WorkPuzzle

How Mastering Habits Can Have a Profound Impact on Your Performance in the New Year—Part 4

Hopefully, you’ve spent some time working on your habits as you’ve started the new year.  If you’re just joining the discussion, you may want to catch up by reading  the previous posts on this topic (1,2,3).

We’ll finish up this series by introducing the concept of a “keystone habit.”  From a holistic perspective, this concept has the greatest application to real estate organizations and individual offices.

In his book, Charles Duhigg introduces this concept in a chapter he calls “The Ballad of Paul O’Neill.”  If you’re a political buff, you may remember that Paul O’Neill was Treasury Secretary during President Bush’s first term.  However, he is more famous for his work as CEO of Alcoa during the late ‘80s and ‘90s. 

Here is a quick summary (as written up by Keren Threlfall ) of what happened at Alcoa:

Investors and employees alike were shocked when Paul O’Neill shared this in his speech of acceptance as the new CEO of Alcoa:

“I want to talk to you about worker safety. Every year, numerous Alcoa workers are injured so badly that they miss a day of work. I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for zero injuries.”

Some people thought perhaps he had a touch of dementia. Investors called their clients and advised them to sell their stock immediately. (Those who did so would later realize that was some pretty bad advice.)

What O’Neill was doing was introducing a keystone habit.

“O’Neill believed that some habits have the power to start a chain reaction, changing other habits as they move through an organization. Some habits, in other words, matter more than others in remaking businesses and lives. These are “keystone habits,” and they can influence how people work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate. Keystone habits start a process that, over time, transforms everything.”

As the company focused on safety, employees and investors were amazed at the other areas of change, as well. Alcoa eventually rose to new heights in production, employee satisfaction, and in their portfolios, as well.

By the time O'Neill retired in 2000 to become Treasury Secretary, the company's annual net income was five times larger than before he arrived, and its market capitalization had risen by $27 billion. Someone who invested a million dollars in Alcoa on the day O'Neill was hired would have earned another million dollars in dividends while he headed the company, and the value of their stock would be five times bigger when he left.

There is a lot more to his story—more than I can write here and stay within the reasonable bounds of a WorkPuzzle discussion.  If you want to delve more into the details, read the lengthy article published on keystone habits in the Huffington Post last year. 

There are two principles that I took away from the Ballad of Paul O’Neil:

1.  The organizational habits that matter the most are the ones that, when they start to gain momentum, dislodge and remake other patterns.

2.  Keystone habits encourage change by creating structures that help other organizational habits to flourish.

As a business leader, the challenge is to identify the keystone habit for your organization.  Obviously, it would not be appropriate to select the same one that Paul O’Neil used (safety).  Instead, look for ones that would impact your organization as described above.

Any ideas?  

Here’s what I’ve noticed after working with hundreds of real estate managers and organizations over the last seven years:  the keystone habit for most real estate organizations is recruiting.  

In the years ahead, the keystone habit that will increasingly impact the real estate industry will be new agent recruiting.

Why?  This is the one habit that best fits the two principles outlined in Duhigg’s research for a real estate organization. New agent recruiting has the capacity to dislodge and remake other patterns.  Also, new agent recruiting has the unique ability to encourage change through the creation of new structures.

What are your thoughts?  Do you see new agent recruiting as the keystone habit that can help your organization prosper?

Bonus Materials:  As we wrap our discussion on habits, you may have an interest in referencing this cool infographic on habits (some of you may remember, I really like infographics).  If you're serious about changing habits, this breaks down the process and helps in the diagnosis of each stage.

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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. 

How Mastering Habits Can Have a Profound Impact on Your Performance in the New Year —Part 3

I hope each of you had a wonderful Christmas holiday and are looking forward to a prosperous new year. Our crew took a couple of weeks off from our normal writing schedule over the holidays, and we’re excited about kicking off a new season of insight and dialog in 2013. 

As you may remember, I started the discussion on habits in December with the assumption that many of you would be doing some strategic planning around this time of year.  If you need a refresher, you may want to reference the previous (Part 1, Part 2) discussions. 

Common sense tells us that real change will not happen in our lives unless we learn how to dislodge bad habits and cultivate new ones. Using the process that I outlined in my last blog, have you identified one or two bad habits you’d like to address? 

If not, I encourage you to go through the process of sketching out your own cues, routines, and rewards cycle for the habits you’ve identified. Then, start the trial and error of testing your hypothesis.  If you haven’t personally gone through the “habit loop” process at least once, you may have trouble understanding the next part of our discussion.

If habits have a profound impact on our own personal lives, it only makes sense they’ll also have an impact on professional relationships. As a leader, understanding the influence that habits have on others can significantly increase your level of effectiveness.

 For today’s discussion, we’ll consider two areas of professional relationships that are common to most real estate owners and managers:

1.  The habits of those you manage and coach.

2.  The habits of the clients your company serves.

Habits for Coaching

If you’re struggling to understand and manage your own habits, you can bet the people you coach are struggling, as well.  Or worse, they are not struggling because they are completely blind to the influence of habit in their own lives.  Many agents are dragged along by influences of which they are not aware. 

In either case, your role as a coach can take on a new level of effectiveness with an understanding of how habits control behavior.  While it is easy to identify poor outcomes, it is not easy to pinpoint the causes of poor outcomes.  

Try looking at poor outcomes through the framework of the “habit loop.”  What are the cues that
agents are reacting to during the day?  Which of these cues lead to routines that produce poor results?  What false rewards are agents typically pursuing that cause them to continually repeat the cycle of ineffectiveness?  

Like you did for you own habits (part 2 of this discussion), try sketching out a couple of “habit loops” for the agents you coach and then discuss these issues during your next coaching session.

Habits for Clients

Studying the habits of consumers (ie. those that buy your services) is not something that most people have considered.  However, I found this topic the most intriguing part of Charles Duhigg’s book.  Much of what has been discovered in this realm has not been yet been applied to the real estate sales industry.

Here’s the basic premise of habit theory as it applies to customers: Since all human beings are controlled by their habits, understanding typical cues, routines, and rewards can help a company optimize the sales process. In the real estate industry, it would be particularly interesting to know who will be buying or selling a home in the near future.

In his book, Duhigg documents an extensive case study involving Target; the popular nationwide retailer. The case study illustrates how Target has become very good at predicting what products a person will buy.  How? By figuring out what is going on in a unique customer’s personal life. For example, Target can often tell if a female customer is pregnant and how far along (ie. what trimester) she is in her pregnancy after she spends some time in the store.

They find out this information by studying habits.  For example, women often change from using scented lotions to non-scented lotions in the second trimester of a pregnancy.  A cue changes (scents become irritating) and that causes a routine change (buying a different product) that leads to a
reward (healthy skin) women don’t want to give up.  

This piece of information, combined with several more data points, equip Target to guess (with a surprisingly high level of accuracy) when a woman is in the second trimester of a pregnancy.  Once Target has this information, they can focus on specifically marketing to that person for the large number of purchases she’ll make  in the months just before and after the baby arrives.

I’m summarizing a concept that took the author about half of the book to describe, so this concept may still seem cloudy at this point.  If you want to learn more, here are a couple of articles from Forbes and the New York Times Magazine that describe this in more detail.  By the way, Target is not the only company doing this.  Many companies in various industries are starting to apply these principles of human behavior to optimize their sales efforts.

So, what application does this have for the real estate industry?  I think many of the answers to this question are yet to be discovered.  But I do know this: there will be big rewards for those who innovate in this arena. Also, I’ve had several meetings in the past couple years where real estate executives ask very similar questions.  If you don’t figure this out, your competitors probably will.

Spend some time learning about habits—both your agents and your clients will benefit.   In our final chapter of this series we’ll discuss the concept of a “keystone habit” and how these theories will help you improve recruiting.  Stay tuned.

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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. 

How Mastering Habits Can Have a Profound Impact on Your Performance in the Upcoming Year—Part 2

The first step to “minding our habits” (as Meryl Streep advised to do in my previous blog) is understanding how habits work and drawing conclusions on why they have a powerful impact on human behavior.

Early in his book, Charles Duhigg points out that good habits are actually an essential part of an individual's existence.  While bad habits seem to attract the most attention in a typical discussion concerning performance, good habits quietly perform their role without much notice. However, their importance should not be diminished--the human brain would be unable to effectively function without the widespread use of good habits.  

For example, think about backing your car out of the garage.  Most of us can do this task with very little thought or focused attention.  However, as I’ve tried to teach my teenagers to perform this task, it’s amazing how much mental energy it takes for them to negotiate all the variables in the process (how much speed, where’s the brake, watch the mirrors, how far to the back wall, etc.)  However, after a few dozen times, they (and most other people) can perform this task with very little thought.

So, good habits empower humans to perform hundreds of tasks each day with very little mental energy and focus. If we had to think about each of these behaviors every time we did them, even the basics of life would be debilitating.

However, anything that has the capacity for this much good also has the power to create and sustain undesirable actions.  Bad habits are just as strong as good habits.  Once the brain goes on autopilot, it is very difficult to get it out of what Duhigg calls the “Habit Loop.”   

The Habit Loop is the way of explaining what happens in the brain as a habit is executed.  The following diagram helps describe this process:

The diagram above is fairly intuitive—the cue is something that your brain notices, the routine is something you automatically do to solve the problem, and the reward is some benefit you get for solving the problem.

For example, Duhigg points out that most of us brush our teeth as the result of the habit loop.    When we wake up in the morning, the surface of our teeth feels fuzzy (the cue).  To solve the problem, we brush our teeth (the routine).  After brushing our teeth, our mouths feel fresh, minty, and clean (the reward).  This good habit leads to healthy teeth.

As you probably guessed, bad habits follow the same process.  A cue ignites the brain’s craving for a certain reward and launches a routine that quickly and efficiently makes the reward a reality.  Duhigg does a great job of explaining the bad habit process in the following video:

 

So, the key to mastering habits is recognizing that certain cues exist and these cues lead the brain to anticipate a certain reward.  This craving for the reward can be strong and unrelenting--so much so that an individual's willpower to change is, in the long term, rendered ineffective.   To change a habit, the habit loop must be disrupted by altering the routine.

Once you watch the video and think about how this process works, take some time to identify one of two habits you’d like to change.  As the author suggests, sketch out your own habit loop and try to diagnose the cues, routines, and rewards that make your habit come to life.

In our next discussion, I’ll show you how understanding the habit process can make you a more effective sales person (why do your company’s clients do what they do?) and a more effective coach (why do your agents do what they do.)

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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. 

7 Reasons to Hire an Optimist

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Does it really matter? Rigorous scientific findings suggest your outlook on life directly impacts the success you experience.

You might remember me describing, from a variety of angles, the concept of learned helplessness over the last several years. Today, it dawned on me, I have never discussed learned optimism and how understanding this concept can improve you and your organization.

Whether you are an optimist or a pessimist is easily determined by the explanations you use to account for the negative events in your life.

This is part of what psychologists call "explanatory style."  Explanatory style is a psychological attribute that indicates how people explain to themselves why they experience a particular event.

There are three dimensions to every explanation that goes through a person's mind in response to an event.  And, all other things being equal (talent, environment, circumstances), the choice in the explanation will determine the level of success you'll experience in whatever you do. 

The three dimensions of explanatory style are personal, permanent, and pervasive:

1.  Are things that happen to me personal?   This involves how one explains where the cause of an event arises. People experiencing events may see themselves as the cause; that is, they have internalized/ personalized the cause for the event.

Example: "I always have problems with math" (internal) as opposed to "These math problems can be difficult for some people" (external).

 2.  Are things that happen to me permanent?  This involves how one explains the extent of the cause. People may see the situation as unchangeable or changeable.

Example:  "I always lose my keys" or "I need find a consistent place to put my keys". 

3.  Are things that happen to me pervasive?  This involves how one explains the extent of the effects. A person with a pervasive perspective would see the situation as affecting all aspects of life.

Example:  "I can't do anything right" or "Everything I touch seems to turn to gold".

In terms of explanatory style, optimists have the following perspective when things go wrong:

-they place no blame on themselves.

-they assure themselves that any setback can and will be corrected soon.

-they believe this experience was specific to a particular event and cannot be generalized to all other events. 

I know these distinctions may sound trivial on the surface, but researchers have consistently demonstrated the powerful impact of explanatory style on the lives of people. 

What impact?  Here is an abbreviated list of some of the researched-based consequences of being an optimist:

1. Optimists suffer much less anxiety and depression.

2. Optimists adapt better to negative events (including bypass surgery, and breast cancer) 

3. Optimism enables problem-focused coping, humor, making plans, positive reframing (putting the situation in the best possible light) and, when the situation is uncontrollable, to accepting the situation's reality.Optimists are capable of learning lessons from negative situations. Thus optimists have a coping advantage over pessimists. 


4.  Perhaps surprisingly, optimists don't tend to use denial, whilst pessimists often attempt to distance themselves from the problem.Optimists are not simply people who stick their heads in the sand and ignore threats to their well-being. For example, they attend to health warnings and usually discover potentially serious problems earlier, rather than later.


5.  Optimists exert more continuous effort and tend not to give up, possibly assuming that the situation can be handled successfully in one way or another. Pessimists, on the other hand, are far more likely to anticipate disaster - and, as a result, are more likely to give up. 


6.  Optimists report more health-promoting behaviors (like eating a healthy diet or having regular medical check-ups) and enjoy better physical health than pessimists. 


7.  Optimists seem to be more productive in the work place.

In the future I may share real life examples of where this has separated those who do well from those who don't. All the more reason to have a hope-filled Christmas season!

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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

What the Mattress Industry Can Teach You About Millennial Generation Hiring

In the past couple of years, I’ve written several blogs on the advantages of seeking out and hiring young people.  In theory, replacing an aging sales force with a new generation of young agents makes sense.

 But, as many of your have told me, theory and practice can be miles apart.  There is often frustration (perhaps on both sides of the hiring equation) around turning young talented individuals into productive agents.

What may surprise you is that you’re not the only one struggling with the issue—other industries are experiencing this frustration as well.   The case study we’ll discuss today comes from the mattress industry.

Mark Quinn, a Segment VP of Marketing with Leggett & Platt, writes a popular blog called Q’s Views, on the mattress sales profession.  In a recent article, Mark does a great job of putting his finger on the Millennial Generation issue:

“Technology has simultaneously been the Millennial generation’s best friend and worst enemy. While they have grown up with social media and iPhones, they’ve also lived under the specter of Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Systrom, and Mike Krieger.

…Seeing Facebook and Instagram make these twentysomethings into billionaires has upped the ante for what young people expect out of life—and their careers.

It’s easy for inexperienced professionals to get caught up in the Zuckerberg example—he didn’t finish college and didn’t spend 80 hours a week working his way up in a traditional corporation.

With a lack of context, it’s tempting to believe we’re all destined to be exceptions on the level of Facebook.  That’s just it—these guys are exceptions and not the rule.”

Because many individuals from the Millennial generation approach work from this perspective, many real estate hiring managers have given up on this group of candidates. 

Mark takes a different approach.  He believes that some simple career coaching early in the hiring process can help some young people focus on the realities of building a true career.  In turn, he reaps the benefit of bringing young employees into his ageing industry

Here is what he tells his young candidates:

“Your best bet—if you plan to have a career that spans more than 10 years—is to find your niche and strategize your vertical move from there. While you can make wildly zigzagging moves across industries, remember one thing: What you skip over is often what you need in order to be successful later.”

He goes on to outline five steps that tend to make people successful in the mattress industry: 

1.  Learn the basics.   I learned the basics. I took people I emulated to lunch, and I replicated the basics of what they did. The basics are overlooked by many starting out, but they’re called basics for a reason. If you aren’t good at them, don’t plan on being talented at much else.

2.  Develop your own strategy. I tried to swim upstream whenever possible. While other trainers focused on the products they were selling, I took speaking classes because I wanted to be the most dynamic person in the room. My strategy was to give the salespeople a skill and help them make more money. They were teaching spec; I was educating them on sales, which is a skill that would benefit them no matter what industry they worked in.

3. Have pure intentions. I genuinely wanted to help people – hence, my focus on developing people’s skills. If you’re trying to provide information, you’ll be somewhat successful. If your intention is to help people find a new approach to doing things, you’ll create ripples that last a lot longer.

4.  Put in the effort. Many people fail to follow through and end up disappointing those around them. If you say you’re going to call, pick up the phone. If you can learn from someone who works on Saturdays, use your day off to enhance your days on.

5.  Be memorable. You can be memorable for being the guy who never met a 3-hour lunch he didn’t want to take – or you can be memorable for doing things no one else does. Call a customer on his birthday, remember the names of his children, and send him a fishing article when it reminds you of him. He’ll remember you, simply for remembering him.

Of course, all of this advice does not track directly to the real estate industry—that’s not the point.   This case study illustrates the importance of setting expectations early in the hiring process and painting a picture of the future. 

If you become effective at cutting through the initial layer of self-centered nonsense, you will find that some of these young people have the capacity to be your next top performer.

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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. 

Understanding the New Sales Paradigm

Getting new agent candidates past the stigma of "becoming a Salesperson" has always been one of the primary obstacles to a succesful hire. Most of us, some unconsciously, tend to hold rather negative views of sales people. However, the negative image of a salesmen is slowly changing.

 How and Why?

In times past, when conducting a transaction, the sales person held most, if not all, the information regarding a given product. Oftentimes, the buyer had no prior knowledge of the product. The information imbalance caused the buyer to feel vulnerable, and made it difficult to differentiate the slimy sales people from the values-based sales people. However, with the advent of the information age, that has all radically changed. Now the buyer has access to almost as much information as the salesperson does.  As a result, the image of the slimly sales person is changing as well.

 Sales people are becoming facilitators of transactions.

In the brief video (about his new book) Daniel Pink clearly outlines this change and further describes how this change has made us all sales people. I think you'll not only enjoy this, but also it will help you guide new agent candidates over their fears.

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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

Post-Social Recruiting: Peter Weddle’s Epiphany—Part 2

Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend and you’re back at work with a new sense of energy, ready to make the push towards the year end.

In the short week before Thanksgiving, I pointed you to an article that I found insightful and promised to follow-up with some thoughts this week.  The article was written by Peter Weddle, and you may want to re-read it before reading today’s post.

The question I left on the table before heading off for the holiday was, “How does Peter’s insights on social recruiting apply to the real estate industry?”   Here are some thoughts:

1.  Social recruiting via public social recruiting via public social networks has peaked and is now in decline.  

Peter makes this point several times during his discussion:

“The current incarnation of social recruiting has been stimulated and structured by social media sites. The way we socialize with candidates is governed by the format, functionality and focus of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. These sites enable us to promote our brands, advertise to and connect with large pools of professionals in a wide range of industries.  These interactions have effectively defined social recruiting as a fleeting and thoroughly functional relationship. Basically, we're saying to prospects: "Hey, we're a buyer of talent, you're a seller of talent, let's do a deal."

I would further argue that the real estate industry has not largely benefited from this stage of social recruiting anyway.  The concept works well when a uniquely talented individual is needed to fill a distinctive job position,  but few people wander around wondering what a real estate agent does—especially if they are already a real estate agent for a competitive company.  Also, since real estate companies are always hiring, the need to get the word out concerning a “fleeting”  or difficult-to-fill job opening is inconsequential.

2.  Social recruiting is becoming the creation and ongoing development of individual allegiances between the employer and a group of candidates.

Peter calls the shift, “Post-social recruiting,” and he makes the following observations concerning its potential:

“Post-social recruiting means interactions with prospects, candidates and applicants that make them feel at home with and thus committed to an organization. It gives employers a way to forge an enduring bond - a psychological rather than simply an electronic connection - with select talented populations.”

As we’ve mentioned in the past WorkPuzzle discussions, private social networking technologies are empowering both companies and candidates to make this shift.  New tools and best practices are starting to emerge that will make this a reality.

For real estate hiring managers, this change should be welcomed.  Once a few minor technology hurdles are overcome, the skills needed for proficiency in this arena come naturally to most managers.  Why?  Because they are the same skills that once made them good agents.  Think about it--building allegiances among a large group of prospects with the expectation of transactions developing over time is very similar to post-social recruiting.

3.  Discount real estate brokers have created a huge “career support hole” among experienced real estate agents.   This hole can be filled by online career communities inside the framework of private social networks.

If you’ve been inside the real estate industry for a while, you may have not noticed what has happened to corporate America in the last two decades.   Peter describes it this way:

“In the early 1990s, economic conditions and competition forced employers to change the way they dealt with employees. They could no longer afford the expensive overhead of managing workers' careers, so they jettisoned both the career ladder and the gold watch. They still employed those workers, of course, but each person was on their own when it came to managing their career.

In the two decades since then, individual workers have had no place to hang their career hat. No homestead where they can get the practical and psychological support they need and deserve. Professional societies and associations have long served that purpose for a person's field of work, but nothing has existed for a person's career.

 And now, the potential exists to correct that situation and, in the process, create a formidable, new talent acquisition strategy. Post-social recruiting involves using social technology to create true career communities - not today's posers that are actually databases of candidates - without the expensive overhead of traditional corporate career support. These virtual "careersteads" nurture allegiance among talented workers and that bond, in turn, transforms them into genuine employment prospects.”

If you think about it, something similar has happened to the real estate industry in the last five to seven years (and perhaps during previous downturns as well).  There has been an exodus of experienced agents from full-service real estate firms to discount brokers who offer better commission splits, but very little support for those agents who joined these firms. 

Here is a chance at your own epiphany:  The opportunity exists to engage these “support-starved” agents who are now working for discount brokers in a cost-efficient manner through the framework of private social networks. 

If these agents can get the career support they're missing from a single local source, they will eventually build trust and allegiance to the person providing that support.  At the end of the recruiting process, attraction will always work better than promotion.  This is the essence of attraction.

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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. 

Post-Social Recruiting: Peter Weddle's Epiphany

Hopefully, you've made it to your local supplement store, and you're well equipped to stay healthy as we head into the holiday season (see last week's discussion if you're confused on this).  Enough of the fun stuff--now it's back to work!

Last week I ran across an article written by Peter Weddle that I found profoundly insightful.   I reference Peter's work from time to time not only because his observations are instructive, but also because his viewpoints are based on the broader recruiting industry (not just the real estate industry).  

In this article, he weighs in on the impact that social networking has had and will have on the recruiting industry.  I don't want to spoil his writing by chopping up what he wrote.  So, I am going to republish the entire article below and then draw some conclusions for real estate recruiting in our next discussion.

So, here you go:

Post Social Recruiting, by Peter Weddle

"For the past five years, social recruiting has primarily been implemented in two ways: data mining pools of talent and networking with prospective candidates at social media sites. While such techniques will continue to be important, the thrust of social recruiting in the future will shift to a far different kind of activity: building and leveraging individual allegiance at employer and staffing firm sites. It's the next phase in the War for Talent - the era of post-social recruiting.

The current incarnation of social recruiting has been stimulated and structured by social media sites. The way we socialize with candidates is governed by the format, functionality and focus of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. These sites enable us to promote our brands, advertise to and connect with large pools of professionals in a wide range of industries.

These interactions have effectively defined social recruiting as a fleeting and thoroughly functional relationship. Basically, we're saying to prospects: "Hey, we're a buyer of talent, you're a seller of talent, let's do a deal." While it isn't the most alluring of propositions, the fact that it is aimed at a cohort of the workforce not easily reached by other media - so-called passive job seekers - has made it an important addition to our recruiting capabilities.

The word "social," however, means something very different from fleeting and functional relationships. Dictionary.com defines the term as "pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations: a social club." Translated for our purposes, it is the creation and ongoing development of individual allegiance.

That's post-social, at least as we have to this point understood social recruiting, but truly social if we intend to use social technology on a large enough scale to address more than one-off requirements.

Post-social recruiting means interactions with prospects, candidates and applicants that make them feel at home with and thus committed to an organization. It gives employers and staffing firms a way to forge an enduring bond - a psychological rather than simply an electronic connection - with select talent populations.

Why is it the future of social recruiting? Because of the past. In the early 1990s, economic conditions and competition forced employers to change the way they dealt with employees. They could no longer afford the expensive overhead of managing workers' careers, so they jettisoned both the career ladder and the gold watch. They still employed those workers, of course, but each person was on their own when it came to managing their career.

In the two decades since then, individual workers have had no place to hang their career hat. No homestead where they can get the practical and psychological support they need and deserve. Professional societies and associations have long served that purpose for a person's field of work, but nothing has existed for a person's career.

And now, the potential exists to correct that situation and, in the process, create a formidable, new talent acquisition strategy. Post-social recruiting involves using social technology to create true career communities - not today's posers that are actually databases of candidates - without the expensive overhead of traditional corporate career support. These virtual "careersteads" nurture allegiance among talented workers and that bond, in turn, transforms them into genuine employment prospects.

Careersteading for Talent.  A post-social community is not a network of active or passive job seekers. It is not a one-off interaction based on a specific opening. Rather, a careerstead is an ongoing relationship that employers and staffing firms establish with prospects (i.e., people who haven't even expressed an interest in working for an organization) as well as with candidates and applicants.

Its purpose is not near term sourcing, but rather, long term interactions that help to promote the career success of those who participate. That effort, in turn, develops and sustains individual allegiance, and it's that bond which generates recruiting benefits. These benefits include:

1.  A heightened viral effect, because those who participate feel safe and supported enough to tell their peers about the community. The allegiance community members feel toward the organization encourages them to champion participation in it to others in their field. 

2.  A heightened employment propensity, because those who participate feel as if the organization has their best interests at heart. The allegiance of community members encourages them to work for the organization as many times as possible throughout their career.
In effect, a careerstead is a highly focused, self-sustaining talent generator that exclusively serves the recruiting interests of a single employer or staffing firm.

How do you create such a community? Not with questions and answers on a Facebook page. And, not with job postings in a LinkedIn group or on Twitter feed. No, the only way to establish a true careerstead - one that scales the power of social technology to address all or most of an organization's talent requirements - is by breaking all the rules we've learned to date about social recruiting. I'll talk more about that in my next column.

Stay tuned for part two of this discussion.  If you have some thoughts you'd like to share now, you can join us in the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC) discussion group.

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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. 

Why Every Manager and Business Owner Should Dream of Sushi

Very few movies come along that impact me as powerfully as the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

How can an 85 year old man, with a restaurant seating 10 people, receive the highest possible rating from Michelin, charge $365 a meal, and serve nothing but sushi? That's right, no appetizers, no desert, no side dishes, just sushi.

Sushi is all you’re getting.. and sushi is all you'll want.

Jiro has been deemed by experts to be the best sushi chef in the world. How good? A 3 star rating from Michelin is reserved for restaurants where the food is so good that it is, “Worth traveling to the country just to eat there.”

 

But that is only part of what makes Jiro Dreams of Sushi an interesting story.

How this man developed a reputation for the best sushi in the world is where this story gets very interesting.

Early in his difficult life, Jiro threw himself into becoming the very best sushi chef he could possibly be. He never set out to become the best in the world, or become rich. However, those extraneous things happened as a result of doing his very best every single day. Hence the title of the documentary; desiring to improve his skills every day led him to, "Dream about sushi."

Here are some quotes from the chef himself and one from his son:

“ Once you decide on your occupation… you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success… and is the key to being regarded honorably.”-Jiro Ono

“I've never once hated this job. I fell in love with my work and gave my life to it. Even though I'm eighty five years old, I don't feel like retiring. That's how I feel.”-Jiro Ono

“Always look ahead and above yourself. Always try to improve on yourself. Always strive to elevate your craft. That's what he taught me."- Yoshikazu Ono

"I do the same thing over and over, improving bit by bit. There is always a yearning to achieve more. I'll continue to climb, trying to reach the top, but no one knows where the top is."-Jiro Ono

Now, to be fair, you'll see that this kind of intense striving can lead to some poor fathering. He admits that he was not a good father. However, despite this fact, both of his sons have taken up their old man's craft, and pursue it with similar enthusiasm.

Do you know anyone with a similar dedication to their craft? I do. My wife is a dental hygienist and an instructor at a college, training dental hygiene students. While she never dedicated so much time that she came close to putting her craft above her duties as a mother, she was always improving, always wanting to be better, and wanting to stay abreast of the latest research and techniques. I love this about her. I don't get it, (why someone would be so interested in teeth and the mouth with that kind of dedication)... but I love it.

Many years ago, I figured out that most of the people who turn out to be interesting are usually those who are interested in excelling at something. What do you excel at? Do your customers and coworkers perceive you to be dedicated to excellence?

Whether they do or don't, know this: It is never too late to become seriously dedicating to doing something every day, improve what you offer, what you know, or how you serve.

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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

Content Rules: How Becoming a Micro-Publisher Can Make Your Real Estate Office More Successful – Part 2

Last week, I highlighted a book called Content Rules, written by Ann Handley & C.C. Chapman.  Content Rules shows how any small business, even a local real estate office, can harness marketing power by becoming a micro-publisher.  You may want to read Part 1 of this discussion before continuing, to avoid missing anything.

 There are great benefits to becoming a content provider on the internet.  For example, Mike Volpe, a VP of marketing at HubSpot, recently reported companies that blog (i.e. produce content) generate 55% more website traffic when compared to companies that don’t. In addition to more traffic, companies that produce content recieve 97% more links coming into their sites.

 Despite the obvious benefits of micro-publishing, most companies are hesitant to commit to regularly producing content. The question we often get from owners and managers is, “How could I possibly do this? It seems complex, a little overwhelming, and a lot of work!”

 Yes, it is going to take some work—there is no way around that.  But, the complexity can be reduced if you start the process with a plan and a set of principles.  Complex Rules has published a simple framework that can help anyone get started down the path of micro-publishing.   There are 11 of these best practices in the book, here are the best six (in my opinion):  

1. “Embrace being a publisher” – Put your quality content online: blogs, videos, podcasts, email newsletters, ebooks, white papers, tweets, webinars, photos and images.

2. “Build momentum” – Set a clear goal. Make sure your content includes triggers that compel users to take actions that will eventually result in buying your products and services. Content itself does not sell; it sets up the sale by giving useful information.

3. “Speak human” – Adopt a natural voice online. Don’t put on airs. Avoid jargon, such as “impactful,” “synergy,” “proactive,” “end-to-end,” “win-win” and “leverage” used as a verb. “Write the way you talk.”

4. “Share or solve; don’t shill” – Your content’s purpose is not to sell, but to educate and inform. This engages people and causes a favorable reaction to your firm. To illustrate: The Pampers division of Procter & Gamble produces online “Welcome to Parenthood” videos. The videos don’t sell diapers; they inform new parents about babies, and cover topics such as “potty training,” naps, etc...

5. “Do something unexpected” – Customers love it when you or your firm does things differently. To gain attention, surprise your online visitors. This works well for B2B firms that want to stand out from their competition.

6. “Play to your strengths” – You don’t have to produce the web’s most entertaining videos, podcasts, or blogs, but you must publish some type of quality material online.

To wrap up this discussion, I want to connect micro-publishing principles to recruiting. It is self-evident that publishing great content will help your real estate office be more successful at satisfying customers and selling more real estate. But can it also help you recruit experienced agents more successfully?

 Yes it can—because attraction is always more powerful than promotion.

Experienced agent recruiting is dominated by promotional activities.  Cold calls, direct emails, staged networking events, etc. are the tools that most real estate managers are using to recruit experienced agents.  Like the direct mail companies who soliciate new card customers, this strategy does produce some results when executed with a high level of persistence.  However, both candidates and managers often get weary in this process.

If you think you can outlast your competitors in the application of these promotional activities, go for it. But you better hope they don't find out how to attract agents to their cause.  If you think about it, Apple didn't become the most valuable company in the world by promoting their products.  They created something compelling and figured out how to attract people to it.  

By becoming a successful micro-publisher and providing great content in your local community, you position yourself as an attractive thought-leader. Successful real estate agents want insightful information and they want to be connected to intersting and  influential people.  If you become a source for compelling information, you’ll have agents congregating around you.  That is every hiring manager's dream.

---

Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

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

 

---

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.