WorkPuzzle

Are Your Job Ads Too Classified?

Did you know that 90% of the job ads posted today persist in describing the requirements of experience, skills, and education for each position as the only criteria? This would seem to be a logical system for attracting well-qualified candidates.

However, I am personally aware of several cases of individuals who have shied away from applying for those opportunities where the prerequisites are so selectively detailed. These were extremely talented candidates with many of the characteristics that would make them great employees in any field.

So why didn’t these candidates apply? Because, based on the ad content, they believed the company was more interested in experience and skill level than talent, drive and desire.

There are multiple layers behind why the “traditional” way doesn't work. You have probably heard me say that this method doesn't speak to the person. For example, “skills” do not tap a person’s curiosity, awareness or attentiveness or how they work in a group or leadership situation.

Finding more about who they are, what they are interested in, and how they view a beneficial working relationship will give you the relevant information needed to identify the successful employee. 

 Lou Adler, a widely read author in recruiting circles, recently wrote:

"Earlier this year, I saw an ad for Facebook’s VP of Human Resources. It listed a bunch of experience requirements interlaced with some generic responsibilities and hyperbole.

To me this is backwards. It’s far better to define the job before defining the person. If a person has successfully accomplished something similar, he or she has exactly the level of skills, experience and academics required.

The worked required to be done determines the skills needed, the skills needed don't define the work required.  80-90% of the people who get promoted internally into these same spots don’t have the experience, skills and academics listed as required for someone hired from the outside.

What they do have is something far better – a track record of performance that indicates they can take on a bigger role in the company.

It seems obvious that if a company wants to hire people who are both competent and motivated to do the work required, they need to start by defining the work required.

Yet somehow this basic concept is lost when a new job opens up. Instead of defining the job, managers focus on defining the person. The end result is not a job description at all, but a person description.

This limits the selection pool to a narrow group of people just like the people the company has hired in the past. By default, this precludes expanding the company’s diversity hiring program or raising the company’s overall talent level.

For The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, I asked one of the top labor attorney’s in the country, David Goldstein from Littler Mendelson, to review the idea of using performance objectives to define the job, rather than skills. Here are a few of his comments (you’ll find his full report in the book):

 ‘A properly prepared performance profile ...and focusing on “Year 1 and Beyond” criteria may open the door to more minority, military, and disabled candidates who have a less “traditional” mix of experiences, thereby supporting affirmative action or diversity efforts.’

Hiring a more diverse and talented workforce starts by defining the work required for success, not the skills, experiences and academics needed to do the work.

This is not rocket science, just commonsense, but apparently commonsense is not one of the skills required for hiring people."

Lou’s article and book are extremely valuable tools in today’s competitive hiring environment. I am excited by the fact that most of our clients use this hiring method and apply the philosophy it evokes.

Perhaps it may be easier to practice these principles when it comes to independent contractors such as real estate agents, but it is also the right thing to do. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

"Gallup-ing" Towards Success

Ten years ago I had the unique experience of attending the annual Positive Psychology Summit held at the Gallup, Inc, headquarters in Washington DC. If you aren't familiar with Gallup, some of their most outstanding work has focused on researching what makes companies successful. My visit left a lasting impression and I have continued to follow their various studies, in particular that of job fulfillment.      

Dr. Gallup’s early work, the topic of job satisfaction, has been studied and written about in more than 10,000 articles and publications. Because most people spend a high percentage of their waking hours at work, studies of the workplace are of great interest for many professionals. The process of managing and improving the workplace is crucial and presents great challenges to nearly every organization.

Since the 1950's Gallup has conducted thousands of studies amid some of the world's most well known countries. They have taken the analyses (called meta-analyses) of a multitude of questions and responses and condensed it down to 12 simple yet powerful questions. This is now known as the Gallup Workplace Audit or informally as the Q12® (questions included below). The answers to these questions have been shown to have considerable impact on an organization. In fact, the analyses and further studies indicate that the answers to the Q12® and how a company responds to them, can largely define the success of a company over time.

"The quality of an organization’s human resources is perhaps the leading indicator of its growth and sustainability. The attainment of a workplace with high-caliber employees starts with the selection of the right people for the right jobs. Numerous studies have documented the utility of valid selection instruments and systems in the selection of the right people... After employees are hired, they make decisions and take actions every day that can affect the success of their organization."

(Schmidt, Hunter, McKenzie, & Muldrow, 1979; Hunter & Schmidt, 1983; Huselid, 1995; Schmidt & Rader, 1999; Harter, Hayes, & Schmidt, 2004).

All this really says is, if your employees are engaged in their job, the performance outcome is raised exponentially. And don't forget, performance is directly related to the company objectives of customer ratings, profitability, productivity, turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage, absenteeism and quality.   Employment engagement and hiring the right people matters. These are not just business clichés. Are you taking this as seriously as it needs to be?

Take a look at the questions below. How do you think your employees would answer the questions? Where are you "on track" and where could you make improvements? How could your organization benefit from knowing this information?

You could be a company who "Gallup's" towards success!

The Q12® are:

Q00. (Overall Satisfaction) On a 5-point scale, where “5” is extremely satisfied and “1” is extremely dissatisfied, how satisfied are you with (your company) as a place to work?

Q01. I know what is expected of me at work.

Q02. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.

Q03. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

Q04. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.

Q05. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

Q06. There is someone at work who encourages my development.

Q07. At work, my opinions seem to count.

Q08. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

Q09. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.

Q10. I have a best friend at work.

Q11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.

Q12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

Q12® META-ANALYSIS Copyright © 2006, 2009, 2013 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Learning to Recruit on the White River

A few weeks ago, Ben and I had a trip planned to see a client in southern Missouri.  Since we were in the vicinity, we decided to tack on an extra day and fish the, always amazing, White River in Northern Arkansas.

We were joined by my father, my brother-in-law, my brother, and his son. The day began in a section of the river where everyone usually pursues their fishing, within a short distance of where boats can be launched and rented.

In this section of river, one can utilize just about any type of bait or tackle, and anglers are allowed to keep their limit of fish. In this section of river, where everyone fishes everyday, we did OK. Nothing to write home about, but OK.

After about a half-hour in this section of the river, my Dad (who will turn 80 on his next birthday), turned to us and said, "Pull in your rods boys.  We're moving".

My father knows this river well enough to know that we had seen nothing yet. He turned the boat upstream and opened up the throttle taking us two miles up river.  The destination was a one-mile stretch of river that was different from the downstream portion of the river.

Why? What was different about this section of river?

First and most importantly, it is a designated "catch-and-release" section. If you are unfamiliar with this term, catch-and-release means exactly what is says: You cannot keep any fish. Now, catch and release is common in Seattle, but in the Ozark's, folks go fishing for sustenance, not necessarily solely for sport.

Secondly, it requires us to use modified lures that make catching fish less injurious to the fish and theoretically more difficult to catch fish.
 
Four hours later, the six of us had caught and released 169 beautiful trout, primarily rainbows. Catching these trout was not as easy as it may sound. We spent some time figuring out what they were going to pursue.   Once we broke that code, my brother-in-law (with his tackle box that resembles a magicians hat) pulled out some red paint and modified other lures to resemble what they were attracted to.
 
In the real estate industry, there are a few well-known ways to recruit. In these popular venues, your company is forced to compete for the same agents as everyone else.

One of the ways to remain ahead of your competitors is to find new ways to fish.  This often means fishing where no one else thinks of fishing.

It’s no secret that HiringCenter was designed to provide “access” to the section of the river where no one else is fishing.  Working this section takes more time, innovation, and discipline than remaining in the areas where everyone else fishes.   It also requires “cracking the code” of what attracts and engages these candidates.

The payoff is a steady flow of productive agents who would have never been found downstream.

As many of you know, this is not a solo effort.  We’ve enjoyed the help and partnership of many great companies and recruiting leaders who have helped us “paint the lures” that attract the fish and learn new techniques to engage the next generation of real estate agents.  Thank you for being such great fishing partners! 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

What Golf Taught Me About Recruiting

It’s been a frustrating summer for me.  The exasperation I’ve felt didn’t come at home…or at work…or at church. I’m sure frustration in any of those areas would have been easier to accept. No, my frustration came on the golf course. 

You might read this and think to yourself, “Oh, David must be a terrible golfer or perhaps he is a beginner—it only makes sense that he’d experience some frustration trying to learn a difficult game like golf.” But, that’s not the case.

I've been golfing since I was 11-years-old, and I became proficient enough as a teenager to play on my high school golf team.  I continued to play golf over the years, and I’m able to compete well against most weekend golfers. I used to find golf relaxing and enjoyable.  So why all the frustration? 

The golfing frustration I’m experiencing is a direct result of change. Change is hard, especially when you've done something the same way for so long, and you’ve done it relatively well.  

My problem dates back to 1971 when I first began to golf. I learned to play under the direction of my grandfather.  He was a decent golfer, but not a great teacher of proper technique. As a result, I developed some bad habits while establishing my swing.

One of my bad habits is cocking my left wrist back at the top of my backswing instead of keeping it straight.  This fault forces me to make corrections later in my swing in order to make solid contact with the ball. 

While this technique is not correct, it does work well 95% of the time (that’s why I’ve sustained this habit).  Granted, sometimes the 5% of “not working” can ruin an afternoon of golf, but I generally accepted the idea of being a good enough golfer.

But over time, being good enough was getting a little old.  So early this year, I decided to get better at golf, and I knew that playing one round every two weeks (and working on changes while playing) was not enough repetitions to see any changes materialize.  I had to commit to practicing on the practice range and work diligently at correcting my swing.

I can't even begin to describe how uncomfortable it is to swing in a new way. Everything feels off and it’s not an enjoyable experience.  Although I committed to working through the form issues, I longed to be back on the course where things felt normal and more comfortable.   

As you suspect, I then did what I was told not to do. I went out and shot a round of golf before I was ready.  While I attempting to focus on applying what I had learned on the range, I got seven holes into my round and lost my resolve. When I started scoring poorly, I quickly reverted back to my old habits so as not to humiliate myself. I began doing what I had always done.

In hindsight, I realized my mistake.  I’ve now made my way back on the practice range and recommitted myself to the process of changing my swing for the better.  While it is still uncomfortable, I know I’ll be susceptible to reverting back to my old ways if the new habits are not fully formed during practice.

So what does this have to do with recruiting? 

Many recruiting techniques in the real estate industry have been used for many years.  At some point in the past, each of these techniques was successful; otherwise it would not have been developed and used.

But, times change.  While some of these old techniques remain effective, many of them have either lost their usefulness or have needed modifications to remain relevant.  From a third party perspective, the recruiting methodologies in many real estate companies look like golf swings that need some work.  

Does the swing need to be reconstructed completely?  No.  In my case, I’m only trying to learn how to not cock my wrist at the top of my backswing!  The same is true in recruiting—even small tweaks can be difficult and all humans tend to resist change.

So, how do you get started on the path to making improvements to your recruiting techniques and methodologies?  Take Harry Beckwork’s advice from the blog I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

 "Assume your service is bad. It can't hurt and will force you to improve."

I started the process assuming that that my swing was bad, and then made a commitment to make it better.

As you start down this path, here are some questions you may want to consider:

• What recruiting practices have you been using for the longest period of time?
• What recruiting techniques have become less effective in recent years?
• When is the last time you learned / tried something new?
• When is the last time you asked an expert recruiter (someone in your network that you respect) what they do and what they have stopped doing?

Once a picture starts to emerge of the changes you need to make in order to improve, know that you’ll have to make a commitment to practice these changes.  Forcing yourself to try new things and then practicing is always the hardest part of learning.

See you at the practice range….

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

The Unintended Consequences of Rewarding Outstanding Performance

Last year, we wrote a series of blogs outlining some of the research concerning the usefulness of  "carrot and stick" motivation techniques.  The findings of the research were very clear:  Providing extrinsic rewards cannot be blindly relied upon to help motivate individuals to perform better.

It's not that rewards should never be used.  In some cases (and for some people), incentives do have a positive impact on both individual and team performance.  But, don't be lulled into thinking this motivation technique is some kind of magic bullet.  It's not.  Offering an incentive can sometimes produce negative results.

In the case of our previous series, researchers demonstrated that trying to incentivize tasks that involve creativity was particularly ineffective. New research has now demonstrated offering incentives to top performers in your organization may also prove counterproductive in the long run.

The new research was recently summarized by Max Nisen at Business Insider, 

"Prizes and rewards are designed to produce more effort, to give people something to strive towards. But what happens once they actually get it? According to a new study by Harvard's George Borjas and Notre Dame's Kirk Doran of recipients of the Fields Medal, the most prestigious prize in mathematics, winning big actually kills productivity.

Mathematicians who win it publish far less in the years afterwards than similarly brilliant "contenders"

It goes to show that major awards and recognition can have unintended consequences. 

The drop off is pretty massive, as this chart shows:

This is explained, in part, by the classic economic "wealth effect." The impact of the Fields medal is significant. It's more prestigious than any other prize, and though the financial reward is a meager $15,000, the career and research opportunities available to a winner expand massively. 

Because they've achieved so much "wealth" in terms of prestige, job security, and opportunity, winners are more likely to choose leisure activities over work, just as someone who suddenly comes into significant monetary rewards might.

Not only do they produce fewer papers, but the ones they do write are relatively less important. And winners take fewer mentees, as well.

The authors did find one surprising positive effect. Though they publish less, winners also take more risks in the future. They've already reached the pinnacle of their field, so they feel free to pursue moonshots, new areas of mathematics that they think are fascinating or vital.

The risk is quite large. The winners know they're capable of doing extraordinary work in a particular area. Moving outside of it makes future results far less certain. Their particular gifts or talent might not translate well, and they're going to have to learn new skills and an entirely new body of research in the new area, which is all very time consuming.

The researchers term movement outside the core field, "cognitive mobility," and its increase explains about half of the drop off in productivity for medal winners.

The prize frees them up in an extremely significant way. In the years leading up to the medal year, the likelihood of a mathematician straying from their comfort zone is very rare, at just 5%. For prize-winners, the rate quintuples to 25%."

This research obviously covers a very specific and unique population, but it has implications for high performers in any area. Whether it's promising a promotion, a raise, or an award, leaders have to think about the aftermath as well as the competition itself.

It's important to reward achievement, but it may also have the unintended side effect of creating complacency. At the same time, there's something to be said for giving top performers the opportunity and safety net required to do really innovative work, even if it's less certain and takes longer.

When this research is paired with Daniel Pink's observations highlighted in our previous series, it should be worth at least a prolonged head scratch. As I said previously,  

"These days, carrots and sticks will often do more harm than good. The time has come to tap into the deeply human need to direct our own lives and create new things and to do better by ourselves and our world."

Exactly.  

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Selling the Invisible For Recruiting

I’ve recently been listening to the audio book edition of the classic Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith.

You might think that I picked this title as a means of improving our sales within Tidemark, but you’d be mistaken.   I did read this book a few years ago for that purpose, but this time I wanted to think through how proven marketing ideas could help you improve the recruiting process. 

It’s been my observation that most well-run real estate companies understand that they are not only in the real estate transaction business, but also in the agent recruiting business. Gaining market share means performing both functions well.

I’ve also noticed that top recruiting companies share a common defining characteristic—their management teams tend to seek out any and all information that might lead them to increased results. There is a solid correlation between openness to assessment/feedback and steady improvement.

Those who are not willing to track, examine, metric, compare, and seek improvement (including challenging long-held beliefs) will invariably underperform their competitors and peers.  

As I was listening to Selling the Invisible from this perspective, I wrote down several principles that differentiate the best recruiting companies behavior from those who struggle.  Here are some of the standout differentiators and my comments beside each one:

Assume your service is bad. It can't hurt, and it will force you to improve. It is so uncanny how the best leaders I have ever met in my entire life have always made this assumption. Conversely the worst have an arrogant stance of "we've figured it out." I have learned a great deal through the humility of these fine leaders. 

Ignore your industry's benchmarks, and copy Disney's.  The point here is to surprise the candidate. Remember the blog we did on the offices that display a welcome sign with each candidate’s name before every interview? 

Big mistakes are big opportunities. If you aren't' performing well, see it as a time to examine, learn and improve.  If you make a mistake with a candidate, follow it with an apology, a gift card, and a promise to improve.  This will typically work wonders to reversing the course of the hiring process for most people. 

Don't just think better. Think different. Be open to out of the box ways of understanding a dilemma. Don't get so locked into old belief systems that you aren't willing to entertain other ways of seeing realty. You just might discover something revolutionary. 

Don't just create what the market needs or wants. Create what it would love. For recruiting, the market is the candidates you’re interviewing. The thing that all candidates love is to be understood thoroughly before making any bold statements about how you can solve their pain.

Every act is a marketing act. Make every employee a marketing employee. From the first contact with a candidate until he hands you his license, every touch with him is a marketing message.

What does each step in your recruiting process suggest to a candidate?  The candidates who will turn into top producing agents will be intuitively sensitive to how they are being treated (this is part of what will make them great agents).

If anyone on your team is not treating them with the upmost amount of respect, they WILL go elsewhere. If you’re waiting for agents to prove themselves before treating them with this respect, you ARE losing the best candidates. 

In most professional services, you are not really selling expertise - because your expertise is assumed, and because your prospect cannot intelligently evaluate your expertise anyway. Instead you are selling a relationship. Hopefully this speaks for itself. 

Which of the above principles can you improve upon? Which are strengths? Which are weaknesses?  Know that it is easier to see the weaknesses in others rather than yourself, so you might want to re-read the list a couple of times and make it a point of discussion with some of your peers.

Make sure you don’t miss the first point as you process this information-- we all must entertain a need for improvement if we want to grow. 

 

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Use It or Lose It: Important Research for Older Agents to Consider

We all witnessed, helplessly, as my father-in-law rapidly declined in his cognitive abilities over the last eight years of his life.  Coincidentally, this process seemed to start just a few years after he had decided to retire.

His decision to retire was partly based on his desirable financial situation. After many years in law enforcement, his pension benefits allowed him to bring home almost as much income as he would have if he had continued working.  So, he decided to retire.

Many of us would probably have made the same decision.  However, recent brain research suggests there is much more than finances to consider when making decisions about retirement. 

By far, the largest study (nearly a half-million people) to look at the relationship between the timing of retirement and likelihood of dementia  was recently conducted by the French government. The results are surprising, and it should cause all of us to reevaluate what we’ve been taught about retirement.   Here is summary of the findings:

"People who delay retirement have less risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia, and researchers say the conclusion makes sense. Working tends to keep people physically active, socially connected and mentally challenged – all things known to help prevent mental decline.

‘For each additional year of work, the risk of getting dementia is reduced by 3.2 percent,’ said Carole Dufouil, a scientist at INSERM, the French government’s health research agency.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer’s is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer’s – 1 in 9 people aged 65 and over. What causes the mind-robbing disease isn’t known and there is no cure or any treatments that slow its progression.

France has had some of the best Alzheimer’s research in the world, partly because its former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, made it a priority. The country also has detailed health records on self-employed people who pay into a Medicare-like health system.

Researchers used these records on more than 429,000 workers, most of whom were shopkeepers or craftsmen such as bakers and woodworkers. They were 74 on average and had been retired for an average of 12 years.

Nearly 3 percent had developed dementia but the risk of this was lower for each year of age at retirement. Someone who retired at 65 had about a 15 percent lower risk of developing dementia compared to someone retiring at 60, after other factors that affect those odds were taken into account.

To rule out the possibility that mental decline may have led people to retire earlier, researchers did analyses that eliminated people who developed dementia within 5 years of retirement, and within 10 years of it.

The trend is exactly the same, suggesting that work was having an effect on cognition, not the other way around. France mandates retirement in various jobs – civil servants must retire by 65, The new study suggests people should work as long as they want because it may have health benefits.

June Springer, who just turned 90, thinks it does. She was hired as a full-time receptionist at Caffi Plumbing & Heating in Alexandria, Va., eight years ago.

‘I’d like to give credit to the company for hiring me at that age,’ she said. ‘It’s a joy to work, being with people and keeping up with current events. I love doing what I do. As long as God grants me the brain to use I’ll take it every day.’

Heather Snyder, director of medical and scientific operations for the Alzheimer’s Association, said the study results don’t mean everyone needs to delay retirement.

‘It’s more staying cognitively active, staying socially active, continue to be engaged in whatever it is that’s enjoyable to you’ that’s important, she said.

‘My parents are retired but they’re busier than ever. They’re taking classes at their local university, they’re continuing to attend lectures and they’re continuing to stay cognitively engaged and socially engaged in their lives.’"

In our society, we are taught that giving up work and retiring is the pathway to the “good years.” I even know some people who are counting down the days until they retire!

Are they in essence counting down the days until they begin their decline? Is retirement even natural for our minds and bodies? Retirement typically means focusing on one’s own personal happiness and pleasure. Perhaps we weren't meant to make a full time job of doing that. 

In any case, it reminds us that your senior agents need to think twice about getting out of the business. 

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Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Situational Leadership in the Recruiting Process

Occasionally, a book is written that sums up something so obvious it clarifies much of what we know and already do well.  At the same time, it inspires us to strive to perfect those very same things.

Ken Blanchard’s classic The One-Minute Manager developed some ideas about differing management styles that continue to inform me in a variety of circumstances, not just at work.  Read the following excerpt from an article addressing Blanchard's ideas and think through its implications on the entire recruitment, hiring, and training process of a new agent hire. 

"Situational leadership is a term developed by Ken Blanchard. As a situational leader you are able to adapt your leadership style to fit the situation of your team member or employee. This means you can deploy four different leadership styles depending on the situation.

As you assess which style is needed, you need to make a conscious choice about which of your own behaviors is needed. With directive behavior, you provide structure, control and close supervision for the people who need it. With supportive behavior, you use praise and two-way communication to facilitate the work of your team.

Blanchard sees four leadership styles growing out of combinations of supportive and directive behavior: directing style, coaching style, supporting style and delegating style.

In 'directing' style, the emphasis is on control and close supervision of the worker. In 'coaching' style, the leader provides more explanation of what the job entails and solicits suggestions while still staying in control of the situation. With 'supporting' style, there is a team approach between the leader and follower with the leader emphasizing support of the follower rather than control. Finally, in 'delegating' style, the leader turns over responsibility to the worker.

When I coach people on how to use Situational Leadership I usually talk to them about their own evolution in their current organization. I usually say, 'During your first week, how did you feel? You were likely excited and a little anxious. You also wanted to know what you were expected to do and shown how to do it.' You needed your supervisor to be using a ‘Directing’ leadership style.

Most of us evolve in our careers from needing Directing leadership at the beginning and then Coaching, then Supporting, and finally Delegating leadership when we become experienced and reliable.

Of course people develop at different rates and the Situational Leader needs to know where each person is in their evolution in order to determine what type of leadership they need. As Blanchard describes in his work, the level of a person’s development is measured by assessing their ‘competence and commitment’.  

Competence is the level of a person’s knowledge and skills as they relate to doing their job. Commitment, on the other hand, is the level of the person’s confidence and motivation. Most leaders find Commitment to be the most difficult to assess.

Success in leadership comes when the leadership style is matched with the characteristics of the follower. Problems with leadership come when the leadership style does not fit the follower."

What struck me about the relevance of situational leadership to the recruitment process is the evolution from the very first contact. The recruiting professionals who are skilled at switching from one style to another and back again quickly are most successful.  Why?  The savviest recruits may need each style.

Also when the recruiting process is shared across multiple roles in an organization, it is also important to pass this leadership information on to others in chain of contact.  This allows each new phone calll /interview to begin in the right framework rather than backtracking and repeating what others have already done.

Question: What styles do you find yourself naturally using the most? What relevance is it to be aware of these variations? 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Givers and Takers: The Dilemma of Organizational Productivity

Finding and keeping productive people is important to the health of any organization.  Here’s a question you may not have considered: 

When does a person’s individual productivity actually deter from the overall office or organizational productivity?

If you haven't pondered this difficult dilemma, it might be worth some extra consideration because knowing the answer will guide you towards making better decisions about what is ultimately of greater value in the long term.  

One of the simple determiners of those you want to keep versus those you should consider parting ways with is assessing the "Giver -vs - Taker" variable. Here is what Steve Wood, President and CEO of the Leddy Group, recently had to say about this factor.  His comments were based on Adam Grant’s bestseller, Give and Take, A Revolutionary Approach to Success:

"Grant wrote about the findings of Harvard researchers who studied why some teams in the US intelligence system were more successful than others. They were surprised to find that the more successful teams were those that had “giving” rather than “taking” cultures.

Here are two important findings from the research:

Many organizations don’t support information sharing. Worse, in ‘taker cultures’ the norm is for employees to get as much as possible from others while contributing less in return.

The amount of help a groups’ members give one another is among the strongest predictors of group effectiveness. Building a ‘giver culture’ pays.

Giving and Taking Behaviors

Givers help others, share knowledge, offer to mentor, and, most importantly, make connections without expecting anything in return. Takers get things from others without thinking they should give something in return. Importantly, they only give when they expect to receive personal benefits that exceed the cost of giving.

Most organizational cultures fall in between and are called “matcher cultures.” In these cultures people help others who help them. Because this forms isolated groups of people who practice collaboration, they are less efficient than true giver cultures.

Organizational Structure Facilitates Giving Behaviors

In flourishing giver cultures employees are very comfortable asking for help. One interesting finding by Stella Anderson and Larry Williams is that 75 to 90 percent of all help exchanged between team members comes from direct requests for help.

However, in many of our organizational cultures today people are hesitant to ask for help for fear of feeling weak or incompetent, which they may feel hurts their future advancement.

One Structural Idea – Reciprocity Rings

A professor from the University of Michigan, Wayne Baker, experimented successfully with reciprocity rings. These are 60-90 minute exercises with groups of employees. During the exercise each person makes a request for help with their job. Then others with experience or knowledge offer help and people get matched-up. Everyone has to ask for help with something.

This exercise has a number of benefits – 1) It communicates a norm that it is okay to ask for help; 2) It allows leadership to learn who are natural givers and takers; and 3) It teaches those who are “takers” the benefits and skills needed to be a giver.

Recruiting and Hiring Givers, Not Takers

Many organizations including Berkshire Hathaway have policies against hiring takers and they use customized team activities during the hiring process to screen-out takers. Here are some other ideas for screening-out takers:

Listen for candidates taking personal credit for successes. They might frequently use pronouns like I and me instead of us and we.

Takers often practice “kissing up, kicking down” and when dealing with powerful people, they become effective fakers, are charming, and sometimes charismatic. In these cases look for references from people who are supervisors; okay to ask for different references.

Takers often badmouth others. Listen for blaming responses during interviews.

Making Sure Giving Behavior Doesn’t Go Too Far

One drawback of unmanaged giving cultures is that people can spend too much time giving, and too little time doing their own work. Successful cultures build-in time limits for giving activity. Others set aside certain hours for giving or certain hours where no one can be interrupted."

Reading this material has helped me become aware of the degree to which this trait characterizes the people with which I am privileged to work.

How about you? How about your organization? Will knowing this information aid you in making tough decisions about productive but toxic people?

Perhaps more research should be done on assessing the collateral damage that takers have on their organizations.  This would help leaders discern the true pros and cons of keeping (to realize the benefit of their production) or eliminating (to rid the organization of the toxicity) takers from their organizations.

I'd love to hear from you about your experience with both givers and takers and their impact on your organization.

 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Understanding Why Recruiting is So Difficult—The Assembly Line Mentality

I recently read an article about procrastination that helped shed some light on what I’ve frequently observed concerning recruiting in the real estate industry.

Although real estate owners put a great deal of emphasis on recruiting, first level managers (ie. hiring managers) often struggle to consistently perform the high number of the well-known tasks that lead to acquiring the best hires. The hesitation to perform the correct tasks soon turns into full-blown procrastination.  

This procrastination eventually morphs itself into the development of bad recruiting habits—a focus on a low number of more enjoyable tasks that equip poor candidates to progress through the recruiting process, but keeps high-quality candidates at bay. 

As our company has studied the recruiting process over the past seven years, I’ve noticed it often takes a multitude of two-minute tasks to get one high-quality hire. In contrast, low-quality hires rarely take this level of individual task volume.  Instead, it tends to be a low number of tasks (sometimes involving longer, more emotionally draining interactions) to get to the final signing.

You’d think that a bunch of two-minute tasks would be an easier “basket to empty,” and a hiring manager might even welcome the brevity of the tasks.  But, this is not the case. For some reason, if hiring managers are given sixty two-minute tasks to knock out, they get overwhelmed and throw in the towel (even though it is only two hours of work). Why is this?

Although diagnosing such a problem may seem simple (common causes are assumed to be traits such as laziness, lack of focus, poor attention to detail, etc.), it is actually quite complex.  This pattern of behavior can be most likely attributed to a set of erroneous internal expectations.  In essence, it’s an aversion to, what I call, “assembly line” work.

Think of it this way: Managers are hired with the expectation they will be called on to coach, train, inspire, manage office personalities, and see to it that everyone is productive. These tasks take thought, strategy, and emotional intelligence.   This is the type of work most managers get excited about doing, and it is not “assembly line” work.

Assembly line work requires a completely different mindset than creative work. There is a different rhythm involved in knocking out a set of tasks quickly and then moving on to the next task.  But this is the work of recruiting.  I estimate that 90% of recruiting is assembly line work.    

Is it even possible for real estate hiring manager (who spends a majority of their time in the creative realm) to be successful at recruiting? Yes, it is. 

But, he/she must become aware or the creative / assembly line reality.  Successful hiring managers understand they must consciously switch into a different mode of mental output when they put on their recruiting hat.

Part of the reason I figured this out was that I have a similar problem with my clinical work. Even though conducting psychotherapy for eight hours straight might sound like difficult work, it’s work I am very comfortable with doing.  After more than 20 years in this role, I am an expert. I know how to respond and the work is right there in front of me.  Because I have a stable client base, I don’t have to pick up the phone and prospect.  I get to enjoy the creativity of the work itself.

But, part of my practice (and some of the other consulting work I do) involves dictating reports and completing insurance paperwork. This is “assembly line” work, and as you might suspect, I don’t enjoy it.

Like many real estate hiring managers, my natural tendency is to procrastinate on these tasks.  To be successful, I too have to change my mindset and move into an assembly mind mode.

Here’s the bottom line:  For a real estate manager, creative work is going to seem easier because it tends to be reactive.  It is going to take more energy to do the proactive tasks of recruiting.  Proactive work will continue to seem uncomfortable until you list it out, get in an assembly line mindset, and knock it out.

As Sir Isaac Newton once said, “Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest.”  The real estate hiring manager must understand both realities and know how to be effective in both arenas.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.