WorkPuzzle

Vision and Becoming a Student of the Human Condition

We interface with clients every day who are trying to make sense of the recession, the job market, and all the other negatives in our world today.  As leaders, they are regarded by those in their organizations as visionaries who are supposed to help them make sense of the future.  The perception is that employees want their leaders to be the “emissaries of the future delivering the news of how their markets and organizations will be transformed.”    

That’s difficult work in today’s climate.  But, it also may also be the wrong work to be doing if we want to be effective.  In research conducted by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, there was a slightly different, but important focus that was uncovered:

“Constituents want visions of the future that reflect their own aspirations.  They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled.  The data tells us what leaders struggle with most is communicating an image of the future that draws others in—that speaks to what others see and feel.”

It isn’t that people don’t have a desire to know what’s going to happen.  It just gets a lot more interesting when a leader can describe what is going to happen and then make the connection to how it personally affects each member of the team.

If you’re coaching someone, this has an important implication.  Those who you are coaching need to understand how to be visionaries.  But, they also need to understand how to communicate the vision so that they engage those they manage, work with, and even sell to.

If you’re in a recruiting role, it’s your job to outline the vision of your organization and paint a picture of the possibilities that exist if the candidate leaves their existing organization.  Wouldn’t it be more attractive to the candidate if you could weave those possibilities into the things that he or she is trying to accomplish in their own life?

There becomes two important parts to the equation:  (1) The development of a vision that appropriately addresses the future of the organization, and (2) An understanding of how that vision can personally engage each member (or potential member) of the team.  

 “As counterintuitive as it might seem, then, the best way to lead people into the future is to connect with them deeply in the present.  The only visions that take hold are shared visions-and you will create them only when you listen very, very, closely to others, appreciate their hopes, and attend to their needs.  The best leaders are able to bring their people into the future because they engage in the oldest form of research:  They observe the human condition.”

We think observing the human condition is worth the time and effort.  I hope you do too.  

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The information and the direct quotes in this discussion were adapted from a Harvard Business Review article (January, 2009) called To Lead, Create a Shared Vision.  The article was written by James Kouzes and Barry Posner.  These authors recently wrote a book called The Leadership Challenge.

7 Dating Tips from Dr. Dave (That Will Also Help You Be a Better Hiring Manager)

I’m not sure whether this discussion will help you more with your dating life or your potential success as a recruiter.  Since Dr. Phil seems to have a lock on all the sensational topics, I’ll continue to focus on the business side of psychology.  
 
Building a pipeline of talented people who are resilient and like to work hard is no easy task. We make it far more difficult when we forget the simple rules of interpersonal etiquette.  

A good analogy to appropriate expectations when recruiting is to remember the common dos and don’ts of dating (to make this read easier, I’m going to use female pronouns, since I’m a guy)

1. Get the guts to ask. Few people ever get married without first getting up the courage to ask someone out. This is also true in recruiting. Your first and only goal initially should be to get together for a brief time.
2. Ask about her. Don’t drone on and on about you. How many of you like to hear your date drone on and on about themselves without wanting to know anything about you? This is a bad sign. She’ll quickly know that you desire the relationship for your own purposes and care very little about meeting her needs.
3. Know your competition, but don’t put them down. There is nothing wrong with being confident about what you can offer, but be careful in being negative about the competition. If you began to slander your date’s friends, she will probably be disgusted by your lack of character and drop you like a rock. You can’t repel and attract at the same time.
4. Get the next date- but don’t ask her to get married. You would never dream of scaring your first date with an offer to tie the knot. She would freak out and never see you again! Move slowly with a constant assessment of where she is in the process of relationship building and proceed accordingly.
5. When you sense you know that you can meet her needs, ask for the commitment. There is a time and place to ask for the person to come on board and challenge them to do what is necessary to make the commitment, i.e. “forsaking all others”. Don’t chicken-out here. If she says no, you can still continue to date.
6. DO remember that, unlike dating (for most people), you can date several people at the same time. By having a way to track your full pipeline of prospects, you don’t have to feel terribly disappointed by any one reaction. Always have plenty of people who represent the entire “dating” process from first date to close.
   
7. Never treat people as objects. Treating people like objects is never a good idea. People have a sixth sense about this. If you’re dating a person who is fairly desperate for a relationship, she might put up with this for a while. But sooner or later, she’ll leave. Most people can sense that you have no interest in them beyond what they are generating for you and your organization.

By having a way to track your full pipeline of prospects, you don’t have to feel terribly disappointed by any one reaction. Always have plenty of people who represent the entire “dating” process from first date to close.

If you’re struggling with these concepts, you may need to do some remedial work to reset your framework for these types of interactions.

The first step it to examine yourself. Do you treat those who work in your organization with little regard for who they are as individuals? Or, do those around you know that you’re interested in their growth for their sake and the sake of the company?  If you’re unsure, ask a few people who you can trust to give you an honest answer. If you do have this tendency there is always a very simple rule of thumb to apply in every interaction. “How would I like to be treated if I were in the other person’s shoes?”

The second step is to consider whether you’re patient.   Remember that “impatience” is the fruit of pride. We want others to be patient with us.  We want others to be interested in our strengths and how we use them daily.  We want others to be curious about us as people who have lives outside of the office. It only makes sense to extend these courtesies to those around us.

If you want to build an environment of attachment and performance, you need to seriously consider how to shape your own strengths around the above solution. The real trick is keeping it up after the dating and during the marriage.

The Stars Might Lie, but the Numbers Never Do

Yesterday, I told you I would follow-up with an example of how using metrics has equipped us to save our clients a significant amount of money on candidate advertising.

A few months back, we were interested in buying advertising in a metro area where we had a major client.   The client needed to source more than 500 candidates per month to meet its hiring goals.  In  this metro area, there is a regional job board that is very prominent—you see its ads on the sides of buses, at bus stops, on trains, and you hear its ads on the radio.  It constantly refers to itself as the #1 job board in this metro area.

We inquired about advertising on this company’s job board.  The prices were high, but its claims of traffic to the site were high as well.   Since we had been advertising in this city for more than a year, we had reliable metrics on this vendor’s competitors “advertising cost per applicant.”

With these competitive metrics in hand, we were able to negotiate a one-month trial at a fairly low price.   The trial pricing was based on a one-year commitment assuming the job board was able to hit a cost per applicant benchmark that its competitors were meeting.  

As you probably guessed, the trial did not meet the expectations of either party.  To this day, we’re able to source candidates in this marketplace through a group of competitive job boards and search strategies at an advertising cost of $3/candidate.  The trial with the prospective vendor produced a cost of $15/candidate.   Working this backwards, a job posting on this company’s job board priced at $300/month was really only worth $60/month for our application.  

With this information (a metric that can be used across vendors, reliable data from a vendor’s competitors, and low-cost trial data from the new vendor), we were in a much better position to understand the true reality of the situation.   In the subsequent negotiation, we were able to get this vendor to quickly reduce its prices by more than 50%.   It still ended in an impasse because the vendor was not willing to lower its price enough to displace its competitors, but you do have to feel sorry for all the companies paying $300 per posting!  With just a little more information and the confidence to ask, they could be paying $150 for the same advertisement.

If you apply this principle across the thousands of candidate advertising impressions we provide our clients on a daily basis, it adds up to some significant savings.  Granted, it cost us money to define, develop systems, and track this data, but the numbers do pay off.

I hope you’ll find an application in your business where you can use metrics to save you money or find opportunities that you’re missing.  It reminds me of the theme of one of my favorite Mary Chapin Carpenter songs, “The stars might lie, but the numbers never do.”

There's Gold in Them There Metrics!

I wanted to follow-up on Dave’s discussion yesterday by demonstrating how the principle of measurement has worked in our business.

As many of you know, I’m the Managing Director of Tidemark.  Tidemark is a recruitment process outsourcing company that specializes in sourcing large numbers of candidates for high volume hiring applications.  In simple terms, we’re hired to help companies develop a consistent and predictable flow of candidates.

We use many different tools to accomplish this task for a company, and we find that each application needs customization to produce the best results.  However, one tool we commonly use is the traditional job board. 

There are more than 40,000 job boards on the internet today.  The general business model for a job board is to charge a fee to “list” a job on their website.    Successful job boards drive a lot of traffic to their sites, and the jobs on the high-traffic sites get viewed by more potential candidates.  Theoretically, the price of a job posting on a particular site is related to the traffic a job board can garner.   Higher traffic—higher cost per job.

But, reality does not always match the theory.  In a business arena where it is difficult to measure and verify common metrics such as internet traffic, it is to our advantage to dig deeper.  We advertise very specific jobs in very specific industries.  We have an interest in what kind of traffic can be generated to our specific jobs.  We also have an interest in knowing how many people viewing our jobs actually turn into applicants.

Although there are a number of other factors that cause results, we eventually boil down this process (from a job board perspective) to a single metric:  “advertising cost per applicant.”  With this metric we now have a negotiating platform that is based on solid data and reality—our reality.

Over time, we’ve been able to collect data from more than 20 metropolitan areas and track issues such as seasonality, changes in the job market in the industries where we source, and even revenue flowing into our client’s industries.   But, everything still filters down to the “advertising cost per applicant” metric.

With this metric in hand, we’re able to cut through the sales and marketing rhetoric offered by a job board as a way to justifying pricing.   We question the job board on a very specific issue:  can the job board produce enough candidates to support the price that they are suggesting we pay?  If their competitors can produce results at a certain “cost per applicant” for our application, doesn’t  it make sense that this vendor should be able to meet the same metric?  If they can’t meet this standard, they need to lower their prices to meet their competitors—that only makes sense.

In this process, we’re not trying to disparage the vendor; we’re just helping both sides to see the true value of the service for our unique application.  Through this process, we’ve saved our clients tens of thousands of dollars in advertising expenses.  Tomorrow, I’ll share a specific example of how a negotiation was done with a particular vendor.  It will help clarify the concept if I run through an example.

Of course, most of you are not in the recruitment process outsourcing business, so what worked in our business will not directly apply to what you’re doing.  But, don’t miss the principle:

Every business process has points of measurement that can be identified and then optimized. 

What are the measurement points in your business?  If nothing comes to mind, that’s a red flag!   If you do have measurement points identified, are they the right ones?   In some cases, metrics are overcome by events and need to be adjusted to match a new reality.  It may be worth the time to take an inventory of one your business processes and see what can and needs to be measured.

5 Things We Can Learn From Great Managers in Peru

Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of becoming friends with a group of people who have developed a large real estate construction and management company in Lima, Peru.   What brought this to mind today was that they happen to be in-country this week.

I recently traveled to Peru myself as part of this project.   On this trip, I was able to witness firsthand the spirit of work among the people there.  More specifically, I was able to gain exposure to a group of companies that seemed to possess an unlimited sense of hope and rejuvenation.

The country of Peru has an interesting economic history.  Like many Latin America countries in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it was plagued with numerous economic problems such as high inflation, narcotics trading, corruption, failed government initiatives, etc. 

In the mid-‘90s, Peru underwent considerable free-market economic reforms that produced significant economic growth, spurred foreign investment, and brought inflation under control.   For an economy that was once primarily based on agriculture and the mining of natural resources, a transition has occurred to where more than 70% of their GDP is now derived from the services.

For those people who grew up in Peru during very difficult and near hopeless economic conditions, the new economy is perceived as their best chance to accomplish something significant.  During my time as a business professional, I have rarely witnessed as much talent voluntarily working long hours towards a mutual goal.

But, it went a little deeper.  Many of these people saw their work as a way to tap the very best of who they are.  Their management teams recognized this energy and made it part of their organizations. 
Here are some specific things I noticed about their managers: 

1. They expect their organizations to hire the best talent. They settle for nothing but the best.
2. They expect these talented people to set the bar high and be fully engaged in their work.
3. They measure everything and everyone.   The managers made it clear that without reliable data you can’t set meaningful goals and assess daily progress.
4. They are constantly trying to discover what their clients want.
5. Most importantly, they have the courage to be constantly active. They don’t get stuck in inactivity, which many organizations and people tend to do.

I was inspired, and I wish that more organizations in our country could tap into these principles.  While the financial results were impressive among these companies, the positive energy and passion is what caught my attention the most.

Resilience: Are You Able to Thrive Under Stressful Conditions? Part 2

Dr. Salvatore Maddi, a professor of psychology at the University of California says,

“People who are high in hardiness enjoy ongoing changes and difficulties. They find themselves more involved in their work when it gets tougher and more complicated. They tend to think of stress as a normal part of life, rather than as something that's unfair.'' 

As mentioned yesterday, resilience has been a topic of intense study by researchers. The research has given us clear characteristics of what differentiates people who thrive under stress from those who become less healthy and tend to languish.

The researchers indentified the traits of commitment, control, and challenge at the “transformational coping skills” shared by those who become stronger during stressful times.

More specifically, the people who possessed these coping skills were able to:

• Find the personal meaning in the challenge, rather than detaching and giving up.

• Plan out sound problem-solving strategies.
• Facilitate an atmosphere of support and encouragement among co-workers
• Help those around them build the traits of commitment, control, and challenge (they decrease the isolation, powerlessness, and fear that others feel).

Most importantly, while researchers believe that resilience traits come more naturally to some people, they’re finding that these skills can be taught.

Closely examine the “transformational coping skills” listed in the last blog. Which skills should you deliberately work hard to develop? Which skills could you focus on teaching to those you manage?

In addition, be alert to hire people who have demonstrated these traits throughout their lifetime. Hiring “top talent” based on a short-term track record (i.e. performance on their last job) may not be the only criteria worth considering when you add people to your recruiting pipeline.  Look for people who demonstrate resilience.

Also, tailor your interviews to include questions that allow candidates to demonstrate their natural tendencies to be committed, seize control, and see opportunity amidst challenges.  

Editor's Note:  Much of the above research was accessed through the Center for Confidence and Well-Being.  This organization is a great resource on this topic if you care to learn more on your own.

 

Applying What We Know To Be True

One of the things that most parents attempt to teach their children is to respect the people around them.   Each human being innately possesses value and that value should be appropriately recognized regardless of the circumstances.

It is incriminating to recognize that the rules that seem so obvious in one area of life are easily overlooked in another.  This is true in the hiring process—especially as the economy slips deeper into recession and more people find themselves looking for jobs. 

Note what Business Week  recently reported:

"Advice to companies tempted to play hard ball with job applicants as unemployment rates rise: Think again. Employees who say they were mistreated during hiring feel less committed—for years. Researchers at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management surveyed roughly 100 MBA graduates about how they were hired by their employers. Those who felt they had been treated unfairly were twice as likely to be looking for opportunities outside their company, says Vanderbilt management professor Ray Friedman, “even after five years.”

This research attaches a tangible result to mistreating people in the hiring process.  But, it also speaks to a broader principle:  violating the rules of human behavior has consequences.  And, these consequences can be both far reaching and long lasting.

We can obviously get ourselves in trouble by not knowing these rules of human behavior.     But even if we understand these rules, recognizing how to apply the rules to the situations we face in our daily lives requires experience, thought, and insight.

With some diligent study and effort, the previous two conditions can be met by most anyone.   But, that’s not the point the Vanderbilt  researchers are making.   He’s cautioning us against developing a disconnect between what we know to be right and the actions we display in the execution of our business activities. 

Tapping Your "Best Work"--Part 2

"The fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly

… Yet it is also clear that the human spirit can be diminished or crushed and that individuals sometimes reject growth and responsibility. Regardless of social strata or cultural origin, examples of both children and adults who are apathetic, alienated and irresponsible are abundant.

Such non-optimal human functioning can be observed not only in our psychological clinics but also among the millions who, for hours a day, sit passively before their televisions, stare blankly from the back of their classrooms, or wait listlessly for the weekend as they go about their jobs."

-Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci

If you read part one of “Tapping your Best Work” and found yourself lacking the desire to do your best work, you’re not alone—millions of people struggle with this problem and want to be reinvigorated.    Fortunately, there is a great deal of science around motivation, personal strengths, and engagement in one’s work.

“Engagement” is another way of referring to that state when we are immersed in work for its own sake. That is, we’re driven to do the work for intrinsic reasons (meaning, contribution, curiosity) rather than solely for extrinsic reasons (pay, recognition).  Understanding engagement, both in yourself and those with whom you interact, is vital in building a foundation of understanding for your role as a recruiter, coach or leader.

We can’t tackle this topic in just two discussions, but I will share a few ideas of how you can start reinvigorating your sense of engagement right away.

Approach critical tasks with methodologies that create “Flow.” 
 
Flow (a term coined by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi) is the mental state where a person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Flow exists in any interesting sport, game or work task. Creating flow in any task requires that you have the following conditions:

• The task must be challenging (i.e. not easily obtained or accomplished).

• The task must require a high personal skill level to accomplish.

• The task has must have clear goals and rules of performance.

• The task must be performed in an environment where you have the ability to concentrate and avoid distractions.

• In accomplishing the task, there must be a way to gain ongoing feedback about your progress.

• In accomplishing the task, there must be a way to measure or gauge success.

Think about the tasks that you perform on a daily basis.  Do some of the tasks you perform fit the criteria of producing flow?  If not, then you may need to add some tasks or a project that would allow you to experience more flow in your workday.  At the same time, remove some things from your schedule that have no chance of producing flow.

If you’re a manager, are the people you manage performing tasks and projects that fit the criteria of producing flow?  If you do not know the answer to this question, it’s important that you find out.  By nature, each individual experiences flow differently based on their talents, strengths, and interests.  If an employee is experiencing flow in their day-to-day work, they’ll be engaged and produce their best work.

If you’re a recruiter, are those in your recruiting pipeline experiencing flow in the tasks and projects they are performing in their current jobs?  Most are not.  If you can engage a person in a dialog concerning these issues, you’ll have clearer insight concerning their true motivations for staying in an existing job.  You’ll also better understand the objections and fears of making a change. 

Being able to inspire candidates to consider new roles by indentifying with their deep frustrations will put you on a new footing in the recruitment dialog.   Demonstrating how a candidate could then be experiencing flow in his day-to-day work transforms you from a recruiter into a trusted and credible career counselor. 

Relationship Credibility and Recruiting

Recruiting is a tough job.  Without the ability to build credible relationships, it can be near impossible to be successful.

Dave’s comments about Relationship Credibility (yesterday’s blog : http://www.workpuzzle.com/workpuzzle/2008/12/simple-rules-of.html ) were confirmed by some comments from Peter Weddle this week.  Here is part of what Peter said in his newsletter:

“Recruiting is a profession that is most accurately defined as the art of forming honest connections with people so they can be persuaded to do what they don't want to do. Unlike a customer in sales, most of our prospects-and especially the most talented ones-aren't looking for what we have to sell. They are already employed and loath to experience the disruption and stress caused by changing employers. They don't want to "buy" our employer's value proposition, and recruiting techniques alone-even the best ones-won't change their minds. Let me explain what I mean.

The definition above has two parts. Both are essential to success:

•  One part, of course, involves the activity of persuasion. We have to present a compelling argument that our opening is (a) better than any other opening out there-the best talent, after all, has plenty of choices-and (b) that our opening is also worth the hassle of their making a change.

•  The second part involves the activity of forming of honest connections with our prospects. We have to convince them that we (a) understand and respect their unique values, goals and needs-what makes them the talented person they are-and (b) have their best interests at heart.
Good recruiters appreciate the first part of that definition and use Best Practices to execute it. The best recruiters, in contrast, are equally as able to accomplish the first part and devote considerable energy to accomplishing the second part, as well.”

Notice the “secret ingredient” that Peter attributes to great recruiters:  forming honest connections with our prospects.   

These honest connections are built on the what Dave called the “substance” of relationship credibility—learning about the other person’s story and then integrating what we have to offer as recruiters into the person’s big picture.

Of course, the process breaks down without honesty.  As a recruiter, do I really have an opportunity that has the candidate’s best interests at heart? 

If I don’t know the candidate’s story, I can’t honestly answer that question. 

If I put my own interests (just getting the job filled) above the candidate’s interests, then an affirmative answer is not an honest one.

This is difficult set of requirements—maybe that’s why Peter reserves it for “great recruiters.”