Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Criticality of Hiring "Right"

I had the opportunity to spend a good part of this week with people who are true linchpins- they make critical contributions to organizations that they are part of and that they serve.

We were exploring the importance of behaviors and your "unconscious" persona in how you interact and effect others in various kinds of relationships. It was especially interesting to hear how the "leader" effects everyone on the team, or at least the key contributors. What was also very interesting is that these impacts come through channels that in large part are behavioral or interpersonal rather than technical.

The reason I think this is so important is because so much of our hiring processes still concern themselves with "skills" rather than attributes and behaviors. This correlates well to other research that I have discussed in this blog and other places about the importance of understanding and hiring" the "whole person" not just a set of skills or qualifications.

Think about how many people who looked great on paper, but either in the interview or worse yet after their hire we realized we didn't have the right "fit". How many times did the fit issue related to their technical competency? Worse yet how effectively do we deal with the issue once we discover it? I find we either usually "suck it up" and add one more person who isn't really performing at an optimal level or rarely we "cut our losses" and terminate or transfer the person. Neither of these is a great solution.

So what is my point- it is that we need to really invest the time, energy, and commitment to understand ourselves in terms of our company culture and the people we invite to "join up" with us before we extend the invitation. There is a better way to do this...

Monday, February 22, 2010

Are You Hiring "Linchpins"?

I am reading Seth Godin's latest book, Linchpins. I have too tell you it is pretty fascinating. In this book Godin explores the concept that a third relationship in the work environment has evolved beyond the traditional labor and management. He call these people Linchpins, and argues that their strength and contributions are not in their technical skills and competencies, but rather their ability to build trust and connect individuals and groups- building relationships.

If we put that concept into context let's explore the idea that almost a third of outside executive hires fail outright along with 40% of new managers. In both cases the primary reason for "failure" is not technical, but rather their ability to fit the culture and build relationships! Sounds like Godin may be on to something.

How many of us really explore this "fit" issue extensively as part of our selection and development process? I would submit it is a minority and if we do it is an ancillary rather than a primary consideration. Even in human resources I see a bias toward skills in systems and compliance rather than relationship building. We use screening software to search for key words or phrases in "weeding out" applicants from candidates. We build succession strategies largely based on technical competencies rather than relationship builders.

Today we stand at a place where employee dissatisfaction with their jobs is at a record high. Less than 30% of organizations in the world have a formal or for that matter informal engagement strategy. Science shows us that moving the level of engagement up has huge beneficial consequences on almost every key performance indicator, but many organizations remain reluctant to embrace an engagement or employment branding strategy.

Many companies I speak with are using the current economic situation and high unemployment to focus on "important things" like costs and efficiencies because employees are staying. They might be staying, but are they producing at optimal or even better than average levels. Are you getting "compliance" or are you getting "discretionary effort"?

So I am with Godin, as you explore your hiring and succession plans I would build tools to identify and screen for "linchpins" who can connect people with your organizational purpose and mission. I also agree with him that these people are in high demand and it is going to get higher not reduce. Especially if you believe Daniel Pink who feels that purpose is a critical motivator for people, especially in our "knowledge worker" economy when routinizing of work and removing autonomy and flexibility is a productivity detractor!

Show me a highly successful organization today that has reached and "sustained" success and I will show you an organization that has "linchpins". Perhaps Collins was only partially right, it isn't just about "getting the right people on the bus" it is about connecting them in a meaningful way to your purpose and goals. What do you think?

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Hire Hard - Manage Easy!

I am very pleased to see interest in topics like employee engagement and employment branding gaining some momentum, even if it is just in dialogue.

I have to pay an homage to the people at BlessingWhite for their recent studies and research and Dr's Whitlark and Rhoads for their publication about the "Spillover" effect which provides concrete relationships and data; drawing a direct correlation between high engagement and key performance indicators like sustainability, productivity, and profitability. This is no longer "warm and fuzzy" stuff, but rather hard data.

I do continue to see that for all the dialogue I am still disappointed with the number of organizations and C level executives that are either ignoring this opportunity (some would say crisis) or paying lip service to it.

There are a couple of other things coming out about engagement that I have long believed that I am pleased to see gaining some traction as well:

  • Defining engagement. This a a huge area. Engagement is not happiness or employee satisfaction. Much like compensation the lack of happiness or satisfaction can have a negative affect on engagement, but "happy" or "satisfied" employees are not necessarily engaged. The basic reason for that is that the work place may be providing an outlet for social relationships or other things that employees enjoy that affect those areas, but don't lead to additional productivity or discretionary effort. Measuring those other things doesn't necessarily yield engagement.
  • Creating engagement. The other thing we are starting to recognize is that engagement is not an initiative or program it is a culture! To create and sustain an engaged workforce and long term employment brand you must create and sustain a culture.

I think that these "revelations" may be part of what is keeping many organizations from embracing an engagement strategy or employment brand- they aren't prepared to do the work.
The last thing I want to share today is my response to the opening question. In my opinion engagement and your brand live at the front line level of your organization. I am not saying that senior management support and role modeling aren't critical, but how many of your customers or employees interact regularly with C level management?

How many of us encounter Howard Schultz when we visit Starbucks or Steve Jobs at the Apple store?

My point is you must build engagement into your brand through your selection, hiring, training, and performance management and reward systems. I would go further and say that your front line managers are your greatest potential asset or weakness. In fact Whitlark and Rhoads are even more specific;
"One bad manager can pollute multiple levels of an organization, and poor managers bring down employee morale, which spills over into the engagement level of customers.”

My opinion is that your "engagement" or "branding" effort must be embraced as a culture change and you have to be willing to "de-recruit" employees especially managers who can not or will not make the transition. My experience has been validated by James L. Heskett, author of the book The Service-Profit Chain, who writes-
“… the hardest concept is the deployment of the culture change …which requires that organizations identify values, behaviors, and measures that help reinforce the service profit chain relationships. But it also requires actions. That is when managers are not managing by the values and cannot be admonished or retrained to do so (which rarely works), they have to go.”

So I guess what I am saying is that engagement is mutual commitment and while it is important to have brand champions in the C suite you will be most successful when you embed it into the fabric of your organization because engagement and your brand live on the "ground floor" where your employees interact with your customers. As my colleague Joseph Skursky so elegantly states, Hire Hard- Manage Easy. You may find it a better long term strategy. What do you think?

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Creating a Succession Plan

I just read a "conversation starter" article by McKinsey and Company on the topic of succession planning, focusing on the CEO.

They reiterated again about the importance of this process and bluntly how for the most part how badly it is done.

Badly is described as
  • Ignoring it because it causes you to deal with your own "mortality"
  • Because in many cases it is left to the CEO who often times hires the replacement in their "own image" rather than dealing with the changing dynamics of the business and the markets
  • Because it happens in panic, without a thought out process for what we need when and how
  • Because it doesn't take into consideration those internal candidates who are unsuccessful.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

The selection and development of your "mission critical" staff is one of the most important roles of the executive team and in larger organizations the board and the executive team. Senior leadership are the guardians of the mission and vision of the organization. As Marcus Buckingham stated- "the most important skill for leadership is clarity", the alignment of strategy with vision.

So ask yourself in your organization; do we have:

  • A succession plan for all "mission critical staff"
  • A periodic review for evaluating whether the organizations needs or market conditions have changed requiring an update to the profile
  • An objective process for evaluating all candidates; internal and external, developed proactively rather than defined by the candidate "pool"

If your answer to one or more of those questions is no this might be a good time to get started on building your process, because as McKinsey and others point out- wrong process= wrong result.

The wrong result is expensive in more ways than one....

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

When Will We learn?

I have been following a number of interesting discussions on LinkedIn and other places about the issues surrounding employee recruiting, selection, and retention.They range from the importance of the process to the idea that since we are in a recession and employees don't have anywhere to go we can focus on other more "important" business issues.Interesting viewpoint.

Studies show we are operating at 30% efficiency, employee job dissatisfaction is at an all time high, and to some it is a non-issue. I suspect they are not on the top 100 places to work list.

Another discussion I am following began to target some of what I believe to be the real issue- in many cases our hiring and selection processes are not well thought out and executed. They are ancillary rather than strategic.That is the difference between truly high performing companies and those firmly "in the pack". The concepts of employee engagement and employment branding are coming into vogue. The idea that engagement and the resulting discretionary effort are built in to the foundation not added on later. A colleague shared with me "at Nike to work there you must be an athlete". They are clear about the JFHF3HCJD6FE culture and hire with it in mind. Other icons do the same.

If you are a senior executive how much time are you spending making sure that the people who are joining your organization or at least your team have the "right stuff", or like many organizations have you delegated this to your HR department? Here is a tip. Recruitment selection and retention of the best people is a management role, it doesn't "belong" to any one department.

Top performing organizations have figured this out. It is a big part of why they are top performing organizations.So if you are taking the time during this recession to focus on the "important" stuff and ignoring your people strategies it will be interesting to see how it works out for you.....