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Topgrading is too Dangerous to Try
Our phone has been ringing a lot recently with CEO’s of companies who are reaching out to me with questions about how to do a better job of implementing Topgrading – both to analyze their existing team to make it lean as well as to prepare for new talent acquisition as the economy is heating up and they’re ready to begin scaling again.
In nearly every situation, when I ask them why it is that they’re calling, they tell me, “Well, we tried Topgrading and it it was too hard or it took too long.”
It reminded me of an email I got the other day (I wish I could give credit but I entirely forget where I got it) that I thought I’d share in this blog:
Let’s conduct an experiment.
In the next paragraph, I’ll ask you to try to stop reading, close your eyes and count to 10. After which, you can open your eyes and continue reading.
Ready?
Close your eyes and count to 10. Give it a good try.
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-
-
-
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Did you stop reading, close your eyes and count to 10?
If you did, you didn’t try: you actually did stop reading.
If you didn’t stop reading, you didn’t try.
Confused?
Here’s the point, there is no “try.” You either do something or you don’t.
“Try” is a slippery word. At best, it communicates an intention; not a commitment.
I’ll try to make some call some people that should be on my “virtual bench” today.
I’ll try to get back to that compelling candidate this week.
I’ll try to get a firm plan from my management team around our talent needs for the next 12 months before the end of the month.
I’ll try to work with my HR Leader to help them understand the significance of Topgrading and why they need to learn about it.
You either schedule the time to complete the activity…or you won’t do it.
There is no in between.
Take a look at these two examples:
I’ll try to stop for the red traffic light.
I’ll try to love my children.
When the outcome is important, we leave “TRY” out of the equation.
The next time you’re about to say that you’ll “try to do” something, reconsider.
If the outcome of the activity is important, don’t try. Because if the activity (like Hiring the Right People) isn’t important, then why even try?
Tags: A-Players, american workforce, chris mursau, hire better, if outcome is important, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, Scorecard, strategic HR, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, try, virtual bench
Part 2 Incentive Pay and its Significance
A few months ago I wrote a blog post about how disgusted I was by the news of the Postmaster General and his compensation of nearly $1mm in 2008 even when the USPS lost so much money. The primary reason for my frustration in that post was because of TARP and the restrictions that the Government (which is leaning more and more left every day) wanted to place on incentive-based pay for executives at banks.
A couple of very significant things have happened since that blog post (which was written on March 2nd).
The first: GM, after receiving billions of dollars in federal “loans” because they were deemed too significant to fail (by elected politicians who receive massive support from Unions and the Auto Industry), finally went bankrupt. Anyone who didn’t see that coming back in November simply didn’t want to admit to the harsh reality of a company that was ultimately doomed unless it could shed its massive financial obligations and return to a management structure of fiscal prudence and actually providing a product that people wanted to buy.
GM has stayed in the news because they’ve got a massive overhaul to return to significance and it’s going to take a herculean effort by their new CEO to pull it off. What the government hasn’t bothered to really look at, because of its fear that if they have highly compensated executives at an organization like GM their constituents won’t vote for them, is that Incentive-Based pay, with HUGE performance bonuses, is exactly what their CEO needs. At the end of the day, why is he going to be punished for the sins of his predecessors?
Forbes had a brilliant article written at the end of May by Jack Dolmatt-Connell that you can find here. In it, he suggests that the CEO should have a four-pronged compensation structure that is based on:
- Cash Compensation that is limited to no more than $500,000 in base pay
- Equity Compensation tied directly to increasing the market cap of GM over a long period of time. The argument, if the CEO can turn around a company with a market cap of less than $1B and return it to its former prominence of $18B, they should be justly rewarded.
- Severance & Change in Command: if there’s a crisis, the CEO is an At-Will employee. They’re not entitled to a massive golden parachute if they get fired for cause. However, if the CEO can turn the company around and sell it, they should receive a significant bonus on the money that is left over after the taxpayers are repaid.
- Stock Grants: give them skin in the game that encourages prudence and gives a sense of ownership.
The second: I met with a long-time mentor of mine: the Honorable Carolyn Gallagher. Carolyn happens to be the Chairman of the Board of Governors for the United States Postal Service. I asked her some very blunt questions about the news surrounding the compensation package that Mr. Potter had received as the Postmaster General.
WOW! I was more than just a little surprised by her answers.
Because she had just returned from testifying in front of Congress, her understanding of the topic was very strong. Her argument for the justification of Mr. Potter’s pay was based on these points:
- He’s the CEO of one of the largest Companies (in both revenue and workforce) in America. Add to that, it’s a “quasi for profit” organization that leads all others in the mailing and delivery business.
- Over the past 7 years, he has reduced annual costs by more than $1B per year while facing a reduction in business that is unprecendented in the 234 years of the organization’s existence (15% alone in 2008).
- The pace with which mail volume has declined in the past 18 months has outpaced their ability to reduce costs because of the operational and financial restrictions that the government places on them.
- He’s been responsible for leadership that eliminated 50 million hours of paid labor in 2008 (approximately the equivalent of 25,000 full-time employees). He’s also proposed further cost reductions as well as a contraction of mail delivery from 6 days to 5 (a move that would save nearly $4B per year). That’s quite a bit different from our current government’s perspective of looking at anything but service cutbacks to get our budgets in line.
All of these points were both valid AND significant. They helped me better understand why Mr. Potter was likely under-paid (a mindset I would have never imagined leaving with) in 2008. But none of them had the impact on me that her last point did – and this should both SHOCK and ANGER you as a citizen of America:
“Adding to this unprecedented financial challenge is the requirement passed in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 that the Postal Service make payments of $5.4 billion or more per year to fund future retiree health care obligations. In fact, if not for this payment, the Postal Service would have earned a profit of $2.8 billion in 2008, an exceptionally challenging year.”
In case you’re wondering, the USPS is the ONLY organization affiliated with the US Government that is required to fund their future retiree health care obligations. While I believe that a model like this is fiscally prudent (though I don’t believe in pensions and retiree health care), it’s ridiculous to think that we could come anywhere close to predicting what the cost of healthcare will be 20 or 30 years from now.
I realized at this point, that our Postmaster General is not only deserving of incentive-based pay, he should be considered as a viable candidate for President of the United States. Not only is he running a massive organization that is profitable during a period of intense market pressures and decline in demand, he’s doing so while having to deal with heavy governmental criticism and oversight that is akin to him having to fight with one hand tied behind his back while at the same time improving customer satisfaction and delivery rates.
To you Mr. Potter and to you Mrs. Gallagher: BRAVO.
For Reference:
You can read the full transcript of the Honorable Carolyn Gallagher’s testimony in front of congress HERE.
Tags: 234 year history, align pay with performance, bankruptcy, barack obama, Carolyn Gallagher, congress, employee retention, fiscal prudence, forbes, fritz henderson, GM, Honorable Carolyn Lewis Gallagher, incentives, Jack dolmatt-connell, Jack Potter, John Potter, pension, performance bonuses, Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, postal service, Postmaster General, reduce mail delivery from 6 days to 5, retiree healthcare, stock grant, TARP, testify in front of congress, testimony, united auto workers, United States Post Office, USPS
Thoughts on the new book by Jim Collins: How the Mighty Fall
Jim Collins has been taking quite a beating in the news recently for a lot of what he wrote about in Good to Great and Built to Last. As it turns out, much of what he praised companies like Fannie Mae and Circuit City for has been emulated by thousands of companies around the globe. The problem: well, if you’ve had a pulse and watched the news for more than 10 minutes in the past year you’ll know that both of those companies aren’t in the best shape any more.
In response, Jim Collins has written a follow-up book called “How the Mighty Fall“. Fortunately for you, you can skip buying it at the book store and, instead, read this summary to capture what he’s trying to get across. Unfortunately, the book reminded me a lot of the scene a couple of years ago where Mark McGwire (one of my favorite baseball players of all time) sat in front of Congress and kept repeating over and over again, “I don’t want to talk about the past”. If you missed it, I found the video on YouTube.
Mark McGwire in front of Congress
The book was hastily put together, is a shorter read than Parade Magazine on Sunday (it’s only 123 pages), and feels more like Jim trying to save his reputation than actually get any point across.
That being said, here are the TWO nuggets that I was able to capture (and hopefully they’ll save you the pain of reading his short story):
PEOPLE NEED RESPONSIBILITIES (Page 57) “One notable distinction between wrong people and right people (in key seats) is that the former see themselves as having ‘jobs,’ while the latter see themselves as having ‘responsibilities.”
Verne Harnish suggests, “Every person in a key seat should be able to respond to the question “What do you do?” not with a job title, but with a statement of personal responsibility. “I’m the one person ultimately responsible for x and y.” Think columns two and three on our Accountability Worksheet. In fact, Collins, when he’s hosting executive teams at his research lab often challenges executives to introduce themselves not with titles, but by articulating their responsibilities.”
MANAGE WITH DISCIPLINE (Page 119) ”If you’ve fallen into decline, get back to solid management disciplines — now!” ”In fact, our research shows that if you’ve been practicing the principles of greatness all the way along, you should get down on your knees and pray for severe turbulence, for that’s when you can pull even further ahead of those who lack your relentless intensity.”
Tags: A-Players, built to last, circuit city, congress, fannie mae, flywheel, good to great, hedgehog, hire better, how the mighty fall, jim collins, management discipline, mark mcgwire, testimony, verne harnish
Why People Ask for References
If you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity you ‘ll know that I’m a big fan of Dave Kurlan. His blog and much of his company’s focus is on how to do a better job assessing sales talent before you hire them. What he also focuses a lot of his time on is making people better salespeople.
On June 3, Dave wrote a blog post entitled, “Salespeople and Requests for References“. He wrote the blog because a prospect he was hoping to sell his wares to asked him for references before they would agree to complete the transaction. It caused him to step back and analyze why someone would ask for references.
I read the post and gathered something entirely different from what he was hoping to get across. That was: this absolutely explains why a potential employer would ask for references as well! Geoffrey Smart, in the book WHO, suggests that 25% of what you’ll learn about someone will happen during the reference process. Even knowing that, when I surveyed a room of Entrepreneurs last week that I was talking with, nearly all of them admitted to hiring someone without ever asking for references and a full 100% of them said that they had, at least once, asked for references and then never called them.
Here are some of Dave’s points from that Blog Post. Do any of these apply to you as a hiring manager (in the context of the interviewing and selection process)?
Why would people ask for References?
- they are skeptical of your claims or promises;
- they weren’t referred to you by someone they know and trust;
- they haven’t previously bought from your company;
- they don’t understand what you sell;
- it’s their nature to ask (they always do that);
- they must invest more money than they had planned or feel comfortable with;
- they want to learn what it’s like to do business with you;
- they want to learn if there is anything to beware of;
- they prefer to be sold by your references, not you;
- they are simply using the reference request to put you off.
Tags: ask for references, Baseline Selling, Dave Kurlan, geoff smart, hire better, Interview, Objective Management Group, recruit don't absorb, Reference Check, talent acquisition, Topgrading, TORC, who the book
Questions to ask when Assessing your Company Culture
The Austin Technology Council held a CEO Roundtable on May 18th about “How Healthy is your Organization’s Culture”? The featured speaker was Dr. Carol Kallendorf, the Founding Partner of The Delta Associates. I made a commitment to Tweet more often and so I maintained a Twitter Stream throughout the whole event. If you’re not following me on Twitter, why not?
The event wasn’t an exceptional one as the featured guest has been in business of telling companies what they do wrong for over 27 years. Further, no matter how pointedly people asked her questions she had a political answer that wasn’t based on experience and instead, sounded like rhetoric. At the end of the event we all got handed a piece of paper (how very Baby Boomer) of the 10 questions you can ask to assess your organizational culture. While the document wouldn’t surprise you even if you were from Mars and didn’t even know what culture was, there were a couple on there that at least bore repeating:
- What are the issues that tend to align your Executive Team? What about fractionalize it?
- To what extent do the people in your organization have shared goals, vision or fate?
- Could your employees explain to their family members what it is that they do within the company that contribute to its success?
- Do people at all levels in your organization know what business you are in, how you make money and who your customers are?
- What’s your culture for handling mistakes and failure? What would your employees say is the culture for handling failure or mistakes?
- Do people like to come to work?
- How big a priority is culture?
Again, nothing earth shaking or really insightful but they ARE thought provoking. Can you make any changes today inside of your company that could represent a baby step in the right direction?
Tags: alisha ring, amwf, Austin, austin technology council, brian wong, carol kallendorf, change management, culture, delta associates, drive culture, Fame, Family, Fortune, Fun, hire better, talent acquisition, tweets, Twitter
In Defense of our Culture at American Workforce
Earlier this week I found myself on the phone with one of our service providers at American Workforce. The company: Monster.com. We’ve used their service with average satisfaction for about 5 years. Every year we step back and evaluate it but ultimately, we’ve chosen to invest the $10,000-$15,000 that they want to charge for access to a huge database of largely uninteresting people – many of whom need work Visas to make career moves.
Our account comes up for renewal at the end of May. We haven’t heard from anyone in their company since last September when our account was nearly cancelled FOR FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY.
A little bit of history – Last year an interesting thing happened: their Compliance Department caught wind of a report that the “seats” that we paid for were being used by IP addresses that weren’t in Austin, TX. This set off all kinds of alarms at Monster.com and I received a disturbing voicemail from a woman who more than suggested that we were guilty of fraud because of our usage and that the legal team was looking into canceling our account without a refund – essentially a loss of $10,000 for us.
Why were they accusing us of Fraud? Because our Corporate Address is in Austin, TX. ”If your address is in Austin, why would you have anyone with an IP address in Iowa, Kansas or Arkansas?” they asked. How very 1993 of them. I challenged that same Legal Team and their Compliance Team by asking,
“Have any of our seats EVER been logged into by more than one person simultaneously and in different geographic regions?”
“No, never once.” they responded.
“And is our usage on any of these accounts outside of our terms of use or so heavy that it would make you think that we were trying to be fraudulent or mis-represent ourselves in any way?”
“No, not at all.” was their answer.
It took me a week and about 20 hours of our senior team’s time to explain to their Legal Department that we’re a Virtual Company that’s built around team members who work from their homes because of the Balance that it provides to each and every one of us. We finally settled on an agreement with their team that we could give each and every one of our employees their own usernames and passwords and split up the usage of each “seat” into what was the equivalent of 50% of a traditional license. This satisfied their Legal team and it allowed us to avoid a $10,000 loss. My Account Representative at the time was a gentlemen named Chris Shaw. He stuck up for us, was the internal champion for our cause and put his reputation on the line with that same Compliance Department to vouch for us and insist that there wasn’t any fraudulent intent or activity.
Fast forward to this week: my new Account Representative called me 4 times over the course of a week – only bothering to leave a voicemail once (a hint: while we’re virtual we do have “real” phones that have caller ID). When Cortney, my Assistant, finally reached him to book our phone meeting, we were les than a week from our renewal. Here’s the breakdown of the conversation:
9:15 AM Central Time comes and goes (our agreed upon call time)
9:21 My phone finally rings. It’s my new representative. It’s clear he doesn’t understand how OCD I can be about the timing on phone calls. He starts the call with, “So how’s your business doing these days?” with an artificially chipper tonality. I politely asked if he had turned on the news in the last 9 months and then reminded him that we had 15 minutes booked for the call and we were down to 7.5 minutes left because of his tardiness.
9:32 I’ve had to explain, at length, what the entire situation was that had happened during the previous September. Apparently, the CRM system at Monster.com isn’t equipped to keep track of week-long legal boondoggles with clients that have paid them nearly $75,000 over 5 years. If you’ll remember, I mentioned earlier that Chris Shaw, our representative at the time, was a great advocate for us. Our new representative made it a point to remind me, at least 3 times during these 11 minutes, “Well, based on all of these exceptions that you benefitted from in the past year, you’ll clearly understand why Chris isn’t with our company any more.”
9:34 I’m now 4 minutes late for a commitment I made to call a prospective candidate for one of our biggest clients. As politely as I can muster, I shared with our representative, “Look, I appreciate that you’re not a fan of Chris. I also respect that you have a precious “rate card” that you’re allowed to discount from by 75% (side note, if a sales rep can discount by 75% off of a rate card, what’s the point of even having a rate card?), but unless you can wrap your brain around the fact that I’m VERY familiar with your legal contract and that I’m not willing to buy ONE seat (as he suggested) and pass around the username to everyone (which is in violation of their agreement) or 9 full, individual seats for our employees who spend about 1 hour per week each on your website, we don’t have much more to talk about. And I’m late for my next call. I need to go.”
9:36 It’s starting to get ridiculous. Every effort that I’ve made to be polite so that I can move on to my next commitment has been ignored. It’s as if I’m speaking an entirely different language. My representative has shared with me things like, “You know, 2 years ago we were only permitted to discount by 15%” and “What you received last September was clearly a one time thing and there’s no way I could get that approved again.” His arguments were as pertinent to our conversation as the amount of snow they received in the Napa Valley last year. ”I know we’ve gone a bit over our alloted time this morning Jonathan. Why don’t you let me go back to my managers and that Compliance Team from last September and see if I can work something out for you.”
3:10 Central Time – My representative called me back to share the news with me. ”Jonathan, what I’ve gotten approval for is to sell you 9 individual seats at 75% off of our rate card. This is a great deal. Can I send over the agreement?”
If you’ve hung with me and read all the way down to this part of this blog post I hope you’ll let me clarify something: My intent of this post was NOT to air the dirty laundry of my discussions with Monster.com. However, sharing that level of detail was critically important because this is what I want every company who acts as a service provider for us to understand:
- Our Core Values are NOT something that we just hung on a wall for everyone to ignore. Balance, Earning Trust and Adding Value play a significant part in every decision that we make every day.
- I (and We) will never apologize for or alter our decision to have hired the team that we have in place that just happen to work from their homes all around the country. Because we have Balance in our lives, the quality of the work that we do for our clients is TOP NOTCH. When we work, we work hard. And then we stop and spend time with our families. We don’t waste time commuting, attending pointless meetings or waiting in line for lunch in the same 15 minute period that everyone else has to run to the local fast food joint.
- We may need a concession or two from you, as a service provider, because we ARE different. Here are some of the companies who have acknowledged that and will be Partners of ours for a long time:
- Pioneer Bank in Dripping Springs, TX
- 8×8: the providers of Packet 8 Phones
- Apple
- Otherinbox
- 37Signals
- Jintech
- Clutch Creative
- Spross & Associates
And one final note to Monster.com: it’s 2009. It might be time for you to take a good hard look at services like LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Recruiter’s Earth, Door64, Google, Craig’s List and a host of other websites that passed you by a long time ago. For me, I’ll take the $13,000 I just saved by not renewing with your service and I’ll spend it on training our employees on AIRS. After all, our commitment to our clients is that they’ll HIRE BETTER. Your website simply doesn’t help us do that any more.
Tags: 8x8, A-Players, AIRS, american workforce, amwf, bad hires, career history, clutch creative, hire better, hiring, LinkedIn, Monster, monster.com, OtherInbox, pioneer bank, proactive recruiting, purchasing decisions, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, research, talent acquisition, talent vault, Topgrading, tweets, Twitter, unemployment, unemployment rate, virtual bench, zoominfo
Build It Right – Right from the Start
Hanging out with Early Stage Entrepreneurs is about my favorite thing in the world to do. For the past 18 months I’ve been actively involved in EO’s Accelerator Program which is dedicated to helping companies between $250k-$1mm grow faster and more efficiently through peer to peer learning, introductions to advisors and facilitated learning opportunities.
This morning I got the chance to share some of our best practices with the Portfolio Companies of Austin’s newest Incubator: Capital Factory. (If you’re interested, you can follow them on Twitter: @capitalfactory). I find it exhilarating to spend time with new companies and brilliant minds and I’m proud to have American Workforce be a supporter of this organization. This morning we focused on how each and every one of their companies has a chance to do things right – right from the start. None of them have started to hire employees yet but each of them has the plan to in the very near future. We talked about a number of strategies and the ways that they can make their companies attractive to top talent without having to spend a lot of money. But what I really challenged each of them to do was to analyze their Virtual Bench, build a repeatable screening process that gets to the point of what they need to find out about someone before hiring them, and thinking about the candidates’ perspectives when they are considering joining these new companies.
There were FOUR main questions that I asked them to really think about as we were wrapping up. If you’re a Business Owner, aspiring Entrepreneur or Manager, you should be thinking about these questions too:
- What is the first impression we provide to prospective A-Players when they come on-site to meet us?
- If we’re interviewing an A-Player and everyone knows it, are we willing to make our decision on the spot? If not, what else needed to happen during screening to make us comfortable and confident?
- Have we acknowledged the spouse or significant other and included them during the recruiting process? How could we?
- Are we ready to have new A-Players on our team? Can our management style challenge them so that they’ll stay and thrive in our company?
And the BONUS Question: Are we comfortable hiring people that have the potential to take our position?
Sure, Topgrading is tough to implement. But in the 2 years that I’ve been involved with it, I’ve found that it’s the questions above that impair companies and limit the effectiveness of the process more than conducting 4 hour interviews or executing on TORC. What are you doing in your company to Hire Better?
Tags: @capitalfactory, @joshuabaer, A-Player, A-Players, american workforce, amwf, aspiring entrepreneur, Austin, capital factory, chris mursau, emerging entrepreneur, EO, EO Accelerator, Fame, Family, Fortune, Fun, hire better, hiring, Interview, job description, josh baer, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, Scorecard, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, TORC, Twitter, virtual bench, who the book
What does your Careers Page say about your Company?
Just about every company’s website has a careers page where you can glean an awful lot of information about the kinds of people that a company is hiring and how much commitment they’ve put into wanting to attract (and land) the best talent. I’d like to encourage you to spend a little time today on each of the websites that I’ll list below to understand the amount of time that they’ve dedicated, the message they’re trying to portray and the people that they are hoping will be interested in their company. Each of these companies has done an exceptional job and they continue to update their content and portray their culture through this page on their site to their advantage. Enjoy!
OtherInbox: focused on giving the very best developers all the information that they need to realize how badly they want to go work there.
PricewaterhouseCoopers: the understanding that a Campus candidate is VERY different from an experienced candidate.
Boeing: catering to professionals who might otherwise be intimidated by the complexity of sorting through all of the geographic locations.
And a listing of some of the companies that, at one time, were the VERY BEST at recruiting but who have clearly shown that they don’t care about it much any more:
Trilogy: there was a time when they were able to hire anyone they wanted from the very best universities in America
GM: they’re in the news every day and even if they declare bankruptcy they won’t disappear but their Careers Page doesn’t reflect that.
Tags: A-Players, attract the best talent, Boeing, careers page, Fame, Family, Fortune, Fun, GM, hire better, hiring, job description, OtherInbox, PWC, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, talent acquisition, Trilogy
Buying Habits and Hiring Tendencies
I had the chance to dig through some old Fast Company magazines last night as I was feeling antsy and couldn’t sleep. While it made me realize that there were only about 3 articles in the last 5 years of Fast Company that were any good, it also reminded me of one of those rare nuggets of editorial genius that likely went unnoticed but one, in particular, was worth digging back up and discussing.
In December 2007, an article titled “How to Spot A Players” took up two pages of ink to show how various people have had a solid track record of figuring out who top performers are. Much of the article has to do with “VooDoo Hiring” as Geoff Smart would call it but the first section of this article is worth reading through once or twice. Here’s a snippet to help you understand why:
Portale invites potential hires to spend a few nights in his kitchen so both employer and employee can put each other to the test (a customary practice in the restaurant business). But beyond cooking competence and teamwork, Portale looks for a flash of something extra. “I watch for a certain positive energy, a certain intensity. I watch how they carry themselves. I watch how they stand. I look at their hands. I look at the way they pick up a plate or set it down,” he says. “It all comes across and tells me something I need to know.”
The gentlemen that the article is referencing is Entrepreneur and World-renowned Chef Alfred Portale. To put him in perspective, if he worked in the NFL or Major League Baseball, he’d be on par with Bill Belichick or Billy Beane for how incredible his track record is for hiring, grooming and promoting some of the very best Chefs in the world.
What does this article have to do with your personal Buying Habits? The simple answer: EVERYTHING!
An example: the last time you made a significant purchase (a house, car, television), think back on how it all happened. You likely did a lot of online research, went and tested the products out, checked out an open house, conducted test drives. While this is all pretty standard practice, how much time did you REALLY spend using or testing or living in the final product that you purchased? Did you have any buyer’s remorse afterwards because you realized that you hadn’t done as much work on the front end to figure out not only (a) what you wanted but (b) what you needed? Ever thought about writing a Topgrading Scorecard for something you were going to purchase? I just did it with our last car and it worked beautifully. By having the discussion with my wife about our needs, wants and desires, I was able to seek out the exact car that was going to be right for us without the risk of an emotional misstep (and for the record, the car we bought wasn’t even on our list of cars we thought would fit our needs in the first place!).
At American Workforce we believe that there are two reasons that new hires don’t work out:
- You didn’t know what you were looking for OR
- You failed to share what you were looking for with the new hire so that they knew exactly what you were expecting.
If you’ve been struggling with the consistency of your recent hires and are trying to figure out what to do differently, consider what Chef Portale has suggested about looking for more than just the hard skills (or features) and focusing on the softer skills that someone needs to have (like passion). It wouldn’t hurt to take a look at your personal buying habits as well. If you’re an impulse shopper or someone who’s always trying to find the lowest price, is that having an impact on your hiring? What about only doing research for a couple of hours on a Tuesday because you waited too long and your Car/TV/Cell Phone died and you needed to replace it too quickly and from only what was readily available in the store’s inventory?
I’ll close with a parting shot from Chef Portale:
“I don’t chase after people,” Portale says. “It’s very important that a person recognizes that being here is a positive experience and an important place for their career. If they don’t, they’re never going to work hard enough and learn, grow, and perform like they should.”
Without sounding like a broken record: is your company’s culture strong enough that the best people will take a position at your company without you chasing them?
Tags: A-Player, A-Players, american workforce, buying habits, chef portale, don't chase after people, fast company, geoff smart, hire better, hiring, Interview, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, Scorecard, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, who the book
CEO Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-09
- The EOers who are improving the world for Emerging Entrepreneurs: @lead_by_change, @andreazdril, @strategista, @sweetriot. #EOGLC #
- @sweetriot love the energy, passion & insight you brought to Accelerator’s Global Cmtee meeting this morning. Welcome aboard! #EOGLC in reply to sweetriot #
- When Facilitation goes right: identifying Dangers get people engaged, reviewing Opportunities gets them inspired! #EOGLC #
- The benefits of EO continue to amaze me. I simply can’t imagine trying to be an Entrepreneur without it. #EOGLC #
- #EO member just shared with me: Topgrading looks great! I read all 600 pages. How do I do it? #EOGLC (via @Topgrading) #
- Stunned! Sitting with Remington Green in NoLa. His company employs all WAHMs in a virtual company. I’ve met my soulmate. #EOGLC #
- EO staffers backstage with the most incredible Mardi Gras Floats. Once in a lifetime! #EOGLC http://yfrog.com/0espgxj #
- Jindal flw-up: if you want new biz in LA we need access to talent. If the Ritz is example, the gene pool is shallow #EOGLC (via @HireBetter) #
- #followfriday Anyone at #eoglc – @sjagger @jmb3883 @amwf @matthewweiss @sweetriot @govindh @dhassell (via @JeremyBrandt & @HireBetter) #
- I’ve proudly accepted my new Global Committee role for #EO under the Leadership of @andreazdril. I call it: Head Whackamole-er. #EOGLC #
- Tried to scare 6 new Accelerator Site Champions away w/ the daunting work it takes to launch. All 6 said, “Bring it on!” #EOGLC #
- Developing your Human Resources in a downturn. Compelling point: it isn’t coming from the HR Dept http://bit.ly/kYc8O (via @HireBetter) #
- Results.com’s @stephenlynch provides great insight on Mgmnt By Walking Around in The Economist http://bit.ly/bR1er #
- If the growth & improvements of EO’s Accel Pgm are indicators, Entrepreneurs ARE the most qualified to lead us out of Recession #EOGLC #
- Hey GLC, thanks for the invite to your awards, I had a blast!!! Congrats to all the winners!! #EOGLC (via @ace_frehley) #
- RT @jmb3883: EO’s Managing Director Bob is cracking up the staff office at #EOGLC. Best. Managing. Director. Ever. (AMWF: I concur) #
- Enjoying the innovation & energy of 30+ EO member-leaders that will shape Accelerator in 09-10 #EOGLC http://yfrog.com/5323176772j #
- Jindal gave best “entrepreneurs are welcome here” pitch I’ve seen & he meant it. His policies prove it (via @adrobins) #EOGLC #
- The hosts for tonight’s Rock Star awards. #EOGLC http://yfrog.com/0hiu9j #
- Ace Freeley from KISS attempts to compare Emtrepreneurs to Musicians: “we all wear blue nail polish, right?!”. #EOGLC #
- Jackie Berry (@jmb3883) named #EO Employee of the year in front of 600 members at #EOGLC. That drives culture! (via @HireBetter) #
- Don’t know where in Louisiana I could live that’s as cool as #Austin but if there was, I’d pack up the family. Jindahl’s impressive! #EOGLC #
- LAGov Bobby Jindahl is giving entrepreneurs incentives to move their companies.. #EOGLC. (via @dhassell) #
- Jindahl: “Why are unemployed insured & lose health insrnce when they get jobs? People behave if you incentivize. #EOGLC (via @HireBetter) #
- Bobby Jindahl live! So wise & eloquent. Awesome to hear an Indian American with a sweet Southern accent. #eoglc (via @sweetriot) #
- RT@adrobins: B Jindahl: As long as who you know is more important than what you know, businesses are going to hold back investment. #GLC09 #
- Your 2012 Republican Nominee for POTUS: Bobby Jindal. #EOGLC. http://yfrog.com/0gmoeuj #
- Getting the chance to hear Bobby Jindal at #EOGLC. Only state in US to lose more population than it gained for 15 straight years. #
- Very cool: 09-10 Incoming Austin Prez for EO gives each Board Member a Texas Football Jersey. #EOGLC. Look out NoLa. #
- @sweetriot #envy. in reply to sweetriot #
- @JeremyBrandt is #EOGLC our official tag for the weekend? in reply to JeremyBrandt #
- The 3 Defining Moments of GenerationY (born 1977-1995): Challenger, Gulf War on TV, 9/11. #
- GenYGuy: Boomers consider this GenerationY group “lazy” but they are the 1st generation that will work for more than 60 years! #
- GenYGuy: whole room moans when he shares falling home values, dropping retirement accounts but their 28 yr old w/ a Masters just moved home #
- Listening to the GenYGuy in #Austin explain to the Baby Boomers why GenY isn’t remotely affected by the Recession #
- Single greatest challenge of a globally distributed team: meetings that start at 11 PM get you fired up and you can’t sleep. Sigh… #
- My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. Thomas Jefferson #optea (via @dcjc) #
- @Coachjimbo Not unless the company doing the interviews is strong enough to “land” an A-Player. If not, they’ll get frustrated fast! #
- @snasta I believe Corey Bell at TriFusion would be a good place to start. in reply to snasta #
Tags: A-Players, american workforce, amwf, capitalism, capitalist, hire better, Recruiting, Topgrading, tweets, Twitter
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AMWF's CEO Tweets
- I love @thegrowthguy - his insight & explanations are spot on. http://budurl.com/yly5 (via @andymeadows) 14 hrs ago
- In case u were curious: Roger Clyne & Peacemakers 2nite in Austin & then U2 in Dublin on the 24th. She's a more expensive date than me. 1 day ago
- Realized tonight: I'm the luckiest guy on the planet. Why? W/in 3 weeks the wife & I will see our fave bands w/ each other for 1st time. 1 day ago
- To all my MIT classmates from #EOEMP10 - 16 shortcuts for Twitter http://bit.ly/KHLNj 2 days ago
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