The secret sauce of building your team - part 1

While I normally try to keep these posts short, I am moving into a topic that will take a bit longer to cover. I promise it will be worth it.

Having a successful team starts with finding the right people. The problem is that most organizations don’t get this process right – and they pay dearly in terms of turnover and the lost productivity that comes from this sort of misguided “ready, FIRE, aim” approach. This is a big dilemma, and we are going to solve it - Guerilla-style

Step 1 - Gather your Intel:

Intelligence gathering is what keeps the guerilla warrior alive. If you are going to get invest the time, energy and money to recruit someone, you better have your facts straight! Your intel sources include your boss, your customers, your team, your finance person and of course, your HR person. Before you even think about kicking off a recruitment effort, you need to ask and answer some questions:

a. Do you really need to fill this role? I know this sounds like blasphemy – of course you need to fill this role – your team is too short staffed to get it all done – but do you really need this role, right now? Is this an opportunity to re-shuffle the deck – maybe replace the role with something more in tune with your current and future needs? Perhaps to bring in new talent of a different stripe to help fill your talent bench? This is actually a whole topic in itself for another day….

b. EXACTLY what are you looking for? Define exactly what your ideal candidate will be able to do for the team…. Focus on the results first, not on the “requirements” … the results wild define the requirements for you.

c. Once you know exactly what you need from this role, consider if there is anyone inside the organization who can achieve the results you need. Notice that I’m not asking if there is anyone who could “do the job”…. Don’t let people divert you from the focus is on results.

d. Now that we know what the role is supposed to achieve, we can move on to figuring out what the right candidate will look like - and we’ll pick that up in our next post!!

NEXT TIME - The laser focus on your target.

Do you YouTube?

Technology - the great enabler, right?? Well, maybe not. I am going to go off on more of a rant than usual because this is an issue that really bugs me.

Everybody with an Internet connection has heard about You Tube. I admit that I visit You Tube pretty regularly and have a lot of fun watching some of the clips. The problem is that at it's base, this is a pretty benign thing... then some whack-job has screw it up!

Case in point - there's a clip (actually a number of them) which depict teachers wigging out in the classroom. In these cases students conspired not only to annoy a teacher enough to provoke a response, but to capture and post it.... It's not bad enough that these little charmers chose to abuse someone who is there to help them grow and learn...no, these model citizens decided to publicly humiliate their teacher on a global basis... nice.

We wont get into the philosophical debate about whether these kids violated laws, or were just exercising their constitutional rights, but I defy you to show me any link between this behavior and any intent by the framers of our constitution which would permit this. In fact, I posit that had the Continental Congress seen such behavior they would have turned these kids over a knee and let them have it!

The point to my rant is that this disrespectful behavior has enjoyed a type of audience and celebrity never before imaginable at a time when restrictions on our society seem to show us abdicating our ability to "parent" our kids and ourselves to the electronic babysitter and public opinion. The perfect storm of ubiquitous technology, a sense of entitlement and a public apathy around demanding proper behavior and accountability is having unforeseen and troubling results.

YOUR MISSION

Take a stand - In whatever venue you find this type of techno-misbehavior, demand that those infringing the rights of others stop doing so. If you agree to let your staff record your rant and post it on the Web, so be it... but if they do so without explicit permission - demand they take it down.

The game is social media "tag" - I'm it!

Ok, admit it. You have, at some point engaged in an e-mail chain. You know the type.... "send this to 10 people in 66 seconds or 20 starving children will perish"... or the ever popular " if you believe in God, send this to 10 people in 2 minutes - if not you will burn in the fires of hell". C'mon, you know you have done it at least once.

I get you to confess to this up front because I am about to (very ashamedly) cow to the peer pressure and engage in such nonsense myself. I do this not so much because I fear the blindness and eternal damnation I will suffer for breaking the chain, but because as Anna Farmery of the Engaging Brand podcast says; if you are going to connect with people, you need to give a bit of yourself first.

I have been "tagged" by a whole list of people, beginning with Wayne Turmel of Cranky Middle Manager fame. He fell victim to leadership coaching guru Rosa Say. I cant say where this began, but the basic concept of the game is simple - Someone tags you and you have to blog 5 things most folks don't know about you. I would normally pass this sort of thing up like a bad stomach virus, but this exercise intrigues me. I have followed the game back a few generations and am impressed with the candor of those who have been tagged - never wanting to be seen as shying away from a challenge.... here I go

5 Things most folks don't know about me:

1. While I give big clues about my military service, most folks presume I was some sort of gun-toting warrior... actually, I was a "band-aid commando". I worked with a medical unit in the 50th Armored Division - yeah, I carried a gun (imagine the fun if I still did!), but my work was all about healing, not killing.
2. I didn't come out of the black cauldron of conception wanting to be an HR drone. I actually went to college with plans of becoming a Biology Teacher! How I came to be in HR is a long sordid tale best recounted over several pints at the local pub..... if you are buying, I will tell all!
3. In college I was so broke that I actually signed up for a psychology school study to measure the affect of alcohol on congnitive skills - not for the science, but because I thought it would be REALLY cool to get paid just for getting drunk!
   
4. Back in my Army days, I taught Army Medics how to start IV's. To got them over the fear of doing it, I had them practice on me - really... I have the scars to prove it.
5. In my impetuous youth I enjoyed rock climbing and rappelling - I haven't done it in years, but I used to rappel off of bridges and pretty much anything that was high and would stand still....I even spent some of your hard earned tax dollars rappelling out of helicopters in Fort Bragg... big fun! Eventually the medications kicked in and I got over that little bug!
   

Now for the second part of the game - This is the part where I am supposed to single out 5 bloggers and have them publish their 5 unknowns - the problem is that I got tagged before the holidays and by now everyone out there with a blog (or a pulse) has probably already been tagged - so.....

YOUR MISSION
Whether you blog or not - find your "target audience" in your team, peers, neighbors - whatever, and give them a little deeper glimpse into who you are by telling them those five things that they don't already know about you and ask the same of them in return.

Pay for performance, yeah -right!

Pay for Performance! The words carry such hope for the managers and HR drones among us. Even the "little guy" gets a glimmer of hope that under such a meritocracy, even they have a chance to cash in..... and then reality slams you in the face like a two-by-four when you read about the case of the Home Depot CEO who managed to cut a deal for himself that ensures he gets paid over $200 Million USD, no matter how badly he screwed the pooch! Gee, maybe I ought to ditch this HR gig of mine and take on that job - after all, I have probably spent enough there in the past few years to cover whatever salary I want.

I don't raise the issue to boil your blood (though that's probably happening now too), but I want to use it as an object lesson to get you to lead up. You cant directly control what wacky pay practice your Board will employ for your next CEO, but you can ensure that you apply a pay for performance process on your people.

The payoff for a real, honest and objective pay for performance plan will pay dividend well beyond the initial sweat investment needed to implement it - but only if you do it right. Now, the secret here is that doing it right isn't really all that hard. All you have to do is understand what good performance looks like, gain agreement from all concerned on that point, communicate the hell out of of it - then make everyone live or die by that standard.

See - now wasn't that simple? Maybe I should bottle this stuff up in a consulting package and sell it to the Board over at Home Depot.

YOUR MISSION:
If you don't have a pay for performance plan, talk with your leadership or HR about how your organization can benefit from one. If you have one, USE IT to differentiate rewards.

Regaining your motivation

Greetings intrepid (and long ignored) reader!

I've humbly returned to my post after too long an absence. I love to blog, but lately have fallen victim to the triple whammy of the dreaded corporate year end shuffle and a long run of household "opportunities" to improve !

Besides all that crazy stuff getting between me and the blog, I have to admit that I was really just not motivated to write anything. Not that there isn't always plenty to write about, but I just wasn't motivated to do so. Realizing that brought out a topic worthy of writing about - how to regain your motivation!

So, you find yourself in the dumps and unmotivated to do something you would normally be doing - writing, reading, going to the gym...whatever. How do you get yourself back in the swing? Well, you could find an interesting article on getting your motivation back,
or you could look for inspiration from trusty sources like The Cranky Middle Manager show!

The key to regaining your motivation is to find something you can get yourself all worked up over - passion is the potion! Yeah, I know.... passion is dangerous ground for an HR geek to tread upon, so I will rely on you to keep this above gutter...


YOUR MISSION:


Figure out what gets your blood pumping and DO IT! It doesn't matter if it is bowling, basket-weaving or brain surgery... get back in the saddle and RIDE!


Carry on!

Another Christmas in the trenches

Hello, fellow bloggernauts. Sorry I have dropped off the face of the earth for the past few weeks. No, I have not been abducted by aliens or sent to the dungeon by the evil overlords....just been busier than a one legged man at a butt kicking contest with the day job.

In prior posts, I mentioned that my company had been acquired and that has turned my 50 hour weeks into 60 and more.... but that is the worthy price of progress and I am actually having some fun and learning quite a bit in the process.

During my absence from blogging, I got "tagged" 4 or 5 times.... seems that in the blog world, just like meetings - if you are not there to say no, you get all the tasks! I'll be back to the table on that shortly. Needless to say, i can easily dig 5 skeletons out of my closet, but I will be hard pressed to name 5 new victims in the game.... stay tuned for my Tag Revenge!

A little humor goes a long way these days

Just in time for the holiday rush, some kindly (and clearly good humored) HR person passed this clip along to me. She didn't warn me that I should be mindful of who might be within earshot when I played it..... too late!

While I could just use this little post to kick my profession in the shins (again!), I have chosen to use it as an illustrative point for the budding egotists in our midst. The lesson is that being able to poke fun at yourself or your profession is actually a pretty healthy thing. Self-deprecation can be a pretty disarming skill and can help you take away some of the tension between you and those on the other side of the table. I'm not suggesting you eviscerate yourself or profession as a habit, but you should consider the "lighter" side of just who you are and what you do.

Just as the triumphant Roman Generals did, we all need someone to constantly remind us who we are - "Remember, thou art mortal".....

YOUR MISSION:

Take a long and merciless look into the mirror (figuratively at least) and see if there are any opportunities to bring to light some of the "areas of opportunity" or chinks in your armor - professionally or personally. Consider if those things can be more than a weakness by acknowledging and owning them through a healthy sense of humor... and hold others to same standard - who knows - we might just realize that we are all indeed quite mortal after all.

CARRY ON!

Employee Blogs - As dangerous as you let them be

This post focuses on two things I have ranted about before - Employee Blogs and The Karma principal in HR and Management - If you treat people well, you have a much lower chance of being hung in blog-effigy or being a poster child on F*%^ed Company or Internal Memos.

My company has taken a pretty enlightened approach to blogs and we are pretty proud of this position. We believe that our people are experts and professionals. Since it is bad form to hide your light under a basket, we feel it perfectly appropriate for our folks to blog - many of them do. Some do it like I do - to vent and educate on matters from managing people to managing your scrabble club. Both are legit uses of blogs, but when you are fortunate enough to have folks in your company who are smart and passionate enough about what they do at work to blog about it, you are entering sacred ground!

I am amazed by the technical prowess and passion of a number of my co-workers. I point out two of theme here because they have taken their passion far beyond that of mortal bloggers - they have blown it out to the point where the line between the blogosphere and the real world gets a little blurry.

Daniella Barbosa and Glenn Fannick are great examples of what can happen when bright, passionate people get behind a cause that is along the lines of helping your company or industry. Hats off to them for being shining examples of how to make this blog thing work.... but there is a darker side- what happens when employee blogs are your enemy. It can and does happen.

Once upon a time in a hypothetical company, an employee who was struggling to keep up with her work was terminated. She felt she had done nothing to deserve termination, but her boss felt there was enough grounds to end this unsuccessful and draining relationship. The HR weasels concurred, and off the employee went - banished to bogey-land! Did employee get the feedback and counsel she needed along the way to know she had skated onto career "thin ice" ? Maybe not. Was her termination handled in a clear, fair and compassionate way so she had no doubt about why her performance was the reason for the termination? Maybe not. Was she left to devise her own truth about what went on? You betcha!

Well, it turns out that the now former employee was a blogger. She, being so betrayed, decided to tell the world about her plight. "I was wronged by them" she ranted. "They fired me without cause and gave me no chance to succeed", "They conspired against me and beset me with evil spells and incantations which turned me in to newt.... I got better.....". Wow - sound familiar? I will bet this sort of thing has happened to most of us at some point, but till now it was just a tongue-lashing at the watercooler of her new office. With the advent of "social media", it becomes fodder for the whole world to chew on, and it can have a worse impact on revenue than a faulty product or a larcenous CEO!

Now I am not saying that this would NOT happen if you managed performance and terminated the person flawlessly (is there such a thing?). She might still blog badly about you, but it is far less likely for someone to toss a blog-grenade at you if you have dealt with them fairly and compassionately. Heck, if you take good care of them, give them feedback and help them grow professionally by giving them the responsibility of challenging assignments and opportunities to strut their stuff, you just might find you have a Daniella or Glenn working for you.

YOUR MISSION:
Start the conversation with your management about a blogging policy and the tack you will take with employee blogs. Consider the great exposure you can get by allowing your best and brightest to be featured in a product or industry focused blog - imagine the boost to your company's image and the pride, development and stature they might gain from the experience.

Then set up a way to track what is being said about your company on blogs. You can invest in some very cool tools like the one's my company, Factiva does, or you can just set up a Google Alert that searches for mention of your company name in blogs - WARNING - if your company name is as common in the press as the word "dude" on a California beach, you better study up on constructing custom search terms!

CARRY ON!!!

More weapons in the Guerilla HR War!

I have to admit that sometimes I feel like I am all alone in this little quest of mine against bad management. That was till this week. In my usual meanderings through blogville, I stumbled across a blog name that caught my eye - the Evil HR Lady blog. Like a gawker drawn to a train wreck, I could not help but investigate.

This is another great addition to your toolbox, o' weary warrior! The Evil HR Lady dispenses her wisdom through a simple Q&A style. Go ahead - ask her anything! She's ready. I highly recommend her blog for Managers, Line Troops and even the novice HR trolls among you. My hat is off to you Evil HR Lady - your advice to staff and managers does a lot to prevent and quell the firestorms that follow bad decisions - every solid answer you give is another potentially another lawsuit saved.

Another interesting HR blog is HR Lori. This blog is written by a plucky and very down to earth HR person in California and she gets on some pretty good rants about trying to manage HR in the "People's Republic of California" which has more HR related legislation than any American state should be allowed - Shame on you Arnold!

Lori's radar picks up all the down to earth matters that trip up HR, Managers and business in general in a way that even a newbie Manager or HR troll can understand. Rock on Lori!

One last blog of note in this post is Jay Shepard's "Gruntled" Employees blog. I just love the title as it answers the age-old question... if folks you mistreat can be dis gruntled than the folks who don't want to see your skull on a pike must be gruntled??!! This is an excellent blog - a two cup of coffee minimum read though, as Jay has a sharp, sometimes dry sense of humor.
Don't let the fact that Jay is a Lawyer scare you (- they cant ALL be bad, can they?). This one is a MUST READ for all you HR munchkins in the crowd.... even you out of touch HR VPs might want to have a read. Jay, we simply have to meet some day.... the stories we could share.....oh my!!

YOUR MISSION:
I've just given you a resource to use, no matter what your role or level. Best informed = best armed, so take up the weapon of intelligence and get out there! Fight the morons with FACTS and you cant be wrong.

Finally, a topic worth blogging about!

As I mentioned in a previous post, my company is deep in the work necessary to complete the transaction where one of our two joint venture parents is buying the other out.... "fun" it ain't!!!

But all this work, coupled in with the usual year-end rush of all that HR minutia is really eating into my reading and blogging time. I completely missed posting last week, but not entirely because I was too busy. It was equally as much because there has been nothing that inspired me to write.... tired minds are not very creative and I refuse to post for the sake of posting. So here I sat, as mute as a stone till....... BANG! Inspiration hit me. No, not the noble kind - I was inspired by something so INCREDIBLY STUPID!


You all know that just the mere act of blogging about anything HR'ish is enough to get my secret HR Decoder ring taken away , so this one ought to REALLY get me in deep kimchi with the grand HR Poobah.


My inspiration for this little diatribe of mine is a recently published study by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). I don't think I'm giving away a secret here by telling you that SHRM is viewed as the professional standard bearer for HR pros in America. They are effectively the embodiment of all the good stuff HR is supposed to stand for... till now.... Strap in kids, you are about to hear a good old fashioned rant that would make my Cranky Middle Manager mentor proud!

It seems that these grand champions of the HR profession felt it necessary to conduct a study on a very tricky and emotionally charged topic; no, not ethics reform, benefits cost containment, or even how to help people affected by layoffs - these geniuses decided it was more important to focus on a REALLY vexing question - Is it OK to have weapons in the workplace?! Honest to goodness - they actually decided that this topic needed a formal study capped off by a slick 32 page report on it! This Society strives to make HR a relevant and important part of the business and the most relevant and helpful topic they can study is weapons in the workplace - dear God! My 8 year old niece knows that weapons anyplace near work or school is a major Bozo no-no!

Holy Hopping Snot - what is wrong with these imbeciles? And they wonder why HR can't get a "seat at the table". Duh! How about we devote our time and talent to solving real problems in the workplace that help people and management get the job done well in a pleasant environment with decent pay and benefits. While I am sure that this topic is important and I don't mean to diminish the tragedies that have occurred when folks bring weapons to work, the answer doesn't require a study and a report - it's much simpler than that; If you treat people decently, fairly and manage performance and layoffs with compassion and help for those impacted, you wont need to worry about them bringing a weapon to bear against you.

YOUR MISSION:

Looking beyond the insanity of this post, consider if there are risk factors in your organization that might increase the possibility of the "disgruntled" worker coming in with his fire stick to exact a little revenge. Know your people and their pain points and look for ways to defuse the problem before the shots ring out.

A timeless lesson, perfectly timed!

As I have mentioned in a recent post, my company is in the process of being acquired by one of the two parents in the Joint Venture that formed the company. Needless to say, it's a very busy and anxious time. Most of us are anxious about getting all the work done to facilitate closing the deal on schedule, some are anxious about job security, others are anxious about how we are going to operate post acquisition. I could blog about all three of those topics; the work involved in getting through the "deal" in a merger or acquisition is a long post all to itself - so I will leave that for another day. We'll just focus on how to get along in the new world post acquisition.

I found a great article in Fast Company that explains how WebTv and Microsoft managed the integration when WebTv was devoured my the Empire of Gates. Now don't get me wrong, this is not about how to cave into the new corporate culture - this is all about ensuring that you are doing the right things for the company AND the people. Making the right choices based on the core principles of the companies involved - examining and embracing the best things that both have to offer. True, in most acquisitions there are the "acquiring" and those being "acquired", but that does not have to equate to "winners and losers"! There is a lot to learn from each other and the best opportunity for personal and organizational success is to put aside pride and ego and dig deep into the knowledge and talent of your new found colleagues.

YOUR MISSION:

Start planning now for what you will do if your company acquires or is acquired. How will you showcase what your company has accomplished? How will you tell your story and help people see the value of the experiences, processes and people in your company.

Integrity

You will probably recall the recent sentencing of the former Enron criminal (er... executive) Jeff Skilling. For his greedy and dishonest acts, he's been sent to take a nice long vacation in the land of the orange jumpsuits. While I am thrilled to see him get a long run in prison, I am equally disturbed at the damage that creeps like him have done to the the cause of good management everywhere.

Skilling, and countless jerks like him violate an important trust. Our people have to believe that we are honest and accountable to the truth in all our dealings. How on earth can we ask our people to put themselves on the line for our company, their team or even for us if they don't trust us.

We managers are in important and responsible positions. We have access to information our troops don't get to know about, and we use this knowledge to make decisions that impact them. I found a great quote that I hope puts this into perspective for you; " Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." - Samuel Johnson.

While Jeff Skilling demonstrates the second part of that quote perfectly. I submit to you that the first half of that quote is more often the problem than the second. While most of us are guilty in this regard, it just isn't newsworthy. You're a good boss and you always try to take care of your troops, but how often have you let the value of your integrity be diminished by not backing it up with the knowledge to make it count? Wanting to do the right thing is pretty easy - gathering the information to make sure that that you are doing the right thing effectively, or even ensuring that what you are doing IS the right thing is harder.

YOUR MISSION
Hold on to your integrity and make an "integrity check" part of every decision you make. And before you get to the point of having to make that integrity based decision, get ALL information on the matter. Become smart enough on the topic to know what the "right" decision looks like - then check your gut and charge ahead!

Carry on!

If your boss demands loyalty, give him integrity.
If your boss demands integrity, give him loyalty.

Boo! Scary stuff just in time for Halloween

Halloween. Time for demons, ghosts and things that "go bump in the night"...and scariest of all - Acquisitions! Mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, etc..... all can be just as scary as all the usual terrifying things we associate with Halloween, but unlike the hordes of zombies that chase us in our nightmares, we CAN control our situation and the outcome of business changes.

This post takes a more personal approach than most because my company is in now in transition. I work for a Joint Venture between two parent companies, and one parent is buying the other out. From a business perspective, it makes sense and creates a whole slew of new opportunities for the business, but this comes at the price of change. Many times such acquisitions force people to change the way the work, where they work, or even IF they work. This is scarier than Freddie Kruger on his worst day!

The trick here is to overcome fear with fact, hysteria with reason and panic with patience and understanding. While most people fear such changes with good reason, the fact is that you can impact the outcome, or at least how well you manage it.

As individual players, we can control how we respond to such changes - the best respected players don't trade in rumor, slander or fear-mongering - they just step up and get it done! Stay focused on the job you do, and look for opportunities to help in the transition. If you just pull into your shell you will miss opportunities to show the organization all the value you can deliver.

As leaders (yes, every one of us can be a leader) we can impact the outcome of the acquisition by stepping up and addressing issues head-on. Communicate the FACTS, squash the rumors, talk with your team and peers to help them see how they can positively influence the outcome.

Be clear, even if you are the ideal team play in this, you may end up out of a job, but would you rather be a victor or a victim?

YOUR MISSION:
Look across your network - do you know anyone who is undergoing such transition? If so, pass this post along to them. Otherwise just e-mail this post to yourself for a rainy day.

Picking winners for your winning team

From your earliest childhood memories, you can always recall wanting to be on the winning team. When you were standing in the crowd waiting to be picked for whichever side of the kickball game, you longed to be picked by that team with all the cool kids / best kickballers, etc... You dreaded being picked by the weaker side as strongly as you desired joining the good side.

On the other side of the equation, when you were the one doing the picking, you tried your best to pick the best players for your team - deciding your next pick based on who could kick the farthest, or run the fastest, or who was so wiry they never got tagged out.

It's funny how the best teams in business seem to do the same thing. The best managers among us don't just open up a staffing requisition and leave it in the hands of the HR weasels... oh no, the best managers take a very active role in finding the best players for their team - they hire folks they know can get the job done. They hire someone that either they or their other players know and can vouch for. In HR speak - this is an employee referral.

The concept of employee referrals is not new, but it is getting a lot more attention because the statistics about the relative costs and effectiveness of employee referrals make it appear to be a very attractive way to go. My company has taken a very proactive approach to employee referral. We have an employee referral program called "Star Search" and we've gotten over 20% of our new hires YTD through this program - that's a 6.something percent increase over prior years! We're pretty proud of that accomplishment and are driving for an ultimate number of 35% in 3 years because we believe all the statistics are right and so far, our employee referral hires are performing at least as well as most of the high cost agency hires.

Now while I firmly believe that the "kickball" analogy above is the way the world is - I found an interesting perspective in the blog of a Microsoft employee and while the HR Geek in me loves his devotion (however motivated), I have to worry that Don Dodge has taken this to a new high (or low depending on your view).

Now matter how far some take it, I believe that you will get better results with less cost and effort by hiring those great players that you and your team already know.

YOUR MISSION:
Sit down with your team and have a very open discussion about the kind of players you believe you need to help your team win. Brainstorm with your team to paint a mental picture of the type of player you want - then get your team out there in the world to talk to the colleagues, friends and even the competitors they think have the right stuff - even if you don't have a job to fill today you need to start identifying and building a better relationship with these folks.
Happy Hunting!

Technology - the great enabler?

If you are reading this post, you are the intended audience for this post. My guess about you is that you pride yourself on your relative command of all things technical. You probably have a 1 (or more) mobile phones, blackberry, etc.... Now let me ask you a question - does all the tech at your command really make you any more productive?

This article while a little dated, shines a light just how bad our situation is becomming. We become so connected to our devices that we forget to connect to PEOPLE. Honestly, how many of you can honestly say that our ubiquitous technology has not diverted your attention away at times. Heck, I confess here that part of this blog was authored during a meeting! C'mon, admit it - you have done this sort of thing too. You probably sat in at least one meeting today fiddling with your crackberry, texting someone or reading e-mail on some other device. Worse yet, many of you probably did these things at home and instead of connecting withyour family, you connected to everything else.... that is really sad.

The way we are living isn't living at all. Yes, I know that the pace of work is what presses us to be so connected, but perhaps this is more the case of us failing to manage expectations than failing to manage our work. What if we all just stopped being connected all the time. What if we turned off the crackberry, the cell phone and the pc and actually listened to the people around us for a change?


YOUR MISSION:

Disconnect from all of your devices during every meeting today. Dont check e-mail, dont answer your phone, dont do anything but listen and actively participate in whatever meetings you have today. You'll get more out of the meeting, and so will those you meet with!

They love me, they love me not.......

Do you remember that little time-waster we used to do when we were kids. We'd think of the person who we fancied, pick a daisy and pluck out the petals one by one, reciting "(s)he loves me" with the first petal and "(s)he loves me not" with the next... this would go on till the last petal and we'd have our answer - unless it was the wrong answer, in which case we'd keep picking daises till we got it right. That way, we knew how the object of our affection felt about us. Too bad we don't have any daises to tell us how that job you have applied for feels about us!

The unfortunate thing is that most recruiters get it wrong when it comes to candidate feedback. We all use the same excuses - too many candidates, too little time to get back to all of them. But we all need to wake up - this ain't the heady 1990's! Candidates are becoming all to scarce and if we don't start treating them better, they are going to take their talents and go find someplace else to play -like our competitors. I found a really great post on the Recruiting Animal blog which spells this all out pretty clearly but I will give you my own prescription on how to cure this problem: COMMUNICATE with EVERY CANDIDATE! With the state of Technology today, there is no reason we cannot migrate from that ancient response of "we will only contact candidates of interest" to an automated e-mail reply that tells a candidate that "love them" or "love them not". Even smaller organizations can now afford automated Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). Systems to track applicants used to cost zillions, now you can get one on an ASP basis for under 15k. My company recently launched a great system from HRMDirect. While no system is a cure for all your recruitment sins, one can give you a great start toward getting better at communicating with your candidates. Trust me on this one, you cannot afford to risk letting talent slip through your fingers.

YOUR MISSION:
Talk to your HR department about how you manage candidates and insist that prompt and candid feedback to EVERY applicant become the norm.

Don't fear the reaper

DISCLAIMER - You all know that I work in HR for a company - this post has NOTHING to do with my job or company. It is written in response to the recent news of enormous layoffs in some of Americas largest and most respected companies.


Whether you call it a "downsizing", a "rightsizing" a "redundancy" or a good old-fashioned "layoff" - it still means the same thing - people losing jobs. This topic is about as scary to most of us as DEATH or TAXES. The loss of a job is traumatic, and I don't mean to trivialize it here. No matter how frightening the topic, you need to consider the possibility as you plan out your career. Here are some key points to consider from someone who has been on both sides of the issue.

1. Lifetime employment is a thing of the past - the average worker today will have 6 or more employers through their career so you cannot bank on having your Father's "20 year and a gold watch" career. Whether it is done at your choice or that of your employer(s), you will change jobs before too long so don't set your heart on being there till you retire.
   
2. Like the Godfather said; It's not personal, it's business. No matter how it may appear, the reasons behind layoffs are rooted in a business need. You may disagree with the need or the logic applied, but you have to understand that it's not done to target you personally. Sure there are cases where it is, but you have a better shot at being killed by lightening while holding a winning lottery ticket, standing on a pot of gold than being truly "targeted" in a layoff, and an even smaller chance of proving it... so just go on as if it's not personal.
   
3. Only the fittest will survive. Generally the folks who survive a layoff process are those who are best prepared. Being fit in this context has less to do with physical fitness and more to do with career fitness. The exercises that keep you fit in this regard are; keeping your resume up to date, building and maintaining your network, pursuing career and personal development opportunities and continually assessing the environment both in you company and in your field (especially with regard to who is hiring). The best and most prepared among us don't really "survive" a layoff because we are gone before it can touch us!
   
4. What does not kill me makes me stronger. As stated earlier, losing a job is traumatic. Your income, lifestyle and pride are all in jeopardy, but if you keep these points in mind, you can survive and prosper. Losing a job through firing or layoff has been the catalyst that launched some of the most impressive careers in history - you can use this forced change to help you jump into a new future - something you may have feared doing up till now.
   
5. Victim or Victor - the choice is yours. Given that this can happen to almost anyone at any time, your ability to avoid being laid off at some point in your career is slim and you can have very little control over whether or not it will happen to you. The only thing you can completely control is how you respond to it. Many go into "victim" mode - they grieve, rage, fume and harbor resentment... none of these actions will get you a new job. You have to make a conscious decision to beat your circumstances by applying a rational, reasoned and disciplined approach to moving on and accelerating your career beyond this hurdle. The choice to be a victim or victor is completely up to you.

YOUR MISSION
Start preparing yourself now. Don't wait for the handwriting to appear on the wall. Keep your resume up to date, keep growing and developing yourself and your network and always keep up with your industry for opportunities.

Back to school for the kids - what about you?

Summer is over. The kids have all returned to school. New bookbags, sharp pencils and a whole new world of learning in front of them. What about you? When is the last time you cracked open a book, studied a new topic or read anything besides the directions on bag of microwave popcorn?

Normally, I use this little pulpit of mine to preach about business learning, career management and all things HR'ish - today's rant is of a much more personal nature. Today we beyond professional development and focus on personal development.

I'm taking a cue from my kids and am starting some studies of my own this fall, and am devoting some time to a more academic pursuit beyond the development I am continually doing to further my career; I'm studying history. Now as you my have guessed by the theme of this little blog'o mine, I have spent some time in the military and have quite an affinity for all things green and explosive, so my history studies will focus on military history - ancient military history.

Now that I have shared a bit of my inner nerd, what is your passion? Do we have any closet-poets in the crowd? Perhaps a budding ornithologist in our midst. It doesn't matter what your non-work pursuit is as long as you have one. Such non-work stuff is widely accepted as a vacation for the mind, and let's face it... couldn't we all us a vacation now and then?

YOUR MISSION:

Find some area you are passionate about and invest some study in it. Whether it is history or world economics, you will surely gain insights that will benefit you along the way.

Carry on!

It's my career, stupid!

Who remembers that snippy little political bumper-sticker "It's the economy, stupid!"? Well, I have a renewed version of that little quip for 2006 - "It's my career, stupid!"

Regular readers of my blog will know that I totally believe that every person's career, development and work-life balance is up to them. It is my view that no one else can manage your career like you can. You should ask for, and take all the developmental opportunities, career options you desire. If you don't claim what you want, than shame on you for not trying. But for those of us who do actively look for opportunities only to have them fall by the wayside of the boss's goals, shame on the boss!

This interesting article in Workforce Management is a pretty good wake-up call for those among us who have to lead and manage others. I still hold to my beliefs that you alone bear responsibility for managing your career, but the boss who fails to provide you with training, tools and opportunities is a problem too. And according to this study, it is clear that fewer of us are willing to tolerate having our careers used to grease the skids for the the boss' ambitions alone.

To the bosses among our ranks, the message is clear - your people are yours to win, or to lose. Either you help them win, or you better start getting your recruitment strategy ready, because you WILL lose them - and when word gets around about why these talented people are leaving, you better start packing your bags too because good companies wont allow poor managers to cost them talent for long.

YOUR MISSION:

Take a check of your team. Who has development needs that you can help with? Who would benefit by being put on, or in charge of that next project? Have you even had an "aspirations and desires" discussion with them? Start investing in your team today by asking these questions and revisit them frequently. Always put your team's needs in the equation when deciding what to do. If you follow this advice and act in their best interests, the worst thing that can happen is that they'll see that you care, and the best outcome is that they wont leave, will continue to grow and add real value every day.

The clock is running down on summer 2006 - have you had your Picnic yet?

Ok, so it's only summer in the Northern half of the world - I promise I will re-post this in December for all those living South of the Equator.

But seriously, the general themes of summer - pool parties, picnics, bar-b-ques, etc all seem to put people in a pretty happy place. The kind of happy feelings that are associated with these activities could never be mixed with any kind of business meeting ----- or could they?

I read a fun article in careerjournal that tells about how some companies are leveraging their annual corporate picnic to get a mix of business and pleasure. This article came complete with some good ideas and even a pretty cool recipe for Ranch Beans!

Now I am not suggesting that you try to whip up a big corporate cook-out, but you might find it a valuable investment of your time and a small amount of money to arrange a simple covered-dish type picnic with your team, or just taking your team out for ice cream at ColdStone.

YOUR MISSION

See if you can find a way to couple some sort of picnic with doling out some much deserved pats-on-the-back. Maybe you could even invent a few new team awards - gag awards, or serious ones to point out the best in your people and to celeberate successes. Who knows, you might start a new company tradition. Go for whatever type of shindig you dig, but do something that your team will be comfortable with and enjoy before the summer is gone and we head off to that crazy time called the 4th Quarter!

Carry on!