WorkPuzzle

Provoking People to Be Successful - Part 2

Yesterday we discussed how salespeople are taking on some characteristics and duties of coaches.  For example, it is a coach’s job to provoke people to be successful, however it is increasingly becoming the salesperson’s job as well.

When trying to learn and deploy techniques that will elicit success, most salespeople struggle to find a critical issue that would capture the interest of a senior executive.  Moore puts it this way:

“For any given prospect or customer, your sales and marketing team can generate a long list of industry wide and company specific problems that could be better addressed.  The key is to find the one that matters so deeply that even in a downturn the money will be found to fix it.”

As you know, there is no shortage of problems out there.  I think that any of us could quickly develop a list of things in our own lives and businesses that could use some improvement.  The challenge is to prioritize these problems, and focus energies on specific ways to solve them.

Moore admits that even salespeople have a difficult time attaching a direct monetary value to a problem.  Of course, this is an appropriate framework for a corporate sale, but is it appropriate for coaching?  In most cases, it is.

Here is a framework that will help you identify issues that are relevant:  As you consider problems, ask yourself this question:  Is there a direct and measurable payoff (preferably monetary) for solving the problem?  If there is not a payoff, then it’s time to place priority on a different issue.
 
This is not something many coaches and managers do very well.  It even becomes more of a challenge for a coach or manager who has the responsibility of coaching a large number of people.  It is easy to get into a rut and try to apply a one-size-fits-all formula.

Here are a couple of ideas that may help you be successful at this task:

1.  Think like a businessperson.  As you attempt to put yourself in a person's shoes, ask tough business questions.  What issue can put this person out of business?  What seriously jeopardizes this person’s ability to compete?  What tasks are this person’s competitors and better performing peers achieving that this person is ignoring?  If you’re not a credible source of advice on an important topic, is there someone you can elicit help from who is?

2.  Keep track of the information.  Not everyone you’re coaching has the same issues.  Since your approach must be customized, it is important to have a way to record and reference the information you’ve collected and the advice that you’ve offered.

During tough times, we’re all careful about what we buy.  Our coaching must address pertinent business issues people must solve in order to survive.  If we’re not proficient at this task, we may be one of the expenses that gets cut.

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Provoking People to be Successful

If you coach and manage people for a living, then you already know that insight can come from the most unlikely places.  Is it possible that your salespeople might have something to teach you?

Salespeople are under a lot of pressure right now.  When the economy is good and things are humming along, they seem to have it easy.  But, when the economy tightens up, it’s a different story.  They’re often the first ones to feel the impact of a downturn.

Under such circumstances, most salespeople complain and make excuses about how external circumstances keep them from meeting their goals.  Many of these people fail because they get stuck in this paradigm.  However, there are always a few who figure out how to overcome these circumstances and succeed in spite of the external challenges.

Harvard Business Review published an article last month on how to think, act, and practice business like one of these salespeople.  The article is titled, "In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers".  It is written by Geoffrey Moore, along with two co-authors.
  
The basic premise of the article is that in order to be successful, a salesperson must be able to identify problems, risks, and opportunities that the customer cannot see on their own.  Here is how Moore quantifies the issue:

“Provocation-based selling goes beyond the conventional consultative or solution-selling approach, whereby the vendor’s sales team seeks out current concerns in a question-and–answer dialogue with customer managers….  Provocation-based selling helps customers see their competitive challenges in a new light that makes addressing specific painful problems unmistakably urgent.”

In essence, the salesperson is doing the strategic thinking for the customer with regard to a small part of their overall business.  How could an outsider have an impact like this?

“[Outsiders] aren’t caught up in the dynamics that often make it hard for a client’s own managers to challenge the status quo.  This hesitancy to make waves becomes stronger in time of general economic turmoil.  When people in your client’s organization are too worried about their jobs to present anything original or thought-provoking, it is easier to come across as a much-needed breath of fresh air.”

Doesn’t this sound like the job description of a coach? 

Getting a third-party perspective from outside the normal frame of reference helps people perform better, overcome obstacles, and find solutions that are not obvious on the surface. 
 
Tomorrow, I’ll share additional insight that Moore uncovers in this article.  I think you'll find the information helpful with regard to both sales and coaching.

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Showing Grit at Beer School

I want to chime in on Dave’s recent articles concerning the psychological trait of “grit." When we speak about this topic, there is always a well-spring of interest.  I think it provides people a sense of hope. 

Many of us know that we may not be the smartest or most talented people compared to many of our peers. There is not much we can do about our innate deficiencies and shortcomings.  However, hope surfaces from the belief that perhaps we can work harder than the next person, and possibly overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.  Faced with difficult circumstances, we can display a sense of resolve and persevere.  We can face the fear of failure and not give up.  Intelligence doesn’t help you at such inflection points...grit does!

I read a book a few years back that has some great lessons regarding grit.  The book is called "Beer School:  Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery," and it is the story of how Steve Hindy and Tom Potter founded, grew, and eventually sold the Brooklyn Brewery.

Personally, I really enjoy micro-brews, and I’ve been fascinated by the growth of this industry. That is probably what motivated me to read the book originally, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I learned about business and life in general.

The brewery was conceptualized in 1986 and by late 1987 both the founders were able to quit their day jobs and work full-time with the company.  Business progressed nicely for several years, but then faced a series of challenges that later caused Potter to describe 1991 as the longest year of his life.  Here is how Potter described this time period:

“Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Brewery was slowly going broke. We had committed to a new strategy and we hoped sales would grow, but we were still a long way from break even… [To cut costs] we gave up our small but comfortable offices on Fourth Avenue, moving quarters into the tiny cinder-block room inside our warehouse. It would be uncomfortable, but would reduce our rent obligation substantially.

I privately thought there was perhaps a fifty-fifty chance of survival… I had seen some bankrupt companies close up and I was under no illusion about what the endgame looked like. It would be me in an empty office at a phone for months, trying to collect as much of our accounts receivable as possible, in order to pay off debt, as a matter of honor.”

Tom Potter was a Yale-educated bank executive before he decided to start the Brooklyn Brewery. His partner, Steve Hindy, had already gone back to his job as a Reporter in order to save money. Tom could have easily done the same.  Certainly most people would have given up at this point. Can you imagine the amount of grit he had to muster to keep going at this point?

As you might have guessed, the perseverance of the founders paid off. By 2004 when the business was sold, the Brooklyn Brewery was among the top 40 breweries in the United States.

Many of our clients, professional contacts, and friends are going through difficult times due to the challenges in economy right now.  In a figurative sense, many people are sitting in their own “cinder-block rooms” with a fifty-fifty chance of making it.  What advice do you think Tom Potter would offer?

Editor's Note:  In a previous entry we directed you to a particular site to take a grit assessment - The site address was incorrect.  To take some interesting and informative grit assessments, please instead go to http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx

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Brain Fun

Last week I presented a seminar to a group of executives in California.  The topic was brain science.  More specifically, I spoke about how the limbic portion of the brain takes over a person’s normal ability to reason and think creatively when a person is exposed to a high level of acute stress.  You may want to review our previous Workpuzzle article if you have more interest in this topic.

In preparation for this talk, I reviewed some research on how the brain functions.  I guess my own mind became attuned to brain research because I later ran across this bit of trivia that caught my eye: 

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

There is probably no real research associated with this (it has apparently been floating around the internet since 2003), and I'm not sure what it really says about the brain...  Nonetheless, it is kind of fun!

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The Nerds May Triumph Again - Part 2

Yesterday we talked about how data geeks are getting into the Human Resources business.  One of the companies pioneering this effort is IBM.

I’ve often wondered... how does one manage a workforce of more than 400,000 full-time employees?  Well, one way is through basic mathematics.

In a recent Business Week article, researchers report:

“…as the role of computers in the workplace expands, employees leave digital trails detailing their behavior, their schedules, their interests, and expertise.  For executives to calculate the return on investment of each worker their human resources departments are starting to open their doors to the quants.”

You might be wondering how this plays out.  Is there some big control center where the real time value of an employee is calculated and registered in a database?  Do guys with thick glasses pour through the information and make graphs on how people contribute to an organization?  Almost...

“The chart looks like colorful pop-art doughnuts flying through space.  The message, though, is anything but playful…. Each circle represents an employee.  Those who generate or pass along valuable information within the company are portrayed as large and dark-colored circles….  Certain employees produce chunks of data—whether words or software code—that later pop up in other messages.  The people copied most often are thought leaders. They get big dark blue circles.  Other people spot the valuable content and pass it on. Those are networked curators. Their circles are bright red.”

Don’t get me wrong.  I do not think that these techniques are going to replace the need for real people to do meaningful work within organizations.  We still need leaders to inspire us, managers to execute business systems, and front-line employees to be engaged in doing the tasks that amount to the company’s contribution.  The article explains:  

"What about the worker who dispenses priceless wisdom the old-fashioned way, through spoken words at the coffee machine?  Much of that goes unrecorded by the analytic team.  So there are limits to number crunching.  Machines may advance in HR, but humans will retain a strong supporting role." 

I do, however, believe that a new level of mathematical rigor will be applied to the areas typically classified as “soft sciences” or the “art of management.”  As your competitors adopt these techniques, you too, will need to compete on this level.  You may find there are people in your organization with different capacities and skills who may excel at this work. Maybe the talented person being laid off in a technology group can fill a spot in HR!

On a personal level, you may want to start looking at your work from a data perspective.  Can the contribution you make to your organization be measured?  If you work independently, can your clients quantify your contribution?  Are the individuals you're managing and coaching making contributions that can be captured in a spreadsheet?  If you can't answer these questions, then chances are those paying the bills for your services can't either. 

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The Nerds May Triumph Again

In the mid-90s, Public Television aired a documentary titled, “The Triumph of the Nerds.”  It was a humorous look at how entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, and others came to prominence around the birth and rapid growth of the personal computer industry.  The documentary was based on the best-selling book, "Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date."

You’d think that these types of geeks would only find prominence in fields such as technology, math, physics, etc.  Well, that may not be the case anymore...

Researchers (code word for geeks) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are beginning to use technology to do the “subjective” work typically reserved for managers, recruiters, and coaches.

“Using high-tech badges that transmit data on an individual's gestures, eye movements, voice levels, and even proximity to other people, MIT is parsing the physical traits of leadership.  Along with highlighting effective managers, researchers hope the data will help train workers to be more effective at everything from networking to dealing with customers….  The technology goes beyond anything captured in a typical personality test… [By collecting this type of data], you can suddenly look at hundreds of people on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis.”

This may be taking measurement to an extreme.  The Business Week article citing this research estimates that only 1% to 2% of companies are currently using analytics as a component of their human resources and management strategy.  The example cited above would still be considered by most to be conceptual research.

However, the trend toward measuring human behavior is definitely growing.  If you’re the type of person who does not care for numbers, math, measurement, data analysis, scientific research, and other such topics, you may find yourself at odds with where the “people business” is heading. 

Tomorrow I’ll share some information about a project that has been going on at IBM for several years.  It is not as scary as the MIT researchers wearing electronic badges that count how many times your eye lids blink during a conversation, but you will be surprised to learn what they are measuring.   

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Leave it to the CFOs to Drop the Hammer

If you’ve been reading WorkPuzzle for awhile, you’ve probably noticed that our organization likes numbers and metrics.  We believe that anything worth doing is worth measuring. (Workpuzzle Blogs about Metrics:  articles 1, 2, 3, and 4)

I may have found a kindred spirit this week -- Dr. Richard Beatty at Rutgers University.  Dr. Beatty spoke at a recent conference of more than 300 Chief Financial Officers (CFOs).  You’d think a Human Resources (HR) Specialist like Dr. Beatty would hang out with the HR folks, but this guy seems to me more at home with CFOs.

Excerpts from his speech were recorded in CFO Magazine this month.  In the speech, Dr. Beatty is quite critical of most HR organizations.  He makes the point that people in these roles cannot be trusted because they don’t understand metrics.

"…the language of organizations is numbers, HR isn't very good at data analytics.  They don't think like business people.  Many of them entered human resources because they wanted to help people, which I'm all for, but I'm also for building winning organizations."

Of course, what’s prompting this type of rhetoric is financial pressure.  One of the case studies he referenced shows how an unnamed financial firm was spending more than $30M per year in salaries and benefits to employees in the lowest quartile.  There was a direct connection made showing how this poor performance cost the firm as much as $50 million worth of business.

There are several lessons that can be gleaned from this topic:

Regarding organizations, Dr. Beatty made the point that competent companies use recessions to upgrade their talent bases.  They get rid of poor performers and replace them with more talented people in search of work.  Of course, to do this effectively, you have to be able to measure performance.  Specifically, you need to be measuring the performance of  your existing employees, and measuring the performance of the new talent you’re evaluating.

As for individuals, find solace in knowing that there’s hope.  If you’re a talented person who happens to be unemployed at the moment, then you should find encouragement in the knowledge that good companies still need people like you.  As you look for a job, quantify your experience in a measurable way.  Show on your resume that your past accomplishments actually produced measurable business results, and then be prepared to communicate with metrics in an interview.  Who knows, you might be interviewing with a CFO…

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You Can't Make Me Do That - Part 2

So, did you figure out why paying someone to give blood reduces the number of people of who are willing to give blood?  If you missed yesterday, you may want to catch up.  Here is another story that may help you understand why people do not respond to incentives in the way we think they should:

In Haifa, Israel there was a group of six daycare centers that were trying to find a proactive approach to dealing with a particular group of parents.  These parents were perpetually late in picking up their children at the end of the school day.  As the frustration mounted, the daycare centers searched for an incentive that would make parents operate within the rules.

The incentive they chose was a fine that would be assigned for each time a parent was late.  After the fine system was instituted, guess what happened?  The number of tardy parents doubled.  Like the blood donors, the incentive not only did not produce the desired effect, it made the situation worse.

These are just two of dozens of experiments that show that rewarding self-interest with economic incentives can backfire.  Why?  Some incentives undermine what Adam Smith called “moral sentiments.”

Dr. Bowles makes the following observations:  

Regarding the blood donors:

“People desire to be esteemed by others and to be seen as ethical and dignified.  And they don’t want to be taken for suckers.  Rewarding blood donations may backfire because it suggests that the donor is less interested in being altruistic than in making a buck.”

Regarding the tardy daycare parents:

“The fine seems to have reduced their ethical obligation to avoid inconveniencing the teachers and led them to think of lateness as simply a commodity they could purchase…   Fines or public rebukes that appeal to our moral sentiments by signaling social disapproval (think of littering) can be highly effective.  But, incentives go wrong when they offend or diminish our ethical sensibilities.”

The art of coaxing performance from those we coach and manage is difficult because people are complex.  When we treat people as machines or robots that can be poked and prodded into certain behaviors, then these types of issues usually surface to confound our efforts.

Treating people…well, like people, and respecting their complexity is the first prerequisite to earning the authority to step into their lives and make changes that positively affect them, as well as your organization.

Editor’s Note:  Content for this article was collected from a recent Harvard Business Review article called:  "When Economic Incentives Backfire" by Samuel Bowles.  You can read this article in the March 2009 issue of HBR.

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You Can't Make Me Do That

I ran across an article in The Harvard Business Review last week that I found very intriguing.  The article was written by Dr. Samuel Bowles. 
 
Dr. Bowles is an Economics Professor at the University of Siena and he specializes in the study of how economic issues affect human behavior.  While the financial information is interesting (especially in today’s economic environment), what struck me was the human behavior side of his research.

Dr. Bowles sited two examples where incentives were supposed to produce a desired result, but backfired.  The first example concerned asking people to donate blood.  An English social researcher, Richard Titmuss, first hypothesized in the 1950's that if you offer to pay someone to give blood, the blood supply would be significantly reduced.

At the time, people thought he was crazy, but the research later proved him correct.  Studies have since shown that offering to pay people to give blood, in fact, decreases the number willing to donate by almost half.  In follow-up studies, the same clinics allowed the blood donors to contribute the payment to charity, and the trend was then reversed.

The lesson here is that motivation is a tricky thing to tap.  If you’re a manager or responsible for coaching someone, it is important to learn what motivates people.  What seems intuitive on the surface may not produce the anticipated result.

For this specific case, there is an underlying principle that explains this behavior.  Rather than give you the answer (which I learned by reading the HBR article), I thought I’d give you the opportunity to ponder the puzzle on your own... 

Tomorrow, I'll elaborate with a similar example and connect the dots.

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Four Trends Affecting the Future of Recruiting - Part 2

Tracking and following trends is human nature.  It gives us a way to make sense of what is going on in the world around us.  In a sense, it also gives us a way to predict the future.

 If you’re a job-seeker, trending information by itself is probably not going to directly help you land your next job.  However, understanding what is happening in the world of employment, Hiring Managers, and recruiting can help increase your odds of being noticed by employers who could benefit from your talents.

In yesterday’s entry, I discussed two of the Four Trends Affecting the Future of Employment.  (For a better understanding of the topic, please review Part 1 of this article before reading further.)

The remaining two trends I’ll address today are:

(3) Referrals Will Become the Primary Sourcing Channel for All Positions
(4) Recruiters Becoming Partners with Their Clients and Consultants to Their Candidates

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(3) Referrals Will Become the Primary Sourcing Channel for All Positions:

If you’re a job-seeker, networking and obtaining personal referrals needs to become an essential part of your job search strategy.  In fact, if you’re not focusing on networking, you’re probably missing the boat altogether.  Lou Adler makes that observation:

“In a recent Execunet survey, 70% of over 6,000 executives and executive recruiters indicated that networking would be the key to either finding a job or finding candidates, compared to 16% through online advertising.

While this would be expected at the executive level, our own 2007 survey of 800 corporate recruiters filling staff and mid-level positions indicated that networking and employee referrals represented about 35% to 40% of their hires.

This is about five points higher than last year, so not only is networking important, but the trend is up.  LinkedIn has helped accelerate this trend, in combination with Facebook, MySpace, and some of the niche social networking sites.”

If you’re a Hiring Manager in search of talented employees, then a strategy for getting referrals is essential.

(4) Recruiters Becoming Partners with Their Clients and Consultants to Their Candidates:

This issue is being addressed more to identify an existing problem, than to presume it will be remedied in the near future.  There is a disconnect between those who perform the sourcing of candidates and ground work on the front end of the hiring process, and those who actually “pull the trigger” on a hire.

“Our 2008 Recruiting and Hiring Challenges survey revealed two big problems.  The first was pretty obvious:  76% of the 775 respondents said it was becoming increasingly difficult to find enough top candidates.

The second problem was a bit unexpected:  59% of the respondents said their hiring manager clients were the real problem in recruiting top people.  Some of the problems attributed to this nefarious group included lack of good assessment skills, over-reliance on skills and experiences to weed out people, lack of responsiveness, and an inability to recruit top performers.”

What does this mean?  If you’re a job-seeker, understand that the hiring system in the company you’re applying to likely does not work all that effectively.  As quickly as possible, gain access to the hiring manager and build a connection with that person.  This is the best chance you’ll have of being hired.

If you’re a recruiter, you have tremendous opportunity in the future to improve.  Partnering with the organizations you service not only promotes your own job security, but is the path to your own personal excellence.

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