I recently changed employers. On my first day on the job, around lunch, I met someone on my team. When we were introduced, I was my normal friendly self. The person I met was more than a little aloof.
The next day someone mentioned that the aloof person had applied for the job I got. I was the external candidate, he was the internal candidate. The moment he learned he did not get the job was the moment he met me.
This was not intentional. The manager intended to let him know he had not been selected once my hire status was clear. When that happened, he was on vacation. His first day back was my first day on the job.
The guy, who I'll call Clark, might have been very upset outside of work. At work, he quietly went about his business and continued doing great work. He put in his 2 weeks notice about a week after I started. The two events are connected, of course, but more in a personal sense than a business sense.
Since Clark put in his notice, Clark has come to me to tell me about known issues. We have investigated a year-old problem together, found its cause and enough data to go to an outside source to get it fixed. He has put effort into a project that will benefit the whole team after he leaves. And he has been generally quite friendly and a good team member.
I take a few things from Clark's example:
1) When things don't go well, leave your work disappointment at the door. The company has already moved on; you should, too.
2) Continue to be excellent. Sulking and pouting are counter-productive to any future meeting between you and people from the company. Build the bridges, even as you cross over them.
3) For Clark, his application came at a time when he needed to change jobs for family reasons. When he didn't get it, he put his family first and moved on.
As Clark leaves, I'm sad to see him go. I wish him all the best in his future work, and I'm sure he wishes us the best as well. If only every disappointing situation could go so well.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015
April 13, 2015: When Do You Give Up?
The obvious, and incorrect, answer is, "Never!" Countless books and well-meaning people describe the person who never (never, ever, ever) gives up as the ultimate winner.
Well, hang on. Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic swimmer in the history of the world. Has he given up on Theoretical Physics? How has his charcoal portraiture skill improved over time? Has he learned to speak Russian yet?
You see, no one can do everything. Firstly, no one has time. Secondly, there are things that deep down, you know you are no good at. They just don't fit your temperament. You may not be a person who is a good leader, and you know it. You probably should not go into management if that's the case. You may be a person who is good with big picture, and terrible with details. You would make a bad CPA, although you might make a good CPA manager.
I have a good friend who tends to get over-involved. She joined a professional organization a while ago because she had never done that kind of thing before. Why not try something a little out of her comfort zone, she thought. So she did, and she liked it. She got to know the leadership of the club, and when they asked if she'd like to become part of the leadership team, she was excited by the opportunity.
Time passed. The person she was taking over for left the leadership team (his term was over, it was all planned), and there she was: a responsible person in a professional organization. And she hated it. The role she was recruited for was not something she was good at, and she knew it. She thought about her responsibilities all the time, she even had bad dreams about things going badly. Her mild social anxiety blew up when it was time to meet with the team.
The worst part about it was this, though: she does not fail often. She made a few changes in how she approached the job, but none of them worked. After several months, she thought long and hard about the whole situation. How would I feel as the club's president if someone had done such a poor job? How would I feel as another member of the leadership team if someone else was completely shirking her responsibilities?
And she realized: I would fire me.
And then she thought: can I do better?
And she realized: I don't think so.
And that was when she knew she had to resign. She did not resign because she didn't want to try. She resigned because she wanted to help the club, but knew she was not up to the task. The club would be better served by someone else. So she wrote a resignation letter, stating her regrets and apologies, and assuring the president of the club that the entire leadership team was fantastic.
It was hard to write, but it was the right thing to do. As soon as she send the email, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders. A weight of expectation, a weight of failure, a weight of self-recrimination.
The answer to the question of when is it right to give up is going to be different for different people and situations. In this case, a recognition that the she was the wrong person for the job was enough. It might be that your family pulls you in a certain direction, and you can't pursue a hobby any more. Perhaps you realize you simply can not work with that guy. Perhaps the task at hand gives you immense stress and no satisfaction. There are many valid reasons for giving up. But successful people don't look for reasons to give up. The reasons smack them across the face and say, "You got any reason to think I'm wrong????" And the successful person looks the reason in the eyes and replies, after some thought, "I suppose not."
And maybe what she did might not be called giving up. It might be called recognizing one's limits. It might be called refocusing. But it was also giving up. Calling it a different name didn't make it easier for her.
And it was still the right thing to do.
Well, hang on. Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic swimmer in the history of the world. Has he given up on Theoretical Physics? How has his charcoal portraiture skill improved over time? Has he learned to speak Russian yet?
You see, no one can do everything. Firstly, no one has time. Secondly, there are things that deep down, you know you are no good at. They just don't fit your temperament. You may not be a person who is a good leader, and you know it. You probably should not go into management if that's the case. You may be a person who is good with big picture, and terrible with details. You would make a bad CPA, although you might make a good CPA manager.
I have a good friend who tends to get over-involved. She joined a professional organization a while ago because she had never done that kind of thing before. Why not try something a little out of her comfort zone, she thought. So she did, and she liked it. She got to know the leadership of the club, and when they asked if she'd like to become part of the leadership team, she was excited by the opportunity.
Time passed. The person she was taking over for left the leadership team (his term was over, it was all planned), and there she was: a responsible person in a professional organization. And she hated it. The role she was recruited for was not something she was good at, and she knew it. She thought about her responsibilities all the time, she even had bad dreams about things going badly. Her mild social anxiety blew up when it was time to meet with the team.
The worst part about it was this, though: she does not fail often. She made a few changes in how she approached the job, but none of them worked. After several months, she thought long and hard about the whole situation. How would I feel as the club's president if someone had done such a poor job? How would I feel as another member of the leadership team if someone else was completely shirking her responsibilities?
And she realized: I would fire me.
And then she thought: can I do better?
And she realized: I don't think so.
And that was when she knew she had to resign. She did not resign because she didn't want to try. She resigned because she wanted to help the club, but knew she was not up to the task. The club would be better served by someone else. So she wrote a resignation letter, stating her regrets and apologies, and assuring the president of the club that the entire leadership team was fantastic.
It was hard to write, but it was the right thing to do. As soon as she send the email, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders. A weight of expectation, a weight of failure, a weight of self-recrimination.
The answer to the question of when is it right to give up is going to be different for different people and situations. In this case, a recognition that the she was the wrong person for the job was enough. It might be that your family pulls you in a certain direction, and you can't pursue a hobby any more. Perhaps you realize you simply can not work with that guy. Perhaps the task at hand gives you immense stress and no satisfaction. There are many valid reasons for giving up. But successful people don't look for reasons to give up. The reasons smack them across the face and say, "You got any reason to think I'm wrong????" And the successful person looks the reason in the eyes and replies, after some thought, "I suppose not."
And maybe what she did might not be called giving up. It might be called recognizing one's limits. It might be called refocusing. But it was also giving up. Calling it a different name didn't make it easier for her.
And it was still the right thing to do.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
January 30, 2015: Trick Questions
I was chatting with a colleague recently about questions to ask a potential hire. He had a personalized list he used. He does not ask a candidate about their 5 strengths and weaknesses. He does ask about a difficult situation and how the candidate handled it. It's a good list. It doesn't go down the standard "check the box if you asked this" list that most companies have. Prepared candidates already have good answers for these.
I was impressed with 2 things he did. The first is that he gave adequate time. Half an hour on the phone is not enough time to gather sufficient information to make a good decision, unless the person simply fails. Any competent candidate can pass a 30-minute interview, and the interview has simply wasted her time. This manager gives an hour. It's a structured hour, as well. He gives a few minutes to introduce himself, asks the candidate if she has any questions, and then the interview starts. It's more a conversation. At 45 minutes in, the interview stops and asks the candidate if she has more questions. When those questions are satisfied, the interviewer wraps up, and closes the call with 5 minutes to spare. This is a great time model to follow as an interviewer.
The focus of this post, however, is on 2 trick questions. The first is this, and I'll give you the setup to the question as well so you understand the full effect: "We're all under pressure today to get more done. We have to multitask to accomplish more; it's a valuable skill. How do you know when it's appropriate to multitask?" The interviewer has done a few things here, and the question is tricky. The interviewer has:
There's another thing he has done, though: the interviewer doesn't like multitasking. He recognizes that failing to focus on the task at hand limits productivity. The 4th thing he has done is test if the candidate a) thinks multitasking is useful and b) if the candidate is willing to state an opinion that is contrary to the interviewer's opinion.
In answering the question, the candidate will tell the interviewer not only when it is appropriate to multitask (the correct answer is "almost never" in study after study), but also if he is willing to contradict his boss. Assuming the candidate is informed on this particular topic, does he have the guts to say so? After the candidate answers, the interviewer relays a story about multitasking demonstrating how bad it can be. Then there's another test for the candidate if he said that multitasking was good: does he equivocate to agree with the interviewer now? And is he doing it in a boot-licking way, or has he demonstrated an ability to learn?
A boot-licking way: "Right, that's what I was trying to say before."
An ability to learn: "Interesting. I have noticed that same thing happen before, but hadn't put it together that way. Thanks for pointing that out."
I love that question. Sure, the setup is a bit disingenuous, but boy is the answer informative!
Here's the 2nd trick question the interviewer uses: "In your skilled line of work, how do you rate your skill level against your peers on a scale of 1-10?"
An arrogant and inexperienced person might rate himself a 9 or 10. "I'm the best," he might say. That implies that he has little or nothing to learn from those around him, which is hogwash. There is no one who knows everything, and someone who thinks he does know it all is going to be very hard to coach. Someone who answers with a 2 obviously has a crisis of confidence. You don't want that person, either.
A good answer might be 7. A person who considers himself competent, but recognizes the importance of learning from others. This interviewer typically asks the candidate to elaborate on the thought process to get to that number. Again, this is a psychological test for fit. It is not at all an evaluation of the individual's skill. It is an evaluation of the person's willingness to learn and confidence to perform.
As you interview candidates, think of some good questions. Questions that seem to ask one thing, but are evaluating something else.
"You are due at a customer meeting at 10. It is 9:40 and you are half an hour away. What do you do?" This question assumes you did not plan well (you didn't leave on time), although it appears to be a question about customer management. Does the candidate roll with the assumption that she is late? A good candidate might say, "First, I plan appropriately so this situation doesn't come up. Then..."
"You job duties require you to know the answer to every question in your area of technical expertise. Failure to make a decision on the spot can cost the company millions of dollars. You are faced with a question that you can't answer with certainty right away. What is your decision?" Is this a candidate who makes decisions without all the facts? Does she realize that not making a decision can cost millions, but making the wrong decision can cost tens of millions? Is she smart enough to know what she doesn't know and ask for help?
I was impressed with 2 things he did. The first is that he gave adequate time. Half an hour on the phone is not enough time to gather sufficient information to make a good decision, unless the person simply fails. Any competent candidate can pass a 30-minute interview, and the interview has simply wasted her time. This manager gives an hour. It's a structured hour, as well. He gives a few minutes to introduce himself, asks the candidate if she has any questions, and then the interview starts. It's more a conversation. At 45 minutes in, the interview stops and asks the candidate if she has more questions. When those questions are satisfied, the interviewer wraps up, and closes the call with 5 minutes to spare. This is a great time model to follow as an interviewer.
The focus of this post, however, is on 2 trick questions. The first is this, and I'll give you the setup to the question as well so you understand the full effect: "We're all under pressure today to get more done. We have to multitask to accomplish more; it's a valuable skill. How do you know when it's appropriate to multitask?" The interviewer has done a few things here, and the question is tricky. The interviewer has:
- stated a fact (we're under pressure)
- stated an opinion as fact (we have to multitask)
- asked a question about the candidate's judgment.
There's another thing he has done, though: the interviewer doesn't like multitasking. He recognizes that failing to focus on the task at hand limits productivity. The 4th thing he has done is test if the candidate a) thinks multitasking is useful and b) if the candidate is willing to state an opinion that is contrary to the interviewer's opinion.
In answering the question, the candidate will tell the interviewer not only when it is appropriate to multitask (the correct answer is "almost never" in study after study), but also if he is willing to contradict his boss. Assuming the candidate is informed on this particular topic, does he have the guts to say so? After the candidate answers, the interviewer relays a story about multitasking demonstrating how bad it can be. Then there's another test for the candidate if he said that multitasking was good: does he equivocate to agree with the interviewer now? And is he doing it in a boot-licking way, or has he demonstrated an ability to learn?
A boot-licking way: "Right, that's what I was trying to say before."
An ability to learn: "Interesting. I have noticed that same thing happen before, but hadn't put it together that way. Thanks for pointing that out."
I love that question. Sure, the setup is a bit disingenuous, but boy is the answer informative!
Here's the 2nd trick question the interviewer uses: "In your skilled line of work, how do you rate your skill level against your peers on a scale of 1-10?"
An arrogant and inexperienced person might rate himself a 9 or 10. "I'm the best," he might say. That implies that he has little or nothing to learn from those around him, which is hogwash. There is no one who knows everything, and someone who thinks he does know it all is going to be very hard to coach. Someone who answers with a 2 obviously has a crisis of confidence. You don't want that person, either.
A good answer might be 7. A person who considers himself competent, but recognizes the importance of learning from others. This interviewer typically asks the candidate to elaborate on the thought process to get to that number. Again, this is a psychological test for fit. It is not at all an evaluation of the individual's skill. It is an evaluation of the person's willingness to learn and confidence to perform.
As you interview candidates, think of some good questions. Questions that seem to ask one thing, but are evaluating something else.
"You are due at a customer meeting at 10. It is 9:40 and you are half an hour away. What do you do?" This question assumes you did not plan well (you didn't leave on time), although it appears to be a question about customer management. Does the candidate roll with the assumption that she is late? A good candidate might say, "First, I plan appropriately so this situation doesn't come up. Then..."
"You job duties require you to know the answer to every question in your area of technical expertise. Failure to make a decision on the spot can cost the company millions of dollars. You are faced with a question that you can't answer with certainty right away. What is your decision?" Is this a candidate who makes decisions without all the facts? Does she realize that not making a decision can cost millions, but making the wrong decision can cost tens of millions? Is she smart enough to know what she doesn't know and ask for help?
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
January 21, 2015: The Squirrel in My Living Room
I was in my living yesterday morning going through my morning routine when some motion caught my eye. I turned to look at it, and found a squirrel staring at me. What is a squirrel doing in my house? And how did it get here? And how do I get it out before I go to work this morning?
It was my first problem of the day.
I ignored it at first. This was a conscious decision, and is a simple way to start solving problems. No, it's not "ignore it and hope it goes away". That would be ridiculous in this case, as all the doors and windows were closed. Instead, it was an admission that I didn't know exactly what to do. I needed more information before I could take action. So I waited. The squirrel walked over to the wood box next to the fireplace, and seemed comfortable enough in there for a bit. I continued ignoring it. A few minutes later I heard some crashing from the breakfast nook and I went to see what was going on. The squirrel was climbing up through a birdhouse on the window seat, and jumping from the top of the birdhouse at the screen window. Our windows open out, so the screens are on the inside.
So this, finally, was information I could use. The squirrel did want to get outside, liked the birdhouse, and wanted to jump instead of walk. I walked over to the window, removed the screen, opened the window wide enough for the squirrel to leave. During this process, I scared it, and it jumped right past me, and that's when I noticed it was a flying squirrel. I'd never knowingly seen one. It was pretty cool.
The squirrel had run back to the living room, so I followed it. It wandered back to the breakfast nook, where it climbed a different place and tried to fly out a different window. It gave up on that window, and ignored the window I had kindly opened for it. It tried to leave the breakfast nook, but I stood in its way. It certainly could have run past me, but it was too scared. Another key data point. At this point I was hopeful this would be over soon. It ran into the window seat, and tried to fly out another window. It tried to leave the nook again. I blocked it again. Finally, it went back to the birdhouse and jumped into the open window. And then it wiggled out of the open window. And I resumed my morning, problem solved.
I think the practical applications of this experience are powerful. When faced with a surprising situation, many of us will make decisions and take actions immediately. If we have not encountered this exact situation before, that's not a good idea. The first thing to come to mind when something new happens is, "Do I understand this situation well enough to take reliably positive action? What are the risks and rewards of immediate action?" I could have run through the house, opened all the windows and doors and waited for the squirrel to leave. But I ran the risk of not seeing it go. If I didn't see it go, it could still be in my house when I left for work, and I could have a movie-ready squirrel-ravaged home when I returned. In the mean time, it was below freezing outside, and my house would get cold.
So I was able to define my problem a little better as I ignored it and let my mind think through the consequences and parameters of my problem.
Some of these parameters are limiting. Not being able to ask the squirrel what it wants and not being able to catch it are limits to my problem solving. But knowing it was scared and that it wanted to jump out of the house provided good guidance for a solution. By providing a place to exit the house via jumping and then using the squirrel's fear of me, I was able to effectively corral a wild rodent and make it do what we both wanted it to do.
Most of our problems can follow a similar pattern:
Eventually, this loop will usually provide you with a solution. There are some problems that simply cannot be solved, and those are things we have to live with. More on that next time.
It was my first problem of the day.
I ignored it at first. This was a conscious decision, and is a simple way to start solving problems. No, it's not "ignore it and hope it goes away". That would be ridiculous in this case, as all the doors and windows were closed. Instead, it was an admission that I didn't know exactly what to do. I needed more information before I could take action. So I waited. The squirrel walked over to the wood box next to the fireplace, and seemed comfortable enough in there for a bit. I continued ignoring it. A few minutes later I heard some crashing from the breakfast nook and I went to see what was going on. The squirrel was climbing up through a birdhouse on the window seat, and jumping from the top of the birdhouse at the screen window. Our windows open out, so the screens are on the inside.
So this, finally, was information I could use. The squirrel did want to get outside, liked the birdhouse, and wanted to jump instead of walk. I walked over to the window, removed the screen, opened the window wide enough for the squirrel to leave. During this process, I scared it, and it jumped right past me, and that's when I noticed it was a flying squirrel. I'd never knowingly seen one. It was pretty cool.
The squirrel had run back to the living room, so I followed it. It wandered back to the breakfast nook, where it climbed a different place and tried to fly out a different window. It gave up on that window, and ignored the window I had kindly opened for it. It tried to leave the breakfast nook, but I stood in its way. It certainly could have run past me, but it was too scared. Another key data point. At this point I was hopeful this would be over soon. It ran into the window seat, and tried to fly out another window. It tried to leave the nook again. I blocked it again. Finally, it went back to the birdhouse and jumped into the open window. And then it wiggled out of the open window. And I resumed my morning, problem solved.
I think the practical applications of this experience are powerful. When faced with a surprising situation, many of us will make decisions and take actions immediately. If we have not encountered this exact situation before, that's not a good idea. The first thing to come to mind when something new happens is, "Do I understand this situation well enough to take reliably positive action? What are the risks and rewards of immediate action?" I could have run through the house, opened all the windows and doors and waited for the squirrel to leave. But I ran the risk of not seeing it go. If I didn't see it go, it could still be in my house when I left for work, and I could have a movie-ready squirrel-ravaged home when I returned. In the mean time, it was below freezing outside, and my house would get cold.
So I was able to define my problem a little better as I ignored it and let my mind think through the consequences and parameters of my problem.
- The squirrel wants to get outside (that's an assumption since I can't ask it).
- It wants to leave by jumping instead of walking.
- It is scared of me.
- I can't catch it.
Some of these parameters are limiting. Not being able to ask the squirrel what it wants and not being able to catch it are limits to my problem solving. But knowing it was scared and that it wanted to jump out of the house provided good guidance for a solution. By providing a place to exit the house via jumping and then using the squirrel's fear of me, I was able to effectively corral a wild rodent and make it do what we both wanted it to do.
Most of our problems can follow a similar pattern:
- Notice the problem
- Evaluate the problem: have you solved this particular problem before? If not, what are the consequences to leaving it unsolved for now? Unsolved permanently?
- Evaluate possible solution limits: what actions are possible? Which are impossible?
- What other guiding factors can help you to shape your solution? Are there people with specific expertise available to help you with technical solutions? How does the problem want to be solved?
- What solutions appear within the confines of the limits and guiding factors you have discovered? Are these solutions reasonable? If so, you can take action. If not, it's likely time to revisit the limits and guiding factors.
Eventually, this loop will usually provide you with a solution. There are some problems that simply cannot be solved, and those are things we have to live with. More on that next time.
Monday, January 19, 2015
January 19, 2015: Making it look easy
I recently joined a local Toastmasters group. After a few meetings, I understood how they were supposed to flow, and I signed up to give the first speech. It's called "The Icebreaker", and it is a self-introduction. It's a short speech, 4-6 minutes, and should be memorized. But as with all things I've seen so far at Toastmasters, memorization is optional.
I did not dread the speech. Audiences don't bother me as a rule, although I do tend to pick topics and examples that are close to my heart, and I tend to get emotional when I talk about such things. This is a key problem of mine when writing a speech.
I'm pleased to report it went well. Feedback was honestly positive, and I got some good pointers on future improvements. You know how these things go - you are supposed to give lots of positive feedback and a couple small pointers of things "you might want to think about for next time". The comments were very positive, and one of them that stuck with me was that the evaluator said it came naturally to me. Few things are further from the truth. This is how I prepare for a public speaking engagement, or any time when the words I say are important and getting them wrong has real consequences.
I signed up for the speech in December, knowing I couldn't deliver it until mid-January. From the moment I signed up for it, I thought about it. It was in my mind constantly. This is the first step in preparation for me: know it has to be done; think about for a few minutes; let it stew for a few weeks. Although it appears that I'm not working on it, I have assigned some space in my brain for it, and my subconscious churns through it while I'm not paying attention. We all do this to some degree or another. This is why we may suddenly think, "I know what I want to do with the bathroom!" when we last talked about it 6 months ago. I use this technique consciously, and I've done it enough that I have a good idea of how the size of the task measures up against the amount of time I have to spend to prepare my mind to work on it. 10-20 minutes of working through possible approaches one evening in December was about right for a 5 minute speech in January.
I sat down last week to write it. This is the next step. Make time, sit down, and get your subconscious' results on paper. While I liked the content, the speech was WAY too long. And the next day, I wasn't impressed with the approach. The stories were fine, but they weren't pointed in a direction I liked. This is hard to describe. But say you're telling a story about opening gifts at Christmas. The focus of your story could be on the thoughts of the people who bought the gifts; or on the reaction of the people opening them; or the plight of the Chinese factory workers who made them; or grandma's hair; or the mess you had to clean up afterward. It's the same story, but points in a different direction.
So I had a rough draft, serviceable, but not what I wanted. And I stepped away again. Sometimes you have the luxury of doing that: of making a rough draft and letting it sit some more. Preparation allows that time. Often in business environments, we don't have the luxury of waiting. But we do have the option of thinking about what we might need to create in the next few months and letting our minds percolate on it.
I sat down this morning to write another draft. I knew it could only be 3 pages double-spaced, max. And I knew how long it would take me to write something of that length on a topic I knew as well as I knew myself. An hour later, it was done. I read it through. 5:58 vs a tie limit of 6:00. Not good. I crossed out a few lines, read through it again, and went off to do something else. I came back to it later, and tried to give the speech, using my notes as little as possible. Then I did it without notes. There were some things I noticed on my previous reads that I thought might not translate for the audience. So I fixed them in the memorized version. It ran to 8:45 before I checked my time.
Oh no. Panic time. Ok, not panic, but "how do I systematically reduce this and still keep the weight of the subject matter in tact?" My topic was a self introduction, but I themed it along the choices we make and how they define us. My next attempt was shorter at 5:35. By this point, after a month of percolating ideas and stories, 2 drafts, 3 runs reading it, and 3 runs memorized, I felt ready enough. I drove to the meeting location early and did a run in the car. 5:30 or so. I was ready.
For a topic I didn't know so well, memorizing would have been much more difficult. For this one, it was easier. I was not natural when I was practicing. I stumbled over words, corrected myself, skipped key points and went back to them. But practice makes better, and better is good.
I use these techniques often in the workplace. Before every important presentation, I block time in a conference room alone to rehearse. Before every single difficult performance evaluation I deliver, I take 15 minutes or so to remind myself of the key points of discussion and they way I want to frame my constructive criticism. What objections will the person likely have? How should I respond to them? For any disciplinary action, I set aside a full hour, preferably the day before the action.
Why? Why is it so important? Because of this fact: you are the manager, and it is that important to the person you are talking to. You owe them that much respect and that much time. What you are doing and saying can change that person's entire career. You had better take it seriously.
And that is how you make it look easy. It's not easy. And it is necessary. And it is worth it.
I did not dread the speech. Audiences don't bother me as a rule, although I do tend to pick topics and examples that are close to my heart, and I tend to get emotional when I talk about such things. This is a key problem of mine when writing a speech.
I'm pleased to report it went well. Feedback was honestly positive, and I got some good pointers on future improvements. You know how these things go - you are supposed to give lots of positive feedback and a couple small pointers of things "you might want to think about for next time". The comments were very positive, and one of them that stuck with me was that the evaluator said it came naturally to me. Few things are further from the truth. This is how I prepare for a public speaking engagement, or any time when the words I say are important and getting them wrong has real consequences.
I signed up for the speech in December, knowing I couldn't deliver it until mid-January. From the moment I signed up for it, I thought about it. It was in my mind constantly. This is the first step in preparation for me: know it has to be done; think about for a few minutes; let it stew for a few weeks. Although it appears that I'm not working on it, I have assigned some space in my brain for it, and my subconscious churns through it while I'm not paying attention. We all do this to some degree or another. This is why we may suddenly think, "I know what I want to do with the bathroom!" when we last talked about it 6 months ago. I use this technique consciously, and I've done it enough that I have a good idea of how the size of the task measures up against the amount of time I have to spend to prepare my mind to work on it. 10-20 minutes of working through possible approaches one evening in December was about right for a 5 minute speech in January.
I sat down last week to write it. This is the next step. Make time, sit down, and get your subconscious' results on paper. While I liked the content, the speech was WAY too long. And the next day, I wasn't impressed with the approach. The stories were fine, but they weren't pointed in a direction I liked. This is hard to describe. But say you're telling a story about opening gifts at Christmas. The focus of your story could be on the thoughts of the people who bought the gifts; or on the reaction of the people opening them; or the plight of the Chinese factory workers who made them; or grandma's hair; or the mess you had to clean up afterward. It's the same story, but points in a different direction.
So I had a rough draft, serviceable, but not what I wanted. And I stepped away again. Sometimes you have the luxury of doing that: of making a rough draft and letting it sit some more. Preparation allows that time. Often in business environments, we don't have the luxury of waiting. But we do have the option of thinking about what we might need to create in the next few months and letting our minds percolate on it.
I sat down this morning to write another draft. I knew it could only be 3 pages double-spaced, max. And I knew how long it would take me to write something of that length on a topic I knew as well as I knew myself. An hour later, it was done. I read it through. 5:58 vs a tie limit of 6:00. Not good. I crossed out a few lines, read through it again, and went off to do something else. I came back to it later, and tried to give the speech, using my notes as little as possible. Then I did it without notes. There were some things I noticed on my previous reads that I thought might not translate for the audience. So I fixed them in the memorized version. It ran to 8:45 before I checked my time.
Oh no. Panic time. Ok, not panic, but "how do I systematically reduce this and still keep the weight of the subject matter in tact?" My topic was a self introduction, but I themed it along the choices we make and how they define us. My next attempt was shorter at 5:35. By this point, after a month of percolating ideas and stories, 2 drafts, 3 runs reading it, and 3 runs memorized, I felt ready enough. I drove to the meeting location early and did a run in the car. 5:30 or so. I was ready.
For a topic I didn't know so well, memorizing would have been much more difficult. For this one, it was easier. I was not natural when I was practicing. I stumbled over words, corrected myself, skipped key points and went back to them. But practice makes better, and better is good.
I use these techniques often in the workplace. Before every important presentation, I block time in a conference room alone to rehearse. Before every single difficult performance evaluation I deliver, I take 15 minutes or so to remind myself of the key points of discussion and they way I want to frame my constructive criticism. What objections will the person likely have? How should I respond to them? For any disciplinary action, I set aside a full hour, preferably the day before the action.
Why? Why is it so important? Because of this fact: you are the manager, and it is that important to the person you are talking to. You owe them that much respect and that much time. What you are doing and saying can change that person's entire career. You had better take it seriously.
And that is how you make it look easy. It's not easy. And it is necessary. And it is worth it.
Friday, December 26, 2014
December 26, 2014: A Few Steps Away From the Office
We all hear about work-life balance. In the last few years, with the advent of ubiquitous laptops and smartphones, the more accurate phrase is work-life integration. Both intrude on each other. Some days you'll be at the office until 8. Some days you'll leave the office at 3 for a parent teach conference or take 3 hours in the middle of the day to have tires installed.
This post is not about work-life integration. Take a few steps away from the office. Separate yourself from your work.
This Christmas I was able to spend Christmas in person with my teenage son with a visit from my brother and video chat with the rest of my family. It was such a different experience. We did not get a tree. We bought some poinsettias, and put one in the middle of the living room with Christmas lights in it. The gifts went there, of course. We woke up late, and after our Christmas morning gift thing, we played video games together. Our current favorite is Crash Team Racing, a game from 1999 on the original Play Station that we play on the PS3 now.
In the afternoon, we put a ham in the oven and then took a nap. Then we made doughnuts. Real doughnuts. You make the dough, then let it raise for an hour. Then you form it into doughnuts and let it raise for another hour. Then you put them in 375 deg oil for 1 minute per side, and put them on paper plates with paper towels. Then you add the glaze. They are crunchy, and when still warm they are amazing. Unlike Krispy Kreme or Dunkin, the dough isn't very sweet. I had 4.
As I sat there, a chunk of warm ham in one hand, a warm glazed doughnut in the other and my son across the table from me, I felt that Jack London-Herman Melville-Ernest Hemingway feeling. You know it. "This is life," I said to my son. The feeling would have found place in a king's hall with a tankard of ale in a fantasy novel, on the open sea with a Viking. And it found me in my cozy dining room with my son, eating our fresh pastries and plotting how we'd blow each other up with missiles while racing.
To be sure, I have had many years of enjoyable work. Sometimes even joyous work. My chosen career path, however, is not primal. And it's good to get to that primal place sometimes. So I suppose cooking is primal for me. What is primal for you? When do you feel like you can look up at the sky and shout, "THIS IS LIFE!"? Do you know? When was the last time you did it?
How soon will you do it again?
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
December 24, 2014: Your Executive and You
It's Christmas Eve! Just to be contrary, I took yesterday off from the blog and instead will cover a somewhat esoteric topic, I think: the work life of an executive.
The news (and office scuttlebutt) often make the work life of an executive sound easy and fun: you travel, meet people, get paid well, and sometimes the company will even pay you when they fire you. The reality is different.
Yes, you travel (you miss your kids' soccer games). Yes, you meet people (and if they are customers and don't like you, it could sink your business). Yes, you get paid well. No different reality for that one, that part is true. Most executives don't get golden parachutes. They are often given the chance to resign instead of be fired. Executives are married to the company. They have 16,000 things (my favorite number to convey limitlessness) going on at the same time. People call them at all hours of the day and night, and they have to be available for emergency phone conferences 24/7. Romantic dinner with your spouse? Customer emergency in Singapore! Saturday morning soccer game with your buddies? HR needs you in a disciplinary action meeting! Leave your cell phone at home when you go on vacation? I don't think so!
The reality of an executive's work life is that she has a huge set of responsibilities, and there is no possible way she will know every thing going on in her operation. The VP has meetings all day long - budget strategy sessions, revenue opportunity meetings, IT project updates, customer escalations, personnel disciplinary meetings, operation status updates, training planning, you name it, it's part of the executive's portfolio of responsibilities. Most of the day is spent going from meeting to meeting and making decisions based on snippets of data.
Even though you and your team spend all day every day on a certain project, the exec doesn't have an hour to hear all of the important things you're doing. She has 10 other people with projects to talk about today. Yours is probably not the most important one. But the exec will try to make you feel like it is. That is also part of the job description.
Given this reality, executives have fundamental bandwidth issues. They gather a trusted cadre of lieutenants who receive, filter, and pass along important information. These lieutenants know what words like "risky" and "potential" and "troublesome" mean to the executive. Some are more risk-averse than others. Each has his own areas of expertise and areas of ignorance. Some will admit ignorance, some will fake competence or deny ignorance. They must trust the team to give them good information.
When the exec goes out into the company to speak with the likes of you, she may not realize that you don't know what "risky" means to her. If you use that word casually because it's not a hot-button for you but it is to her, you may get a sudden case of executive attention.
Or if the executive is in a project status update meeting and sees something she doesn't understand (why would the Toledo office be so far behind in training?), she may ask a question to the presenter. Because the exec knows she doesn't know everything that's going on, a random audit is a simple way to keep people on their toes. She'll ask a question. It could be anywhere, about anything. Sometimes she's only curious. Sometimes she's concerned. Her close circle will be able to tell which it is. The purpose is just to keep everyone on their toes and prepared for such questions.
If such a question comes down to you, your best bet to answer it is usually not to give the executive a call. Your best bet is usually to call one of the exec's close circle, ask some questions to clarify what the concern is. The Toledo office is behind in training. Is the executive concerned that the management team is not leading that effort? Concerned that the training quality is perceived so low that the team doesn't prioritize it? That the IT system that delivers the training has been unreliable lately, and maybe the team can't get the training? You know the answer, of course. But you don't know the question. So you call the person who does have 30 minutes to talk to you about a specific issue, understand why you are being asked the question, and then you can prepare a reply.
The most important thing to realize about your executive team is this: they are all humans. They all have 24 hours in a day. They are usually pretty smart. And they are fallible. And ignorant about large swaths of your company's detailed operations. So when you interact with them, prepare yourself to speak in a condensed form, get right to the point, ask for any help you need, and let them go! Hopefully they have other issues that are more pressing than yours, and you can get their help to get your job done.
The news (and office scuttlebutt) often make the work life of an executive sound easy and fun: you travel, meet people, get paid well, and sometimes the company will even pay you when they fire you. The reality is different.
Yes, you travel (you miss your kids' soccer games). Yes, you meet people (and if they are customers and don't like you, it could sink your business). Yes, you get paid well. No different reality for that one, that part is true. Most executives don't get golden parachutes. They are often given the chance to resign instead of be fired. Executives are married to the company. They have 16,000 things (my favorite number to convey limitlessness) going on at the same time. People call them at all hours of the day and night, and they have to be available for emergency phone conferences 24/7. Romantic dinner with your spouse? Customer emergency in Singapore! Saturday morning soccer game with your buddies? HR needs you in a disciplinary action meeting! Leave your cell phone at home when you go on vacation? I don't think so!
The reality of an executive's work life is that she has a huge set of responsibilities, and there is no possible way she will know every thing going on in her operation. The VP has meetings all day long - budget strategy sessions, revenue opportunity meetings, IT project updates, customer escalations, personnel disciplinary meetings, operation status updates, training planning, you name it, it's part of the executive's portfolio of responsibilities. Most of the day is spent going from meeting to meeting and making decisions based on snippets of data.
Even though you and your team spend all day every day on a certain project, the exec doesn't have an hour to hear all of the important things you're doing. She has 10 other people with projects to talk about today. Yours is probably not the most important one. But the exec will try to make you feel like it is. That is also part of the job description.
Given this reality, executives have fundamental bandwidth issues. They gather a trusted cadre of lieutenants who receive, filter, and pass along important information. These lieutenants know what words like "risky" and "potential" and "troublesome" mean to the executive. Some are more risk-averse than others. Each has his own areas of expertise and areas of ignorance. Some will admit ignorance, some will fake competence or deny ignorance. They must trust the team to give them good information.
When the exec goes out into the company to speak with the likes of you, she may not realize that you don't know what "risky" means to her. If you use that word casually because it's not a hot-button for you but it is to her, you may get a sudden case of executive attention.
Or if the executive is in a project status update meeting and sees something she doesn't understand (why would the Toledo office be so far behind in training?), she may ask a question to the presenter. Because the exec knows she doesn't know everything that's going on, a random audit is a simple way to keep people on their toes. She'll ask a question. It could be anywhere, about anything. Sometimes she's only curious. Sometimes she's concerned. Her close circle will be able to tell which it is. The purpose is just to keep everyone on their toes and prepared for such questions.
If such a question comes down to you, your best bet to answer it is usually not to give the executive a call. Your best bet is usually to call one of the exec's close circle, ask some questions to clarify what the concern is. The Toledo office is behind in training. Is the executive concerned that the management team is not leading that effort? Concerned that the training quality is perceived so low that the team doesn't prioritize it? That the IT system that delivers the training has been unreliable lately, and maybe the team can't get the training? You know the answer, of course. But you don't know the question. So you call the person who does have 30 minutes to talk to you about a specific issue, understand why you are being asked the question, and then you can prepare a reply.
The most important thing to realize about your executive team is this: they are all humans. They all have 24 hours in a day. They are usually pretty smart. And they are fallible. And ignorant about large swaths of your company's detailed operations. So when you interact with them, prepare yourself to speak in a condensed form, get right to the point, ask for any help you need, and let them go! Hopefully they have other issues that are more pressing than yours, and you can get their help to get your job done.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
December 18, 2014: Survivial of a Common Worst Case Scenario
On the last blog, we discussed success and how it may be defined in the workplace. Your homework from that post was to list up the ways your work could be considered a failure even though these criteria are not listed on your goals and objectives. Obviously, death, injury, tornadoes and bankruptcy are true worst-case scenarios. For our purposes on the topic, however, worst-case simply means a situation with a potentially large negative impact to your career.
Faced with what many would consider a worst-case scenario, what can you do? In many cases, as you look through your list, the answer might be 'nothing'. Nobody can do everything perfectly. The modern business climate does not afford anyone the time or money to fix every gap or meet every need. We are all forced to prioritize. First we have to decide what must be done vs what should be done. Then we have to go through the list of what must be done to decide what needs attention on a given day.
Many of my worst-case scenarios were completely out of my control. I may have noticed something that I want to fix, like a training gap. If someone from headquarters does a thorough audit, they would find that my team is far behind in training. If I've noticed the problem but haven't been able to free people up to attend training, all I can offer is the lame, "I noticed this already, but haven't been able to send people." Which is just as weak an excuse as it sounds. What the other party hears is, "I know about this, but I don't care enough to take action."
As an individual, you are limited in your power. Particularly as a front-line supervisor, your options to respond directly to such critiques from headquarters are limited. If you are able to address an issue yourself, you should of course do it. If you are powerless to do it (say that you need to sway the opinion of an executive), you must find someone who is not powerless to do it.
Wait, what? In these cases, networking is key to success. If you do not know the executive well, you need to be friends with someone who is or who can effectively advocate for your cause. To a certain extent, this is playing office politics. In another way, it is a simple recognition of the human condition. How is that the case?
Executives (and everyone else with an axe to grind) are people. People have a limited amount of time and patience. If an executive sees a report and doesn't like something, he may ask a question. Maybe he's just curious. Maybe he thinks it's really a problem. In any case, the executive probably does not have time to hear your valid reasoning. We'll discuss why this is the case in a later post. So what you need is someone the executive knows and trusts who does have the time to discuss the issue with you and can take it to the executive and influence his opinion.
There are a few ways this can happen. Let's assume your contact is part of the executive's common circle of coworkers: they see each other on a regular basis, and have friendly relations. Your contact could ask the exec about the issue, and find out if it's curiosity or concern that prompted the question. She could vouch for you to the executive, something simple like, "I know Mike, and he has a good plan to address this." Or (and this is more difficult) she could follow a completely different line of questioning: "Why are you concerned about this?" Maybe the executive is not concerned about the training gap per se, but he sees it as an example of letting things fall through the cracks. Perhaps your contact would suggest a different report that shows all of the objectives that are being accomplished. Or perhaps the executive is right. Lastly, and most effectively, you can take the added attention as an opportunity to ask for help.
Yes, added executive attention is often a positive thing. In the training gap scenario, you may not have enough people to complete necessary business if you send some away to training. So you can ask for backfill while your people are out. Certainly you should have asked for it before, but remember, this is a worst-case scenario. When you receive unexpected negative/scrutinizing attention, make it into a positive whenever you can. Think yourself into a solutions-based mindset and come up with reasonable solutions that the executive could provide to help solve the problem.
We'll explore this topic some more in the coming weeks.
Faced with what many would consider a worst-case scenario, what can you do? In many cases, as you look through your list, the answer might be 'nothing'. Nobody can do everything perfectly. The modern business climate does not afford anyone the time or money to fix every gap or meet every need. We are all forced to prioritize. First we have to decide what must be done vs what should be done. Then we have to go through the list of what must be done to decide what needs attention on a given day.
Many of my worst-case scenarios were completely out of my control. I may have noticed something that I want to fix, like a training gap. If someone from headquarters does a thorough audit, they would find that my team is far behind in training. If I've noticed the problem but haven't been able to free people up to attend training, all I can offer is the lame, "I noticed this already, but haven't been able to send people." Which is just as weak an excuse as it sounds. What the other party hears is, "I know about this, but I don't care enough to take action."
As an individual, you are limited in your power. Particularly as a front-line supervisor, your options to respond directly to such critiques from headquarters are limited. If you are able to address an issue yourself, you should of course do it. If you are powerless to do it (say that you need to sway the opinion of an executive), you must find someone who is not powerless to do it.
Wait, what? In these cases, networking is key to success. If you do not know the executive well, you need to be friends with someone who is or who can effectively advocate for your cause. To a certain extent, this is playing office politics. In another way, it is a simple recognition of the human condition. How is that the case?
Executives (and everyone else with an axe to grind) are people. People have a limited amount of time and patience. If an executive sees a report and doesn't like something, he may ask a question. Maybe he's just curious. Maybe he thinks it's really a problem. In any case, the executive probably does not have time to hear your valid reasoning. We'll discuss why this is the case in a later post. So what you need is someone the executive knows and trusts who does have the time to discuss the issue with you and can take it to the executive and influence his opinion.
There are a few ways this can happen. Let's assume your contact is part of the executive's common circle of coworkers: they see each other on a regular basis, and have friendly relations. Your contact could ask the exec about the issue, and find out if it's curiosity or concern that prompted the question. She could vouch for you to the executive, something simple like, "I know Mike, and he has a good plan to address this." Or (and this is more difficult) she could follow a completely different line of questioning: "Why are you concerned about this?" Maybe the executive is not concerned about the training gap per se, but he sees it as an example of letting things fall through the cracks. Perhaps your contact would suggest a different report that shows all of the objectives that are being accomplished. Or perhaps the executive is right. Lastly, and most effectively, you can take the added attention as an opportunity to ask for help.
Yes, added executive attention is often a positive thing. In the training gap scenario, you may not have enough people to complete necessary business if you send some away to training. So you can ask for backfill while your people are out. Certainly you should have asked for it before, but remember, this is a worst-case scenario. When you receive unexpected negative/scrutinizing attention, make it into a positive whenever you can. Think yourself into a solutions-based mindset and come up with reasonable solutions that the executive could provide to help solve the problem.
We'll explore this topic some more in the coming weeks.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
December 16, 2014: How Can You Recognize Success?
Do you know success when you see it in others? Do you know it when you see it in yourself? Do you know when others see it in you?
These are all questions we have to answer. If we have to answer "no" to any of them, we owe it to ourselves and our coworkers to find out how.
In many organizations, the obvious measure of success is a person's review score. 4/5 might be a great review, 153 out of 200 might be a great review. Whatever your organization's system is, you should have a good idea of what constitutes a successful review score.
But take a moment: what things are going in in your office that are essential to perceived success but are not on your review? In one organization, the new management team led an effort to improve the company's performance to a level that previous management teams had said was impossible. They use that word: impossible. But the new team did it in about a year.
The company was more profitable than ever before, customers were happier than ever before, and the company suddenly had the opportunity to take market share from its rivals. Everything looks good, right? This is what success looks like. By every single measure on every person's company goals, the company was rocking. The executive team flew out from headquarters to congratulate the team for such an achievement, they distributed awards, they met with the customer to shake hands and tell each other how great each other was.
6 weeks later, this same team, the one that had achieved the impossible, was under threat for their jobs for something that was not on their performance reviews. No one would have guess it just a few months prior. The team was shocked. After all this work and success and recognition, how is it that perception could change so dramatically? The team's performance had not changed since all the good things had happened.
For reading today's blog, you have earned a homework assignment: take 5 minutes and write down all the the negative things that could happen in your workplace. Everything that might reflect your work in some way, no matter how remote. Is there a report that someone could interpret to mean something that isn't correct? Is there an individual that upper management has their eye on that maybe you should have taken corrective action with? Is there a gap in your team's training that you haven't addressed? What would a highly critical visitor from the home office think of your operation, and would such a visitor be able to tell the home office executive who sent her that all is well?
We'll spend the next few posts exploring these hypotheticals and what your options are surrounding them.
These are all questions we have to answer. If we have to answer "no" to any of them, we owe it to ourselves and our coworkers to find out how.
In many organizations, the obvious measure of success is a person's review score. 4/5 might be a great review, 153 out of 200 might be a great review. Whatever your organization's system is, you should have a good idea of what constitutes a successful review score.
But take a moment: what things are going in in your office that are essential to perceived success but are not on your review? In one organization, the new management team led an effort to improve the company's performance to a level that previous management teams had said was impossible. They use that word: impossible. But the new team did it in about a year.
The company was more profitable than ever before, customers were happier than ever before, and the company suddenly had the opportunity to take market share from its rivals. Everything looks good, right? This is what success looks like. By every single measure on every person's company goals, the company was rocking. The executive team flew out from headquarters to congratulate the team for such an achievement, they distributed awards, they met with the customer to shake hands and tell each other how great each other was.
6 weeks later, this same team, the one that had achieved the impossible, was under threat for their jobs for something that was not on their performance reviews. No one would have guess it just a few months prior. The team was shocked. After all this work and success and recognition, how is it that perception could change so dramatically? The team's performance had not changed since all the good things had happened.
For reading today's blog, you have earned a homework assignment: take 5 minutes and write down all the the negative things that could happen in your workplace. Everything that might reflect your work in some way, no matter how remote. Is there a report that someone could interpret to mean something that isn't correct? Is there an individual that upper management has their eye on that maybe you should have taken corrective action with? Is there a gap in your team's training that you haven't addressed? What would a highly critical visitor from the home office think of your operation, and would such a visitor be able to tell the home office executive who sent her that all is well?
We'll spend the next few posts exploring these hypotheticals and what your options are surrounding them.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Blog is on hiatus for a few days
A few days of extraordinary events prevents me from publishing for a few days. I'll be back by December 10.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
December 2, 2014: A performance review for a high performer with a significant flaw
Let's suppose an employee on your design team is a great designer. She is easy to get along with, works hard, and is very competent. She hates to do any paper work. Her expense reports are months late, her weekly project reports are late or don't come in, etc. You know the drill. Her goals and objectives are weighted heavily to her design work, and the entire admin side is about 15%. She has earned high ratings for everything except admin. Her poor admin, however, has drawn attention from your 2nd line manager, the VP for operations.
By the numbers, her review should be about 4.5 out of 5. You feel like she should get a 2.8 as a wake up call because of this one area of poor performance. But the numbers don't justify it. Referencing our analogy from yesterday, her fuel pump gave out. How do you write and deliver this review?
The first thing you do is do the review by the numbers. It's not right to change the goals to gerrymander the result to the number you want it to be. When you do it by the numbers, she ends up at 4.5 Given her total performance compared to her peers (who aren't as good at design work but do take care of their admin), the 4.5 does seem high. The review then needs a second pass. Is there a teamwork goal? You are part of the team, and her poor performance in this one area made your work more difficult. That one can come down a notch. Is there something on delivering projects in a timely fashion? If the admin can be considered part of the project, then this can also come down a notch. In the end, although you only have 1 specific goal for admin, admin work influences many other aspects of a person's performance.
In the end, she gets a 3.8 instead of the 4.5. This is still well above average. The review is very repetitive, referencing these same failings in instance after instance. You have plenty of positive feedback for her, but you need to make sure she understands how you perceive her total performance.
You meet for your one on one, and you can tell from her face that she's not pleased with the score. You ask why, and she asks, "What else could I have better? I thought I was really on top of it this period."
You start to go through the form (it's a long one), and you point out the places where admin brought her total score down. You tell her that you took the time to do the review without admin impact, and the result was a 4.5. "When you don't prioritize key business processes, it hurts you over all your goals. If you have done your admin well, I would have been happy to give you a 4.5." You complement her on the other aspects of her job. Thankfully, because she is a good performer, she can take the bad news.
It is clear from the feedback from your VP, however, that a 3.8 is not much of a punishment. She is still rated higher than all but 1 of her peers despite the headaches from the finance department with her expense reports. The work for this employee isn't changing for the next review period. The content of her goals shouldn't change. In this case, it is worth it to increase the weight for her admin for the next review period. You explain your plan to the VP, and it makes sense to him. He is concerned, but trusts you.
At the goal setting session, you explain the need for admin to increase as a percentage of total score, and your employee understands. She's not happy because admin is only 10% of her time, but now it's 30% of her review. She understands that the purpose is to focus on it so she'll do it.
You have other options, of course: disciplinary action, move to another department, change job duties, decrease the admin burden. But she is good in her current role as long as she fixes this little thing. There is no reason she can't or won't. You now have to follow up and help her be successful.
Just about every employee has an Achilles heel: poor emotional control, low work quality, tardiness, late work, making promises that he can't keep, etc. The review process allows both you and the employee to put these weaknesses under the bright lights, examine them, and take some action. If done properly, it will deepen the trust in your relationship and enable a partnership for improvement for both of you.
By the numbers, her review should be about 4.5 out of 5. You feel like she should get a 2.8 as a wake up call because of this one area of poor performance. But the numbers don't justify it. Referencing our analogy from yesterday, her fuel pump gave out. How do you write and deliver this review?
The first thing you do is do the review by the numbers. It's not right to change the goals to gerrymander the result to the number you want it to be. When you do it by the numbers, she ends up at 4.5 Given her total performance compared to her peers (who aren't as good at design work but do take care of their admin), the 4.5 does seem high. The review then needs a second pass. Is there a teamwork goal? You are part of the team, and her poor performance in this one area made your work more difficult. That one can come down a notch. Is there something on delivering projects in a timely fashion? If the admin can be considered part of the project, then this can also come down a notch. In the end, although you only have 1 specific goal for admin, admin work influences many other aspects of a person's performance.
In the end, she gets a 3.8 instead of the 4.5. This is still well above average. The review is very repetitive, referencing these same failings in instance after instance. You have plenty of positive feedback for her, but you need to make sure she understands how you perceive her total performance.
You meet for your one on one, and you can tell from her face that she's not pleased with the score. You ask why, and she asks, "What else could I have better? I thought I was really on top of it this period."
You start to go through the form (it's a long one), and you point out the places where admin brought her total score down. You tell her that you took the time to do the review without admin impact, and the result was a 4.5. "When you don't prioritize key business processes, it hurts you over all your goals. If you have done your admin well, I would have been happy to give you a 4.5." You complement her on the other aspects of her job. Thankfully, because she is a good performer, she can take the bad news.
It is clear from the feedback from your VP, however, that a 3.8 is not much of a punishment. She is still rated higher than all but 1 of her peers despite the headaches from the finance department with her expense reports. The work for this employee isn't changing for the next review period. The content of her goals shouldn't change. In this case, it is worth it to increase the weight for her admin for the next review period. You explain your plan to the VP, and it makes sense to him. He is concerned, but trusts you.
At the goal setting session, you explain the need for admin to increase as a percentage of total score, and your employee understands. She's not happy because admin is only 10% of her time, but now it's 30% of her review. She understands that the purpose is to focus on it so she'll do it.
You have other options, of course: disciplinary action, move to another department, change job duties, decrease the admin burden. But she is good in her current role as long as she fixes this little thing. There is no reason she can't or won't. You now have to follow up and help her be successful.
Just about every employee has an Achilles heel: poor emotional control, low work quality, tardiness, late work, making promises that he can't keep, etc. The review process allows both you and the employee to put these weaknesses under the bright lights, examine them, and take some action. If done properly, it will deepen the trust in your relationship and enable a partnership for improvement for both of you.
Monday, December 1, 2014
December 1, 2014: Ubiquitous Goals
I hope your Thanksgiving and the long weekend went well. It was nice to take a little break from the blog; at the same time (or 4 days later), it's nice to get back to it.
It is nearing the end of the year. For some companies, it's time for annual reviews. In honor of one of management's least loved essential functions, the next few days we'll discuss performance reviews.
In most large companies, the Board decides the direction of the company with input from the company's top executives. Those executives' goals might read: "increase stock price by 3% per quarter" or something similarly overarching. At the level of the VP, that 3% share price increase goal might mean a 6.5% market share increase for Widget Zebra. Below the VP, that market share increase goal might mean the manufacturing line has to find a 15% cost reduction so the sales team can decrease price without sacrificing margin. The 15% cost reduction goal, when taken to the operations level, might mean reduction in overtime. It might mean lowering product defect levels.
In the perfect world, every goal on your review can be rolled up the line to the people leading your organization. It's commonly called "goal cascading", because as the goal descends each layer of management, it is spread out a bit to show a level of detail that is actionable at that level.
We don't live in a perfect world.
The vast majority of management professionals are 1st line managers: the people who supervise the people who are making widgets, writing programs, giving medical care, serving coffee, selling cars, etc. Many of these peoples' goals will be things that simply don't change, no matter what the executives' goals are: employee safety, paperwork accuracy and timeliness, producing a certain amount of work, training, and a few smaller categories. One could argue that without these ubiquitous goals, the company would not be able to achieve its share price increase. Over the long term, that may be correct. In the larger scope, however, these are things that just have to happen for the business to run.
If we consider the business to be a car, these ubiquitous goals are like the fuel pump. If you want your car to go faster, you change the exhaust. You add a turbo charger. You increase engine displacement to increase horsepower. The fuel pump? You just leave that there. It doesn't need to be improved; it just has to work. without it, nothing else matters. An organization that cannot achieve success with these quotidian goals is unlikely to achieve a more specific (increase share price 3%) goal.
How much of your review (and those of your team) should be based on these fundamental goals? Views vary widely on this, and there is not a single correct answer. Let's look at a couple of them.
Safety is #1 at your company, right? So safety should be the most heavily weighted goal. No? Not where you work? I have been lucky to be exposed to an extremely safe work environment for a very long time. Safety goals ranged from 5-15% in weight, with the expectation that everyone would work safely and that an avoidable incident would weigh negatively but a perfectly clean safety record for the period would result in a "met target" rating. Similar for admin. Timesheets, regular reports, work logs, request for quotes, invoicing, all of these could fall in a single category. In my industry, these kinds of ubiquitous goals usually roll up to about 20%.
The other 80% will be composed of larger, customer-visible goals, internal team goals, and employee development goals. We'll discuss each of these as we consider goal setting.
How much is the appropriate weight for these ubiquitous goals in your team? It may be different if you are managing a call center vs a graphic design department vs a restaurant vs a warehouse vs an elementary school. Take a few minutes to write them out - all the things that a customer won't see or notice, and that won't get anybody a company award, but has to be done anyway, just as a matter of course. Also take a moment to think on what you are managing with these ubiquitous goals: you are managing the company owners' resources. How much of that focus should enter into this calculation?
It is nearing the end of the year. For some companies, it's time for annual reviews. In honor of one of management's least loved essential functions, the next few days we'll discuss performance reviews.
In most large companies, the Board decides the direction of the company with input from the company's top executives. Those executives' goals might read: "increase stock price by 3% per quarter" or something similarly overarching. At the level of the VP, that 3% share price increase goal might mean a 6.5% market share increase for Widget Zebra. Below the VP, that market share increase goal might mean the manufacturing line has to find a 15% cost reduction so the sales team can decrease price without sacrificing margin. The 15% cost reduction goal, when taken to the operations level, might mean reduction in overtime. It might mean lowering product defect levels.
In the perfect world, every goal on your review can be rolled up the line to the people leading your organization. It's commonly called "goal cascading", because as the goal descends each layer of management, it is spread out a bit to show a level of detail that is actionable at that level.
We don't live in a perfect world.
The vast majority of management professionals are 1st line managers: the people who supervise the people who are making widgets, writing programs, giving medical care, serving coffee, selling cars, etc. Many of these peoples' goals will be things that simply don't change, no matter what the executives' goals are: employee safety, paperwork accuracy and timeliness, producing a certain amount of work, training, and a few smaller categories. One could argue that without these ubiquitous goals, the company would not be able to achieve its share price increase. Over the long term, that may be correct. In the larger scope, however, these are things that just have to happen for the business to run.
If we consider the business to be a car, these ubiquitous goals are like the fuel pump. If you want your car to go faster, you change the exhaust. You add a turbo charger. You increase engine displacement to increase horsepower. The fuel pump? You just leave that there. It doesn't need to be improved; it just has to work. without it, nothing else matters. An organization that cannot achieve success with these quotidian goals is unlikely to achieve a more specific (increase share price 3%) goal.
How much of your review (and those of your team) should be based on these fundamental goals? Views vary widely on this, and there is not a single correct answer. Let's look at a couple of them.
Safety is #1 at your company, right? So safety should be the most heavily weighted goal. No? Not where you work? I have been lucky to be exposed to an extremely safe work environment for a very long time. Safety goals ranged from 5-15% in weight, with the expectation that everyone would work safely and that an avoidable incident would weigh negatively but a perfectly clean safety record for the period would result in a "met target" rating. Similar for admin. Timesheets, regular reports, work logs, request for quotes, invoicing, all of these could fall in a single category. In my industry, these kinds of ubiquitous goals usually roll up to about 20%.
The other 80% will be composed of larger, customer-visible goals, internal team goals, and employee development goals. We'll discuss each of these as we consider goal setting.
How much is the appropriate weight for these ubiquitous goals in your team? It may be different if you are managing a call center vs a graphic design department vs a restaurant vs a warehouse vs an elementary school. Take a few minutes to write them out - all the things that a customer won't see or notice, and that won't get anybody a company award, but has to be done anyway, just as a matter of course. Also take a moment to think on what you are managing with these ubiquitous goals: you are managing the company owners' resources. How much of that focus should enter into this calculation?
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
November 25, 2014: So you are a manager. What do you manage?
When a person becomes an engineer, she knows what she is engineering. She is an industrial engineer, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer. Many (possibly most) managers do not have a degree in management. So you're an architect who is a manager, or a graphic artist or teacher who is a manager. What do you manage? What does the word even mean?
To answer the question, we have to step back from the situation at hand and consider your workplace. Look around you. Is the computer on the desk yours? Do the people on your team work for you? Do their paychecks come from your bank account? What, in your immediate work environment, belongs to you? A quick inventory of mine shows a desk drawer full of fun size Snickers and some pictures of my family on the cubicle wall. That's all. And yet I'm a manager.
So who owns the things I'm managing? My company does. But can a company own itself? No. Every company is owned, in the end, by people. These people are called shareholders if the company is public, owners or investors if it is private. These people own the company, and by extension, "my" work computer, the employment of "my" team, "my" cubicle, "my" company car.
Now, what am I managing? I am managing the resources of the company's owners. My job, then, is to manage these resources (they could be paintbrushes or software experts or race cars or teddy bears) on behalf of the owners. Why do they entrust me with their money and resources? Because they believe I can provide a return on their investment because of my expertise. That's my value-add.
Managers (every single one of us) are not managing teams or projects or anything else that we touch every day. We are managing the company owners' resources. It is our responsibility to do our best to return value to them - that is what they pay us for, after all. A hedge fund manager is very close to this idea. Is the manager of your local TGI Friday's aware of it?
It is important to note that company owners don't always know what they want. Do they want to show growth quarter-over-quarter? Year-over-year? Are they in it for the long term? The answers to these questions will come through the executive management team and trickle down. I worked at a wholly-owned US subsidiary of a Japanese company that was part of a huge conglomerate. To trace ownership back to a person, I'd need to trace my management chain up 4 levels to the CEO, then to the board of directors of the Japanese company, then to the board of directors of the conglomerate, and then back to millions and millions of shareholders.
Somewhere along the line, the message came to the US subsidiary that we needed to make our revenue projections every fiscal half. My team was an integral part of recognizing revenue for my company: we did the last $100K worth of work that allowed the company to recognize $20M in revenue. So my job as a manager was to get my technical team the resources they needed to move their work forward so the company could recognize revenue on time and meet shareholder expectations.
This longer and wider view of the manager's role is vital to planning and successfully executing our jobs as managers. Should I send my lead person out for training if the training may not pay off for a year? Or should I manage for the short term, and keep him available for today's work? Even if I have approval to hire another person for my team, is that in the best interests of the company's shareholders? Or will it be a waste of their money? I have found that keeping these questions in mind helps me to avoid making decisions that will cause pain later. If I see a reduction in force coming, and someone transfers out of my team, I won't replace him even if I have authorization. I'll inform my boss of what I am doing and why, and then when the RIF comes, I will need to make 1 less very hard decision. In the mean time, I've saved the shareholders money. If it looks like we're going to be engaged with a certain customer for a long time, I'll invest a year of being very tight with manpower so I can send them to training and reap the benefits of that training long term.
So take a few minutes to write down the goals your company's owners want you to achieve. If you don't know, as your supervisor. If she doesn't know, ask someone else. Someone has to know, and the more people who do know, the better your company will operate.
To answer the question, we have to step back from the situation at hand and consider your workplace. Look around you. Is the computer on the desk yours? Do the people on your team work for you? Do their paychecks come from your bank account? What, in your immediate work environment, belongs to you? A quick inventory of mine shows a desk drawer full of fun size Snickers and some pictures of my family on the cubicle wall. That's all. And yet I'm a manager.
So who owns the things I'm managing? My company does. But can a company own itself? No. Every company is owned, in the end, by people. These people are called shareholders if the company is public, owners or investors if it is private. These people own the company, and by extension, "my" work computer, the employment of "my" team, "my" cubicle, "my" company car.
Now, what am I managing? I am managing the resources of the company's owners. My job, then, is to manage these resources (they could be paintbrushes or software experts or race cars or teddy bears) on behalf of the owners. Why do they entrust me with their money and resources? Because they believe I can provide a return on their investment because of my expertise. That's my value-add.
Managers (every single one of us) are not managing teams or projects or anything else that we touch every day. We are managing the company owners' resources. It is our responsibility to do our best to return value to them - that is what they pay us for, after all. A hedge fund manager is very close to this idea. Is the manager of your local TGI Friday's aware of it?
It is important to note that company owners don't always know what they want. Do they want to show growth quarter-over-quarter? Year-over-year? Are they in it for the long term? The answers to these questions will come through the executive management team and trickle down. I worked at a wholly-owned US subsidiary of a Japanese company that was part of a huge conglomerate. To trace ownership back to a person, I'd need to trace my management chain up 4 levels to the CEO, then to the board of directors of the Japanese company, then to the board of directors of the conglomerate, and then back to millions and millions of shareholders.
Somewhere along the line, the message came to the US subsidiary that we needed to make our revenue projections every fiscal half. My team was an integral part of recognizing revenue for my company: we did the last $100K worth of work that allowed the company to recognize $20M in revenue. So my job as a manager was to get my technical team the resources they needed to move their work forward so the company could recognize revenue on time and meet shareholder expectations.
This longer and wider view of the manager's role is vital to planning and successfully executing our jobs as managers. Should I send my lead person out for training if the training may not pay off for a year? Or should I manage for the short term, and keep him available for today's work? Even if I have approval to hire another person for my team, is that in the best interests of the company's shareholders? Or will it be a waste of their money? I have found that keeping these questions in mind helps me to avoid making decisions that will cause pain later. If I see a reduction in force coming, and someone transfers out of my team, I won't replace him even if I have authorization. I'll inform my boss of what I am doing and why, and then when the RIF comes, I will need to make 1 less very hard decision. In the mean time, I've saved the shareholders money. If it looks like we're going to be engaged with a certain customer for a long time, I'll invest a year of being very tight with manpower so I can send them to training and reap the benefits of that training long term.
So take a few minutes to write down the goals your company's owners want you to achieve. If you don't know, as your supervisor. If she doesn't know, ask someone else. Someone has to know, and the more people who do know, the better your company will operate.
Monday, November 24, 2014
November 24, 2014: Slow Week at the Office?
You have arrived at the office, the Monday of Thanksgiving week. You have a lot to do, I know. You always do. But it seems like every stakeholder, every decision maker is gone this whole week, and normally smooth business processes, you know, will stall until next week.
So you have time at the half-empty office to fill. What to fill it with?
First, you know that anything you do can't rely on anyone else to complete the task. No approvals, no help with an IT system (although that department is most likely to have good coverage), nothing that will directly impact anyone outside your team. What can you do that will positively impact your team, both up and down the management chain? Here are some suggestions.
1) Build a tool to increase your knowledge and understanding of the business. You get reports on your unit's performance through SAP or Crystal Reports or some other form of business intelligence. But they don't tell you exactly what you want to know. So build a tool that gets you the information you need. I have seen managers build tools that model how busy each type of equipment is in a factory so they could forecast future periodic maintenance activity, or a financial tool that let him modify the number of people in his contract to maximize profitability without killing functionality, or a tool that tracks performance reviews for the team along with their raises to assess if he was really doing a good job at "paying for performance" like he was supposed to. These are something you might show your boss at some point, but they key thing here is that they will help you to understand your operation better, and that will improve your performance.
2) Do some analysis to share with your team about their performance. Perhaps you will do an COGS analysis and break it out by category, do a little drilling to see what potential savings are there. You could share your analysis with your team to see what ideas they have about improving that metric. Or perhaps your company is in a tough competitive market, and you can do some research on the competition. Again, you can share this with your team at a later date and solicit their input on how they can impact your company's performance.
3) Learn something! Always wanted to know how those Excel nerds write VBA? You can, too! It's not that hard, and Microsoft has free lessons online. You local library or your college library almost certainly has access to business articles and research journals. Do some reading on a topic that you are curious about.
4) Get ahead on an upcoming project. Performance reviews due by the end of the year? A budget due Dec 12? Annual strategic plan due by Jan 15? Get started now. Even an outline is something. If you take some solid first steps now and need to step away for a week, you will likely be surprised at how quickly it falls together when you come back to it. The subconscious will work on this kind of stuff in the background; the results can be amazing.
5) Spend 1:1 time with the members of your team that are available this week. They are probably having a slow week as well. Do some coaching, get to know them better, see how you can help them and then follow up.
You already have a list 100 miles long of things that need to be done yesterday. We all do. A week like this one can let you get a little bit ahead. Don't miss the opportunity.
So you have time at the half-empty office to fill. What to fill it with?
First, you know that anything you do can't rely on anyone else to complete the task. No approvals, no help with an IT system (although that department is most likely to have good coverage), nothing that will directly impact anyone outside your team. What can you do that will positively impact your team, both up and down the management chain? Here are some suggestions.
1) Build a tool to increase your knowledge and understanding of the business. You get reports on your unit's performance through SAP or Crystal Reports or some other form of business intelligence. But they don't tell you exactly what you want to know. So build a tool that gets you the information you need. I have seen managers build tools that model how busy each type of equipment is in a factory so they could forecast future periodic maintenance activity, or a financial tool that let him modify the number of people in his contract to maximize profitability without killing functionality, or a tool that tracks performance reviews for the team along with their raises to assess if he was really doing a good job at "paying for performance" like he was supposed to. These are something you might show your boss at some point, but they key thing here is that they will help you to understand your operation better, and that will improve your performance.
2) Do some analysis to share with your team about their performance. Perhaps you will do an COGS analysis and break it out by category, do a little drilling to see what potential savings are there. You could share your analysis with your team to see what ideas they have about improving that metric. Or perhaps your company is in a tough competitive market, and you can do some research on the competition. Again, you can share this with your team at a later date and solicit their input on how they can impact your company's performance.
3) Learn something! Always wanted to know how those Excel nerds write VBA? You can, too! It's not that hard, and Microsoft has free lessons online. You local library or your college library almost certainly has access to business articles and research journals. Do some reading on a topic that you are curious about.
4) Get ahead on an upcoming project. Performance reviews due by the end of the year? A budget due Dec 12? Annual strategic plan due by Jan 15? Get started now. Even an outline is something. If you take some solid first steps now and need to step away for a week, you will likely be surprised at how quickly it falls together when you come back to it. The subconscious will work on this kind of stuff in the background; the results can be amazing.
5) Spend 1:1 time with the members of your team that are available this week. They are probably having a slow week as well. Do some coaching, get to know them better, see how you can help them and then follow up.
You already have a list 100 miles long of things that need to be done yesterday. We all do. A week like this one can let you get a little bit ahead. Don't miss the opportunity.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
November 21, 2014: It's Time to Make a Decision
This is part 7 of a 7-part series on the hiring process.
Who screens the resumes? Who sets up the conference room? Who calls the candidates to arrange for interview times? How long is the interview? What questions will each person ask? Will there be a skills test? Who is in the conference room? Is everyone in the room a decision-maker, or does 1 person get to make the call? If it's a cross-departmental team, can a person not in the relevant department have a real impact on the decision?
A million questions, each with its own answer. Many companies assign HR to be directly in the selection process, either as recruiters looking for candidates, or screening candidates. HR may make or find a vendor to provide a recruiting training. Most companies will have a single person screen candidates. The final interview will most likely be a panel interview.
The best panel interviews have the following qualities:
1) All of the interviewers want to be there
2) All of the interviewers either have a lot of experience interviewing together or they have discussed roles and expectations before the interview starts
3) The decision-makers know in advance who they are
4) ANY decision-maker can veto a candidate for any legal reason
5) The panel has agreed on a set of questions to ask
6) The panel has a high degree of trust in each other
When a candidate leaves the room, the hiring manager (who may be the direct supervisor of the candidate or the supervisors boss) owns the conversation. She will first do a quick survey. Usually the panel will know just by body language about an obvious dud. For the candidates that bear consideration, the hiring manager first has to assess the team's opinion on this central question: can the candidate do the job?
If the answer is yes, then the only question left is, "Is this the person we want to do this job?" #4 above is the key to making this a useful discussion. As we discussed in the first post in this series, the decision to hire someone is a momentous decision for a company. Even if you do it 10 times a year, each one has large fiscal and performance impacts on your organization.
That you have a panel is the most important thing. The second most important thing is #4 above: the veto power. Maybe that one person picked up on something that no one else did. Maybe that one person is wrong. But what if he's right?
In a panel interview several years ago, we interviewed someone we had known for years. We knew for a fact he could do the job. At a previous company, he had reported to a member of the interview panel. He presented himself well in the interview. He was obviously capable. There were questions about his personal behavior and interpersonal relations that stemmed from a few of our previous experiences with the individual at his previous company. But if we had not known him from then, he would have been a solid candidate.
I was not in favor and said so. Another manager said the same thing. But we both also said to the other individual in the room, "If you want him anyway, go ahead." We hired the guy. In 6 months, we had fired the guy. All of our predictions about how it would roll out came true. In other cases, we have had a single individual veto a candidate. The person just said, "I didn't like how he said..." and that was it. We moved on to the next candidate.
Is this fair to the candidates? Maybe not. But that's not the hiring manager's responsibility. The hiring manager is responsible to get the best person for the company, period. The company provides parameters, the manager finds the best person she can to fit those parameters. Once someone is trusted enough to be on an interview panel, she is trusted enough to wield a veto.
The best panels are also decisive. If the screening process is done well, there will be 5 or so final candidates to interview. In the best situations, the panel will tell the hiring manager, "We like these 2-3 candidates. Your choice for which one you pick." The panel is then done, the hiring moves forward.
During the process, a good manager will take notes. Why did I choose this person to interview and not this one? Why did I choose to hire this person and not this one? What did I notice during this interview? Once you hire someone, watch her performance. Should the interview have given you clues? When you make a bad hiring decision, and we all do, good notes from the hiring process will help you to not repeat the same mistake.
Who screens the resumes? Who sets up the conference room? Who calls the candidates to arrange for interview times? How long is the interview? What questions will each person ask? Will there be a skills test? Who is in the conference room? Is everyone in the room a decision-maker, or does 1 person get to make the call? If it's a cross-departmental team, can a person not in the relevant department have a real impact on the decision?
A million questions, each with its own answer. Many companies assign HR to be directly in the selection process, either as recruiters looking for candidates, or screening candidates. HR may make or find a vendor to provide a recruiting training. Most companies will have a single person screen candidates. The final interview will most likely be a panel interview.
The best panel interviews have the following qualities:
1) All of the interviewers want to be there
2) All of the interviewers either have a lot of experience interviewing together or they have discussed roles and expectations before the interview starts
3) The decision-makers know in advance who they are
4) ANY decision-maker can veto a candidate for any legal reason
5) The panel has agreed on a set of questions to ask
6) The panel has a high degree of trust in each other
When a candidate leaves the room, the hiring manager (who may be the direct supervisor of the candidate or the supervisors boss) owns the conversation. She will first do a quick survey. Usually the panel will know just by body language about an obvious dud. For the candidates that bear consideration, the hiring manager first has to assess the team's opinion on this central question: can the candidate do the job?
If the answer is yes, then the only question left is, "Is this the person we want to do this job?" #4 above is the key to making this a useful discussion. As we discussed in the first post in this series, the decision to hire someone is a momentous decision for a company. Even if you do it 10 times a year, each one has large fiscal and performance impacts on your organization.
That you have a panel is the most important thing. The second most important thing is #4 above: the veto power. Maybe that one person picked up on something that no one else did. Maybe that one person is wrong. But what if he's right?
In a panel interview several years ago, we interviewed someone we had known for years. We knew for a fact he could do the job. At a previous company, he had reported to a member of the interview panel. He presented himself well in the interview. He was obviously capable. There were questions about his personal behavior and interpersonal relations that stemmed from a few of our previous experiences with the individual at his previous company. But if we had not known him from then, he would have been a solid candidate.
I was not in favor and said so. Another manager said the same thing. But we both also said to the other individual in the room, "If you want him anyway, go ahead." We hired the guy. In 6 months, we had fired the guy. All of our predictions about how it would roll out came true. In other cases, we have had a single individual veto a candidate. The person just said, "I didn't like how he said..." and that was it. We moved on to the next candidate.
Is this fair to the candidates? Maybe not. But that's not the hiring manager's responsibility. The hiring manager is responsible to get the best person for the company, period. The company provides parameters, the manager finds the best person she can to fit those parameters. Once someone is trusted enough to be on an interview panel, she is trusted enough to wield a veto.
The best panels are also decisive. If the screening process is done well, there will be 5 or so final candidates to interview. In the best situations, the panel will tell the hiring manager, "We like these 2-3 candidates. Your choice for which one you pick." The panel is then done, the hiring moves forward.
During the process, a good manager will take notes. Why did I choose this person to interview and not this one? Why did I choose to hire this person and not this one? What did I notice during this interview? Once you hire someone, watch her performance. Should the interview have given you clues? When you make a bad hiring decision, and we all do, good notes from the hiring process will help you to not repeat the same mistake.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
November 20, 2014: Weighing Other Factors
This is part 6 of a 7-part series on the hiring process.
So far, we have discussed education, experience, attitude, and fit as they relate to the hiring process. These are all essential aspects of any hiring decision. There are some other aspects that are not relevant in every decision. This post is by no means exhaustive, it only seeks to bring up some things that may be relevant so that when you are faced with a hiring decision you can ask yourself the right questions.
Reasonable accommodation. The law requires that employers make reasonable accommodations for employees that meet certain criteria. If the job you have is a desk job and the applicant is in a wheelchair, it is easy to make a few changes in the cubicle furniture to make that work. If the employee is a Muslim, it is usually easy to provide an opportunity for the employee to pray at certain times during the day. If the employee is a Christian whose religious beliefs preclude working on Sundays and you run a 24 x 7 operation and the opening you have requires work on Sundays, you are in a gray area. You may have a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ in court rulings) the means you don't have to make that accommodation.
It is important, then, to discuss work schedule and work environment and ask the candidate if she is willing and able to do the job as described.
Pay. No employee wants to take a pay cut. And those who are savvy at all know that there is wiggle room in your initial offer. Get a sense of where the employee was at his last position, and what he's expecting you to offer. If the 2 sides simply can't meet, don't waste your time. If he's asking for $45/hr and your approved pay range tops out at $30/hr, put the number on the table before he leaves. Don't waste your time negotiating if the 2 sides won't be able to agree. Generally, the company will have a fixed COGS for all employees' labor of a certain grade or a certain employment type. In budgetary terms, it does not matter to the company if you're paying someone $31/hr or $33/hr as long as those pay levels are both in the approved pay grade. When a candidate comes back and wants a higher pay rate, it's usually a small amount ($1-$2/hr), and the company doesn't really care. Your decision is that if you pay someone a certain amount, it is likely that someone experienced on your team is making less. Word will get out, and certain members of the team will feel slighted. That's why the decision is important - it comes back to fit, essentially.
Ability to work OT. Almost every candidate will tell you she will work whatever hours are required to get the job done. A very good candidate will tell you that she has to leave on time to pick her children up from day care but can come back after she gets them home to her husband. Some people are really attached only to work. There really isn't a good or bad answer to this question, unless you know that you'll require a lot of OT or the schedule doesn't have a lot of flex in it.
Long-term career plans. A common question is, "Where do you want to be in 5 years?" You can assess a candidate's career path by his actions to date and his trajectory at the moment. If you are hiring for a technical writer who wants to be in management, but the individual hasn't done any management training, it tells you something about the candidate. Each person's story is unique, and it's worth a couple minutes in an interview to get a sense of where the candidate would like to end up.
Personal appearance. Jewelry choice, clothing choice and condition, hair style, fingernail length, etc: these each tell a story. While going Sherlock Holmes on a candidate is living on the edge, you can tell a person's eye for detail by how they look. You can get a subtle sense of if the person is there to work or is there to be noticed by how he looks as well. Is the candidate comfortable in the interview clothing? If not, maybe this is a one-time act. I don't read too much into this as an interviewer, but when I interview for a new position, I always dress carefully. The shirt should be dry-cleaned so it's pressed nicely. Pants have creases, belt matches the shoes, shoes are shined, etc.
First impressions are hard to overcome. If you are not a tattoo-oriented person (I am not inked, and don't understand the attraction), be aware that competence can be hidden. Recognize your first impression for what it is, and except for the obvious and objective things it tells you ("this person has ear gauges" is objective) do your best to understand the person beneath the first impression. It is true that taller people make more money and are more likely to be promoted. Attractive people (women and men) are also more likely to get paid more. Don't be the manager that hires someone because he is attractive. Be the manager that finds competence and desire inside the person across the table from you.
And there are a million more things you can watch for and ask about. Be holistic in your approach. As you gain experience with hiring, you will notice which decisions were good ones, and which were bad. If you are careful, you'll learn from your hiring mistakes and not repeat them.
So far, we have discussed education, experience, attitude, and fit as they relate to the hiring process. These are all essential aspects of any hiring decision. There are some other aspects that are not relevant in every decision. This post is by no means exhaustive, it only seeks to bring up some things that may be relevant so that when you are faced with a hiring decision you can ask yourself the right questions.
Reasonable accommodation. The law requires that employers make reasonable accommodations for employees that meet certain criteria. If the job you have is a desk job and the applicant is in a wheelchair, it is easy to make a few changes in the cubicle furniture to make that work. If the employee is a Muslim, it is usually easy to provide an opportunity for the employee to pray at certain times during the day. If the employee is a Christian whose religious beliefs preclude working on Sundays and you run a 24 x 7 operation and the opening you have requires work on Sundays, you are in a gray area. You may have a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ in court rulings) the means you don't have to make that accommodation.
It is important, then, to discuss work schedule and work environment and ask the candidate if she is willing and able to do the job as described.
Pay. No employee wants to take a pay cut. And those who are savvy at all know that there is wiggle room in your initial offer. Get a sense of where the employee was at his last position, and what he's expecting you to offer. If the 2 sides simply can't meet, don't waste your time. If he's asking for $45/hr and your approved pay range tops out at $30/hr, put the number on the table before he leaves. Don't waste your time negotiating if the 2 sides won't be able to agree. Generally, the company will have a fixed COGS for all employees' labor of a certain grade or a certain employment type. In budgetary terms, it does not matter to the company if you're paying someone $31/hr or $33/hr as long as those pay levels are both in the approved pay grade. When a candidate comes back and wants a higher pay rate, it's usually a small amount ($1-$2/hr), and the company doesn't really care. Your decision is that if you pay someone a certain amount, it is likely that someone experienced on your team is making less. Word will get out, and certain members of the team will feel slighted. That's why the decision is important - it comes back to fit, essentially.
Ability to work OT. Almost every candidate will tell you she will work whatever hours are required to get the job done. A very good candidate will tell you that she has to leave on time to pick her children up from day care but can come back after she gets them home to her husband. Some people are really attached only to work. There really isn't a good or bad answer to this question, unless you know that you'll require a lot of OT or the schedule doesn't have a lot of flex in it.
Long-term career plans. A common question is, "Where do you want to be in 5 years?" You can assess a candidate's career path by his actions to date and his trajectory at the moment. If you are hiring for a technical writer who wants to be in management, but the individual hasn't done any management training, it tells you something about the candidate. Each person's story is unique, and it's worth a couple minutes in an interview to get a sense of where the candidate would like to end up.
Personal appearance. Jewelry choice, clothing choice and condition, hair style, fingernail length, etc: these each tell a story. While going Sherlock Holmes on a candidate is living on the edge, you can tell a person's eye for detail by how they look. You can get a subtle sense of if the person is there to work or is there to be noticed by how he looks as well. Is the candidate comfortable in the interview clothing? If not, maybe this is a one-time act. I don't read too much into this as an interviewer, but when I interview for a new position, I always dress carefully. The shirt should be dry-cleaned so it's pressed nicely. Pants have creases, belt matches the shoes, shoes are shined, etc.
First impressions are hard to overcome. If you are not a tattoo-oriented person (I am not inked, and don't understand the attraction), be aware that competence can be hidden. Recognize your first impression for what it is, and except for the obvious and objective things it tells you ("this person has ear gauges" is objective) do your best to understand the person beneath the first impression. It is true that taller people make more money and are more likely to be promoted. Attractive people (women and men) are also more likely to get paid more. Don't be the manager that hires someone because he is attractive. Be the manager that finds competence and desire inside the person across the table from you.
And there are a million more things you can watch for and ask about. Be holistic in your approach. As you gain experience with hiring, you will notice which decisions were good ones, and which were bad. If you are careful, you'll learn from your hiring mistakes and not repeat them.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
November 18, 2014: The Slippery Slope of Fit
This is part 5 of a 7-part series on the hiring process.
Your candidate has met your qualifications, has the experience you want, and shows the right attitude. Actually, 3 of the 10 people you interviewed meet these criteria. What would differentiate between them?
The concept of fit is poorly defined and often discussed. It is essentially the answer to this question: When the individual joins the team, will his ability to interact with the team hinder or help the team? There are 2 main schools of thought on fit. One is that all team members should be alike to reduce friction. The other is that each team needs to have certain capabilities, and adding a new team member should add another capability or enhance a capability that already exists. Like a pair of jeans is not all denim, you need people who are the stitching, the buttons, the zipper, the rivets, to make a complete team.
There are managers who prefer to have their teams not question them. To them, a team player is a person who does what he is told, period. These managers usually prefer homogeneous teams. There is a value and stability to it. In some cases, where the objective is to maintain the status quo, this is perfectly appropriate. It is dangerous, of course, because things do change, and if your people can't talk to you about it, you'll be managing into a vacuum. Most businesses that are successful in the long term can not manage to the status quo. Thus, most teams who attempt to do so will find they are not successful in the long run.
Other managers prefer a little bit of rivalry, a little bit of diversity in the team. It provides a livelier team dynamic, and it's easier to manage a team with a little diversity because everyone gets a good feel for where he fits.
Other managers prefer a lot of diversity, the more the better. It is an open secret that many many more engineers are male than female. Or that fashion designers tend to be women or gay men. Or that trades such as carpentry and plumbing are dominated by men. My teams have been engineering teams, and I would usually receive 1 resume out of 60 or so that were from a female candidate.
I am obviously of the type that prefers a wide diversity in the workplace. If a female candidate meets my qualification minimum, I'll interview her. One team I managed ranged in age from early 60s to early 20s in age, very diverse in ethnic background, and we even had a little gender diversity. That team gelled more and got along better than any homogeneous team I have ever seen. There are all sorts of reasons why, a good topic for another time.
Now, back to our question of fit. What kind of team do you need? Will your team be tasked with doing the exact same thing day after day? Is there a personality profile that all very successful employees have who do that job? Does your team have set of tasks they must be able to complete, but not know from day to day what they will find? What personality types might do best in that circumstance? Or is your team completely self-directed, creating something out of nothing, and must improvise as a matter of course?
The more your team has to improvise, the more diversity you need in your team to be successful. It's not optional. If you hire people with all the same skill sets (in this finite world we live in, nobody can do everything) and they have to improvise, you will miss the creativity and leaps forward that you get with a diverse workforce.
There are many aspects of fit that used to be common 40 years ago but are no longer legal. You can not make a hiring decision based on a person's race, gender, age (if over 40), national origin, etc. You probably know the list already. It is easy and dangerous to start speaking in code about these things where "energy" = youth, and "good speaker" = talks like a white person. Do not get sucked into that trap. There lies danger both of the legal and functional kind. So, once you put all of these illegal and immoral things off the table, what are you left with to determine fit?
You have energy. I once hired a white-haired man with 35 years of work experience who was switching careers. He had more enthusiasm for the job that most of the people we interviewed. He was qualified, energetic, and understood that he would be starting on the bottom.
You have attitude. The person who sells himself as being dependable (but it sounds like he's plodding along) vs the person who sells himself as being a problem-solver where nothing is ever good enough. You may need some plodders, some people who lack ambition or ability beyond the role you are currently hiring for. You may need to bring some people into the team who have ambition or are potential leadership candidates later.
You have speaking choices. Is the candidate happy? Does she make a joke or two during the interview? Is the person going to have fun bantering with the team? Is the person, conversely, going to waste a large portion of the day bantering with the team? Does the candidate answer questions coherently? Does she use profanity? Is that a plus or a minus for your work environment?
The question of fit is a tricky one. You first have to know what kind of team you are building. Once you have a vision of that, then hire the person for the team you want, not the team you have. As people roll in and out of your team, you will eventually end up with people you chose. So choose your new people to make your team into the juggernaut it can be, with an appropriately diverse set of skills and abilities.
Your candidate has met your qualifications, has the experience you want, and shows the right attitude. Actually, 3 of the 10 people you interviewed meet these criteria. What would differentiate between them?
The concept of fit is poorly defined and often discussed. It is essentially the answer to this question: When the individual joins the team, will his ability to interact with the team hinder or help the team? There are 2 main schools of thought on fit. One is that all team members should be alike to reduce friction. The other is that each team needs to have certain capabilities, and adding a new team member should add another capability or enhance a capability that already exists. Like a pair of jeans is not all denim, you need people who are the stitching, the buttons, the zipper, the rivets, to make a complete team.
There are managers who prefer to have their teams not question them. To them, a team player is a person who does what he is told, period. These managers usually prefer homogeneous teams. There is a value and stability to it. In some cases, where the objective is to maintain the status quo, this is perfectly appropriate. It is dangerous, of course, because things do change, and if your people can't talk to you about it, you'll be managing into a vacuum. Most businesses that are successful in the long term can not manage to the status quo. Thus, most teams who attempt to do so will find they are not successful in the long run.
Other managers prefer a little bit of rivalry, a little bit of diversity in the team. It provides a livelier team dynamic, and it's easier to manage a team with a little diversity because everyone gets a good feel for where he fits.
Other managers prefer a lot of diversity, the more the better. It is an open secret that many many more engineers are male than female. Or that fashion designers tend to be women or gay men. Or that trades such as carpentry and plumbing are dominated by men. My teams have been engineering teams, and I would usually receive 1 resume out of 60 or so that were from a female candidate.
I am obviously of the type that prefers a wide diversity in the workplace. If a female candidate meets my qualification minimum, I'll interview her. One team I managed ranged in age from early 60s to early 20s in age, very diverse in ethnic background, and we even had a little gender diversity. That team gelled more and got along better than any homogeneous team I have ever seen. There are all sorts of reasons why, a good topic for another time.
Now, back to our question of fit. What kind of team do you need? Will your team be tasked with doing the exact same thing day after day? Is there a personality profile that all very successful employees have who do that job? Does your team have set of tasks they must be able to complete, but not know from day to day what they will find? What personality types might do best in that circumstance? Or is your team completely self-directed, creating something out of nothing, and must improvise as a matter of course?
The more your team has to improvise, the more diversity you need in your team to be successful. It's not optional. If you hire people with all the same skill sets (in this finite world we live in, nobody can do everything) and they have to improvise, you will miss the creativity and leaps forward that you get with a diverse workforce.
There are many aspects of fit that used to be common 40 years ago but are no longer legal. You can not make a hiring decision based on a person's race, gender, age (if over 40), national origin, etc. You probably know the list already. It is easy and dangerous to start speaking in code about these things where "energy" = youth, and "good speaker" = talks like a white person. Do not get sucked into that trap. There lies danger both of the legal and functional kind. So, once you put all of these illegal and immoral things off the table, what are you left with to determine fit?
You have energy. I once hired a white-haired man with 35 years of work experience who was switching careers. He had more enthusiasm for the job that most of the people we interviewed. He was qualified, energetic, and understood that he would be starting on the bottom.
You have attitude. The person who sells himself as being dependable (but it sounds like he's plodding along) vs the person who sells himself as being a problem-solver where nothing is ever good enough. You may need some plodders, some people who lack ambition or ability beyond the role you are currently hiring for. You may need to bring some people into the team who have ambition or are potential leadership candidates later.
You have speaking choices. Is the candidate happy? Does she make a joke or two during the interview? Is the person going to have fun bantering with the team? Is the person, conversely, going to waste a large portion of the day bantering with the team? Does the candidate answer questions coherently? Does she use profanity? Is that a plus or a minus for your work environment?
The question of fit is a tricky one. You first have to know what kind of team you are building. Once you have a vision of that, then hire the person for the team you want, not the team you have. As people roll in and out of your team, you will eventually end up with people you chose. So choose your new people to make your team into the juggernaut it can be, with an appropriately diverse set of skills and abilities.
Monday, November 17, 2014
November 17, 2014: Attitude
This is part 4 of a 7-part series on the hiring process.
By the time a candidate walks through your door for an interview, she has passed at least 2 tests already: qualification and experience. There may be others - a skills test for a administrative assistance, data entry operator, electronics theory. The list of possibilities is endless, but every candidate will have passed those two tests.
Every interviewer has her own list of things she wants to find in an interview. Some interviewers want to see how the candidate deals with pressure. Some want to test the candidate to see if her skills are what her resume claims they are. Some want to simply fit the job requirements to a candidate's skills and move on.
Of all the things that may become apparent in an interview, attitude is the single most important thing. As long as the candidate passes the initial screens for qualifications and experience, attitude almost always determines the rest. If a candidate is simply unable to communicate well, or is slovenly, or in some other way shows that he has unable to function to the position's social requirements, he will fail. But those kinds of failures are infrequent. Attitude drives the decision in most cases.
You've heard the adage "Attitude determines altitude"? Yes, it's cliche. And it is also true to a certain extent.
Attitude is key because attitude determines potential. In a previous post I wrote about how I would much rather have someone with a longer learning curve and higher potential than a short learning curve and lower potential. How does attitude determine potential? What qualities does an attitude of success have?
1) Willingness to take risks. Educated, reasonable risks. If a person does not take risks, he will never achieve greatness in anything.
2) Drive to succeed. In your business, "success" can be anything. Sales performance, quality artistic output, great industrial design, delivering all packages on time without damage. Whatever it is, the individual has to be internally motivated to succeed.
3) Engagement. The candidate must be interested and engaged in your endeavor, whatever it happens to be. Candidates should always have some questions for you. The best employee ever to be on my team was extraordinarily engaged. If there was something he didn't understand, he'd ask until he did understand. When I gave him an assignment, he'd bring me a proposal of hoe he would accomplish it and ask for my input. I'd give him suggestions, we'd go back and forth, and then he'd go away and finish it. And then he'd ask for something else to do.
4) Team-centered thought process. There are many very smart people in the world. Not all of them are willing to do what must be done to accomplish the job. I knew a manager once who was working on a large project. It became clear that the project was under-resourced. No additional resources were available for this highly specific task. So he put on his boots and got to work, turning wrenches and wrapping parts, doing what he could to help.
I place very little value on a "good soldier" attitude. Employees who are very obedient are also unwilling to take a risk. Risk is required to grow, and companies that don't grow, die. An obedient employee is unlikely to tell me when I'm wrong.
These attitudinal traits are all leadership traits. When you filter for these traits in particular, you run the risk of having 8 people on a team who all want to be a team lead. Some will relish the competition and being surrounded by competence. Some will realize that their chances for a leadership role may take a while to develop, and they will leave. Hiring this kind of person may increase your attrition rate. It will also deepen your potential leadership pool, drive your team to a completely different level of performance, and allow you to achieve far more than the bare minimum a less-motivated team will achieve.
Attitude determines potential in one simple mechanism: a positive, results-driven attitude leads the individual to learn and grow. Anyone lacking a positive results-driven attitude will only ever be able to what he is trained to do, as opposed to what he is capable of doing. And wouldn't you rather have someone who is achieving everything she is capable of instead of only what you have told her to do?
By the time a candidate walks through your door for an interview, she has passed at least 2 tests already: qualification and experience. There may be others - a skills test for a administrative assistance, data entry operator, electronics theory. The list of possibilities is endless, but every candidate will have passed those two tests.
Every interviewer has her own list of things she wants to find in an interview. Some interviewers want to see how the candidate deals with pressure. Some want to test the candidate to see if her skills are what her resume claims they are. Some want to simply fit the job requirements to a candidate's skills and move on.
Of all the things that may become apparent in an interview, attitude is the single most important thing. As long as the candidate passes the initial screens for qualifications and experience, attitude almost always determines the rest. If a candidate is simply unable to communicate well, or is slovenly, or in some other way shows that he has unable to function to the position's social requirements, he will fail. But those kinds of failures are infrequent. Attitude drives the decision in most cases.
You've heard the adage "Attitude determines altitude"? Yes, it's cliche. And it is also true to a certain extent.
Attitude is key because attitude determines potential. In a previous post I wrote about how I would much rather have someone with a longer learning curve and higher potential than a short learning curve and lower potential. How does attitude determine potential? What qualities does an attitude of success have?
1) Willingness to take risks. Educated, reasonable risks. If a person does not take risks, he will never achieve greatness in anything.
2) Drive to succeed. In your business, "success" can be anything. Sales performance, quality artistic output, great industrial design, delivering all packages on time without damage. Whatever it is, the individual has to be internally motivated to succeed.
3) Engagement. The candidate must be interested and engaged in your endeavor, whatever it happens to be. Candidates should always have some questions for you. The best employee ever to be on my team was extraordinarily engaged. If there was something he didn't understand, he'd ask until he did understand. When I gave him an assignment, he'd bring me a proposal of hoe he would accomplish it and ask for my input. I'd give him suggestions, we'd go back and forth, and then he'd go away and finish it. And then he'd ask for something else to do.
4) Team-centered thought process. There are many very smart people in the world. Not all of them are willing to do what must be done to accomplish the job. I knew a manager once who was working on a large project. It became clear that the project was under-resourced. No additional resources were available for this highly specific task. So he put on his boots and got to work, turning wrenches and wrapping parts, doing what he could to help.
I place very little value on a "good soldier" attitude. Employees who are very obedient are also unwilling to take a risk. Risk is required to grow, and companies that don't grow, die. An obedient employee is unlikely to tell me when I'm wrong.
These attitudinal traits are all leadership traits. When you filter for these traits in particular, you run the risk of having 8 people on a team who all want to be a team lead. Some will relish the competition and being surrounded by competence. Some will realize that their chances for a leadership role may take a while to develop, and they will leave. Hiring this kind of person may increase your attrition rate. It will also deepen your potential leadership pool, drive your team to a completely different level of performance, and allow you to achieve far more than the bare minimum a less-motivated team will achieve.
Attitude determines potential in one simple mechanism: a positive, results-driven attitude leads the individual to learn and grow. Anyone lacking a positive results-driven attitude will only ever be able to what he is trained to do, as opposed to what he is capable of doing. And wouldn't you rather have someone who is achieving everything she is capable of instead of only what you have told her to do?
Friday, November 14, 2014
November 14, 2014: The Value of Experience
This is part 3 of a 7-part series on the hiring process.
Let's take a moment to think about John. John barely finished college, but he got a good degree when he did so. He got his start in an entry-level position, and was trouble from the moment he walked in the door. He complained a lot, did not follow through on his commitments, and he seemed to have started looking for a new place of employment the moment he walked in the door. His performance when he was being productive was great; it was the intangibles that he lacked. In about a year, it was clear to him that his supervisor was not enamored of him any more, and he made good on his threat to find another job.
The next place John landed found a similar situation. John had a little experience, which was good, but his personal behavior was still less than optimal. After 2 years, this position ended in the same way.
John goes looking for his 3rd position. He meets all of your requirements: a degree in cupcake theory and evolution, 3 years of experience using that degree at competitor companies. By the qualifications benchmark, he is an instant and perfect fit. He interviews well: he is smart, charming, competent.
You have no idea about his poor work history, and no way of finding out. How much value do you put on his work experience?
In many cases, a hiring manager will lean heavily on industry experience. Most of my involvement in hiring has come in the way of hiring individual contributors. After making dozens of hiring decisions and noting how they worked out, my experience tells me that work experience makes very little difference. Here's why.
1) Just because another company made a decision to hire someone doesn't mean I should accept their decision. They may have made a bad hiring decision. Or the candidate could have been the prior manager's nephew. The simple fact that someone was employed before is not in itself a qualification.
2) No matter how skilled the candidate, there will be a learning curve as she adjusts to a new company, new customers, and the new company's specific business processes. This learning curve may be shortened by someone with relevant experience, but not eliminated.
3) For the right candidate, investing a year in training can pay off hugely. Do I want an experienced person who has a 3-month learning curve but a 1-year career ceiling? Or do I want someone fresh with a 1-year learning curve and a 10-year career ceiling? For almost every hiring need I have seen, the individual with a 10-year career ceiling is the better bet.
Is experience important? Sure. Someone who has done a specific job for a long period of time is probably competent at that job. Experience, however, is just a starting place. The individual will come into your company with a set amount of it. The individual has her entire career ahead of her, though. Most of her experience will come as part of your company, and certainly her experience in your company is going to be more relevant and helpful than her experience somewhere else.
Evaluating experience, however, must come with an evaluation of the individual's future potential and contribution. I will gladly hire someone with high potential and little experience over someone with high experience and little potential for growth. I don't recommend this for every hiring situation that every manager will ever see. It is important, however, that all hiring managers put proper value on potential vs experience. Whatever you choose will have a lasting impact on your company.
Let's take a moment to think about John. John barely finished college, but he got a good degree when he did so. He got his start in an entry-level position, and was trouble from the moment he walked in the door. He complained a lot, did not follow through on his commitments, and he seemed to have started looking for a new place of employment the moment he walked in the door. His performance when he was being productive was great; it was the intangibles that he lacked. In about a year, it was clear to him that his supervisor was not enamored of him any more, and he made good on his threat to find another job.
The next place John landed found a similar situation. John had a little experience, which was good, but his personal behavior was still less than optimal. After 2 years, this position ended in the same way.
John goes looking for his 3rd position. He meets all of your requirements: a degree in cupcake theory and evolution, 3 years of experience using that degree at competitor companies. By the qualifications benchmark, he is an instant and perfect fit. He interviews well: he is smart, charming, competent.
You have no idea about his poor work history, and no way of finding out. How much value do you put on his work experience?
In many cases, a hiring manager will lean heavily on industry experience. Most of my involvement in hiring has come in the way of hiring individual contributors. After making dozens of hiring decisions and noting how they worked out, my experience tells me that work experience makes very little difference. Here's why.
1) Just because another company made a decision to hire someone doesn't mean I should accept their decision. They may have made a bad hiring decision. Or the candidate could have been the prior manager's nephew. The simple fact that someone was employed before is not in itself a qualification.
2) No matter how skilled the candidate, there will be a learning curve as she adjusts to a new company, new customers, and the new company's specific business processes. This learning curve may be shortened by someone with relevant experience, but not eliminated.
3) For the right candidate, investing a year in training can pay off hugely. Do I want an experienced person who has a 3-month learning curve but a 1-year career ceiling? Or do I want someone fresh with a 1-year learning curve and a 10-year career ceiling? For almost every hiring need I have seen, the individual with a 10-year career ceiling is the better bet.
Is experience important? Sure. Someone who has done a specific job for a long period of time is probably competent at that job. Experience, however, is just a starting place. The individual will come into your company with a set amount of it. The individual has her entire career ahead of her, though. Most of her experience will come as part of your company, and certainly her experience in your company is going to be more relevant and helpful than her experience somewhere else.
Evaluating experience, however, must come with an evaluation of the individual's future potential and contribution. I will gladly hire someone with high potential and little experience over someone with high experience and little potential for growth. I don't recommend this for every hiring situation that every manager will ever see. It is important, however, that all hiring managers put proper value on potential vs experience. Whatever you choose will have a lasting impact on your company.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
November 12, 2014: The Value of Education and Qualification
This is part 2 of a 7-part series on hiring.
A job posting will nearly always have a set of criteria a person needs to meet to be qualified for the job. The implication is obvious: if a person does not meet all of the criteria, the person is not able to do the job. In practice, however, qualifications also include some nice-to-haves as well.
Does a manager of engineers need to have an engineering degree? Or does he need a management degree? Don't say he needs both degrees, because there aren't nearly enough people with both degrees to fill all engineering management positions. Many of those people, obviously, are doing a fine job without one or the other (or both) of these degrees.
The qualifications argument also has another implicit assumption: that the institution that provided the qualification did so in a way to ensure that the individual actually learned the concepts and can apply them. How many high school graduates do you know who have trouble reading? Or college graduates who can't write well? It is safe to assume that there are marketing grads who can't market, design grads who can't design, and MBAs who can't work their way through a balance sheet.
So what, then, is the value of education and qualification to a potential hire? Setting out a list of requirements or qualifications has the following benefits:
1) It narrows your candidate pool. When the list of requirements is steep, you may get fewer applicants for your opening. I know one tech company who lists "a bachelor's degree" as the only qualification for engineering or management positions. This widens their candidate pool, which has certain benefits.
2) Long-standing requirements for a team of people will mean that, over time, the skills of each member of your team will compliment each other.
3) A set of qualifications gives the candidate a specific lexicon that may be important. Does your candidate need to know about ROI and gross margin? Or should she know about spherical aberration and astigmatism? Or Lean 6 Sigma? Or the interaction of covalent bonds in a protein?
4) It shows the candidate understands the value of learning and was able to stick it out. To me, this is the key to education. A person who has finished a degree shows that he understands the long game, is willing to invest in his own future, and carries through to the end.
Those are it - there are people without engineering degrees who can engineer, people lacking business degrees who can business, people with no formal education in teaching who can teach. We all know people who display competence outside of their area of formal education.
When you are making your hiring decision (but hopefully before you even post the job), you need to decide which things are requirements (qualifications). The bar for setting a requirement is high: if the person does not have the requirement, she is not able to do the job.
When you interview a candidate for a technical position, it is important to probe a bit. Have someone in the room who is a subject matter expert on your requirements. I once interviewed a potential engineer who claimed to speak Japanese. Impressive for someone wanting to join a Japanese company. So I started speaking Japanese to him. He looked at me in shock (I don't look Japanese), and said (in English), "I only know a little." He didn't make the cut. His engineering skills were fine, but his honesty was questionable, a risk we did not need to take.
We have to rely on qualifications and education more as we consider candidates without much in the way of work history. These become less relevant the further along the individual is in his career. A person with a degree in marketing but a career in equipment maintenance might be a better fit for a maintenance position than a marketing position.
In summary, qualifications tell you something about a person; not nearly enough, certainly. So give qualifications some serious weight and consideration, but don't let that be your deciding factor.
A job posting will nearly always have a set of criteria a person needs to meet to be qualified for the job. The implication is obvious: if a person does not meet all of the criteria, the person is not able to do the job. In practice, however, qualifications also include some nice-to-haves as well.
Does a manager of engineers need to have an engineering degree? Or does he need a management degree? Don't say he needs both degrees, because there aren't nearly enough people with both degrees to fill all engineering management positions. Many of those people, obviously, are doing a fine job without one or the other (or both) of these degrees.
The qualifications argument also has another implicit assumption: that the institution that provided the qualification did so in a way to ensure that the individual actually learned the concepts and can apply them. How many high school graduates do you know who have trouble reading? Or college graduates who can't write well? It is safe to assume that there are marketing grads who can't market, design grads who can't design, and MBAs who can't work their way through a balance sheet.
So what, then, is the value of education and qualification to a potential hire? Setting out a list of requirements or qualifications has the following benefits:
1) It narrows your candidate pool. When the list of requirements is steep, you may get fewer applicants for your opening. I know one tech company who lists "a bachelor's degree" as the only qualification for engineering or management positions. This widens their candidate pool, which has certain benefits.
2) Long-standing requirements for a team of people will mean that, over time, the skills of each member of your team will compliment each other.
3) A set of qualifications gives the candidate a specific lexicon that may be important. Does your candidate need to know about ROI and gross margin? Or should she know about spherical aberration and astigmatism? Or Lean 6 Sigma? Or the interaction of covalent bonds in a protein?
4) It shows the candidate understands the value of learning and was able to stick it out. To me, this is the key to education. A person who has finished a degree shows that he understands the long game, is willing to invest in his own future, and carries through to the end.
Those are it - there are people without engineering degrees who can engineer, people lacking business degrees who can business, people with no formal education in teaching who can teach. We all know people who display competence outside of their area of formal education.
When you are making your hiring decision (but hopefully before you even post the job), you need to decide which things are requirements (qualifications). The bar for setting a requirement is high: if the person does not have the requirement, she is not able to do the job.
When you interview a candidate for a technical position, it is important to probe a bit. Have someone in the room who is a subject matter expert on your requirements. I once interviewed a potential engineer who claimed to speak Japanese. Impressive for someone wanting to join a Japanese company. So I started speaking Japanese to him. He looked at me in shock (I don't look Japanese), and said (in English), "I only know a little." He didn't make the cut. His engineering skills were fine, but his honesty was questionable, a risk we did not need to take.
We have to rely on qualifications and education more as we consider candidates without much in the way of work history. These become less relevant the further along the individual is in his career. A person with a degree in marketing but a career in equipment maintenance might be a better fit for a maintenance position than a marketing position.
In summary, qualifications tell you something about a person; not nearly enough, certainly. So give qualifications some serious weight and consideration, but don't let that be your deciding factor.
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