WorkPuzzle

What Creates Talent? - Part 5

This entry represents the last edition of our Talent Code series (1, 2, 3, 4), which has spanned most of this last week.  Again, I am reporting primarily what Dan Coyle has found in his extensive research regarding talent development.

The focus of this final edition is on Coaches, or as Coyle puts it:  Master Coaching.  These are teachers, coaches, managers and mentors who approach the task of nurturing and helping others to grow “talent” (or in Coyle's belief- build myelin: the essential ingredient to brain growth).  Coyle begins by pointing out that coaching/teaching/mentoring/managing is a skill, in itself, that takes a long time to build, and eventually master.

To support his claim, Coyle presents some fantastic examples of coaches, music teachers, and school teachers who have put in many thousands of hours of deep practice coaching and mentoring.  In other words... If you want to be a great coach, you need to hone your skills!  If you are an owner of a company, you must insist that your managers work on their coaching, just as they would any other skill they want to develop.

Coyle calls these great coaches "The Talent Whisperers."  They are the teachers who view their jobs with the utmost seriousness.  These are the individuals who understand that it's up to them to tap and sustain the second element of The Talent Code...Ignition.  As Coyle puts it, "They are creating and sustaining motivation." 

Dr. Bloom, from the University of Chicago, researched 120 world class talents and summarizes:

"The effect of the first phase of learning seems to be to get the learner involved, captivated, hooked, and to get the learner to need and want more information."

If you are responsible for managing/teaching/coaching, do you accomplish this?  I know that I have fallen short at times...or perhaps more importantly, lost sight of this underlying purpose of teaching.  If I've been a successful teacher by presenting you this fascinating insight from the The Talent Code, you might take it further, and read more from Dan Coyle's book, which is full of similar insight.  And then apply, apply, apply...

What Creates Talent? - Part 3

In the last of my discussions regarding Dan Coyle's work on Talent, I promised to summarize some of his findings around the concept of motivation (the second of three vital components of talent creation).  Coyle found that people tend to have what he calls a moment of "ignition" prior to developing great talent. Specifically, he contends that people need to have a moment, or period of time, that inspires them to be great at something.  Without these moments or circumstances, we can't sustain the lonely discipline of deep practice.

I'd like you to reflect on your own talent before I provide any more specifics regarding motivation/ignition:  Where does your talent lie?  How did you develop this talent?  What drove you to practice or study to develop your skills?  Where and when did the ignition take place?  What was your environment like while you were developing your talent?

How have the most talented members of your team developed their talent?  Ask them how and where they were "ignited?"  Has it ever occured to you to ask this of your top talent, or of prospects or individuals who you're trying to recruit?  The more you know about people, the the more relationship credibility you will build, and the better you can manage.

Tomorrow, I'll elaborate some more on the details of Ignition...

Twitter by the Numbers: What is Really Going On?

About three months ago, I wrote an article about Twitter, and the potential it has to change the way we collect and catalog information as a society.  At the time, Twitter was growing quite rapidly, and it was difficult to tell where the trajectory was leading.

I just ran across some interesting research that may give us some insight into this question.  The research was conducted by HubSpot, an internet marketing firm based in Boston.  Hubspot found that of those who sign up for Twitter accounts...

• 54.88% have never tweeted  (i.e. have never posted anything)
• 55.50% are not following anyone (i.e. are not reading anyone else's posts)
• 52.71% have no followers (i.e. no one is reading their posts)

What does this mean?  Most people who sign-up for Twitter, never use it!  It is difficult for a service, such as Twitter, to have a substantial impact if the majority of the subscribers are not using it.  This is similar to a bunch of people buying their parents a fax machine in the '80s—great idea, but nobody could get their parents to actually use it.

The hope of the business world, is that Twitter will become a vast database of information that will allow marketers—recruiters included—to tap into the demographics and preferences of millions of individuals.  The HubSpot research uncovered some disappointments there as well:

• 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
• 68.68% have not specified a location

It’s tough to draw conclusions from a data source that is so limited.  The only available information are the millions of 140-character “tweets.”  Maybe the FBI could make some sense of this type of disconnected information, but the rest of us remain at a loss.

There is much more data becoming available that can give us clues about the reality of Twitter.  For example, a recent study by PMN documented that only 22% of Generation Y consumers (18 – 24 years old) are using Twitter (99% have active accounts on a social networking site, such as Facebook). 

You’d think more of this demographic would be driving the buzz about this network, but that is not the case.  We do know that 56% of executives under the age of 40, regularly tweet or generate microfeeds (source: ClickZ study, June 09).  Do you think anyone is reading them?  Probably not.

I think there are a couple of points a recruiter or hiring manager can take from this discussion:

1. If you’re feeling an overwhelming amount of guilt because you’re just not connected with the concept of Twitter, this should relieve your guilt.  You’re not the only one that doesn’t “get” Twitter—many of your candidates are in the same boat.
2. Don’t expect a tool, such as Twitter, to release you from the hard work of recruiting.  It would be great to publish something and then have thousands of people lap it up and find you endearing (isn’t that why Oprah tweets?).  But, it usually doesn’t that work way.  Make the calls, send the emails, have the one-on-one conversations, etc.  Twitter may help you in some small way, but the traditional tasks of recruiting will continue to produce the most consistent results.

 

What Creates Talent? - Part 2

In yesterday's blog I began to share some facts that challenge the way we think about talent development.  I think you'll find over the next few weeks, the material I share with you on this topic will change the way you train, recruit and coach. 

In my intro, I included questions similar to the following:

• Why has one tennis camp in Russia developed more top ten athletes than any other?

• Why has one music school in New York turned out the likes of Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Mah?

or, as metioned previously...

• Why have 12 different boys from the extremely small country of Curacao, made it to the semifinals of the Little League World series, six times over the past eight years, even taking the title once?

In his book The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle uncovers certain consistent patterns that exist in every "talent hot bed" in the world.  Specifically, these patterns include similar methods of practice, motivation, and coaching.

So, let's examine these three components further:  Practice, Motivation (he calls it Ignition) and Coaching (he calls it Master Coaching):

It turns out that Practice, in each of the talent hot beds, is achieved in a very similar way.  It is performed so that mistakes can be tracked and modified, without missing the opportunity for correction.  For example, in one of the top music schools, students are asked to play so slowly that nobody can possibly recognize the song being played - The student is then able to notice imperfections and train the brain to grow in this area.

Similarly, tennis players are trained to work through routine movements slowly, without a ball, to train the brain to grasp the fundamentals before actually hitting a ball. They do this throughout many years of training.

What is happening in the brain while one trains like this? (from a recent blog that also references The Talent Code, but worth including again)

Your brain is made up of millions of neurons and synapses, all with the ability to build super highways of super speed.  All that is needed to build these connections is a substance called Myelin.  Myelin, it’s recently been found, has the ability to grease the skids between neurons so that large pathways are formed to create mega bandwidth learning and growth, if given the opportunity.  And guess what gives your brain the greatest opportunity for Myelin production?... Failure!  Not just failure, but lots of failure…the more the better!  And not just large doses of failure, but failure and correction, failure and correction, failure and correction…

Here’s an example:

In 1997, Soccer Coach, Simon Clifford, was so curious about what caused Brazilian Soccer to be so successful, that he temporarily moved to Brazil and lived in a dimly lit dorm-like setting to find out first-hand.  What he found has changed the way many elite youth soccer teams practice, and has made Simon Clifford a very wealthy man, given that he has founded worldwide “Brazilian Soccer Schools” all over the globe.

What he found was that everyone, except the professionals, were playing a much smaller game of soccer on a small, hard court, with a heavier ball.  Given the small space, the game moved quickly and frantically, with split-seconds to decide where to pass, to whom, and how.  In other words, unlike American Soccer, Brazilian Soccer offers many more chances to fail and succeed in each minute of play, for each player – Every player touches the ball six times more per minute, to be exact.

When the brain experiences this incredible frequency of failure and correction, it grows Myelin like mad!  Super highways are formed that can ultimately lead to amazing talent.

So what does this teach us?

When we are training, it's not the "talented" people we should focus on, it's the people who share the capacities of the top performers, and are willing to practice until they reach mastery of a given skill.  People who are willing to practice scripts, over and over and over... Sales people who are willing to make multiple calls, fail/correct, then fail/correct, again and again...These will be the folks who develop talent!

I don't know each of your businesses well enough to definitively be able to articulate what should/shouldn't be part of your training regimen, but I do think that if you can mirror the practices of these talent hot beds, tailored to your industry of course, you have a much better chance of turning out some true talent. 

I would love to hear your ideas regarding how your company's training might be able to resemble these talent hot beds... 

Next:  Ignition (Motivation)

What Creates Talent?

Most of us have been brought up to believe that talent is something people are born with- you either have it...or you don't.  This idea is so pervasive that what I'm about to share with you may take a few days to sink in.  For that reason, I'll spend a few days giving you a little information at time, so that you can digest it, and perhaps slowly begin to let it change the way you approach everyone under your management. 

What deeply interests me, is that what you believe about the question, "What Creates Talent?" will determine how you recruit, coach, mentor and parent.  It will determine the questions you ask in an interview, how you train, what you insist on in work performance, etc...

I've recently been devouring the book The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle.  Coyle had the enviable job of traveling the globe, studying the world's most unusual "talent hot beds" - places where unusually high percentages of people excel at what they want to achieve.  He describes the social science and neuroscience around the phenomenon of talent development.  It's truly amazing stuff! 

He convincingly answers questions like:  

• Why is Brazil so dominant in soccer?

• Why has South Korea gone from having one LPGA touring pro in 1998 to 33 in 2008?

• Why has Russia gone from having three in the top 100 Women's Tennis Professionals, to 16 today?

• Why have 12 different boys from the extremely small country of Curacao, made it to the semifinals of the Little League World Series six times, over the past eight years, even taking the title once?

The answers to these questions will surprise you, and will have you doubting your preconceived notions of talent development.  I actually want you to ponder the possibilities today...Sorry, I'm giving no answers until tomorrow.  But, I guarantee that the answers will make you a better manager, mentor and parent.

I will leave you to ponder this quote:  Robert Lansdorf, tennis coach of former number one players Pete Sampras, Tracy Austin, and Lindsey Davenport, all who grew up miles from each other said this:

"It's not about recognizing talent, whatever that is.  I've never tried to go out and find someone who's talented.  First you work on the fundamentals, and pretty soon you find where things are going."

There is much, much more than meets the eye with regard to this quote.  I will chip away at the science around talent tomorrow...

Managing Your Talent Pipeline

Here is a question we often receive from hiring managers:

“I’ve identified someone who I think would be a great addition to my team, made initial contact with that person, but realize that the timing is not quite right for them to leave their current job.  Now what?  How do I stay in contact with this person over time in a way that will eventually result in a hire?”

This is where a lot of people get stuck.  They make the initial contact with enthusiasm, but there is not enough substance in the relationship to initiate further contact without feeling awkward.

Over the next couple of days, I’m going to share some things that we’ve learned on this topic from some of the best recruiting companies in the country.  Hopefully, you’ll be able to take some of these ideas and apply them to your talent pipeline.

There are two basic rules that I recommend you follow when working with your candidates:

1.  Ask for permission.  Seth Godin made his debut into the consulting/marketing world by figuring  out that people like to be respected in the marketing process.  In fact, they respond much better when they are treated with respect.  In his bestselling book Permission Marketing, Godin makes the point that respect is shown by asking a person if it is OK if you market to them.  By the way, this is where the concept of the “opt-in” email originated.

Recruiting is marketing.  When you make initial contact with a candidate and you believe there is some potential for the future, ask a simple question:  “Would it be OK if I followed-up with you occasionally?”  It is a natural question to ask, and most people will say yes.  By dong this, you show respect and you set an expectation for future contact.

2.  Add value with each subsequent conversation.  John Sumser, a recruiting expert and author, often makes the point that any communication with a candidate must provide the candidate with something of value.  More specifically, the value of what you provide in the conversation must exceed the value of the candidate’s time and attention to take the call or answer an email.  If this does not happen during each conversation, the candidate will no longer want to talk with you.

Think of it like a scale that rests on a center fulcrum - If you’re extracting value from the candidate (you want their time and attention), the scale tips towards you.  You’re getting something, but not giving something in return.  Only dysfunctional people put up with this type of imbalance.  Good hiring managers make sure the scale is always tipped toward the candidate, and not just a little bit--a lot.

In the upcoming articles, we’ll offer some ideas to help you get the scale to tip in your candidates' favor...

The Benefits of Failure - Part 3

The last two days, and particularly Friday, I discussed failure as an integral part of learning.  You now understand that the brain grows best by experiencing multiple failures.

Today, I'll focus specifically on the big failures in life... You know, the ones where you feel like the sky is falling, you're an idiot for making that decision, how could you let this happen, life will never be the same....those kind of failures.

In a recent Psychology Today article, I found a helpful list to consider in those darkest days of (what seems like horrible) failure.  Here are nine ways to fail better:

"1.  Lighten up - Most people who bounce back from setbacks have a sense of humor.  They know when they're taking things—and themselves—too seriously... It's hard to find the funny in the fine grain.  Humor is about stepping back for fresh perspective.  We assume that's something we're born with, but we can become better at seeing the lighter side by sheer exposure to that way of thinking.  And it does take the edge off of failure.  After all, an embarrassment today makes for an entertaining story tomorrow.

2.  Join the club - Misery loves company.  Just look at the growth of Web-based support groups like '15,000,000 Recession-Touched People' (on Facebook) and Global Depression Support Group (on meetup.com).

There's real value in commiseration.  When Montrealer Sylvain Henry started a Facebook support group called 'Recession Survivors' after being laid off from a software company, the group became a lightning rod for pain and blame.  'You've gotta blame someone, right?'  Henry says.  'Whose fault is this?'  People vented about the lost house, the failed marriage.  It was cathartic.

Then something happened.  'People vented themselves out,' Henry says.  'After that came another impulse:  Let's do something about this.'  The members began posting productive hints, little money-saving tips about budget-friendly cookie recipes or how to throw a good garage sale.  The site transformed into a clearinghouse of resourceful coping strategies for hard times.  Call it Failing Better:  the Open-Source Edition.

3.  Feel guilt, not shame - The difference between guilt and shame is the reason we assign as to why failure occurs, notes Richard Robins, a psychologist at the University of California at Davis.  Guilt says it's 'something I did.'  But shame means feeling failure occurred because of 'something I am'—in which case, you expect failure and don't act to avoid it.

But the cycle of learned helplessness can be broken.  Instead of thinking 'I'm a failure,' think 'I'm a good person who made a mistake I can learn from.'  If your story about failure is, 'It's all my fault,' you might need to practice looking outward and ask yourself, 'What other things—things that aren't about me—might have caused this negative event?'

On the other hand, if your story is, 'It's never about me,' you may need to seek out some aspects of the problem you can do something about.  Because let's face it, you do mess up—everyone does.  In which case you need to own the failure, see what you can learn from it, and move on.

4.  Cultivate optimism - Of the seven learnable skills of resilience—emotion awareness, impulse control, multiperspective thinking, empathy, the belief that you can solve your own problems, taking appropriate risks, and optimism—the most important is optimism, says Karen Reivich, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania.  'There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,' said Hamlet, and indeed, paying attention to the positive infuses the world with hope—and creates a climate in which failure loses its sting.

The key to resilience is thinking more flexibly and learning to increase your array of options.  The psychologist Martin Seligman advocates disputation, in which you think of your mind as a courtroom where negative thoughts are instantly put on trial.

You can rebut these thoughts, and you should.  Now you're acting as your own defense counsel, throwing at the court every bit of evidence you can think of to prove the belief is flawed.  The bad thought is no longer a lock, and it dies amid the doubt.

5.  Ask not what the world can do for you... - Getting fired and left without savings or health-care coverage is rough, but for some, it carries an unexpected message:  'Now you are free.'  Free to do something more meaningful with your life—like volunteering overseas.  If you don't have to earn money right away, ask yourself:  How can you be of service to others?

6.  Scale down your expectations for yourself - When we succeed, we tend to just ratchet up our expectations for ourselves and not get a lot of pleasure out of it.  But when we fail, it's much harder to ratchet down our expectations for ourselves.  'That might be what failing well is,' says psychologist Jonathan Haidt.  'A willingness to lower our sights when that's realistically required.'

7.  Harness the Bridget Jones Effect - Keeping a journal can help you cope with failure.  Jamie Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas, studied middle-aged engineers who'd lost their jobs.  Those who wrestled with their feelings about the trauma through journaling were far more likely to find reemployment.  It wasn't simply the tension-relieving 'catharsis' of getting their feelings out.  Nor was it that they were more motivated to get out there and pound the pavement—they didn't receive more phone calls, make more contacts, or send out more letters.

Rather, writing helps create meaning — finding coherence and building a personal story that lassos all the question marks hanging in the air and making sense of them.  Writing about their feelings forced them to come to terms with getting laid off.  It also boosted their social skills—making them more likeable, less vindictive, and better able to get on with things.  They were less wrapped up in their past.  They could listen better and were more optimistic and less hostile.

8.  Act! - Failure is an opportunity to change course.  Seize it."

And I'm going to provide one of my own:

9.  Use major failures as a reminder to return to the things you value most in this world - These things are less transient: Your faith, your family, building community, etc...

Research has found quite clearly that the values listed above are associated with much higher levels of well-being than are the values of materialism, physical attractiveness, and financial success.  Know where you can bank on the deepest satisfaction... 

The Benefits of Failure - Part 2

In yesterday’s post I introduced some of the newer thinking around the concept of failure.  Specifically, I revealed that failure is a fairly important ingredient for future success.

As promised, today I am going to update you on what the brain does with failure.  It’s actually quite fascinating to learn that how you handle failure either gives, or takes away, your brain’s ability to grow and learn.

Your brain is made up of millions of neurons and synapses, all with the ability to build super highways of super speed.  All that is needed to build these connections is a substance called Myelin.  Myelin, it’s recently been found, has the ability to grease the skids between neurons so that large pathways are formed to create mega bandwidth learning and growth, if given the opportunity.  And guess what gives your brain the greatest opportunity for Myelin production?... Failure!  Not just failure, but lots of failure…the more the better!  And not just large doses of failure, but failure and correction, failure and correction, failure and correction…

Here’s an example:

In 1997, Soccer Coach, Simon Clifford, was so curious about what caused Brazilian Soccer to be so successful, that he temporarily moved to Brazil and lived in a dimly lit dorm-like setting to find out first-hand.  What he found has changed the way many elite youth soccer teams practice, and has made Simon Clifford a very wealthy man, given that he has founded worldwide “Brazilian Soccer Schools” all over the globe.

What he found was that everyone, except the professionals, were playing a much smaller game of soccer on a small, hard court, with a heavier ball.  Given the small space, the game moved quickly and frantically, with split-seconds to decide where to pass, to whom, and how.  In other words, unlike American Soccer, Brazilian Soccer offers many more chances to fail and succeed in each minute of play, for each player – Every player touches the ball six times more per minute, to be exact.

When the brain experiences this incredible frequency of failure and correction, it grows Myelin like mad!  Super highways are formed that can ultimately lead to amazing talent.

So what does all of this have to do with us?

I’d love some comments about how you believe this can be applied…but here is one broad idea:

As you coach or mentor others, encourage them (and place them in positions) to fail.  Then have feedback sessions, then allow them to fail some more, then more feedback, etc, until they get it.  And when they do, more than likely, they will thank you for the growth you enabled them…

Reference:  The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle

The Benefits of Failure

If you recruit, coach, mentor or parent others, you will benefit greatly from the next few blogs...  Ask yourself these questions:  How do you deal with failure as a coach?  As a recruiter?  How do you deal with your own failure?

No one likes the feeling of failing - It can be devastating to our egos.  Failure in one area of our life has a way of impacting every other domain.  So, many of us try to avoid failure at all costs.  Consequently, many of your employees and those you are attempting to recruit become frozen in a fear of failure.  So, what is an effective way to address this fear?

There is a rapidly growing body of evidence revealing that failure is not only essential to learning, but can also have a positive effect on our psyches.  The more rapidly you fail, pick yourself up, and then try again, the faster you perfect your skills.  Interestingly, the most successful people attribute their successes to countless failures.

The following is an excerpt from the June edition of Psychology Today:   

"Some psychologists, like the University of Virginia's Jonathan Haidt, ...argue that adversity, setbacks, and even trauma may actually be necessary for people to be happy, successful, and fulfilled.  'Post-traumatic growth,' it's sometimes called.  Its observers are building a solid foundation under the anecdotes about wildly successful people who credit their accomplishments to earlier failures that pushed them to the edge of the abyss.

Last fall, J.K. Rowling described to a Harvard grad class a perfect storm of failure—broken marriage, disapproval from her parents, poverty that bordered on homelessness—that sent her back to her first dream of writing because she had nothing left to lose.  'Failure stripped away everything inessential,' she said.  'It taught me things about myself I could have learned no other way.'

Apple founder Steve Jobs describes three apparent setbacks—dropping out of college, being fired from the company he founded, and being diagnosed with cancer—that ultimately proved portals to a better life.  Each forced him to step back and gain perspective, to see the long view of his life.  'I have failed over and over and over again, and that is why I succeed,' said Michael Jordan—as did Oprah, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Winston Churchill, and Thomas Edison, in slightly different words.  Indeed, so oft-repeated is the trope that we lose sight of how strange it is.'
 
...'Failing better' boils down to three things.  It's a matter of controlling our emotions, adjusting our thinking, and recalibrating our beliefs about ourselves and what we can do in the world.

'Chess is a game of failure,' says Bruce Pandolfini, an American chess master known for his work teaching young chess players.  (Sir Ben Kingsley played him in Searching for Bobby Fischer.)  'At the beginning, you lose—a lot.  The kids who are going to succeed are the ones who learn to stand it.  A lot of young players find losing so devastating they never adapt, never learn to metabolize that failure and to not take it personally.  But good players lose and then put the game behind them emotionally.'

Pandolfini teaches his students this calming sense of perspective.  The present moment is laid out against the past.  What you see is compared to your memories of what you've seen—and mastered—before.  What you have in the end is a kind of coherent story.  He calls it chess instruction, but really, it works with anything.  In fact, it's not so different from the way writing down your feelings in a journal helps you process failure and move on, a phenomenon demonstrated by James Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas.

Teachers, studies reveal, can foster resiliency among students, creating students who don't flinch from failure but actually welcome it as a learning opportunity."

As a manager, how can you adopt this way of teaching, coaching and encouraging your employees/agents?  How can you begin to teach "chess instruction?"

Tomorrow, I'll discuss the neuroscience of failure and success... It will have you yearning to fail more! 

"Me...Me...Me... I Think I'm Really Close On This One!"

As we discuss some of the best practices of working a talent pipeline, I’d like to address one major pitfall that many recruiters fall into....the oh-so-tempting art of manipulation.

When you’re working with a candidate in your talent pipeline, there is a temptation to manipulate events and circumstances in an attempt to create a short-cut to the end result of the recruiting process.  Remember, in the recruiting process, timing is everything, and it is controlled by the candidate, not you!  If the process is forced, talented candidates will quickly sense the manipulation and shy away, irritated with your brash approach.

I’ll illustrate how this can play out with a short clip from one my favorite movies, Groundhog Day.  In this movie, Phil (played by Bill Murray) is an arrogant newscaster who is trying to win the affection of Rita, an attractive co-worker (played by Andie MacDowell).   

The conversations between Phil and Rita always circle back to how Phil is the perfect fit for everything Rita is looking for in a man.  Take a look at the following clip and you’ll see what I mean:

(If you’re an email subscriber to WorkPuzzle, please visit WorkPuzzle online to see the video clip)

Of course this exchange is exaggerated for comic effect, but it’s not far from how your candidates feel when you’re attempting to manipulate them.  When every frustration or obstacle can be magically solved by coming to work for you, the candidate has every right to roll his/her eyes and feel appalled by your self-centered approach. 

While it seems more efficient to push a candidate along the hiring path, you will earn the respect of your candidates if you refrain from manipulating them, and instead allow them to process their options at their own pace.  Of course, diligent follow up is still crucial, just avoid promising them the world or solutions to all their woes.   

Interestingly, the movie teaches an important lesson.  Phil is constantly rebuffed when he pursues Rita from a framework of manipulation and self-interest.  Eventually, he resigns himself to working on his own character and truly becoming the type of guy that Rita would be naturally attracted to.

I won’t spoil the movie by giving away the ending, but I will say that Phil found a lot more success in his venture to win Rita when he stopped attempting to manipulate her and started to look out for her best interests instead.  You too, will have better success with your candidates if you follow Phil's lead - that is, do less talking and more listening..