HIRE BETTER™

Delivering the Systems and Expertise You Need to Make Great Hiring Decisions

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

08 Jun 09 | Employment, Recruiting, Retention | Read on | Comments (0)

Introducing our Brand Promise

At American Workforce, we’re big fans of Verne Harnish. His book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, is one that we strive to adhere to as much as possible. He devotes a significant amount of the book to something called a BRAND PROMISE. His overview:

“A measurable brand promise is crucial. It defines your company…it gives your organization something huge and galvanizing to strive toward. It does not overstate it one whit to say your brand promise is a single-minded measure around which all decisions are made.”

We’ve been working on our BRAND PROMISE for a couple of months now. Because this one piece of our business is so important in separating ourselves from the rest of a crowded and generally un-trustworthy industry, we knew it had to be good. After all, when you’re competing against companies that promise to hire quickly and cheaply, we felt it was mission critical to not only point out how wrong that line of thinking is, but also focus on the importance of hiring for the long haul. We call that Hire to Last.

And so, after months of deliberation and analysis, I’m excited to share with you the BRAND PROMISE that we’ve decided concisely and effectively declares what we do and how we’re putting our reputation and wallet on the line to ensure that we’re doing it right:

YOU’LL HIRE THE RIGHT PERSON.
EVERY TIME.
WE’LL STAKE OUR PROFITS ON IT.

Tags: a measurable brand promise is crucial, brand promise, hire the right person, mastering the rockefeller habits, stake our profits on it, verne harnish

10 Oct 08 | Recruiting | Read on | Comments (0)

Topgrading Vs. The E-Myth

I got forwarded a tremendous Whitepaper that was written by Doug Wick, a Certified Gazelles International Coach . This short document outlines, for the first time that I’ve seen, the differences in opinion between (a) hiring great people or (b) putting in place great systems. If you’ve read this blog with any consistency you’ll know that we’re huge fans of Topgrading at American Workforce so I was a little skeptical when I first saw the title.

Here’s the initial “teaser” for the article:

Successful business models must operate successfully with low-skill employees. Replicable models use systems that do not require high-skill specialists. If your franchise model requires a highly skilled and motivated clone of you, its potential success is structurally limited from the start. How many you have you met?

Systems-dependent models, unlike personality- or expert-dependent models, produce consistent results when replicated. Such systems allow ordinary people to produce reliable, predictable, yet extraordinary results. The Gazelles Inc, in their seminar Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, test Michael Gerber’s fundamental idea with a concept called Topgrading. What is Topgrading? It is a view that holds that high-skill-based models can be more profitable and still be duplicated consistently.

I’ve found myself sitting and reading this Whitepaper numerous times already since yesterday and I think that virtually every one of his arguments is well stated and thought provoking. Check it out, it’s worth a glance.

Tags: Brad Smart, doug wick, e-myth, gazelles, Gazelles Coach, hiring, michael gerber, rockefeller habits, smarttopgrading, systems, Topgrading, verne harnish, whitepaper

16 Sep 08 | Recruiting, Retention, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (0)

HIRE BETTER™

Delivering the Systems and Expertise You Need to Make Great Hiring Decisions

Thoughts on the new book by Jim Collins: How the Mighty Fall

Introducing our Brand Promise

Topgrading Vs. The E-Myth

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