WorkPuzzle

New Recruiting and Retention Essential

It really pays to periodically sit in on real estate meetings and glean the latest strategies around the subjects of recruiting and retention... In a packed house of 50 managers, I witnessed a fascinating presentation regarding the appropriate use of social networking tools.  No, I’m not talking about going to the next Rotary meeting... I’m talking about the dreaded, often demeaned, frequently misunderstood tools of Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and others...

I’ve heard and read a great deal of information about the importance of these tools.  On a personal front, I've been hearing news from my daughter that her nationally renowned professors focus a great deal on social networking as part of her Journalism/Public Relations education at The University of Oregon.  But what caught my attention this time, was a story told by a real estate executive regarding retention.

There happens to be a middle-aged manager from a competing company who has made it his newfound task to learn as much as he can about Facebook.  This manager is doing two specific things that have increased both retention and recruiting in his organization.  Both of these activities clearly put into practice what I have preached again and again:  The importance of building relationship credibility.

Here’s what he does:

1. He asks all of his agents and every competing agent he meets to become his “Friend” on Facebook. He does this in a gradual, polite, and non sales-like way.
2. He then dedicates a few hours per week to making sure he comments on what these agents post. He comments on pictures and events, answers questions (not related to real estate), and shows that he is interested in each of these individual's lives.

In reality, he is substituting these small “touches” for what would amount to several mini chance meetings, where he has the opportunity to express interest in who these people are.  From both his existing and competing agents, he is able to obtain greater familiarity with who they are, what they value, who they are responsible for (family), and thus build stronger relationship credibility.  It's important to know, that he never “sells” while he is on Facebook.  He merely gets to know the people (notice I didn't say "agents"), and responds to their postings. 

Apparently he networks so well, that he eventually asks the competing agents out for coffee, which is so much more natural given the previously established connection, and finally asks them to consider working for him.  Agents have left their companies for this competing manager because they feel he actually knows and values them, and more importantly, he has the desire to know them!

If you are a manager and you haven’t yet learned how to Facebook, you may soon find both your experienced-agent recruiting, and more importantly, your retention, in serious trouble.  Younger managers are doing this without being told to.  They do it naturally, as part of their day, like brushing their teeth.

If you are older than 32, you finally have a very good reason to get yourself up to speed with regard to social networking.  If you don't, you're in danger of falling behind in the on-going competition of recruitment and retention.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Resilience Revisited

Six months ago, I described the research around the fascinating topic of resilience.  Since then, I have had the opportunity to witness, first hand, examples of people who are living out, daily, the characteristics of what the research tells us.  It appears that we are headed out of the current economic crisis, but it won’t be the last time that we need to respond resiliently to stressful times.

The research regarding resilience clearly describes “no middle ground” when it comes to peoples' response to stressful situations.  There are only two possible outcomes:  (1) Either you’ll become stronger and more successful, OR (2) You’ll become weaker, less mentally healthy, and less likely to do great things in the future.

Which outcome best describes you and your response to stressful situations?  The answer to this question depends on how you’re able to handle job-related stress, and whether you are capable of becoming a resilient person. 

Management consultants Salvatore Maddi and Deborah Khoshaba conducted a 12-year study of the Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT) company staff, who were enduring almost constant organizational change during the deregulation changes in the telephone industry.

Every year for 12 years, 450 IBT employees (including supervisors, managers and executives) were interviewed, evaluated, given psychological tests, and given medical examinations.  Everyone in the organization was feeling stress, and almost 50% of those sampled lost their jobs at some point during the study.  The purpose of the study was to research how people under job-related stress handled these difficult conditions.

The research revealed that employees reacted to the stress in two distinct ways:

• 65% of the employees suffered additional serious stress-related events in their lives such as divorce, heart attacks, depression, anxiety, and drug/alcohol abuse.
• 35% of the employees actually thrived under the stress. Those who remained at IBT, rose to the top of the heap. Those who left either started companies of their own, or took strategically important employment in other companies.

When the data started to show a distinct difference between the two groups of employees, the researchers then attempted to quantify what caused a person to be part of the second group.

In their book, Resilience at Work, the researchers outlined their findings.  A “resilient person” is someone who possesses and embraces the following: (1) commitment, (2) control, and (3) challenge.

“As times get tough, if you hold these attitudes, you'll believe that it is best to stay involved with the people and events around you (commitment) rather than to pull out, to keep trying to influence the outcomes in which you are involved (control) rather than to give up, and to try to discover how you can grow through the stress (challenge) rather than to bemoan your fate.”

In short, a steadfast commitment allowed resilient employees to engage more fully in the job at hand (or with a new opportunity for those who lost their jobs).  This helped them to understand and interpret the events that were having an impact on them.

Their sense of control empowered the resilient employees to consider ways that they could proactively influence the changes that were affecting them.  Their less resilient colleagues tended to passively withdraw effort, believing there was little they could do to impact what they believed was their fate.
 
Lastly, the resilient employees interpreted the stressors and changes as a challenge, and tended to search out the potential opportunities that change would bring about.  They took the outlook that change is an inevitable part of life.  It didn’t mean that these people enjoyed the stress, but the positive outlook they embraced positioned them to keep an eye open for new opportunities.

On Wednesday, I’ll reveal the primary coping skills that separated the employees who grew, from those who languished as a result of the immense stress.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Do we have to Manage with the Brain in Mind?

One of our clients recently brought to my attention the work of David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, authors of an article titled “The Neuroscience of Leadership.”  The article can be found on-line at Strategy + Business (summer 2006).  

The premise of the article is to propose a way for managers to view their jobs through the filter of how their management practices impact the brains (and therefore the behavior) of all involved.  The authors boil down their findings to a catchy acronym, “SCARF,” to represent five social qualities: (1)status, (2)certainty, (3)autonomy, (4)relatedness, and (5)fairness.  They explain that all five social qualities must be experienced in any given organization in order for creativity and productivity to increase.

Rock and Schwartz reference several very good research projects in order to build a compelling case of the importance of enabling the sense of reward, and minimizing the threat response in the workplace.  All of this is good information, and I did find it interesting to read.  However, while I plan to fill you in on the good, I feel compelled to provide you some cautionary thoughts as well.

Here is a summary:

Brain research reveals that the origin of the sensation of physical pain is similar in proportion and location, to the area of the brain that is activated when someone experiences social rejection.  The authors use this and other research to build a case toward remembering the social qualities of SCARF. This is very cool stuff to be sure… But, just because something is interesting and intriguing, does not necessarily mean it is important and relevant!

For some reason, everyone is interested in the brain.  Marcus Buckingham has called it the “Decade of the Brain.”  Some of my most popular blogs have been regarding the brain and related research findings.  And don’t get me wrong, as I said, I think the brain and research on the brain is really cool stuff.  What I’m uneasy about is when someone uses brain research to shape their own ideas, and then to sell consulting around these theories while inferring that their view of it all is accepted theory.

It's not that I don’t think Rock and Schwartz are helping companies.  I’m sure they are - Because what they are sharing has so much intuitive reality already built in.  There is nothing wrong with redundancy - we all need to hear principles of truth again and again.  However, I don’t know about you, but I didn't need to know what happens in the brain to know why certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness are a good thing.

I don’t fault Rock and Schwartz for trying to build a consulting practice around information about the brain.  That is not what my caution is about.  What I’m wondering is:  Have we become callous to applying good old general psychological principles... or better yet common sense?  Perhaps what has happened is that we need to hear something about the brain (something tangible and important sounding) to make it important to us.  Whatever it is, there are people taking advantage of this mindset - They are using it to sell us services.

In the long run, if the services do us good then there is no apparent harm done.  What I fear is that we are resisting good old fashion right and wrong.  Certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness are the RIGHT things to develop in your company.  And yes, because of this, all research should find all brain data to reinforce these truths.

Don’t wait for the research--- Remember what's right, remember the old-fashioned Golden Rule, and find ways to apply it daily.  

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

 

Competing With Free

A common complaint we hear from real estate companies across the country is that it has become increasingly difficult to compete with companies who are recruiting their experienced agents on very low-cost fee models (i.e. nearly free).

Here’s an example from an email subject line that came across my desk earlier this week:

“Experienced Real Estate Agents:  100% Commission plus $99/Month Desk Fee”

How does a full-service real estate broker with a significant level of overhead compete with this?  The answer…just like everyone else in the world.

Last month, Farhad Manjoo, a columnist for Slate Magazine wrote an article making the point that almost every industry now has to compete with “free” business models:

“In an earlier generation, we might have scoffed at this marketing strategy. What business gives away its products?  But not anymore.  Free is the new normal.  Today, every business that deals in intellectual property -- from software to journalism to music -- feels the no-cost push.  If you're not giving it away, the thinking goes, you must be doing something wrong.”

Real estate companies are in the intellectual property business.  Much of the value that a real estate professional contributes to a business transaction involves collecting information and then customizing that information so that it is usable and valuable to a unique individual and their unique circumstances.  If you look around the internet, you’ll find that there are many companies that claim they can do the same thing—for free.  And some do a pretty good job of delivering on that promise!

So, how do you compete?  Manjoo uses Google’s new free desktop operating system to make his point:

"Though digital prophets champion our pay-nothing future, it's instructive to consider why free sometimes fails. To return to Google's Chrome OS, sure, Google will persuade some computer makers to install the OS.  But when you consider what free really buys, the answer is not much.

The computers are likely to sell at $20 or so less than the price of comparable Windows machines (Microsoft sells Windows XP to netbook makers for just $15 a copy).  In exchange for that slightly lower price, customers will get computers that do much less -- they'll run fewer programs and connect to a smaller range of peripheral devices.  And good luck finding tech support.

Most consumers get it.  There's already a free operating system for computers:  Linux.  Yet netbooks running Windows outsell their Linux counterparts by a margin of nine to one.  In other words, free is getting trounced.”

Free (or very low cost) should be getting trounced in your industry as well, but in many cases it is not.  Here are some ideas that may help you compete more successfully for the talent that is getting lured away by the promise of free.

1.  Play up the “Hassle Factor.”  Why do nine times more people choose to pay for an operating system on their computer when they can get one for free?  Because using the free one comes with a boatload of hassles.  Most people would rather pay than put up with these hassles.  The same is true for an agent working in your brokerage, but you may have to do the thinking for them.  Quantify what kind of hassles an agent would experience by signing on with a low-cost broker and regularly articulate those pitfalls. Your agents may not be able to envision these hassles before they leave.  Then, it’s too late.

2.  Play up the “Risk Factor.”  One of the big advantages of working with a well-established, well-funded, and respected company is the amount of risk a prominent company can shoulder compared with low-cost employers.  Certainly, no one likes to be “scared into” working for a particular company, but make the point that many clients like to do business with not only trustworthy individuals, but also trustworthy, reputable companies.

3.  Quantify the Value You’re Providing the Agent.  You might want to consider making a list of all the tools, benefits, services and other tangible items that an agent receives by being part of your organization.  Then, assign a reasonable cost to each item (the amount the agents would pay if they were to buy the items on their own). 

Next, answer the following questions with complete honesty:  Does the value equation make sense from the agent’s perspective?  Are your agents using the services you’re providing? 

For a particular agent, how does the (Total Commissions – Market Value of the Services an Agent Uses) compare to (Total Commissions – Company Dollar)?  If you’re not on the right side of this value equation, you’ll have a tough time hanging onto agents.

Take on your competitors who offer ”free” as their primary marketing message.  The most successful companies in the world, including Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and HP, all compete against “free,” and win.  You can too!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Agent Retention: Someone's About to Pull the Plug on Your Bathtub - Part 2

A couple of weeks ago, we highlighted an article written by Dr. John Sullivan regarding how turnover will increase once the economy starts to recover.  If your company is going to retain good agents (and employees), more emphasis must be put on retention metrics and strategies.  In the previous WorkPuzzle article, I covered retention metrics.  Today we’ll discuss Dr. Sullivan’s retention strategies.

Retention strategies can be broken down into three categories: 

1.  Laissez-faire Approaches:  This is the most common approach and involves everything from doing nothing (i.e. turnover is normal and unavoidable) to relying solely on effective recruiting.  If your company is going to be successful with this approach alone, you must develop excellent recruiting and talent pool processes that provide talent on demand.

2.  Company-wide Approaches:  People generally seek out employment to provide income and security to their families and to find personal engagement.  Most company-wide approaches involve making compensation opportunities better (addressing income), making benefits better (addressing security), and increasing the workforce’s engagement in their work.

If your company is known for not being competitive with other companies with regard to compensation and benefits, you’ll likely have a retention problem.  However, the research suggests that incrementally increasing compensation and benefits with the hope of increasing retention will most likely cost more than it produces in retained revenue.

A better return can be achieved by attempting to increase the workforce’s engagement in their work.  Doing this on a company-wide basis is a challenge.  Companies have attempted many things with varying levels of success.  Here is a short list of ideas that Dr. Sullivan presents:

• Employment Branding Strategy: Build the brand of the company up in the mind of the agents. Agents will want to stay with a firm that they perceive as the best place to work.
• Blocking Strategy: Erect barriers that keep external recruiters from contacting your company’s agents and employees.
• Casino Strategy: Make the physical work environment so attractive that the environment by itself becomes a retention tool. Casinos use the physical environment to keep their customers from thinking about the outside world. Google pioneered this in the employment world by providing free food, a gym, on-site events, etc.
• Improve Training, Learning and Development: This is the most popular among real estate companies and probably the most effective. High-performers tend to have a keen interest in continuous learning and will stick with a company where that need is being met. Coupled with increased opportunities to use new skills and techniques, well-trained agents can quickly contribute to revenues.
• Remove Ineffective Managers: The number one reason an agent or employee leaves a company is a poor relationship with their first level manager. Replacing individuals who are a poor fit for the management role is the best long-term strategy for reducing turnover.

3.  Personalized Approaches:  With people, one-size rarely fits all the individuals involved. Targeting retention strategies to the individual needs of an agent takes much more time and effort, but it also produces the greatest results.  This is where good metrics and open lines of communication will allow meaningful and productive dialog to take place.  Sometimes it’s difficult for agents to quantify what they want.  Concrete data regarding performance metrics, opportunities, and a competitor’s performance can keep the conversations from focusing too much on emotion or personal opinion.  Dr. Sullivan suggests a personalized plan should address issues such as:

• Flexibility: Think of things that can be done to reduce an agent's stress and the incremental costs of doing business inside the framework of your company. Focus on issues that would strengthen the individual’s family and personal relationships.
• Special Perks and Opportunities: Special perks have been used for many years by companies to incentivize performance. Why? They work! Rotate the perks around — People get bored with the same old thing. Also, try to customize the perks to the agent’s interests. It is tough for a competitor to duplicate thoughtfulness. In addition to perks, consider making special business/revenue generating opportunities available to those agents whom you want to retain. This can be tricky because it can discourage others on your team, but a good manager can find the right tension between these competing priorities.
• Challenge/Exposure Strategy: This approach increases the opportunities for targeted agents or employees to be challenged with exciting stretch projects and rotations. In addition, agents interested in increasing their exposure to upper management executives are provided with an exposure plan to increase their visibility.
• Demonstrating Impact: This education strategy focuses on improving retention rates of key agents and employees who may be unaware of the significant impact of their work. It proactively “walks them downstream” in order to see the impact of their work by meeting and interacting with not only customers, but also others in the company and your organization at large.

There are many more issues and ideas that could be addressed regarding this topic.  Hopefully, this article will serve to ignite your creativity regarding how you can retain the agents and employees on your team.  Don't underestimate the disparagement that many people feel toward their employers due to the difficult economic circumstances.  If you do, you'll have to suffer through the potential loss of those agents and employees...a loss that may have been prevented...

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

River People

No, I'm not talking about the guy who lives in a van down by the river (Saturday Night Live).  I'm referring to the type of person we're all capable of becoming; the kind that is typically a much better hire; the kind you need to help develop in your organization.  
 
Over the past 25 years of providing psychotherapy, my chief mission has been to free people from unconscious ruts that control their lives.  This isn't easy.  People rarely see how they have boxed themselves into a view of themselves and a view of the world that limits their perspective, beliefs and actions.

When a person is in a rut, they limit their own movement, growth, vision and freedom to act.  They see the world in a fixed way, and try to convince everyone around them that their "rut trapped" perspective is indeed reality.  The way they lead their life unveils consistent themes, describing their own personal rut repeatedly acted out.

A person who is not stuck in a rut flows like a river, emanating wisdom, humor, and humility even in difficult times.  They may have a long list of things that haven't worked out, but have no regrets for their efforts. 

When things are going well, economically and emotionally, it is much more difficult to differentiate the "rut people" from the "river people."  However, in these difficult times, ruts are bound to surface.  Even the most fluid people can be temporarily thrown into a rut in these extreme circumstances, simply because life isn't familiar or secure.

Losing a job, a home, and plans for the future can certainly appear as an insurmountable rut. "River people" however, don't allow themselves to get stuck there.  They manage to continually pull themselves up and out of the rut, dust themselves off, and move on with life.  I feel fortunate to know many river people.

As leaders, you owe it to yourself and those you coach to help free them from their ruts.  Whether you're coaching or interviewing new candidates, help them find hope and envision the opportunities that can unfold if they exercise the "formula for confidence."  Help them realize their freedom and potential through new ideas, new innovations, new training, new commitments, new values, and perhaps even an entirely new direction.

You'll find that everyone within an organization benefits once the individual tributaries find their "flow," and can contribute their full potential once again.  It's not only practical to encourage this hope, it's the right thing to do.

But, change is difficult - Most healthy, rational people avoid change, preferring instead the security and safety of what is known.  Ironically however, change can produce incredible growth, if responded to effectively.  If you're interviewing new candidates without both empathy around change PLUS the encouragement to change, your missing an incredibly useful and helpful tool. 

Have candidates answer this question:  When have you experienced the most growth in your life?  For most people the answer is when they were undergoing tremendous change, accompanied by uncertainty...perhaps when they were much younger.

It's normal to risk more when we're younger, because we don't have that much to lose.  If you analyze that statement, you will begin to see the problem:  Security and hanging onto what we've acquired becomes paramount for most of us when we're older.  We cling to it and cherish it, without ever reflecting on its inherent value to our well-being.

Of course it's irresponsible to take foolish risks.  But, you can also make the argument that it is foolish to follow a course of action simply because it offers the illusion of security.

For some inspiration on becoming a manager who hires and develops "river people," read and insert the word manager for friend in the below quote:

“A true friend (manager) knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.”    -William Arthur Ward

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Three Mistakes Effective Hiring Managers Do Not Make

Some of the best lessons for recruiting and hiring come from realities that are experienced in other parts of a business.  Principles that are discovered through the application of buying, selling, customer service, and other business functions often give us important insight into our talent management efforts.

Michael Mauboussin wrote an article in Harvard Business Review this month that demonstrates such an application.  The article is called When Individuals Don’t Matter, and the topic is understanding the behaviors of a complex system.  More specifically, it addresses the hard-to-predict behaviors that emerge from the interaction of individuals in a business system.

I know, this article sounds like something you’d want to pick up when you’re having a hard time sleeping, but stick with me—I think you’ll see how this can make you a more effective hiring manager.

Mauboussin lays the groundwork by describing the nature of a complex system:

“ 'If you watch an ant try to accomplish something, you’ll be impressed by how inept it is,’ said Stanford biologist Deborah Gordon in a National Geographic article about swarm theory.  ‘Ants aren’t smart…ant colonies are.’  If you’re familiar with the ideas behind the wisdom of crowds and swarm intelligence, you’re probably nodding knowingly.  Under the right conditions, groups—whether ant colonies, markets, or corporations—can be smarter than any of their members.”

Effective hiring managers understand that their organizations are made up of individuals, but only gain their true synergy as a team.  When bringing new members onto the team, they spend time considering how a person will fit with the culture and what contribution the person will offer to make the team better.

This is not easy to do.  When there are deadlines and performance pressures with regard to the hiring process, hiring mangers often focus on what’s right in front of them.  The chances of making a hiring mistake increase under these conditions.

Mauboussin goes on to lay out three mistakes that executives make when dealing with complex systems.  A pertinent application can be made to an organization’s hiring process.

Mistake #1:   Managers extrapolate individual behavior to explain collective behavior.

If your team is performing well, there is a tendency to attribute that success to the most visible members on the team.  In turn, we want to hire more individuals who are like the prominent high-performing employees.  This is not a bad strategy, but it can’t be successfully implemented without considering what resources the new high potential employees could disproportionately consume.  For example, if support resources are reduced or diluted in the support of the new employee, could the performance of the existing high performing employees be diminished due to lack of support?  The collective may end up performing worse as you add high performers. 

Mistake #2:   Managers fail to recognize that changes in one component of a complex system have unintended consequences on the whole.

Let’s imagine that you manage a real estate office in a prominent suburb of a large metropolitan area.  While your office is successful, you also have two competitors who regularly attain sales volume equal to your organization.  Recruiting high-performing agents from your competitors is a quick way to gain market share and increase your revenues, right?  It may not be that simple.

One of our clients told us about a prominent real estate agent in his community who was very effective at marketing his services.  He drew a huge amount of attention and new clients as a result of his efforts.  However, due to his ego and abrasive personality, a percentage of his prospects would look for alternatives after initially interacting with the “celebrity agent.”  Several of the agents in our client’s office would scoop up these disgruntled prospects and receive the direct benefit (and low cost) of the competitor’s marketing efforts.

What if you were able to hire the “celebrity agent?”  On one hand, it would be a significant win for your marketing prominence in the community and your short-term market share and revenues would almost certainly increase.  But, hiring this person could disrupt the complex system of how the real estate companies interact with each other and the customers in your community.  You may end up with less business in the long-run because the system compensated in a way that worked to your disadvantage. 

Mistake #3:  Managers tend to prize standout individuals while ignoring how much they draw on their surrounding systems for support.

When you recruit a high performer (especially if it is someone you lure away from a competitor), you naturally have high expectations.  You hope that the new employee’s high performance can be duplicated in your organization.  The reality is…it rarely happens.

One Harvard Business School study tracked more than 1000 high-performing equity analysts over a decade and monitored how their performance changed when they switched firms.  The disappointing conclusion of the research was that only 20% of the analysts could duplicate their high performance once hired into a new company.  Why?  Because the support structures that helped make the person successful in the first company were not made available in the new company.

Conclusion:  All three mistakes have the same root:  Wrong assumptions about the relevance of an individual to the behavior of a complex adaptive system.  While change is necessary, still going to happen, and not something you should fear, effective managers navigate change with the needs and dynamics of the overall team in mind.  In the end, the performance of the organization is going to trump the potential of any particular individual—no matter how high-performing the person may be.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

The Confidence Formula

One of our most popular blogs was written around the concept of Coaching for Confidence.  Below, are some of the original findings regarding this fascinating subject, along with some additional findings that help improve our understanding of the topic.

It's no secret that managing and coaching those around us can feel futile if those being coached lack confidence in their ability to succeed.  We've all witnessed talented people lose their spark and confidence, begin to wilt, and eventually begin to drop below performance standards.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, an expert on the subject of confidence explains:

"Confidence consists of positive expectations for favorable outcomes.  Confidence influences the willingness to invest - to commit money, time, reputation, emotional energy, or other resources - or to withhold or hedge investment.  This investment, or its absence, shapes the ability to perform.  In that sense, confidence lies at the heart of civilization.  Everything about an economy, a society, an organization, or a team depend on it.  Every step we take, every investment we make, is based on whether we feel we can count on ourselves and others to accomplish what has been promised.  Confidence determines whether our steps – individually or collectivity – are tiny and tentative or big and bold."  (Confidence: Leadership and the Psychology of Turnarounds, 2004)

Recruiting people is just the first stage of an ongoing process.  It's your job as a coach, manager, and/or mentor, to bring out the best in others, which begins with assessing their confidence.  They must believe that they can succeed in order to succeed.

Carol Craig at the Centre for Confidence and Well-Being claims that she and her colleagues have developed a formula for confidence.  It appears to be quite accurate, with a great deal of research to back it up.  It goes like this:

Confidence = Self-efficacy (the belief you can reach your goals) + Optimism.

So what do these terms mean?

Self-efficacy:

"Self-efficacy is the term that psychologists use to describe the belief a person has that they can reach their goals.  Unlike self-esteem which is more of a global judgment on the self and its worth, self-efficacy specifically isolates the way an individual assesses their competence in relation to achievements, goals and life events.  Self-efficacy expert, Albert Bandura from Stanford University argues that 'ordinary realities are strewn with impediments, adversities, setbacks, frustrations and inequities.'  He therefore claims that people need 'a robust sense of efficacy' to keep trying."

Research on self-esteem suggests that parents (through genes and parenting style) have the biggest influence on a young person’s self-esteem.  However, Bandura and others argue that schools (perhaps even real estate coaching and training...) play a huge role in developing young peoples' feelings of self-efficacy.

Optimism:

"In everyday life we usually use the word optimism to mean feeling positive about life.  Often we refer to someone who is optimistic as seeing ‘the glass as half-full, rather than half-empty.'

In psychology, there are two main ways to define optimism.  Scheier and Carver, the authors of the popular optimism measure – The Life Orientation Test - for example, define optimism as 'the global generalized tendency to believe that one will generally experience good versus bad outcomes in life.'  In everyday language this means 'looking on the bright side of life.'  In such a definition, pessimism is the tendency to believe 'if something can go wrong for me, it will.'  The other main way to define optimism is to use the concept of 'explanatory style.'  This is the approach taken by Professor Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism and co-author of The Optimistic Child.  He argues that each of us has our own ‘explanatory style,’ a way of thinking about the causes of things that happen in our lives.  Optimists are those who see adversities as temporary and restricted to one domain of life while pessimists often see problems as permanent and pervasive."  (Carol Craig, Centre for Confidence and Well-being, 2006).

So, what can you do if those you coach lack confidence?  Here are some ideas:

1. Ask them: "Do you believe that you will succeed?"  If they don't, or if they say yes in a tentative manner:

2. Then ask them what they believe the outcome will be if they don't really believe they can achieve their goals?  (Even though my graduate courses were over 23 years ago, I can tell you that those who believed they'd finish and do well, did!  Those who didn't have that confidence, failed!)

3. Once you have them talking about their uncertainty and its impact on their performance:  Ask them to remember a time when they did succeed - big time!  Urge them to remember their attitude going into the situation.  What was their level of confidence?  Did they expect success?  Why?

4. And lastly, remind them that their best confidence will develop as they focus on developing their strengths, and contributing to clients, co-workers and society at large, rather than taking on important tasks and projects only to bolster their ego.  Only under these conditions can one sustain great performance.  Because when things don't go well, it's not about your ego, it's about your contribution!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Agent Retention: Someone's About to Pull the Plug on your Bathtub

I've read numerous articles in the last month regarding a coming wave of turnover that is predicted to hit companies if an economic recovery starts to materialize.  The line of reasoning is that if employees have been treated poorly (from their personal perspective) during the economic downturn, they will be looking to make a move upon the long-awaited recovery.  The premise is that they’ve only remained with their present employer because there were no other options.  When new opportunities begin to emerge during a recovery, many will express their dissatisfaction by heading for the door. 

Dr. John Sullivan, a professor at San Francisco State University, wrote a recent article that summarizes the problem in this way:

“Study after study has confirmed the notion that many employees would have left their employers months/years ago had the option to do so been viable.  The economic downturn, combined with the mortgage crisis, has forced many frustrated, disappointed, and unmotivated employees to stay put.  The trend is not a new one and is consistent with past downturns.

While turnover rates are at an all-time low, they most certainly cannot be taken as an indication of a firm’s status as a desirable place to work.

Just as in years past, when job opportunities become more prevalent, employees will exercise their right to demonstrate just how much they appreciated the treatment they received throughout reductions in force, furloughs, clumsy mergers, travel freezes, and budget cuts.  The level of animosity among many will render most traditional retention approaches ineffective.

Some studies indicate that as many as two-thirds of employees are ready to go.  Unfortunately, few corporations are preparing today to handle the dramatic increase in voluntary terminations that will come tomorrow.”

Of course, Dr. Sullivan is looking at this issue from a workforce-at-large perspective.  However, many of the same principles apply to real estate businesses.  There is a lot of dissatisfaction among real estate agents.  In their minds, they’ve been forced to make a great number of sacrifices over the last several years, and numerous agents believe their company and their manager were at least partially to blame.  If a person has this mindset, it doesn’t take much to convince them that the grass is greener in a new organization.

Dr. Sullivan goes on to suggest that the first step to solving or lessening the impact of a problem is being able to measure factors that lead up to it becoming a reality:

“Retention metrics in most organizations begin and end with overall turnover by period.  Absent are metrics that measure the business impact of turnover and specific goals to mitigate predicted impact.  If your retention function doesn’t measure and report these five key metrics, chances are your efforts are under-managed:

•The cost of turnover.  Reporting a percentage turnover rate seldom excites executives, but converting that turnover rate to a dollar impact on business performance can establish the visibility on talent issues needed to transform a good recruiting function into a great one.

•Top performer/key employee turnover.  Often called regrettable turnover, this measure prioritizes the jobs and individuals based on the degree to which their leaving hurts the firm.

•Competitor win/loss ratio. This metric is simply the ratio of the number of top performers you have successfully recruited away from a competitor compared to the number of top performers who voluntarily terminated to join a competitor.  If a top performer quitting goes directly to a competing firm (vs. retiring), it raises the costs because it hurts the firm while aiding a competitor.

•Preventable turnover.  If turnover is occurring for silly or preventable reasons, the percentage of cases where that is true needs to be reported and fixed.

•Percentage of 'at risk' employees.  The best firms proactively identify high-priority individuals who present a high risk of leaving during the next one or two years.  Reporting the percentage of target individuals at risk alerts managers, helping them put into place proactive programs attacking retention issues before they get out of hand."

As we’ve discussed in the past, you can’t improve what you can’t measure.  If you start by measuring the impact turnover has on your organization, the strategies to minimize that impact will start to become evident.  
 
The good news in all this is that many of your competitors may not see this coming.  When your competitor’s agents start to gain some confidence in the economic recovery, make sure that you are well positioned to receive them with open arms…

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Great Managers And An Evening With Sha Na Na

I had the pleasure of spending last Thursday evening with Nicki Marcellino, Branch Manager for a Prudential California Realty office in La Jolla.  Nicki and I had originally met at a Palm Springs conference for Prudential California’s top agents, where I had been invited to speak.  It didn’t take long for me to figure out that there was something special about Nicki.  She had that calm authority that one feels instantly comfortable around.  Soon after meeting her, I was told by someone that she was the top manager in the nation.

At the end of the Palm Springs weekend, I casually extended an offer for her to give me a call whenever she came to the Seattle area.  Not much time went by, when, low and behold, I received an email from Nicki, accepting my invitation and extending her own—Tickets for my wife and I to attend, with her, a Seattle Symphony concert featuring her husband’s well-known band, Sha Na Na.  (If you recall, they made their debut 40 years ago at Woodstock, and have been playing ever since.) 

My wife and I had quite a memorable evening sitting next to Nicki during the very entertaining concert.  After the concert, we enjoyed dessert and conversation with Nicki and her husband, Jocko.

Now, the point of this story is to share what I feel makes Nicki Marcellino and other great managers so good at what they do.  I’ve had the pleasure of meeting several managers like her within the ranks of the organizations we serve.  If you spend time with these innovative managers, you’ll begin to see a pattern of similar characteristics.  Here is a summary of what I truly believe about exceptional managers.

Every great manager possesses:

1. A consistently strong work ethic.  These individuals aren’t just biding their time.  They love what they do, and set out to learn as much as they can so that they are constantly improving themselves as managers.  (By the way, by the week's end, Nicki is so emotionally spent that she has made a weekly tradition of attending Friday afternoon matinees to wind down...a well deserved reward!)

2. A calm authority.  When you're around good managers, you may have noticed that they never really seem to panic.  They believe things will go well, and those managed by them are drawn to this sense of calm and certainty, combined with expertise.

3. Confidence without a shred of arrogance.  When I introduced Nicki to my wife as “One of the top managers...” she interrupted and said without a shred of arrogance, “Number One Manager.”  This seems to be a consistent characteristic of some of the best managers I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.  Additionally, these folks don’t presume to know everything, and quickly concede that they can learn tons from their top producers.

4. An expectation of greatness in others.  And to back this up, they hold people accountable.  Great managers have no qualms about saying, “This is what your capable of doing, and if you don’t reach these goals, then you or I are doing something wrong.”  There is a competitiveness that comes through and naturally inspires others.

If you feel there are other essential characteristics that great managers share, please let me know.  In the meantime, let me just say thank you to Nicki for a more than pleasant evening at the symphony!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.