WorkPuzzle

Why Do People Make Career Moves?

The quick answer to this question?   ...Because they have to make a change.

About a month ago, I wrote an article highlighting Po Bronson’s book, What Should I Do With My Life?  Bronson later published a follow-up article in Fast Company Magazine highlighting the most common misconceptions regarding finding meaning in one’s work.

The misconception that I’d like to discuss today is:

“People are the architects of their own change.”

Bronson notices:

“Extremely few people quit because of career ennui.  Rather most are pushed into change:  they’re laid off or can’t make ends meet or have at-home family demands or find their new, postmerger boss to be an absolute jerk.  They are not naive idealists.”

If you are a Hiring Manager or are responsible for recruiting in your company, this should be a principle you should consider nearly every day.  From a recruiter’s perspective, timing is everything.  Being in the right place (in the back of the candidate’s mind) at the right time (when the candidate is being forced to make a change), has a lot to do with your success.

This is one of the most important differentiators in separating successful recruiters from those who struggle.  It only makes sense that if these right place / right time interactions are left to chance, they are not going to happen very often.
 
Successful recruiters do the hard (and often boring) work of maintaining a presence in the back of the most desirable candidates’ minds.  This work takes creativity, persistence, and an understanding of human nature.  Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the principles that help recruiters find success in this endeavor.

Knowing Your Business

A friend of mine, who once grew an accounting firm from four million to 400 million annual revenue, recently told me that an important epiphany for him was the day he realized that he was actually in the recruiting business, not the accounting business.  Yes, his company provided accounting services and always needed to provide top notch and often specialized services.  But in order to do this, he realized his company had to be exceptional at recruiting.

He realized that if his company focused on the goal of being the best recruiter in the accounting business, they would rise above and beat out their competition.

I don't know about you, but that gave me goose pimples!  How insightful and how true.

What business are you really in?  I know that many of you are our clients - And most of our clients are in the "Real Estate" business.  But is this really your primary business?  What separates you from your competition?  I suspect, more often than not, the most successful Real Estate companies are not so coincidentally, also the best recruiters.

So what is good recruiting in Real Estate?

Is it waiting for people to knock on your door?  Believe it or not that is what many companies really do.

Is it going after the lowest hanging fruit in your pipeline; the ones that you only have to call once?  Again, many Real Estate companies operate with this focus.

If you are only accepting people who take little effort to recruit, you're going to get the most desperate people.  Is this really how you want to define the core of your business?

Here is a analogy we can all appreciate:  When you were dating, did you only date people who approached you, or did you pursue someone, or at least flirt with someone, that you had your eye on?  If you waited to be asked, you might have settled...  Generally the pursuit is well worth the work.

The most talented candidate for any given job is out there doing something else right now.  They are doing a very good job and they are not desperate, and more than likely, they are not actively looking for work.  To entice those individuals to join your team will take time, patience, creativity, and persistence (not to mention a well-run system to track the pipeline).

So, get your team together, and make sure that you are in agreement regarding your key business and how you'll pursue the best talent out there...

The Brain Science of Management - Part 2 - Incorporating Metrics

Yesterday I summarized a review of Jacob's new book, Management Rewired.  I opened with this statement:

"First, we need to relinquish the fact that people are rational.  Recent research has shown emotions hold more sway over our decisions than reason; we turn to logic merely to justify our choices after the fact." (Ellen Gibson, Newsweek)

I discussed the author's plea to refrain from managing out of reward and punishment, and focus instead on building ownership and meaningful connections to peoples' work - It takes more forethought and tact, but is far more effective.

However, what the book doesn't address well, is how metrics fit into all of this.  I agree, wholeheartedly, that much of the conventional wisdom taught to managers produces the opposite effect from what is intended (carrot/stick), but we can't throw the baby out with the bath water... The better path is frequently counter-intuitive.

Measurement will always be part of how we gauge success.  Take sports for instance:  Sure the goal is to build teamwork, meaning, and aspirations for greatness into each player's motivational mindset.  But without measurement, this goal is meaningless.  Measurement will always be a part of determining an individual's contribution to a team.  Measurement is how we gauge progress and improvement, and how we calculate our standing against the competition.

As most of you know, we at Tidemark, place a great deal of importance on measurement.  We measure pretty much everything.  It is through measurement that one can make rational decisions, instead of justifying bad decisions through emotion.  Measurement doesn't inherently lead to the atmosphere of "carrot and stick" -- Lazy management does...  

The Brain Science of Management

"First, we need to relinquish the fact that people are rational.  Recent research has shown emotions hold more sway over our decisions than reason; we turn to logic merely to justify our choices after the fact."  (Ellen Gibson, Business Week).

This excerpt is one of the summaries to a review of Management Rewired:  Why Feedback doesn't Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science, by Charles S. Jacobs.

If you've read the latest Workpuzzle blogs by Ben Hess (1,2) trying to rationalize his coffee addiction, you have witnessed, first hand, this principle at work.  He is physically, and therefore emotionally attached to coffee, and continues to look for evidence to justify his addiction.  He does a pretty good job of this, I might add.

What Jacobs details in his book has actually been conveyed previously in countless other ways - Jacobs has just written a book using the latest brain research to justify a well found truth.  The truth is that people respond more to their emotions than they do to rational motivations.

It's long been known, for instance, that people respond best when they are performing meaningful work and striving to do their best, and when managers don't manage out of reward and punishment.  Professor John Seddon from the University of Cardiff in his work, Freedom from Command and Control, states that:

"Dysfunctional behaviour is ubiquitous and systemic, not because people are wicked but because the requirement to serve the hierarchy competes with the requirement to serve customers."

When management becomes out of control,

"...people's ingenuity is engaged in survival not improvement.  By causing managers and staff to lose sight of their customers, they can ultimately contribute to putting the organization out of business altogether."

In Gibson's article, The Stop-Managing Guide to Management, Gibson explains:

"Whether we're a chimpanzee or a corporate employee, we don't like being controlled by others.  Instead of trying to alter behaviors by fiat, he recommends that managers stop managing.  Employees should set their own objectives, critique their own performance, and come up with their own strategies for improvement.  People are self-motivating, Jacobs says, especially when they feel they're doing meaningful work.  (In case this strikes anyone as a dubious assertion, the author points out that engaging tasks stimulate the brain's dopamine system and deliver the same 'high' we get from food and nicotine.)"

So what's a boss to do? 

"Managers are better served by using subtle tactics to influence employees. Understanding that people are strongly motivated by emotion, he recommends that leaders create evocative 'narratives' about an organization's mission. For a small startup, it could be as basic as a David-vs.-Goliath plotline.

Here's an example of a rewired manager in action:  A team with a specific goal feels it's understaffed.  Jacobs suggests the manager defer to the team's point of view rather than react irritably.  Acknowledge that the team is shorthanded, he advises, then convince members that adding staff would dilute their accomplishment.

The book draws parallels between the couch and the cubicle.  The goal of the talk therapist is to guide the patient away from self-defeating mindsets.  But it's hard to imagine the average boss having the patience to apply these techniques, and Jacobs acknowledges that his approach takes more effort than employing carrot and stick.  Even so, reading Management Rewired might soften the touch—and boost the effectiveness—of many a corporate drill sergeant."

Keep in mind that most of you who have been raised under the reward and punishment system, with little exposure to the more subtle motivations, are emotionally attached to that way of relating, and will find ways to justify that management style.  But if you do this, you'll be rationalizing something that's not good for you or your team, much like Ben continues to rationalize his coffee addiction.  

Coffee Research and Recruiting

Yesterday, I shared how I recently became a guilt-free coffee drinker due to the research that recently surfaced regarding the health benefits of my addictive obsession.

As I read more of the article yesterday, something caught eye - The article explains why coffee got a bad rap in the first place:

“Many people take their coffee with a small dose of guilt, worried that it isn’t good for the body.  That’s a holdover from studies done in the 1950s and 1960s showing that coffee drinkers were prone to pancreatic cancer, heart disease, and other woes.  These studies failed to account for cigarette smoking, which once went hand in cup with coffee drinking.  Since then, the medical community has done a gradual about-face on the health effects of coffee.”

I think there is a principle here worth considering when it comes to recruiting. 

Part of the service offering we provide our clients is the design and implementation of recruiting systems.  From an end-to-end system perspective, recruiting can look very different than it does if you just examine each component on its own.

For example, we often hear comments such as:

“We’ve tried job boards, and they don’t work for our company.”

or...

“I took an assessment in the past that indicated I would be a poor salesperson, but I’m a great salesperson!”

or...

“I’ve called and left voice mails for the candidates on my sourcing list, and they don’t call back.  We must be calling the wrong candidates because these people aren’t interested.”

Just as the coffee researchers discovered, the overall system matters most when it comes to results.  Just because your Uncle Joe drank a lot of coffee and died of a heart attack, doesn’t mean the coffee killed him...It was more likely his overall lifestyle that led to his demise, from which coffee drinking was a mere part.  Likewise, it is not likely the pieces of the recruiting process that cause recruiting failures, it is the system itself that is faulty.
 
As humans, it is much easier for us to focus our attention on part of an overall process, rather than to look at things holistically.  Why?  Because whatever is causing the pain is what gets our attention.  If you’re responsible for recruiting, that’s a mistake. 

You’ll get much better results by identifying as many parts in the recruiting process as possible and then testing to see how changing each component affects the end result.  This takes time, attention, and focus...but it works!

The Seattle Lifestyle is Finally Vindicated

I thought we’d cover a fun topic today.  As many of you know, our company is headquartered in Seattle.  Near the top of the list of things to hassle residents of Seattle about (right behind how much it rains here) is how much coffee we drink. 

It’s true -- We drink a lot of coffee.  Howard Schultz was no dummy when he founded Starbucks in this dark, dreary town where almost everyone needs a pick-me-up to face the day.

Some would say that I am particularly excessive.  A couple a years ago, we set a revenue goal as a company, and as a reward for meeting our goal, we bought the office a Gaggia automatic espresso maker.  This is a wonderful machine.  With just the push of a button, it grinds fresh coffee beans and makes two shots of steaming espresso.  

I’ve been known to drink a few of these every day that I am in the office.  In fact, after five of these double-shots within one day, I usually stop counting.  The ladies in our office claim that I’m addicted to this high-octane stuff, but I don’t think so.  I’ve always thought that it was healthy for me, and now I’ve got someone to back up my hypothesis...

Harvard Business Review ran an article this month that vindicates my position.  It turns out coffee is good for you:

“Large, long-term studies show that coffee doesn’t promote cancer and may even protect against some types.  It’s safe for the heart—so safe that the American Heart Association says it’s OK for heart attack survivors to have a cup or two a day even as they recover in the coronary care unit.
 
Results from the long-running Health Professionals Follow-Up and Nurses’ Health studies show that drinking coffee cuts the risk of dying early from heart attack or stroke.  Coffee also appears to offer some small protection against Type 2 diabetes, gallstones, and Parkinson’s disease.”

So, keep the espresso coming!  Here’s the bad news.  If you put anything in your coffee (cream, sugar, flavoring, etc.) you start to negate the health benefits. 

If you drink one of those 16-ounce Mint Mocha Chip Frappuccinos with chocolate whipped cream every day, you’re probably going to gain a bunch of weight, be depressed from an overdose of sugar (one of these drinks contains 58 grams of sugar—that’s 14 teaspoons!), and eventually die from heart disease. 

Luckily, I drink mine black....

Gratitude - Part 2

In Friday's blog, I described the many benefits to a daily exercise of gratitude. I suspect that had I listed the benefits (even powerful benefits to reaching your goals), without explaining the prescription, many of you would have reached for your wallet to pay for whatever it was that could lead to such great benefits.

But, given that the solution requires some personal daily discipline, and might be seen as kind of corny (especially to the macho types), you might be inclined to blow it off. Much like Rosanne Bar said many years ago: "I'd do absolutely anything to lose weight.... except diet and exercise."

Here's my promise:  I am going to start following the below prescription daily.  If you haven't yet read Friday's blog, please do, so you can learn why I'm so emphatic about building gratitude into my daily life. It is my hope that you (and those whom you manage) will too aspire to improve your outlook on life via a conscious practice of gratitude.   

Beginning a Gratitude Journal: (Modified from How to Keep a Gratitude Journal)

Step 1:  Choose a blank notebook or journal to write in every night.  Consider a spiral-bound journal that opens flat for ease in writing.  Select lined or unlined paper.  Keep this notebook next to the bed with a pen readily available.

Step 2:  Look for things during the day for which you are grateful.  Make mental notes throughout the day, every day.  Notice how the gratitude journal serves as a catalyst in shifting your focus to a more positive outlook over time.

Step 3:  Write five things you're grateful for each night before bedtime.  Review the day and include anything, however small or great, that was a source of gratitude that day.  For example...the morning sun (rare in Seattle), the sound of a Harley, a flower in bloom, your child's laugh, or the smell of a newly cut lawn (...or cinnamon toast).  Make the list personal.  Write a few words about the five benefits or blessings.  Be brief and increase the length as time progresses.

Step #4:  Begin looking every day for the positive angle in all things.  You will begin to view obstacles as opportunities to appreciate.

Step #5:  Focus on the wonderful things in life to attract similar encounters in the course of the day.  Use positive emotions as you interact with others to elicit more positive emotions (There is a lot of research supporting this finding).  Note these attractions in the gratitude journal.

Step #6:  Personalize the gratitude journal.  Expand it with clippings, photos, quotes or verses from magazines or other sources.

For most of us, this seems like such a stretch -- It seems like something Oprah would do (As I recall, I believe she actually does keep a gratitude journal...). Nevertheless, the benefits are clear and profound. 

While researchers are stating their findings loud and clear, religious leaders have been emphasizing the benefits of gratitude for thousands of years.  I invite (challenge?) you to join me in this endeavor, and post your results.  I think you'll be surprised how much you will gain from this exercise.... 

Goal Attainment and Gratitude

You are probably wondering what Goal Attainment and Gratitude have in common.  If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you might be able to figure it out.  I've been following the research on gratitude over the last few years and have been trying to find a way to make it applicable to our WorkPuzzle readers.  I believe I finally have.  First, some background information regarding gratitude:

You see, gratitude has only recently been put under the microscope from a scientific research perspective.  Prior to the last 15 years, the subject was left to philosophers and religious leaders as the appropriate experts to extol its benefits.  However, once scientists began studying gratitude, they were so impressed by the findings, that research in this area has exploded.

The benefit of gratitude that I predict most of you will be interested in (at least initially), is the finding that gratitude is linked to significantly improved personal goal attainment.  In one study, participants in one group kept gratitude lists (more on this next blog).  This group ended up more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period than subjects in the control group, who underwent other exercises toward goal attainment.

However, a Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness confirms that goal attainment is not the only benefit to be gained from a practice of gratitude.  Check out the paraphrased list below for additional benefits a consistent discipline of practicing gratitude can bring:

1.  Studies show that those who keep gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercise more regularly, report fewer physical symptoms, feel better about their lives as a whole, and are more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who record hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

2.  Young adults who are taught self-guided exercises for daily gratitude report higher levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to other groups, who tend to focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants think they are better off than others). 

3.  Study participants practicing gratitude are more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or having offered emotional support to someone, compared to a group focused on hassles or social comparison condition.

4.  In a sample of adults with neuromuscular disease, a 21-day gratitude intervention resulted in greater amounts of high-energy, positive moods; a greater sense of connectedness to others; more optimistic ratings of one’s life; and better sleep duration and sleep quality, relative to a control group.

5.  Children who practice grateful thinking have more positive attitudes toward school and their families (Froh, Sefick, & Emmons, 2008).

6.  Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, and optimism.  In addition, they report lower levels of depression and stress.  The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions.  Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.

7.  Prosociality:  People with a strong disposition toward gratitude have the capacity to be empathetic and to view the perspective of others.  They are rated as more generous and more helpful by people in their social networks (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

8.  Spirituality:  Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities, such as prayer reading, are more likely to be grateful.  Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life, and a commitment to, and responsibility to others (McCullough et. al., 2002). Gratitude does not require religious faith, but faith enhances the ability to be grateful.

9.  Materialism:  Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others' success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of others; and are more likely to share their possessions with others, relative to less grateful persons.

If that isn't a good enough list of benefits to spur most of us to develop our own discipline of gratitude, I don't know what will!

In Monday's blog I'll show you how you can begin to develop your own gratitude practice, and how to teach gratitude to those you coach and mentor.

Zappos and the Pursuit of Happiness - Part 2

Yesterday, we spent some time learning about Tony Hsieh’s passion for making happiness the central focus of the Zappos culture.  The insight was gained from a recent article published in Inc. Magazine.

When companies think about happiness, particularly as it applies to employees, the attention usually shifts to perks and benefits.  Hsieh seems to know better:

“That single-minded focus on happiness has led to plenty of accolades for the company, which routinely scores high on lists of the best places to work. But Zappos's approach to workplace bliss differs significantly from that of other employee-friendly businesses.

For one thing, Zappos pays salaries that are often below market rates -- the average hourly worker makes just over $23,000 a year. Though the company covers 100 percent of health care costs, employees are not offered perks found at many companies, such as on-site child care, tuition reimbursement, and a 401(k) match.

Zappos does offer free food to its employees, but the pile of cold cuts in the small cafeteria loses its allure faster than you can say Googleplex. Instead of buying his employees' loyalty, Hsieh has managed to design a corporate culture that challenges our conception of that tired phrase.”

As Dave Mashburn often points out in his WorkPuzzle posts:  Every human wants happiness, but we’re very poor at predicting what will make happiness a reality in our own lives.  This is exactly what intrigues Hsieh:

“'I've been doing a lot of research into the science of happiness,' he says. In addition to asking everyone he meets what makes him or her happy, he has also been studying books on the subject, especially Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis, which uses social psychology experiments to evaluate the world's great religions and philosophies and concludes that ancient wisdom and science are both useful tools in the quest for contentment.”

So, what’s he come up with?  Hsieh has concluded that happiness comes from establishing a balance between the following four basic human needs:

1. Perceived Progress:  The perception that you’re further along today than yesterday.

2. Perceived Control:  The perception that you have a direct affect on the outcomes in your life.

3. Relatedness:  Living life in the context of meaningful relationships.

4. Connection to a Larger Vision:  Contributing to something bigger than yourself.

Hsieh admits that he doesn’t have this topic completely figured out yet:

“'I’ve got a few different frameworks and I’m just figuring out how to combine them,' he says without irony or even a smile.  ‘I think I’m pretty close.'”

I find all of this intriguing, particularly because we now have hard-core business leaders addressing issues that previously "belonged" in the realm of philosophy.  Why?  Because these issues have a direct and profound impact on performance. 

If you have the responsibility for coaching and managing others, hopefully you will feel inspired to step into Tony Hsieh's shoes, and view the vast benefits of happiness in a whole new light...

Zappos and the Pursuit of Happiness

About a year ago, I started seeing advertisements in the bottoms of the plastic bins at the security checkpoints at airports – You know, the containers that you put your shoes and other personal items in before they go through the x-ray machine?

The one advertisement that stands out in my mind from routinely using these bins, was placed by a company called Zappos. Unfortunately, the intended brand impact eluded me at the time… I had no idea that Zappos was a very large and successful online shoe retailer, hence the advertisement at the bottom of the shoe bin. How clever!

Inc. Magazine recently ran an article about Zappos that I found insightful. The Zappos story is very inspiring on its own, and worth reading from a human interest perspective. But, what caught my eye was the leadership insight of their CEO, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay).

Hsieh has received some media attention for the financial success of Zappos (their revenues now exceed $1 Billion per year), but most people are far more interested in the counter-intuitive way he runs the company.

What’s his secret? Happiness. Hsieh has decided to make happiness the central focus of his company:

“But Hsieh has a hard time getting excited about [the financial success of the company]. What he really cares about is making Zappos’s employees and customers feel really, really good. This is not because Hsieh is a nice guy (though he is a very nice guy), but because he has decided that his entire business revolves around one thing: happiness. Everything serves that single end. Other business innovators work with software code or circuit boards or molecular formulas. Hsieh prefers to work with something altogether more complex and volatile: human beings themselves.”

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss some of the principles that Hsieh has uncovered in making happiness the central focus of Zappos. In the meantime, try to find these shoe bin ads the next time you’re at the airport…now you know the story behind them!