WorkPuzzle

The Equation for Achievement

We all spend a great deal of time trying to figure out the best possible ways to predict potential success in those we recruit and interview.

And we aren't alone.

Where there exists a big question, you can usually find big research. Many people within the field of psychology spend ample time and research dollars trying to predict the same.

While reading Martin Seligman's most recent book, called "Flourish," I am, once again, struck by how far research has come in boiling down "achievement" to its primary components.

The following is an excerpt of an article summarizing the research on this topic.

 "Many people think that if you are smart and have enough talent, you will succeed in fields such as sports, music, education and business.  When we think of great people in history such as Mozart, Edison, Confucius, and Shakespeare we hear about their talent and intelligence.

But true genius is being shown to be as much a product of grit as intelligence or skill. 

A study of genius (By Dr Angela L. Duckworth and Christopher Peterson) in twenty-one fields, including astronomy, music, mathematics, Eastern and Western philosophy, painting and literature showed that only two or three giants stand way ahead in each of these fields, a few top performers outdistance the rest by a huge amount. 

For example, in the publication of scientific papers, very few people publish many papers, but the majority of scientists publish none or only one.  In golf, only three golfers have won sixty or more PGA tournaments (Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods). Greatness and high achievement are reserved for only a few. It is their grittiness, as well as their intelligence and skill that caused their success.

The equation that predicts success is: (Skill) x (Effort) = Achievement.  

Martin Seligman, a well known academic and psychologist, in his recent book “Flourish,” points to a a great deal of research that shows achievement can be understood and predicted by the following four factors.

SPEED: Seligman calls this ‘Fast’ and it is the sheer speed of your thought about a task.  This involves how much and how quickly you have access to relevant knowledge on the task. It is hard to develop this. You either have it or you don’t.

MINDFULNESS: He calls this ‘Slow’.  This is the ability to call up memories, plan, check, review and be creative in examining and exploring the task.  This can be learned through meditation and mindfulness practices such as walking, eating with attention, and breath awareness.

RATE OF LEARNING: The faster your rate of learning, the more knowledge you can accumulate about the area.  This is different from sheer speed of thought.  This occurs by being involved in new, challenging, and tight time-lined projects and through reviewing “lessons learned.”

EFFORT: Time on task.  This is the time spent on doing or practicing the task and multiplies the skill available in achieving the goal.  It also adds to speed since more time spent on a task results in more knowledge of it.

Research has shown that extraordinary achievement in sports, chess, music, writing and business is not just talent or IQ but the amount of hours you practice something.  If you want to be great at something practice it for 60 hours a week for 20 years!"

When reading the literature, I am left with questions I believe we all need to be asking if we expect to continue learning, growing, and getting better at what we do: 

1. Can you find both sides of this equation being lived out in those you know who have succeeded? 

2. Does it clearly differentiate workers who succeed from those who don't? 

3. Did the successful individuals come with one or both characteristics, or did they develop them?

4.  Do people lose either side of the equation with time? If so ,how and why?

5.  Can you teach this equation in a way where it will inspire people to develop a growth mindset and better pursue both sides of the equation?

6.  Are there components of the equation that are missing? (i.e. interests, signature strengths or innate wiring etc.)

Let me know your answers or other questions that I might be missing.

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

How ObamaCare Mandates Could Help Real Estate Hiring

As you may know, most of the ObamaCare mandates will  “kick in” over the next two years.  Of course, it is appropriate for real estate owners and managers to focus their attention on the impact this law has on their own businesses.

But what about other industries?  Until recently, I had not put much thought into how businesses in other industry sectors are wrestling with these impending changes.   But these changes are weighing heavily on business leaders in retail, restaurants, and service industries. 

While I feel for those struggling with these new directives (one of my business partners owns a large retail establishment), some good news may emerge from these changes --especially if your focus is hiring “new to real estate” agents over the next few years.  As the old saying goes, one man’s curse is another man’s blessing.

This angle on the healthcare issue was brought to my attention by John Sumser.  John is editor-in-chief of the HRExaminer Online Magazine and writes about Human Resource issues and recruiting from a broad perspective.  As he studied and wrote about the nature of the employment relationship, he discovered the following principle:

Workers who pay for their own benefits are significantly more mobile that those who don't.

This statement may seem self-evident after you read it, but it is surprisingly profound. As we’ve worked with hundreds of real estate hiring managers and thousands of real estate candidates over the last few years, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the number one reason that high quality people choose not to pursue real estate careers. 

That may be changing.  

Not because real estate will be in a position to suddenly offer medical benefits, but because the competition (other non-real estate companies) will soon stop offering benefits.   Here is an excerpt from an article that John recently wrote on this topic:

“I had a chance to catch up with some friends who are at the bottom of the system. Both work in retail. Both are part-time students. Both work hard and creatively. Both are noticing weird behavior from their employers.

They work in different cities in different parts of retail.

Since the first of the year, managers have been rotating and schedules have been shifting. As the noise settles down, the managers are slotting 50-hour weeks while the rest of the store works 27 to 30 hours.

In both cases, this amounted to a 20% cut in pay and a potential loss of benefits. (Their benefits are still intact but won’t remain so when the next ‘look back’ happens.) Very little is explained.

From their [point of view], it looks like management is lurching.

Their companies are maneuvering through the challenge of figuring out who does and doesn’t get benefits. Since it’s over their pay grade, they only understand the bluntest impacts of the story.

Ultimately, they will end up paying for their own health insurance.

It’s not really a surprise. While it is a momentary inconvenience, what happens next is pretty obvious. While their employers have figured out how to dodge this bullet, they only get a temporary reprieve.

Workers who pay for their own benefits are significantly more mobile that those who don’t. Up until last year, a worker who got sick (or had a family member who got sick) was bound to the current employer for a very long time. Pre-existing conditions made a whole range of people uninsurable if they left the current boss.

Now, after the first initial pinch, these low level workers are freer than they’ve ever been...

The employers who recognize this short-term windfall will end up paying for their employees healthcare in the long haul. Workers who get saddled with new bills seem to always want raises.

The interesting question is whether the employers who dodge this first bullet really understand that they are creating an attrition problem that will be accompanied by wage increases.

It doesn’t look like it. They are predictably going for the short money.”

I think there are two take-aways for the real estate industry from John’s insight:

1.  Learn how to talk about medical benefits.  Ask open-ended questions about the candidate’s medical benefit situation during the interview—especially if the candidate is from one of the industries being impacted by the ObamaCare changes.  In the past, this topic was often avoided because it opposed a short-term disadvantage of working as a real estate agent.  Now the playing field is more level and a real estate career still offers significantly more income potential than traditional jobs.

2. Develop transition programs.  Find ways to help people transition from the jobs where they recently lost their benefits to a real estate agent position.  We hear frequently from our clients…”We only want to hire full-time agents.”  That’s fine, but there is window opening in the employment world where a quick transition from part-time to full-time may look compelling to many talented individuals.  Rigidly hanging onto the full-time only model may cause you to miss engaging many talented individuals who will be looking at the real estate industry for the first time.

Question:  Have you recently interviewed someone who has brought up the issue of medical benefits?   What did you learn from the interaction? 

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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. 

Why "Career Seminars" Will Always Be Inferior to One-on-One Interviews

One of the questions we often get from hiring managers is:

“Are one-on-one interviews really necessary in the real estate hiring process?”

What’s implied in this question (and usually comes out later in the discussion) is that it might be more efficient to conduct group interviews with several candidates at once rather than one-on-one interviews.

The line of reason is that interviews take a lot of time, and many early stage candidates are not serious about making a career change.  The group interview is a great way to “weed-out” those who are not truly interested or unqualified.

In a real estate company, this “group interview” usually takes the form of a career seminar.  It typically is an informational meeting where the company describes the benefits of changing careers and becoming a real estate agent.  At the end of the meeting, there’s typically some call to action (sign-up for licensing school, schedule a follow-up meeting with a hiring manager, etc.) that encourages the candidate to move forward in the process.

For years, we’ve recommended not using this methodology for interfacing with the majority of candidates.  There is nothing wrong with running an occasional career seminar for those who truly want information about a real estate career.  However, using this tool as a replacement or precursor to one-on-one interviews has not proven to be a best practice for recruiting high quality individuals.

Outside of the empirical data that we collected on this topic (ie. most real estate companies consistently hire 40% to 60% “D” performers using traditional hiring techniques such as career seminars), I could not put my finger on the psychology of why the “group interview concept” was inferior until last week.  I found this insight in an odd place—a coaching article written by Ed Batista.

I’ve read Ed Batista’s blog for several years, but I usually gain insight from a coaching perspective, not a recruiting perspective.   Ed is a successful executive coach and an instructor and leadership coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  His business is coaching, but in the process of explaining coaching concepts he reveals a lot about the psychology of people.

The particular blog that peaked my interest was titled:  Spending Attention.  In this discussion, Ed makes the point that focused attention is one of the most powerful forces made available to human beings—both from a giving and receiving perspective.

“Focused attention is our most precious resource, because 1) it's extremely taxing on our intellectual and emotional capabilities, 2) it can have a amazingly powerful effect on its object, and 3) it can't be subdivided. (We can pay continuous partial attention to multiple objects simultaneously, but we can truly focus on only one object at any given moment.)

Much of what I do as a coach and as an experiential educator at Stanford involves nothing more than devoting my full attention to another person. This is somewhat easier in a one-on-one coaching session with a client or student, and it's somewhat harder in a group setting, but under any circumstances it's a challenging task that's almost always worth the effort.”

So, what does this have to do with interviewing?  There’s something  powerful that happens to an individual when they receive another person’s full attention.  Ed puts it this way:

“… devoting our full attention to someone can be a novel experience for both of us that in and of itself stimulates something useful in the interaction. The other person feels seen, heard, recognized, validated, appreciated or challenged in ways that partial attention never generates. And as we momentarily quiet our inner voice, we suddenly become aware of so many things that we missed before--not only about the other person and our environment, but also about ourselves. The subtler, more elusive thoughts and feelings that are usually drowned out by the louder currents can now be heard.”

It’s obvious that humans crave focused attention.  In the hiring process, the best chance of making this happen is in a one-on-one interview. 

By the way, just because a person is sitting across the desk from you, doesn’t mean focused attention will happen (read the rest of Ed’s blog to learn more about how you can become effective at giving focused attention). 

But, focused attention is almost guaranteed NOT to happen in a group interview/career seminar setting.

A high quality candidate wants and deserves the focused attention of the hiring manager during the hiring process.  If this element is missing, the high quality candidates will exit the hiring process. 

When the high quality candidates leave the hiring process, all you’re left with are desperate candidates who believe they deserve no better than a career information session. 

Of course there are exceptions to this rule (I’m sure some of you will write me about how you hired your best agent ever through a career information session), but you won’t win the hiring game by betting on the exceptions.  In the long run, the time and effort you put into one-on-one interviews will pay off.

Question:  What techniques have you found effective in making candidates feel they have your focused attention during an interview?

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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. 

Making Your Interviews Memorable (For the Candidate)

Over the last couple of years, we’ve written more than 40 blogs that that cover the topic of interviewing.  While there is much research available on this topic, some of the best ideas and insights have come from our readers.  Today, I’d like to share another one these insights. 

Al Mirabelli is the Broker in Charge of the Prudential Carolinas Lake Norman Office.  His office is located in Huntersville, North Carolina.  A couple of weeks ago, a candidate that had recently interviewed in Al’s office sent their company’s recruiting coordinator the following email: 

“Yesterday’s meeting was great.  From the time I walked in (amazing the effect of seeing your own name with balloons) till the time I left, I could see why Prudential Carolinas Reality would be a great place to work and a good fit for me.  I have a few offers on the table right now. Prudential feels like the best fit for me. I would just need a day or to to go over finances to make sure it would be possible right now.”  

This peaked my interest.  What did the candidate mean when he said, “amazing the effect of seeing your own name with balloons?” 

Al provided some background later that week,

“At the entrance foyer of the lobby to my office I have a small [whiteboard easel] that welcomes candidates and other visitors to my office.  During the day of this candidate’s interview, we happen to be welcoming a local group of builders to our office who are partnering with some of our agents and attached some balloons to the whiteboard.  It was such a hit that they ended up taking a picture on their way out.  They later said they were very flattered that we would do such a thing.”

Apparently, the candidate was flattered as well and made a point of mentioning it to the recruiting coordinator during a follow-up call.

Who knew that such a simple thing would have such a great impact?  I must admit, that I was even a little skeptical when I heard this story.   Maybe this candidate was just overstating their feelings in the initial email.   

But, then I received this email a week later from Prudential Carolina’s recruiting coordinator:

“I thank you very much for allowing me to meet Al.  He definitely has passion for the business, which drew me in.  He was wonderful and the entire workforce was very courteous. 

They even had my name on a white board upon entry that said "Welcome [Candidate’s Name]."  It was great!  I plan on working at Prudential and learning the skills necessary so that I can be extremely successful in the field.  So with my ambitious nature and all the information that Al provided to me, I will be successful.”

[Note:  I removed/blurred the candidate’s names in the emails and pictures because we did not get their permission to share their identity]

Al and his staff are onto something—don’t you think?  I believe that Al has figured out how to tap a basic human need—the need for acknowledgment.

I recently read that acknowledgement lets people know that you have truly seen them.  It communicates we have taken the time to pay attention, to notice, and to speak out loud what they contribute, what they accomplish, and some of who they are at their best.

Al—great job on figuring this out and applying it to your interview process!  I hope others will try this as well.

Question:  Do you have interviewing techniques that you’ve found helpful.  If so, share them with us, and we’ll publish your ideas.

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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.