WorkPuzzle

Black Friday Recruiting: What are Your Candidates Experiencing?

We’re just coming off “Black Friday”—one of the busiest shopping days of the year.  It marks the start of the season where most retailers must be firing on all cylinders if they hope to finish up the year with a profit.

Let’s imagine for a minute that you are a retailer and you received the following feedback from exit polling done with your customers over the Thanksgiving weekend…

• 70% of your customers were dissatisfied with their shopping experience. 
• 50% of your customers regretted at least one of their buying decisions.
• 46% of first time customers said they would probably not return to your store.
• 46% of your customers were not satisfied with your store's ability to “deliver on your promises.”
• Only 19% of your customers classified their shopping experience as an “unequivocal success.”

If your office is above the 3^rd floor, you might consider jumping out the window at this point!  Everyone knows that it is impossible to run a successful retail business when your customers are having such a terrible experience in your store. 

 

But this is exactly what most organizations do with regard to their recruiting efforts. 

 

This analogy is based upon a recent article written by Dr. John Sullivan.  The stats above actually relate to the real-life experiences of those interacting with the recruiting functions of various companies.

“Unfortunately, the above metrics represent failure in the recruiting and retention elements of the talent management function.  I have encountered no other business function that more completely avoids defining and measuring process failure than talent management.

Here are more details on the five statistics provided above: 

• 70% dissatisfied — 70% of the external customers (applicants) and 28% of the internal customers (hiring managers) indicate they are dissatisfied with the hiring process (Source: Staffing.org).
• 50% customer regret — 50% of the process users (both managers and new hires) later regret their “buying” decision (Source: The Recruiting Roundtable).  In addition, 25% of new hires later regret taking their new job within one year (Source: Challenger, Gray)
• 46% turnover — 46% of new hires leave their jobs within the first year (Source: eBullpen, LLC) and 50% of current employees are actively seeking or are planning to seek a new job (Source: Deloitte).
• 46% failure rate — 46% of U.S. new hires must be classified as failures within their first 18 months (fired, pressured to quit, required disciplinary action, etc.) (Source: Leadership IQ).  In addition, 58% of the highest-priority hires, new executives hired from the outside, fail in their new position within 18 months (Source: Michael Watkins).
• Only a 19% success rate — Only one out of five of the process output can be classified as unequivocal successes (Source: Leadership IQ).”

Here are some additional metrics that Dr. Sullivan sites from the management (i.e. organization) perspective: 

• 66% regret hiring decisions — Nearly two-thirds of hiring managers come to regret their interview-based hiring decisions (Source: DDI).
• Bottom performers produce less — Hiring and retaining below average, or even average performers, have real opportunity costs because top performers can increase productivity, revenue, and profit by between 40% and 67% over average performers (Source: McKinsey & Co.).
• Only 30% of organizations measure quality of hire, and only a handful specifically define and measure recruiting process failure.

To say the least, this is a dismal report card for those who depend upon recruiting for their livelihood (this would include nearly every real estate company in business today).  But, it is also an opportunity to exceed the performance of your competitors. 

Anything this poorly managed can produce significant returns when improvements are made—especially if your competitors continue to lag behind.  In our next article we’ll discuss some of the things you can be doing to improve some of these metrics and create a positive impact in your company.  Until then, enjoy Cyber Monday!

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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.

Lessons Learned In Moneyball

If you haven't already, I would highly recommend reading the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael M. Lewis.  This book details the true story of the Oakland Athletics baseball team and their General Manager, Billy Beane, who was the first GM to question long held biases in recruiting and use only objective analysis in picking undervalued talent to win ballgames.

Between 1997 and 2008, under Beane's watch, the A's compiled a 976-804 (.548) record, which was the third-best record in the American League, and fifth best in all of baseball during that time frame.  In addition, the A's won four American League West titles (2000, 2002-03, and 2006) and secured one AL Wild Card spot (2001).  Over the last nine seasons, dating back to the 2000 campaign, the A's have compiled an 815-641 (.560) record, which is the third-best record in the American League and fourth-best mark in the Majors.

How did Beane accomplish this?  It wasn't with large sums of money.

"The central premise of Moneyball is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts, and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed.  Statistics such as stolen bases, runs batted in, and batting average, typically used to gauge players, are relics of a 19th century view of the game and the statistics that were available at the time.  The book argues that the Oakland A's' front office took advantage of more empirical gauges of player performance to field a team that could compete successfully against richer competitors in Major League Baseball.

Rigorous statistical analysis had demonstrated that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and the A's became convinced that these qualities were cheaper to obtain on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact.  These observations often flew in the face of conventional baseball wisdom and the beliefs of many baseball scouts and executives.

By re-evaluating the strategies that produce wins on the field, the 2002 Athletics, with approximately $41 million in salary, are competitive with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, who spend over $100 million in payroll.  Because of the team's smaller revenues, Oakland is forced to find players undervalued by the market, and their system for finding value in undervalued players has proven itself thus far." (Wikipedia: Moneyball)

That was in 2002.  And the A's record of wins didn't really begin to falter until 2007, when at least ten other teams began to copy the A's formula for successful recruiting.

And what is that formula?  It boils down to this:  The strategy is to find players who have the highest on-base percentage.  They really don't consider hitting percentage - They go as far to say, "We don't care whether they even look like an athlete."  If they are good enough to play at the college or minor league level, get on base, and then know how to work the count to get a lot of walks...they want them.

This new way of analyzing baseball players is called:  Sabermetrics (the analysis of baseball through objective evidence).

"Moneyball has made such an impact in professional baseball that the term itself has entered the lexicon of baseball.  Teams which appear to value the concepts of sabermetrics are often said to be playing 'Moneyball'.  Baseball traditionalists, in particular some scouts and media members, decry the sabermetric revolution and have disparaged Moneyball for emphasizing concepts of sabermetrics over more traditional methods of player evaluation.  Nevertheless, the impact of Moneyball upon major league front offices is undeniable. In its wake, teams such as the New York Mets, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, Washington Nationals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Indians, and the Toronto Blue Jays have hired full-time Sabermetric analysts."  (Wikipedia: Moneyball)

The question for all of us is this:  What subjective and flawed assumptions have we all accepted without questioning regarding sourcing, recruiting, coaching and agent performance?

Those brave enough to question the status quo through statistical analysis may find ways to succeed that were never previously discovered... 

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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.

 

The Three Rules Of Scalable Recruiting - Part 2

As promised, here are the Three Primary Rules for developing a scalable new agent recruiting process:

Rule #1:  There is no replacing a guaranteed, consistent, and large number of high quality candidates across the entire calendar year.

Rule #2:  Because of this large influx of candidates, one must have a system that tracks and enables consistent contact with every candidate from- first interest- through interview- to hire, so as to minimize any candidates falling through the cracks or being lost to competitors.

Rule #3:  Finding a manager who can consistently execute the above rules should be considered an anomaly.  You can find managers who are good recruiters, but to replicate their methods is extraordinarily difficult because they’ve developed their own personal system.  If you depend on the managers alone to do your recruiting, you’re running the risk of inconsistent recruiting.  In our experience of directing large flows of candidates toward managers, we’ve found that they simply aren’t wired to complete the tasks required to contact each candidate at the frequency we’ve seen essential for good results.  This is not an insult to managers.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Good managers are wired to be good at interactions, leading, inspiring, coaching, and of course… their own, individual, idiosyncratic, style of recruiting.  They are very good at sitting across the desk from a candidate and inspiring them to become an agent - Our numbers consistently show that most managers convert 25% of their interviews into new agents who are excited about joining their company.  So… get them a lot of people to interview!

[Addendum to Rule #3:  If you are executing on Rule #1 (having a consistent, large volume of candidates), then a central recruiting coordinator who is “wired” to handle the large number of tasks it takes to execute Rule #1 is essential.]

Because of the first two rules, companies must simultaneously execute two recruiting systems.  One system should encourage the development and accountability of each manager recruiting through their own personal methods, and the other should include systems built with the first two rules bolted on the side.  Remember, I am talking about a “scalable, repeatable recruiting system.”  This must be a system that allows everyone to do their best work every day.  It must not be a system that requires dependency on any one person, nor should it be difficult to replicate.

And most importantly, everyone involved must appreciate each other’s work across all parts of the process, for each piece takes an enormous amount of consistent work.  Sourcing large numbers of candidates, funneling these contacts toward interviews, trying to convert these into hires, etc…all are pieces of an important puzzle and must be acknowledged. 

When the above rules are followed, it will not only have a substantial impact on improving results, but will also reduce the level of frustration for everyone involved.

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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.

The Three Rules Of Scalable Recruiting

We’ve recently had the pleasure of presenting at the Realty Alliance Conference in New York City, during which time we touched base with many of our clients, in addition to meeting roughly forty other leaders in the real estate industry, whom we previously only knew by name.
 
Preparing for the presentation provided me with a good excuse to spend some time boiling down some of what we’ve learned over the past five years regarding recruiting.  I initially came up with a very long and rather cumbersome and detailed list of rules, but soon whittled it down to a concise and potent list of Three Rules.

Before sharing these rules with you, allow me to briefly review some important principles around science and research design that has given us the ability to deduce these rules.
 
When one sets out to improve results of any kind, one must do more than analyze just the results.  However, many business people do just this, especially where preconceived beliefs and biases have been in place for many years.  Excuse the exaggeration, but what many people end up doing, is simply looking at the results exclusively, and demanding, “Give me better results today than I had yesterday,” or simply, "We need to get better results!"

What happens under these conditions is that a very wide variety of systems and methods become adopted by those who have been charged with the task of “delivering results.”  These haphazard systems contain such personal and idiosyncratic twists that the methods are impossible to replicate across all territories or offices.  When this occurs, the organization loses any ability to replicate any success, and instead becomes dependent on a few superstars who are the only ones who can pull off their own personal method of recruiting (or any other task for that matter).

The scientific method is a much different process than the above.  The scientific method regarding any sort of improvement sets out to:

• Determine all variables that might have a significant impact on the result.
• Manipulate those variables until the results are significantly improved.

 And then most importantly…

• Assess if these same variables can be similarly manipulated and the results replicated in other environments (across offices, corporate cultures, territories, country, etc.).

In essence, this is what we, at Tidemark, set out to do five years ago - And we want to thank many of our clients who have allowed us to experiment in their backyard.  Many of you are likely aware of several of our methods derived from the above process.  (If you aren’t, please contact me.)

I'll give you a couple of days to chew on the above information.  See if you can guess what we've figured out to be the Three Simple Rules to Scalable Recruiting.  I'll include them later this week.  Stay tuned... 

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Your Personal Employment Brand

Last week, I read an article written by Dan and Chip Heath in Fast Company that highlights the importance of emotion in marketing.  The Heath brothers are the bestselling authors of "Made to Stick."

These guys noticed that there is often a disconnect between the emotion that a company tries to relate in a marketing campaign, and the reality that truly exists. 

“Marketers caught on early that emotion sells product.  'Would your husband marry you again?' screams a Palmolive ad from 1921.  (Not unless you scrub with Palmolive soap, honey.)  Today, Heineken has promised warmer international relations via handoffs of Premium Light from mountain men to Indians to ballerinas.  And, of course, Axe has sold young men on the fantasy of hooking up with deodorant-loving nymphomaniacs. 

Emotional appeals are ubiquitous.  They're also interchangeable.  It would be just as easy to pitch Heineken as an aphrodisiac and Axe as a global harmonizer ('Peace starts in the pits').  And that's the problem:  It's all stick-on emotion.  Sometimes that works brilliantly (see: Corona).  Other times, it's as weird and clumsy as an adhesive mustache -- remember Carl's Jr. and Paris Hilton's sexed-up hamburger ad? Fortunately, there's a better and more sustainable way to create emotion:  Mean it.”

The article goes on to demonstrate how the impact of a marketing emotion can be greatly increased if there are concrete realities supporting that emotion, proving that it is a genuine representation of reality.  Emotion combined with integrity REALLY sells!

If you’re a hiring manager, this is a principle you cannot afford to miss.  People are drawn to you as a leader because of their perception of who you are.  You may have a prominent company brand, many desirable externals (ex. office location, physical appearance of the office, advanced business tools, etc.), and you may even present yourself in a way that people are naturally drawn to you.  That’s all emotion. 

But, if the reality of who you are matches what you project, the fireworks start to fly.  People want to work on teams with these types of leaders.  Your “personal employment brand” has the ability to attract (or repel) people with a significant amount of force.

Ask yourself this question:  What do people in your professional network really think of you? 

Then ask yourself:  Is this perception based on surface emotion and externals, or on the reality of what those in your professional community have experienced firsthand or have actually seen you do?

If you do not have a strong and believable personal brand, it is very difficult to be a successful hiring manager.  But, how do you repair (or build for the first time) your personal brand?  The quickest and most believable way, is through doing good deeds that support your emotional appeal.  The Heath brothers put it this way:

“Why not simply replace the fake emotion with a real one?  What if Downy started doing things to help struggling mothers -- and then used their ads to talk about the work?  What if Bounce retaliated by throwing its weight behind job seekers looking to bounce back from a layoff? What if all this good work raised the competitive hackles of the not-to-be-underestimated Snuggle Bear?  Perhaps it could sponsor a winter-coat drive.

What we're proposing here is an arms race of goodness -- a generation of companies that compete on real emotion rather than stick-on sentiments.  Maybe that sounds Pollyanna-ish.  If so, let us introduce you to some companies succeeding by meaning it.

Toms Shoes has a simple business model:  Buy a pair of shoes, and it'll send a second pair to a child who needs it.  This year, it'll send about 300,000 pairs of shoes to the developing world. And because it's the company's genuine passion to do so, Toms can take advantage of the word of mouth built into its product and spend dramatically less on marketing than other shoe companies.  When you mean it, convincing customers doesn't take as much shouting.”

Start working on your personal employment brand and you may find that recruiting is not so difficult.

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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.

Reframing Recruiting

Psychologists love to "reframe" any issue that causes conflict.  We can be borderline obsessed with reframing, and there is a reason for this:  Reframing has a way of dismantling defenses, exposing old myths, eliminating fears, and igniting productivity.

 What do I mean by reframing?  Reframing means helping others to look at a conflicting topic with a new set of eyes.  Put another way, it means viewing an old problem through a different lens.  Reframing requires stepping back and trying to determine why there is such resistance around a reoccurring topic of frustration, and discussing it in a new way.  Often times, it only requires small changes in language to accomplish large leaps in a-ha moments of clarity for everyone involved.  It can mean the difference between stalemate and responses like "Oh, that's what you meant?"

For example, a moment of clarity about reframing the task of recruiting came to someone on our team (Lee Gray) while she was doing laundry this past week.  Many of our clients know Lee, as she trains hundreds of managers across the country on the use of a recruiting tool called Talent Pipeline.  In her work with managers, Lee is able to experience firsthand the range of differences between managers who are quite comfortable with the various aspects of recruiting, and those who are intimidated so much by the concept that they have become paralyzed by fear, and thus struggle to move forward.

We all know that organizations need to recruit, and the importance of this goal is constantly emphasized by organizations to their managers..and rightfully so.  However, it has become quite clear to Lee that many managers begin to shut down emotionally as soon as the word "recruiting" is uttered.  Building a pipeline of "recruits" seems to be a task that is likened to having a root canal.

Instead of writing off this range of managers who feel this fear, Lee began to wonder (out loud in her laundry room I might add)... Why do some people with such proven people skills hesitate to engage in recruiting, while others don't? 

The culprit to the breakdown was the word "recruiting."  When she changed the language to "relationship building," managers began to relax.  This makes sense, given the fact that most managers are natural relationship builders.  That's why they do what they do! 

So, Lee's reframing is quite simple (as most reframing is):  "Focus on relationship building," and maintain a pipeline of those "relationships" you want to build.  Next, focus on the tasks that will help you build them.  Then track those tasks as a way to hold yourself accountable. Eventually, as a byproduct of your natural ability to build relationships, successful recruiting will follow.

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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.