Learn from the top 5 hiring mistakes

September 11, 2008 from Canadian Business – “As a business owner or manager, you know how tough it is these days to recruit the right people and keep them happy so they’ll stick around. The war for talent rages on, even if a bit less intensively in the past few months due to the slowing economy...”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – In this article, the author shares with us the five most common hiring mistakes made by companies. According to his experience as a human resource strategist and recruiter, these mistakes are made repeatedly, and they can be somewhat easily avoided.
The article points out that the five most hiring mistakes made are:
• Human resource strategy is lacking
• A poor ‘candidate experience’ is offered
• The hiring process begins when there is a vacancy
• The interviewer fails to create some ‘buzz’
• Managers aren’t properly taught how to hire
Gagne then gives us some practical advice on how to avoid making each of these five mistakes. So if you find yourself making the same hiring mistakes over and over again, this article is a must read for you.

As I stated in the past two issues of 180 Systems’ News & Views, it never ceases to amaze me how much money companies invest in inventory, plant and equipment, and technology, yet how little they invest in human resource management, especially in the hiring process.

Time-Management Tips for Mobile Professionals (Randy Pausch)

August 27, 2008 from PC World – “As a topic, time management is about as exciting as watching flies buzz around a no-pest strip. But would you be interested in learning about time management from someone with only months to live?

The time management expert in this case was Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who passed away on July 25 at age 47 from pancreatic cancer. Along with his now-famous "last lecture" about achieving your childhood dreams, Pausch also delivered a lively, inspiring speech on time management to the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science in November 2007. You can watch a video of the lecture or read the transcript.”

180 View – Randy was as funny as he was wise and inspiring. We recommend you watch at least one of his videos.

Making talent a strategic priority

January 2008 from The McKinsey Quarterly – “Companies like to promote the idea that employees are their biggest source of competitive advantage. Yet the astonishing reality is that most of them are as unprepared for the challenge of finding, motivating, and retaining capable workers as they were a decade ago…”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – In this article, the authors talk about making talent management throughout the enterprise a strategic priority, and the fact that executives must constantly rethink the way their companies attract, motivate and retain employees. Unfortunately, this challenge is easier stated than met! A global survey conducted by McKinsey in 2006 revealed that business leaders ‘regarded finding talented people as likely to be the single most important managerial preoccupation for the rest of this decade’.

As I stated in the August, 2008 issue of 180 Systems’ News & Views, it never ceases to amaze me how much money companies invest in inventory, plant and equipment, and technology, yet how little they invest in human resource management, especially in the hiring process. From what I’ve observed in the field, those making hiring decisions often knowingly hire ‘B’ and ‘C’ players due to short-term constraints, such as lack of time and insufficient budget to name but a few.

Of course, not every hire will always be an ‘A’ player. That’s why, as this article points out, it is so important to pay appropriate attention to the ‘B’ and ‘C’ players in the company:
“Companies must therefore address the needs of talent at all levels of the organization. Unsung segments—frontline staff, technical specialists, even the indirect workforce, such as people who work for suppliers, contractors, and joint-venture partners—are often as critical to overall success as ‘A’ players. Experience suggests that an exclusive focus on top players can damage the morale of the rest of the organization and, as a result, overall performance.”

So, if you are truly committed to attracting, motivating and retaining the talent your company requires in order to operate with more control, less stress and greater efficiency, my advice to you is simple – STOP TALKING ABOUT IT AND START DOING IT!

Make sure that talent management is a strategic initiative that is embedded throughout the organization’s human resource practices, and then commit the energy and dollars to turn this cornerstone of the strategic plan into reality. I promise that everyone will come out a winner, and shareholders and employees alike will wish that you had done it sooner!

"Star Search"—Talent Management Made Simple

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – In this article, author Sherry Fox talks about ‘talent management’, the process of attracting, hiring and retaining highly skilled employees for your business.

While the term talent management may be new to you, the problem it addresses is surely not. In fact, as the article points out, a 2007 survey of 500 executives of small and medium-sized companies revealed that talent management is their greatest business concern after revenue.

And from where I sit, it should be. As the article states, “And whether companies are willing to admit it, at the end of the day, it’s their people that are going to make the difference to their bottom line”.

It never ceases to amaze me how much money companies invest in inventory, plant and equipment, and technology, yet how little they invest in human resource management. Over the years, I’ve heard more than one entrepreneur tell me “why should I spend money training my employees on this new software when eventually they’re going to quit and go work for my competitor?” And then they wonder why they don’t see the benefits they expected, and should have gotten, from their new computer system!

A word of caution-some of what this article talks about, like an ITM solution, may be overkill for some companies. But there is plenty of good advice in this article that should be heeded by companies of all types and sizes – for example “companies that tolerate employees who continually underperform-especially in the area of management-can pay the highest price of all”.
And the last paragraph of the article that talks about your “star performers” couldn’t be truer –“letting them walk out the door is like shooting yourself in the corporate foot”.

Understanding Why Good Workers Quit

May 2, 2008 from an article by Robert McGarvey published on internet.com – “Keeping key employees really comes down to finding out who they are and what they like. And it’s more important than ever.”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – If you are Canadian, you undoubtedly have heard of the giant steel maker Dofasco. Why if you’re Canadian-because Dofasco always ends their radio and newspaper ads with the byline “Our product is steel. Our strength is people”.
I must say that this catchy phrase has always stuck with me, and in part is responsible for Human Resource Management being one of the areas of specialty in my consulting practice. And the more I advise companies on how to attract, manage and retain great people, the more I realize that for the most part, HR management is all about doing the simple stuff.

In fact, the two bestsellers of all time are my guiding lights on HR management. The Bible tells us to ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. And Dale Carnegie’s 1936 book called “How to Win Friends and Influence People” tells us to ‘Put yourself in the other guy’s shoes and ask yourself what’s in it for him’.

In this practical, down-to-earth article, Robert McGarvey says us that ‘the secret to retaining your best employees starts with knowing who they are’. HR expert Beverley Kaye suggests that we get to know them by proactively doing a ‘stay’ interview instead of reactively doing an ‘exit’ interview. She suggests that ‘when stay interviews are part of the culture-and this a practice in very few companies-attrition of the people you don’t want to lose plummets’.

So what do you ask in a stay interview? The simple stuff. Ask your employees simple questions, like ‘what can we do to keep you?’ Ask them what they like and don’t like about the company and their job. And be honest with them. ‘If the employee asks for things you cannot deliver, be direct in acknowledging it but also indicate what you can do. Know too that that just by talking to employees in this way you are scoring points because it’s something that just does not happen in most companies’.

At the end of the day, human resource management comes down to this – you either believe, like Dofasco, that one of the greatest strengths of your company is the people you employ. Or you don’t!

If you are a believer, then continuously do the simple stuff. Show your valued employees that you care about them. Treat them with respect. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. And above all, make it easy for them to tell you how they feel, and listen to them with an open mind.

And if you are not a believer, then…good luck to you!

Preparing for the next downturn

April, 2007 from the McKinsey Quarterly – “By our reckoning, nearly 40 percent of leading US industrial companies toppled from the first quartile in their sectors during the 2000–01 recession, and a third of leading US banks met the same fate. At the same time, 15 percent of companies that had not been industry leaders prior to the last recession vaulted into those positions during it...”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – I’d like to preface my thoughts by making one thing perfectly clear – I’m not knocking economists! I for one fully understand that nobody’s crystal ball provides 20/20 vision.

But are you as confused as I am when you read the newspaper these days? One well-respected economist says the cost of oil could hit $200 a barrel by year-end; another says oil is going to drop back to $90 from its current level of about $115. The prime rate has been cut twice over recent months, but now the word on the street is that rates may rise in the not-too-distant future. Oh well, like Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson aptly said “Economists have correctly predicted nine of the last five recessions”.

While economists may not agree on everything, they all seem pretty convinced of this-tough times lie ahead! Some feel the United States is in a recession now, some say a recession is coming, and some don’t believe the timing of the next recession is imminent. But the ‘R’ word aside, an economic downturn in the short-term seems to be a given to all pundits.
So what do corporate managers do now? Simply take a ‘weather the storm’ attitude? If history repeats itself, as it always seems to, fruitful opportunities await those who are willing and able to ‘seize the moment’ when the opportunities surface on the rocky road that lies ahead.

So what can a manager do today in order to exploit these opportunities down the road? This article, published a little over a year ago, reported on the study of the performance of some 1300 U.S. companies before, during and after the recession of 2000-01.

In short, the research clearly showed that three kinds of corporate flexibility can significantly help managers embrace opportunities that emerge during a recession. And insofar as human resource management prior to an economic downturn is concerned, gains in employee productivity today will go a long way to increasing a company’s flexibility when times get tough.

We all know the old saying ‘timing is everything’. Well, now may be the best time of all to seek out productivity improvements in your work force. Equip your workers with the tools they need to do their jobs efficiently. Run ‘lean and mean’ by re-engineering your business processes to cut out the fat. And as this article concludes, ask yourself today if you are ‘building the financial, operating and product flexibility to make the most of the next downturn’.

The Secret of Business Success: Great Employees (Duh!)

March 10, 2008 from bMighty.com - "Of course a great idea, a solid business plan, and careful spending are important ingredients in a successful company. But as an incendiary blog posting (unwittingly) revealed -- and what all smaller businesses need to always remember -- is that great employees are what make it all work. Make sure they want to stick around."

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – In this thought-provoking article, Naomi Grossman writes about the responses received to a blog posting by Mahalo CEO and internet entrepreneur, Jason Calacanis, who had provided ’17 tips to save money while running a startup’.

One of Calacanis’ tips was to “Fire people who are not workaholics”. Needless to say, most of the nearly 200 people who responded to this suggestion were quite irate at Calacanis and his perceived ‘scrooge’ approach to human resource management.

One blogger went so far as to give five reasons why one should fire-the-workaholics, and added: “If your start-up can only succeed by being a sweatshop, your idea is simply not good enough. Go back to the drawing board and come up with something better that can be implemented by whole people, not cogs”.

Allen Stern at CenterNetworks wrote: "In all of my years of management, the best thing I ever did was give my teams more room to breathe. I'd put my hours worked in my career against anyone and I can assure you that I've lost a lot of great chances with great people because of putting work first always. Jason should consider it as well if he wants his team to stay on. Short term his strategy works, but won't in the long run. Burnout comes quick and with all of the current opportunities out there, people will leave when they are burned out. And when they leave, it will be at the worst time."

Following the hullabaloo of the negative sentiment expressed, can-you-have-a-life-and-work-at-a-startup-companyreeled it in and reconsidered, sorta. In fact, he stated that he really meant to say that employees need to be passionate about their job and the company they work for that, and he suggested that perhaps the headline of his ’17 tips’ article should be changed to"Calacanis fires folks who don't love their work”.

In my 30+ years in the field, I have often seen managers complain that their employees ‘don’t burn enough midnight oil’. In fact, a number of years ago the owner of a medium–sized distribution business in New York told me that he wanted to fire his Controller since the man went home between 6 and 7pm each day. When I suggested to him that the Accounting department was, to the Controller’s credit, the only well-functioning department in the company, the owner told me that he would prefer a Controller who stayed till 10 pm each night like him even if the work wasn’t done on-time or as well.

Empirical observation has taught me that measuring the hours one works is one of the first and most constantly taken measurements of an employee’s performance. Why? In my opinion, because it’s the fastest and easiest measurement to take. Sure, all things equal, the longer one works, the more one gets done.

But if truth be told, all things are not always equal. Productivity is impacted by many factors that are within the employer’s sphere of control, such as communicating clearly defined and achievable goals, providing the employee with the right tools to get the job done, assigning employees with sufficient skills to perform the task at hand, etc. Of course, there is no substitute for working hard, but one has to be conscious of the line that separates the positive benefits of hard work from burn-out and other negative consequences that often plague chronic workaholics.

By the way, one of my recommendations to the owner of the distribution company was to seek psychological counseling with respect to the anger and resentment he had towards employees who lived a more balanced and productive life than he did. Unfortunately for him, he did not take my advice to heart, and today he is a lonely and bitter individual, albeit a very financially successful entrepreneur. I suppose it all boils down to how one measure’s one’s own success!

What Makes Great Companies Great?

January, 2008 from Computerworld, based on a research report in the current Harvard Business Review – “What differentiates the companies you wrote about? They’re part of a shift from command-and-control, rules-based hierarchies to a more open, free-form flexible organization where guidance comes from values and principles supported by templates and IT systems that allow people much more freedom to cross what would have been traditional lines of jobs.”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – In this informative article, Computerworld reporter Kathleen Melymuka interviews Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, whose two year research project set out to discover what’s behind the greatness of companies such as IBM and Proctor & Gamble.

Professor Kanter reveals that what she discovered ‘is simpler and more profound than you might imagine’. For example, she concludes that great companies ‘are very clear about values and principles’. She also discovered that great companies ‘have standardized platforms, templates and processes that give people a common way of doing things’. Finally, she tells us that great companies show their employees respect and give them autonomy in performing their tasks.

Hardly rocket science or mind altering, I’m sure you’ll agree. And if my two cents are worth anything, I can tell you that my observations of corporate greatness over the past 33 years in the field correlate fully with Professor Kanter’s findings.

Need more proof that human resource management is all about the time-proven ‘simple stuff? Then consider this-the two best-sellers of all time are the Holy Bible and Dale Carnegie’s 1936 masterpiece ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’.

The Good Book tells us about God’s Ten Commandments, one of which is ‘Do unto Others as You’d Have Them Do unto You’. Dale Carnegie tells us to ‘Put yourself in the other guy’s shoes, and ask yourself what’s in it for him’.

Empirical observation will undoubtedly show you that an employee’s productivity is inextricably linked to their overall level of contentment in the workplace. Sure, other factors play a significant role too, like organizational structure, tools and processes. But if your employees lack respect and motivation, your company will join the long and never-ending list of ‘me-too’ companies that never achieve greatness.

For a comprehensive study on what makes companies great, you may wish to read Jim Collins’ book entitled ‘Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't’ (Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 2001).

Building the Civilized Workplace

May, 2007 from The McKinsey Quarterly, a publication of McKinsey & Company – “Nasty people don't just make others feel miserable; they create economic problems for their companies….”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – In this article author Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, talks about the importance of avoiding having, and if necessary rooting out, any bullies and jerks in the workplace.

According to Sutton, research shows that these undesirable employees ‘not only hinder recruiting and retention, but also raise levels of client churn, damage reputations, and diminish the confidence of investors’.

In our experience, the most successful companies are those whose culture is built upon a zero-tolerance’ towards abuse or nastiness in the workplace from anyone at anytime. Furthermore, best-of-breed companies we’ve seen are those that extend this ‘no-jerks’ policy to customers, suppliers and anyone else who interacts with its employees.

For as the author points out, and as we’ve seen over and over again, ‘persistent nastiness that is left unchecked can create a culture of contempt infecting everyone it touches’.

Managing Tomorrow's People: The future of work to 2020

December 2007 from PricewaterhouseCoopers - "Organizations operating in today’s world are facing some of the greatest people management challenges in the history of business: the talent crisis, an ageing workforce in the Western world, the rising demands for global worker mobility as well as the organizational and cultural issues emerging from the dramatic pace of change in the past ten years. But how will these changes impact businesses over the next decade, and what other social, economic, environmental and demographic factors will have an impact on the world of work?"

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – As we usher in another new year, the eighth in this the third millennium AD, it’s only fitting that we look ahead at the year to come. But perhaps we should be looking much farther out in time when it comes to certain trends that will have far-reaching implications on our daily lives.

In this extremely illuminating 31 page report, international accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers reports on the results of a major research study that they conducted in July, 2007. Author Michael Rendell, PwC’s Partner and leader of Human Resource Services at PWC, says that the study was sparked by:
1. The rising profile of people issues on the business agenda
2. The talent crisis
3. An ageing workforce in the western world
4. The increase in global worker mobility
5. The organizational and cultural issues emerging from the dramatic pace of business change in the past decade.

Rendell and his team “wanted to explore how these issues might evolve and how organizations need to adapt to stay successful”. So they interviewed nearly 3000 ‘Millennials” – new graduates from the United States, China and the United Kingdom who represent a generation just joining the workforce – to understand their views and expectations on the future of work.
Based on the data they gathered, the researchers saw several strong themes emerging:
1. BUSINESS MODELS WILL CHANGE DRAMATICALLY-the pace of change in the next decade will be even greater than what we’ve seen up to now.
2. PEOPLE MANAGEMENT WILL PRESENT ONE OF THE GREATEST BUSINESS CHALLENGES-by 2020 the radical change in business models will result in companies facing issues such as the disappearance of the boundary between work and home life.
3. THE ROLE OF H.R. WILL UNDERGO FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE-perceived to be at a crossroads today, it is projected to follow one of three very different paths.

Amongst the things that caught our eye was the researchers’ vision that come 2020, three very different worlds of organizational structure and business models will likely co-exist.
While some of PwC’s findings confirm current views on the future of work, a number of themes are clearly emerging that defy conventional thinking. If you want a ‘heads-up’ and some very valuable insight into this critical area of your business going-forward, you must invest some time to read this eye-opening report.

Learning – A Key To Profits

December, 2007 from Loma Resource – “According to a new research study by Towers Perrin, the people in an organization make the difference. Organizations need engaged employees to prosper, and one of the keys to producing engaged employees is providing learning and development, the study emphasized.

Julie J. Gebauer, managing director of Towers Perrin, said the study confirmed that organizations with engaged employees deliver higher performance and produce better financial results…”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – When was the last time you wondered what it takes to attract and retain a stable workforce of highly motivated and productive employees? How often do you feel like you just keep spinning your wheels and wasting money when it comes to human resource management?

In this excellent article, author Ron Clark reports on a major Towers Perrin research study which found that learning and development is one of the key factors in increasing employee engagement, which, in turn, is linked to a company’s financial performance.

The article explains that engaged employees “have an emotional attachment to the organization, their job and their work. They have a rational understanding of the organization’s goals, values and how they contribute. And they have the motivation and willingness to invest discretionary effort to perform better.”

Clark then shares with us the five key insights gleamed from the research study conducted on almost 90,000 employees in 18 countries during the summer of 2007. Insightful indeed!

If you want to rid yourself of the stress that comes from managing people that aren’t ‘turned on’, you’ve got to invest a few minutes and read this article from beginning to end. But remember, the theory is only as good as how well you put it into practice.

Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse

April 25, 2007 from Harvard Business School – “Most people at one time or another feel as if they are just spinning their wheels, unable to gain traction either in career or in life. This feeling of being stuck in one place, while troubling, is part of a necessary crisis leading to personal growth, says Dr. Timothy Butler, Senior Fellow and Director of Career Development Programs at Harvard Business School. "

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – How often do you feel that you are ‘stuck in the mud’? What do you do when the challenge you face seems overwhelming and insurmountable? When was the last time you approached a difficult problem by truly thinking ‘outside the box’?

In this Harvard Business School article, HBS’s Timothy Butler shares with us his six-step approach to getting ‘unstuck’. He tells us how to determine when we’ve really ‘hit the wall’, and more importantly, how to get beyond the impasse we face both at work and at home.

If you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again, or if you simply have difficulty managing change in your life, this article is a must read for you. It was even an eye-opener in certain places for a change management consultant with 30+ years of experience like me.

Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator

October 3, 2007 from Harvard Business School – “What do you do when the people with whom you are negotiating act in ways that can best be called counterproductive?”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – Unless you live alone on a deserted island, you are constantly required to negotiate for what you need to live and what you want out of life. Whether it’s getting your kids to do their homework and eat their vegetables, or getting your boss to give you a raise or a promotion, what do you do when you seem to be negotiating with someone who ‘just won’t give in’? Have you ever tried persuading someone to see it your way that just doesn’t seem to ‘get it’?

In this Harvard Business School article, HBS professors Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman tell us that “Negotiators who are quick to label the other party ‘irrational’ do so at great potential cost to themselves”. They then describe how to improve our dealmaking skills by showing us what to do when the other party’s behavior does not seem to make sense.

To further learn how to negotiate more skillfully and confidently in any environment, click here for another HBS article published on September 26, 2007.

How Much of Leadership Is About Control, Delegation, or Theatre?

July 10, 2007 from Harvard Business School – “The flood of writing about leadership continues. It reflects our fascination with what many believe to be the most important influence on organizational performance. In a thought-provoking book published last year, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton suggest that the overriding impact of leadership on performance is a myth, or at least only a half-truth. 30 years ago, in reviewing research on leadership, Pfeffer concluded at that time that actions of leaders most often explain no more than 10 percent of performance..."

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – As Charles Dickens wrote in 1859 in his acclaimed work ‘The Tale of Two Cities’: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”.

Perhaps the same can be said nearly 150 years later. Our world today is mired with political, social and economic volatility. The ‘haves’ are a tiny minority amongst the ‘have nots’. The newspapers are awash with story after story telling us ‘regular folk’ that our leaders seem more driven by their personal agendas than their mandates and fiduciary duties as leaders.
We count on our leaders, be they politicians, businesspeople, or those who guide non-profit organizations, to “make things happen”. But alas, there are three types of leaders in this world-those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say “what happened?”

The issue of leadership has been the subject of intense study since the earliest days of recorded civilization. Modern day research on organizational performance, as evidenced by Jim Collins’ bestseller ‘Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don't’, have usually suggested that leadership is omnipotent insofar as corporate results are concerned.

However, other studies disagree on the overall affect of leaders on organizational performance. For example in their 2006 book ‘Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management’, authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton suggest that “the overriding impact of leadership on performance is a myth, or at least only a half-truth. Thirty years ago, in reviewing research on leadership, Pfeffer concluded at that time that actions of leaders most often explain no more than 10 percent of performance. Such things as a company's operating environment, the economy in general, or its long-run success or failure account for more of its current performance.”

Harvard Business School Professor James Heskett invited commentary on this thought-provoking topic that has far-reaching consequences, and this article contains his original article together with 127 comments that he received from readers with various backgrounds and experiences.

In short, the comments indicate that we sorely need leaders that are visionary, creative, courageous, intelligent, persistent, charismatic, and most of all, passionately committed with unfaltering integrity to placing the needs of those they serve ahead of their own personal needs and wants.

History has proven that our greatest leaders shared a common strength and purpose - the ability to envision a radically different future from the condition of life during their lifetime. They were also relentlessly persistent notwithstanding that they understood that they would not see the full results of their efforts during their lifetime. As well, they had the personal courage to confront both internal and external threats, with vision beyond the conventional wisdom of their day. We must therefore look to our past great leaders as role models in order to seek out or become the great leaders of tomorrow.

Fool vs. Jerk: Whom Would You Hire?

July 25, 2005 from Harvard Business School – “When given the choice of whom to work with, people will pick one person over another for any number of reasons: the prestige of being associated with a star performer, for example, or the hope that spending time with a strategically placed superior will further their careers. But in most cases, people choose their work partners according to two criteria. One is competence at the job (Does Joe know what he's doing?). The other is likability (Is Joe enjoyable to work with?). Obviously, both things matter. Less obvious is how much they matter—and exactly how they matter...

These two criteria—competence and likability—combine to produce four archetypes: the competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant to deal with; the lovable fool, who doesn't know much but is a delight to have around; the lovable star, who's both smart and likable; and the incompetent jerk, who…well, that's self-explanatory. These archetypes are caricatures, of course: Organizations usually—well, much of the time—weed out both the hopelessly incompetent and the socially clueless. Still, people in an organization can be roughly classified using a simple matrix.

Our research showed (not surprisingly) that, no matter what kind of organization we studied, everybody wanted to work with the lovable star, and nobody wanted to work with the incompetent jerk. Things got a lot more interesting, though, when people faced the choice between competent jerks and lovable fools…”

180 View – As I (Lawrence Young) have repeatedly observed, the great majority of individuals empowered to hire new employees are genuinely concerned with ensuring that each new employee will be effective with respect to fulfilling the duties stated in their job description (alas, the importance of a clear job description!).

How likable the candidate is, while significant, is normally secondary to his or her core competence. As the article states about one person’s view on the subject: “I really care about the skills and expertise you bring to the table. If you’re a nice person on top of that, that’s simply a bonus.”

It’s also well understood that how the new employee will be perceived by others becomes an important factor in that employee’s overall effectiveness. As the article states, “…social psychologists have long known that we like people who are similar to us.”

My experience has often showed, as the article states, that the problem of choosing to work with similar people is “the limited range of perspectives that a homogeneous group often brings to bear on a problem”. In other words, a group comprised mainly of people who are similar often suffers from the’ drinking your own bathwater’ syndrome. In acute situations, the authors suggest that “if you keep hiring only people you like, you can kill a company.”

Given all of the above, who is the ideal candidate to hire? Cleary, it’s the ‘lovable star’, someone who’s both ‘smart and likable’. Only one problem-the candidates you have to choose from may not always include such a sought-after individual.

Assuming you will always avoid hiring the ‘incompetent jerk’, you may have to choose between the ‘competent jerk’ and the ‘lovable fool’. Not an easy decision to have to make, but sometimes in life, ‘it is what it is’. Given this choice, I suggest that the job description may facilitate the decision. For example, hiring a chemist who will be working in a laboratory and who will be secluded from the rest of the work force is arguably different than hiring a front line individual who will be answering the phones in a call centre. And as the authors point out, when given the reality of having to hire a less-than-ideal candidate, “that doesn’t preclude executives from doing some things that will positively affect those interactions…”

Are Great Teams Less Productive?

April 23, 2007 from Harvard Business School – “Learning promotes performance—is there any argument? Without learning, organizations, teams, and managers are stuck in yesterday's world.

In fact, says Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, there are built-in tensions between learning and performance, which smart organizations must learn to recognize and deal with. For example, an organization that has just completed a learning initiative may see a drop in productivity, at least in the short term…”

180 View – From our vantage point, this Harvard Business School article is ‘right on the money’.

Like Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, Lawrence Young has often observed employees that are ‘…thoughtful, caring individuals that were stymied in their genuine desires to make a difference at work-that is, their desires to help make their organizations more effective and responsive’.

This is most disturbing, given that today’s workplaces are for the most part understaffed, and need to shrink further in order to remain competitive in today’s ever-changing world.

So what’s driving this unfortunate phenomenon? A simple question without as simple an answer!

The first reality is that study after study has shown that for the most part, North American business leaders do not embrace organizational change as readily as, say, their counterparts in Asia. This can largely be explained by the fact that organizational change is often painful-it’s disruptive, rarely goes according to plan, and costs are incurred upfront while benefits typically accrue well into the future. This creates significant tension when business leaders feel constant pressure from stakeholders to produce better and better short-term results.

The second reality, as the author’s research showed, is that changing from ‘what is’ to ‘what needs to be’ involves learning-‘…learning occurs in reaction to changes in the world that require brand new responses’. Furthermore, ‘…there is a natural relationship between learning and performance in a changing world. That is, performance cannot be sustained over time without learning, because yesterday’s performance is inadequate in today’s world. So, to maintain or improve performance, learning is required’.

So, if we accept the fact that learning is a fundamental component of change for the better, then we also must accept the fact that ‘even if we are learning the right things, there is a transition to get through’. And during the transition, we will inevitable have to deal with failure!

As the author states-‘…learning processes by their nature involve facing failures-problems, mistakes-head on. The presence of problems or mistakes doesn’t signal high performance to most people who might be watching’. As well, ‘in well-led teams, a climate of openness could make it easier to report and discuss errors-compared to teams with poor relationships or with punitive leaders’.

And thus the third reality which we must acknowledge is that most business leaders have a very low tolerance for failure. This is quite paradoxical, since these same leaders were often praised when they ‘failed’ as a student i.e. getting an ‘A’ in a course when you get a score of 80 % means that you ‘failed’ to answer 20 % correctly. Therefore, we are conditioned to believe that a certain degree of failure is acceptable when we are students, but much less so when we enter the typical workplace. But as the author states, ‘…if learning is about identifying error, in the short term, performance will appear to be weak (error ridden) while learning is occurring. At the very least, if learning involves trial and error, the error part does not resemble most people’s idea of good performance. So, they’re at odds’.

So, what does this all mean? In short, business leaders must accept the fact that while continual learning is necessary for an organization to remain successful in today’s quickly changing world, productivity will likely drop in the short term. In other words, there will assuredly be some “short-term pain for long-term gain”. In other words, there will likely be incremental costs incurred in the short-term with no corresponding benefit until the mid to long-term.

According to Lawrence, the key challenge that managers face during a change activity such as learning is to better understand what will occur during the transition, and set realistic expectations for all participants, including corporate leaders. “After all” says Lawrence, “inconvenience is temporary, but progress is permanent-just ask any bodybuilder who feels pain as his muscle is being strengthened!”

What's to Be Done About Performance Reviews?

November 27, 2006 from Harvard Business School – “The topic of performance reviews triggers a wide range of complex responses. The fact that most of their strongest critics elected to reply anonymously to this month's column suggests that there are also political overtones to the subject. This month's debate was much like a case discussion, one that is often hard to summarize. But in an attempt to do it, here is my "take" on what you have said collectively…”

180 View - While this Harvard Business School article and related survey addresses many of the important issues surrounding Employee Performance Reviews, perhaps a ‘refresher’ on the importance of performing such reviews would be helpful.

Most of the companies that Lawrence Young has consulted with only do employee performance reviews on an annual basis, and usually as part of a yearly salary review. Lawrence suggests that employee performance be evaluated on a quarterly basis at minimum, and that these reviews are of a great benefit to not only the employee, but to the company and the employee’s supervisor as well.

Performance evaluation benefits the employee by:

• Translating job duties into specific performance expectations (goals/strategies) and standards;
• Prioritizing goals to be accomplished during the evaluation period;
• Helping the employee focus on the job and on how it contributes to the overall goals of the business unit;
• Providing meaningful job performance feedback;
• Providing concrete suggestions for how job performance can be improved;
• Laying out a plan for future career development;
• Recognizing work achievements;
• Providing a formal opportunity for the employee to inform the supervisor about barriers to work accomplishment, to ask for clarification of duties and roles, to identify resources and tools needed to help improve performance, and to highlight work achievements and the strengths he brings to the job.
  

Performance evaluation benefits the supervisor by:

• Clearly communicating job performance expectations and standards to all parties involved so there is no basis for confusion or disagreement later on;
• Serving as formal documentation of numerous personnel actions such as training needs, performance improvement needs, recognition of goal accomplishment and exceptional performance, pay increase, job redesign, and discipline;
• Providing a means of either encouraging the employee to continue good work or to change/improve in areas that don’t meet expectations;
• Providing an opportunity in time to paint a picture of past performance and lay a roadmap for future planning and development;
• Reinforcing the employee’s accountability for job performance

Performance evaluation benefits the company by:

• Communicating to employees the overall corporate strategic plan so that they can plan for the future;
• Engaging everyone in the organization, from top to bottom, to help the company successfully fulfill its mission;
• Helping to define and clarify roles – who does what, how and when – in order to foster responsibility and accountability throughout the workplace;
• Helping determine when program and policy changes need to be made;
• Aligning the work goals/strategies of each employee with the mission and strategic goals of the company in order to deliver its products and services effectively;
• Providing a uniform method of giving each employee constructive feedback about their job performance.

According to Lawrence, the importance of doing employee performance reviews on a frequent and regular basis cannot be overstated. “After all” says Lawrence, “you cannot manage what you cannot measure!”

By the way, are you aware that there are usually government grants available to train your employees if your company is based in Quebec and its gross payroll in 2006 was between $1 million and $5 million?

As well, there are a host of other grants, subsidies and cost-saving measures that may be able to help your company significantly reduce its labour costs and address its human resource issues.

To obtain more information, without cost or obligation, on how your Quebec-based company can benefit from one or more of these opportunities, please contact Lawrence Young at lyoung@180systems.com.

When Good Teams Go Bad

January 31, 2007 from Harvard Business School – “What could better symbolize high-level business performance than an eight-oared crew team rowing in perfect unison, their boat powered by a selfless collaboration of strength, skill, and shared purpose? It's no wonder that advertisers love to use this image to depict successful teamwork

The rowing metaphor also caught the eye of HBS professor Jeff Polzer and HBS associate professor Scott Snook. The pair has produced a case about the behind-the-scenes dynamics surrounding a college crew team. But unlike the beautiful images favored by advertisers, "The Army Crew Team" case reveals a not-so-pretty picture of a frustrating and baffling decline in performance by the varsity boat at the United States Military Academy..."

180 View – Lawrence Young has worked with hundreds of companies implementing IT and HR projects whose success depends on team work. Lawrence has concluded that the maximum benefits derived from highly functional teams accrue when:

1. The strategic and operational goals and objectives of the project are clearly identified and communicated to all team members.
2. The culture of the team ensures a high degree of respect between members of the team.
3. All team members clearly understand the basic dynamic of any team, which is that the whole exceeds the sum of the parts i.e. the overall success of the team exceeds the individual success of any given member of the team.
4. Each team member is given appropriate responsibility to complete their assigned tasks, and is measured and held accountable by the team leader in a timely fashion.

But according to Lawrence, the most critical success factor in effective team work is ensuring that each team member is committed to the success of the overall project, and not merely involved in completing their assigned tasks. As Lawrence says, successful teams are all about bacon and eggs - ‘the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed’.

Are Background Checks Necessary For IT Workers?

January 29, 2007 from Information Week – “When UBS PaineWebber hired Roger Duronio as a full-time systems administrator in 1999, it didn't do a background check on him. An investigation likely would've turned up a police record that included burglary and aggravated assault convictions in the 1960s, drug charges in 1978 and 1980 for which he wasn't convicted, and a drunken driving case in the 1990s.

Those records were filed by the U.S. District Court in New Jersey's Probation Office ahead of last month's sentencing of Duronio, 63, convicted this summer of computer sabotage and securities fraud. In 2002, Duronio unleashed a "logic bomb" on UBS' computer systems that crashed 2,000 of the company's servers and left 17,000 brokers unable to make trades. It cost about $3.1 million to fix. UBS didn't disclose the damage from lost business.

Duronio's criminal past is the kind of information most employers need to know, especially if they're hiring someone who will have access to key systems and applications. Duronio was one of about 40 people with the company's highest computer security clearance, according to court documents, and he had root access to the system.

UBS PaineWebber, renamed UBS Wealth Management USA in 2003, did background checks on a selective basis in 1999, but not on Duronio when he went from being a contractor to a full-timer, a company spokeswoman says. Now the company checks all full-time, part-time and temporary workers, she says.

That's good policy. "You better consider how important IT is," says Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute (www.sans.org). "Consider if you could keep on doing business if someone inside hit you with a logic bomb," he says. "If you can't, you should think about background checks."

Would a background check have turned up Duronio's record? At I&T sibling publication InformationWeek's request, investigation firm Fairfax Group found most of the information in the probation report within four days using only public records, and some within 24 hours. Such a search would cost about $500, or about $250 if the person provided a waiver and information such as a Social Security number, says Fairfax Group president Michael Hershman.

Thirty percent of insiders who launch system attacks have criminal records, says Dawn Cappelli, a senior member of Carnegie Mellon University's CERT security response team, citing a 2006 study. In that study, 73 percent of companies did background checks, compared with just 48 percent in the 2005 study.

Companies just starting to do checks on job candidates also should do checks on current employees, says Ken van Wyk of Alexandria, Va.-based information security consulting firm KRvW Associates. But be open about it, and make sure people understand why it's necessary, he says.

IT and HR managers also need to discuss beforehand what's acceptable past behavior and what isn't, says Howard Schmidt, a former White House security adviser who's now CEO of R&H Security Consulting. "If someone had a DUI 20 years ago, or they were arrested for marijuana in the '60s, you check the circumstances," Schmidt says. "Was it a drinking problem, or was it one night out celebrating a birthday? It's the repeating of a failure to comply with the rule of law that I would be looking for."
Schmidt warns that background checks are no guarantee. But in fighting insider threats, more companies are deciding they're worth the time and expense.

180 View - While insiders aren't the most common security problem, they can be among the most costly and the most damaging to a company's reputation. Insider attacks against IT infrastructure and data are among the security breaches most feared by both government and corporate security pros.

Lawrence Young (an associate of 180 Systems) has always done background checks on the people he employed in the past. Lawrence says that the degree of checking, including using a third party investigation agency, varies with the job the individual is being hired to perform. In fact, Lawrence made every employment offer conditional upon receiving a satisfactory background check, and advised the potential employee that he may use a third party investigation agency.

Investigation agencies typically provide written reports including details on an individual’s education, past employment, lifestyle habits, and encounters with ‘the law’ if any that would otherwise be difficult for the typical employer to gain access to.

Lawrence also strongly suggests that all system access be revoked immediately when an IT employee is terminated. While that may sound obvious, research shows that about half of all insider attacks take place between the time an IT employee is dismissed and his or her user privileges are taken away.