker for me, but YES there are people that like to do the same thing day in and day out. It's not important why this is but rather that it is.. and it seems that the majority of the population fits this description.
If you feel yourself getting in a rut or routine, hire out those tasks and focus on growing your business.
Routine tasks kill creativity and make coming in every day dreadful, at least for entrepreneurs. The last thing I want to do today is the same thing I did yesterday and on and on.
Here's the good news:
1) Since routine tasks are low value they are easy to hire out
2) Many people actually like knowing exactly what it is that they need to do.
#2 came as a huge shocker for me, but YES there are people that like to do the same thing day in and day out. It's not important why this is but rather that it is.. and it seems that the majority of the population fits this description.
If you feel yourself getting in a rut or routine, hire out those tasks and focus on growing your business.
Concerns vs. Problems
Everyone has concerns. Like taking the trash out, paying taxes, etc.
However, for some people they become Problems or Issues.
More likely then not, it is not the concern that is the problem but rather something in the background. It's not that you have to go get your car fixed, it's that you broke up with your girlfriend, and ON TOP of that you have to get your car fixed.
When we are in a low state our mind tends to trick us with thoughts such as "I will always have problems." The truth is that you won't always have problems, although you may always have concerns.
But that's fine, when you are in a good state it is quite easy to take care of your concerns... so keep your head up.
However, for some people they become Problems or Issues.
More likely then not, it is not the concern that is the problem but rather something in the background. It's not that you have to go get your car fixed, it's that you broke up with your girlfriend, and ON TOP of that you have to get your car fixed.
When we are in a low state our mind tends to trick us with thoughts such as "I will always have problems." The truth is that you won't always have problems, although you may always have concerns.
But that's fine, when you are in a good state it is quite easy to take care of your concerns... so keep your head up.
Monday, March 2, 2009
The Ends that Stay Loose
When our business is small, things are simple. We have several clients whose needs must be met. While problems may arise during the day, by the end of the day most are resolved and we are able to go home feeling good.
As our businesses grow, the paradox becomes that the problems we experience start to multiply in number. In fact, at a certain point (and it doesn't take that quickly) our businesses end up in a constant state of untied loose ends.
How do we deal with this? Easy.
The problem is not that there are loose ends in your company. The real problem is that we see the tying of these loose ends as both realistic, and necessary.
The moment you realize that there will always be loose ends your anxiety will fade into the background and you will find yourself no longer concerned about this issue.
Letting go is the solution to any issue that can not be changed.
At the end of the day, it's JUST money.
As our businesses grow, the paradox becomes that the problems we experience start to multiply in number. In fact, at a certain point (and it doesn't take that quickly) our businesses end up in a constant state of untied loose ends.
How do we deal with this? Easy.
The problem is not that there are loose ends in your company. The real problem is that we see the tying of these loose ends as both realistic, and necessary.
The moment you realize that there will always be loose ends your anxiety will fade into the background and you will find yourself no longer concerned about this issue.
Letting go is the solution to any issue that can not be changed.
At the end of the day, it's JUST money.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Friends, Love and Intimacy
Friendship is a word that gets tossed around pretty easy, just like love... "I made a friend" like "I love this burger", they say.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of definition of this word it has quickly lossed its meaning. Until we redefine the world, it will be hard to evaluate.
I believe what we traditionally call friendship must be broken up into distinct categories: activity partners and friends. The reality is, at least for me, that the majority of who we call friends are truly activity partners (of course most friends start out as activity partners).
What is the difference and why the need for distinction?
Traditionally, people have broken up the topic into 'friends and close friends' or 'friends and best friends', but this hardly differentiates anything.
Until we stop to think about who are our friends and who are our activity partners we may (unfortunately) spend our time spread out amongst many activity partners and not even know it.
***
Which brings me onto a tangent, the issue of esteem and friendship. Once in a while I make a big mistake. I hang out with a guy/girl of low self esteem. Often times, this guy or girl with whom I hang out is highly attractive, charismatic, and popular. Regardless of these external issue, this situation never ends well.
OK, let me redefine it, it's not the esteem aspect that is detrimental its the need to borrow esteem from others that is most detrimental.
When I am surrounded by people of this sort, I literally find myself becoming more anxious and losing energy. Interestingly enough, this is regardless of what mood I was originally in. Just like people of high self esteem can elevate your mood, the same can happen with people with low self esteem.
The biggest reason for this anxiety and the biggest problem with low self esteem individuals is the lack of respect they show the people that they are with. On some level, when you are with a person of low self esteem they see you as part of them and look outside of you to find meaning. On a subconscious level, they are invalidating your self worth.
I have never been with a person of low self esteem that has given me their full attention.
Low self esteem individuals also have an external locus of control. They truly believe that something outside of them can "save" them. This is perhaps the most hazardous of all human thoughts.
On a further aside, I have never seen a person of low self esteem make a quality leader. Personally, I would NEVER under any circumstance partner/hire an individual with low self esteem (whatever you'd like to call me, I recommend you replicate this strategy).
***
Back to friendships and activity partners.
If we cut the bullshit and really get down to the details, what is the MAIN difference between these two groups. It is both easy and simple: the level of intimacy.
Intimacy is a very interesting phenomenon that is experienced in many different cultures. Unfortunately, in the United States (one of the only qualms that I have about our country) it is experienced on very low levels in both friendships and even relationships.
What is intimacy? The way I define it is quite simple: when an individual sees intrinsic worth in another individual and wants to spend time with him/her regardless of outside environment.
I have a handful of friends, who I call my close friends or best friends, who I would choose to hang out with in any city any time over doing any other activity in any other place.
This is both an easy and important test that you can apply to see whether you have a friend or an activity partner.
Why is it important to distinguish between these two groups?
My belief is that it is very important for several reasons:
1) It is often difficult to distinguish if we do not consciously think about it.
2) Time invested in an activity partner is time not invested in a friend. For me, I will hang out with a friend over 10 activity partners any day of the week no questions.
Notice what friendship and intimacy is not:
1) It is not based on quantity of time, although true friendships take time to build.
2) It is not based on similar beliefs, unfortunatley almost all of my close friends are liberals (and entrepreneurs at that), how did this happen!!
Why friendships are important..
For me, friendships mean a lot. I have invested a lot into my friends and I have never regretted it one bit. In fact, I see my friends as the peer group that I personally need to help become successfull (after all I don't want to do lavish things by myself!)
But the real reason friends are important is because of what they bring out in you. When I am with my friends (read: best friends) I operate on a whole different level. I feel almost like a little kid, with no worries and the ability to be myself 100% (when I'm with my friend it's usually 110% just to compensate for the rest of the time). I naturally feel a very strong vibe with the world and everything is at peace, regardless of how outside events may have looked before.
By the way, the role of a friend is to unconditionally accept first and analyze second. The quickest way to lose a friend is to a) reverse these two steps b) make your need to be right more important then the need to give your friend unconditional support. There is a HUGE difference between accepting a friend and giving him/her advice on the future, and conditionally loving your friend, a distinction that many people unfortunatley are not aware of.
Intimacy, like love, can only be experienced on a two way street. I have found that most people are not open to the idea of intimacy. This can be a result of many different issues but is most likely tied to self esteem and self acceptance. It is quite unfortunate as it has been revealed in research that 85% of an individual's happiness is determined by the level of interpersonnel relationships that he/she develops. Quite significant.
As for love, it is a deeper level of the same type of intimacy that we have discussed above... and it is a topic that will have to wait for another day..
Unfortunately, because of the lack of definition of this word it has quickly lossed its meaning. Until we redefine the world, it will be hard to evaluate.
I believe what we traditionally call friendship must be broken up into distinct categories: activity partners and friends. The reality is, at least for me, that the majority of who we call friends are truly activity partners (of course most friends start out as activity partners).
What is the difference and why the need for distinction?
Traditionally, people have broken up the topic into 'friends and close friends' or 'friends and best friends', but this hardly differentiates anything.
Until we stop to think about who are our friends and who are our activity partners we may (unfortunately) spend our time spread out amongst many activity partners and not even know it.
***
Which brings me onto a tangent, the issue of esteem and friendship. Once in a while I make a big mistake. I hang out with a guy/girl of low self esteem. Often times, this guy or girl with whom I hang out is highly attractive, charismatic, and popular. Regardless of these external issue, this situation never ends well.
OK, let me redefine it, it's not the esteem aspect that is detrimental its the need to borrow esteem from others that is most detrimental.
When I am surrounded by people of this sort, I literally find myself becoming more anxious and losing energy. Interestingly enough, this is regardless of what mood I was originally in. Just like people of high self esteem can elevate your mood, the same can happen with people with low self esteem.
The biggest reason for this anxiety and the biggest problem with low self esteem individuals is the lack of respect they show the people that they are with. On some level, when you are with a person of low self esteem they see you as part of them and look outside of you to find meaning. On a subconscious level, they are invalidating your self worth.
I have never been with a person of low self esteem that has given me their full attention.
Low self esteem individuals also have an external locus of control. They truly believe that something outside of them can "save" them. This is perhaps the most hazardous of all human thoughts.
On a further aside, I have never seen a person of low self esteem make a quality leader. Personally, I would NEVER under any circumstance partner/hire an individual with low self esteem (whatever you'd like to call me, I recommend you replicate this strategy).
***
Back to friendships and activity partners.
If we cut the bullshit and really get down to the details, what is the MAIN difference between these two groups. It is both easy and simple: the level of intimacy.
Intimacy is a very interesting phenomenon that is experienced in many different cultures. Unfortunately, in the United States (one of the only qualms that I have about our country) it is experienced on very low levels in both friendships and even relationships.
What is intimacy? The way I define it is quite simple: when an individual sees intrinsic worth in another individual and wants to spend time with him/her regardless of outside environment.
I have a handful of friends, who I call my close friends or best friends, who I would choose to hang out with in any city any time over doing any other activity in any other place.
This is both an easy and important test that you can apply to see whether you have a friend or an activity partner.
Why is it important to distinguish between these two groups?
My belief is that it is very important for several reasons:
1) It is often difficult to distinguish if we do not consciously think about it.
2) Time invested in an activity partner is time not invested in a friend. For me, I will hang out with a friend over 10 activity partners any day of the week no questions.
Notice what friendship and intimacy is not:
1) It is not based on quantity of time, although true friendships take time to build.
2) It is not based on similar beliefs, unfortunatley almost all of my close friends are liberals (and entrepreneurs at that), how did this happen!!
Why friendships are important..
For me, friendships mean a lot. I have invested a lot into my friends and I have never regretted it one bit. In fact, I see my friends as the peer group that I personally need to help become successfull (after all I don't want to do lavish things by myself!)
But the real reason friends are important is because of what they bring out in you. When I am with my friends (read: best friends) I operate on a whole different level. I feel almost like a little kid, with no worries and the ability to be myself 100% (when I'm with my friend it's usually 110% just to compensate for the rest of the time). I naturally feel a very strong vibe with the world and everything is at peace, regardless of how outside events may have looked before.
By the way, the role of a friend is to unconditionally accept first and analyze second. The quickest way to lose a friend is to a) reverse these two steps b) make your need to be right more important then the need to give your friend unconditional support. There is a HUGE difference between accepting a friend and giving him/her advice on the future, and conditionally loving your friend, a distinction that many people unfortunatley are not aware of.
Intimacy, like love, can only be experienced on a two way street. I have found that most people are not open to the idea of intimacy. This can be a result of many different issues but is most likely tied to self esteem and self acceptance. It is quite unfortunate as it has been revealed in research that 85% of an individual's happiness is determined by the level of interpersonnel relationships that he/she develops. Quite significant.
As for love, it is a deeper level of the same type of intimacy that we have discussed above... and it is a topic that will have to wait for another day..
The Hidden Cost of Alcohol
The purpose of this blog is not to act as a self righteous Mothers Against Drunk Driving piece. The point of this blog is to examine some of the cost/benefit aspects of drinking alcohol.
Why do people drink?
There are many reasons why people drink. It would be presumptuous and wrong to assume one reason over another. After all, people drink from age 16 to 90+, surely everyone has different reasons for this activity.
Unfortunately, many people use alcohol as an antiseptic or a way to numb their senses. This happens on both of a moderate and extreme level. On a moderate level, an individual may drink to gain "the confidence" to talk to a girl or other people. On an extreme level, an individual may drink to forget about things and numb their senses to their true reality.
Here in lies the problem. If used in moderation, alcohol can indeed act as a way to spiral success upwards, helping you relax momentarily. However, the problem becomes when alcohol is used as a permanent solution and not a temporary crutch.
The main hidden cost of alcohol is the fact that it is a depressant... literally. What most people are not conscious of, including me until this weekend, is that the hidden cost of alcohol is the effect that it has on your mood and energy levels.
Unfortunately, this has people in a negative spiral. An individual may be struggling in life, he drinks, he becomes more depressed and less motivated, he becomes less successful etc.
The main issue is not that the day after drinking you become more depressed. The main issue, is that many people do not realize this and therefore may believe that their semi-depressed state is their natural state. This can be very harmful to someone's motivation and faith in themselves.
In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with drinking in moderation. Of course it is wiser to improve your reality, rather then numb it, before you consume alcohol.
The main thing to remember is that the cost of alcohol is not only the money you pay and the obvious hangover you get in the morning. The main cost is the effect on your mood and energy levels.
Once you realize this effect and become conscious of it go ahead and drink away the night. You will feel better in the morning ; )
A short experiment: Go out with your friends one night and party without drinking alcohol. See how you feel in the evening, when you go to sleep, and in the morning and day after. You may be surprised..
Why do people drink?
There are many reasons why people drink. It would be presumptuous and wrong to assume one reason over another. After all, people drink from age 16 to 90+, surely everyone has different reasons for this activity.
Unfortunately, many people use alcohol as an antiseptic or a way to numb their senses. This happens on both of a moderate and extreme level. On a moderate level, an individual may drink to gain "the confidence" to talk to a girl or other people. On an extreme level, an individual may drink to forget about things and numb their senses to their true reality.
Here in lies the problem. If used in moderation, alcohol can indeed act as a way to spiral success upwards, helping you relax momentarily. However, the problem becomes when alcohol is used as a permanent solution and not a temporary crutch.
The main hidden cost of alcohol is the fact that it is a depressant... literally. What most people are not conscious of, including me until this weekend, is that the hidden cost of alcohol is the effect that it has on your mood and energy levels.
Unfortunately, this has people in a negative spiral. An individual may be struggling in life, he drinks, he becomes more depressed and less motivated, he becomes less successful etc.
The main issue is not that the day after drinking you become more depressed. The main issue, is that many people do not realize this and therefore may believe that their semi-depressed state is their natural state. This can be very harmful to someone's motivation and faith in themselves.
In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with drinking in moderation. Of course it is wiser to improve your reality, rather then numb it, before you consume alcohol.
The main thing to remember is that the cost of alcohol is not only the money you pay and the obvious hangover you get in the morning. The main cost is the effect on your mood and energy levels.
Once you realize this effect and become conscious of it go ahead and drink away the night. You will feel better in the morning ; )
A short experiment: Go out with your friends one night and party without drinking alcohol. See how you feel in the evening, when you go to sleep, and in the morning and day after. You may be surprised..
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