... thinking ... (out loud)

recruiting – lost before you start?

I make no apologies about the following. It's one of my "hobby horses".

I regularly hear managers complaining of problems with recruiting, the poor service from many recruiting agencies in the areas where it counts (and speed is NOT one of them).  Occasionally, the conversation moves to the worst results possible from recruiting – where they end up with something much worse than poor performance …

Recruitment is an industry that has only one entry hurdle that I can see - the gall to do it in the first place.

This is frequently supported by a second commercially useful attribute - selling skills - the sales gift of the gab.  That unique ability to find the right words and best-practice phrases that convince clients that here is the magic recipe that will infallibly attract an abundance of candidates desperate to join …. 

The combination of selling skills and gall are used by many recruiting companies to play (or should that be 'prey') on one particular weakness of 21st century management – time (or lack thereof) - the reality of managers handling a volume of issues, with stretched or inadequate resources and always with insufficient time.

Everything is rushed.

Thinking, conversations: sacrificed to the great imperative - do do do.

If you can do it faster, it must be better because it is out of the way sooner.

If you don't do it faster, you know somebody else will and you will get left behind…

All reinforcing the unquestioning presumption that managers need speed and certainty in everything they do.

It is no surprise then that as an executive recruiter, I am occasionally on the receiving end of new clients who treat recruiting assignments as one of these narrowly defined tasks to be completed in minimal time.

But here loiters the recruiting worst case scenario.

A number of managers I know have succumbed to the time-pressured temptation,

that it's better to get a reasonable person on board as soon as possible rather than waiting and hoping to get a better candidate later.

I know this has turned out to be satisfactory quite frequently. Some however, pay for this…

In six months, the short term benefit gained from the 'earlier starting reasonable' candidate will be forgotten.   What will not in many cases, is the slow realisation that the new recruit who “seemed-all-right and worth a go” in interview and who was rushed into the role, is in fact,

mediocre.

This is one word that should strike fear into all managers, and describes the worst-case recruiting scenario; something that can slowly become evident over many months. This is the cost to pay (and pay and pay) for having rushed and,

employed someone who was available quickly,

is not as good as you wanted or needed,

but not bad enough to fire.

 

Let me introduce

Guideline 1:  Recruit in haste, repent at leisure.

 In my experience, the amount of research and effort put into a recruiting assignment, especially at the start, more reliably dictates the quality of the outcome.   The better the effort, usually the better the calibre of appointment.

There are a myriad of recruiting agencies of vastly varying skills and experience which delight in working with clients in the high-speed, time pressured way.   (It suits their high speed cash flow!).   

Throw plausible applications and candidates until something or rather someone sticks.
Job done, send invoice.   Next job.   Hope that the guarantee period or probationary period expires before any problems are discovered, or more likely the disappointed hopes set in.

When it comes to mediocrity, the recruiting agency is usually safe. It is a slow sentence in more ways than one.  A form of dementia.  It drives many managers mad.

 

Guideline 2

Don't attach yourself to a recruiting company or agency. Find an experienced recruiter whom you trust and follow that person wherever he/she moves. 

An experienced recruiter will have sufficient life experience and commercial experience to understand your perspective and needs, and will know how to translate this understanding to potential candidates.

So I recommend loyalty to the recruiter more than the company she/he works for.

 

Guideline 3

If a recruiting company comes to pitch,

find out who would do the actual work. 

This may be the only time you will see senior management.
See Guideline 2 above: find a recruiter who you trust.  And who does the work personally.

 

Guideline 4

Recruiting is much more than putting a body in the chair. 
Good recruiters invest the time to learn,

• the organisation's culture,
• the personalities the appointee must deal with,
• spends time investigating major relationships that impact the position,
• is able to précis and debate what are the key factors that influence success in this position.
• How will you know whether the individual is doing a satisfactory job? A great job?
• What style of manager are you and how do you in turn prefer to manage the new person joining the team?

The questions go on - well they do for good recruiters.   Questions that demand time from BOTH you and the recruiter.

Guideline 5

Mediocre versus calibre candidates.

Mediocre candidates want a job - they don't care which one.   

Calibre candidates usually understand their value in the marketplace.   They're not looking for a job, but that next right job.  Here recruiting is a two-way street,

• Why are both you and the position you are offering of interest to the candidate?

as much as,

• Why this candidate is of interest to you?

For calibre candidates, the quality of the briefings and discussion provided by the recruiting consultant and in interview with the prospective employer are crucial.   The subtleties, the insights of significant relationships, insights into how performance is measured, what is happening over time, current market trends for the company etc become the basis of the lure to attract them to the role you seek to fill.

Recruiting good candidates is like trout fishing …. slowly, carefully, well prepared, no rough edges….

It takes time.

 

Guideline 6

And it takes time at the start of the assignment.

This understanding,

• is reflected in the advertising,

• is reflected in the position specification and briefing notes, and

• is reflected in the questions asked and responses given in discussions in interviews, not only just by the recruiter but more importantly, by the company's interviewing managers.

 

You can't achieve this standard once the assignment has been advertised.

 

Don’t flatter yourself - you definitely cannot do this type of thinking in an interview with a calibre candidate.   Working out your thinking on the run tells a quality candidate everything they need to know but don't want to hear.   Here is a company that hasn’t done its thinking in advance.   They do it on the run, reacting to the pressure of the moment.   What does that say about their planning?   Their approach to strategy?   Their approach to management?

 

For a small Victorian based government agency, I was involved in recruiting some 90% of their staff over a number of years. The CEO worked with me in advance to work out what mattered most, the type of people he hoped to attract.    He allowed me to be a common point of reference in each recruiting assignment, so as to,

• protect the organisation's culture and positive dynamics by seeking new staff members who would add to the already strong attitude of willingly working with others, working to a defined strategy and getting tasks done, whilst

• hunting for difference - different backgrounds, new skills and experiences to add to the diversity already inhouse.

We found some great people to join this highly regarded, high performing agency operating with a consistent emphasis on what is important.   Stakeholder feedback of the agency and its staff has been consistently outstanding.

For me close to a dream client.      

Thank you, Ian.

 

Cheers
Nic

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________________________

 

Since 1997, nic eddy + associates has been working with CEOs and senior managers to achieve greater value with people - both inside and outside their organisations.

 

Helping to identify what allows good performers to excel.

 

Helping to design jobs that focus on "what matters most".

 

Helping to recruit carefully the right people for those jobs.

 

Helping to unpick some of the operating "rules" that subtly impede workflow.

 

Helping to improve the understanding of CEOs, Managers and their staff in how they each prefer to interact with others.

 
Please call me on 0418 511 002, or send me an email at nic@eddy.net.au to discuss how I can work with you to realise a better return on your resources and time.

For further information, also see www.eddy.net.au

 

silo mentality - sacking truck drivers

 
… how you measure value dictates its value …

It must have been about 10 years ago. An Operations Manager finally decided he had sufficient justification to sack his ‘pet hate’ employee – one of his truck drivers.   

The only thing stopping him was the annoying fact that the Sales Manager had told the Managing Director some time ago that this particular driver was very popular with one of their most difficult customers.

The Sales Manager heard of the Operations Manager’s intention and decided to intervene via the Managing Director,

"From the sales/customer relations point of view, he (driver) is great with customers.  He's helpful, on time, the order is always correct, he is pleasant with everyone.  He is the one driver that customers mention spontaneously when we speak with them. The irony is that there is nothing the guy seems able to do to satisfy his boss [Operations Manager]."

The Operations Manager's new concern?

That his wayward truck driver was seen working on someone else's truck – on company time. In his view: no further details necessary.

His secondary concerns?

The driver was always questioning; deliberately slow with his paperwork. The Operations Manager was convinced that the driver was provoking him by wasting company time.

Any unexpressed concerns?

Operations Department staff spoke "off the record". There was a general belief that it didn't help that the driver spoke English as a second language.  He was described as a private man of strong opinions and morals; a man of pride who refused to bow to "authority" because it was expected.

Apparently our driver did the unheard of and talked back to the Operations Manager.  He asked intelligent questions of decisions; even had been known to make suggestions on improving Despatch procedures … (gasp, horror)

 

Two managers with completely different views of one employee's work performance…

 

By asking some simple questions, the issue soon became clear.

Of the driver,

• Why was he working on someone else's truck that day?
• Why did he feel it necessary to painstakingly check orders and paperwork before commencing his deliveries?

Of the Operations Manager,

• If there were sound reasons for both why he was working on someone else's truck that day, and for the thoroughness of his pre-delivery preparation - are there any other grounds for dissatisfaction with the driver's performance?

Of the Sales Manager,

• What does this truck driver do that the difficult customer likes so much?
• What does he do better than, or more of, than other drivers?

 

Not surprisingly, the driver had a very different view of his work performance to that of the Operations Manager.

Question 1:

Yes, guilty as charged. He had been helping to unload someone else's truck on company time.

But, for him, it had been the sensible thing to do.  He had been “caught” helping out at a customer's depot. The customer had one truck loading bay and until an earlier delivery was out of the way, our driver had to wait. They appreciated his help, he said, and suggested I talk to them to confirm what he had said.   Then shook his head stating that all the Operations Manager had to do was ask ...

I didn't bother as I didn’t think there was the slightest need to do so… so much for the "unloading someone else’s truck" incident.

Question 2:

Why was the driver so pedantic in the way he checked orders and paperwork as deliveries were loaded onto his truck?

He laughed.

"Simple,” he said. "There are mistakes made in the preparation of orders and in particular in the preparation of the paperwork. But I think it better to fix them before I leave, rather than have our customers complain and send the papers all back again. Why should our customers have to fix our mistakes?"

Why indeed?

A quick check with the Sales as well as the Finance Departments confirmed there were some ongoing problems originating either in Despatch or elsewhere within the factory that ended up at Despatch.

The story had taken a 180° turn.

No, the driver was not sacked.    Anything but. 

The Managing Director made 2 quick decisions.

Firstly, he made it a priority to attend the next Operations staff meeting.

In front of the Operation Manager and Operations team, the Managing Director praised the driver for the continuing quality of service he, the driver, was providing the whole company, not just Operations by,

• helping to maintain excellent relationships with customers, and in particular with the difficult customer,
• minimising Finance Department work by correcting administrative errors before they were "inflicted" on customers.

The Sales Manager later told me that the difficult customer had started using the driver to pass sales orders back to the Sales Department. They preferred dealing with the driver, knew what they needed to order, and didn't require any additional ‘selling’ from a sales rep…

The Sales Manager had been smart enough to recognise a natural sales conduit and had encouraged the driver accordingly.

 

An irony really. One of the company's best employees on the verge of being sacked because one manager thought only in ‘silo’ terms regarding the needs of his department, rather than the overall needs of the company.

The last I saw of the Operations Manager was him busily responding to the results of the Managing Director's second decision: an overdue and necessary review of the work flows and procedures in Despatch and the factory.

Apparently, the Managing Director had had enough of the errors and customer complaints, and the inadequate promises to fix them.

Cheers
Nic

jumping to conclusions: j-t-c

 

or the a-b-c of thinking in stereotypes

We all do it.   Can't help ourselves.  This jumping to conclusions business.

And in the face of ever greater volumes of competing information in our lives, the prevalence of j-t-c (must have an acronym to be credible) seems to be on the increase.

I think we don't pay enough attention to the pros and cons of the fundamental wiring and software that comes, free of charge, with every human brain. The default operating system you get when you arrive on planet (although it does take a while to set up) comes without a user manual.

And we certainly don't pay in particular enough attention to how two interdependent major mental processes interact in such a way as to result in a very human trait we all share,

- the propensity to jump to conclusions.

Our brains come hard-wired for pattern recognition/learning in everything that we do.   A full-time, real-time, subconscious software program that attempts to automate everything it encounters.   All at the speed of thought.

This amazingly adaptive learning process has one primary objective and benefit:

to free our conscious attention to focus on what is important or changing in the world around us, rather than wasting precious mental resources on what can be safely ignored for the moment or disregarded altogether. 

An obvious secondary benefit is that in learning, we are subsequently able to do more with the same limited resources – our body and mind.

For example, in learning to ride a bicycle as children, we learnt the complex sequence of muscle control to balance on two thin wheels.  Having learnt to do so, we now no longer need think about it – we have become unconsciously competent.  Our conscious attention is freed to focus on what is important and what is changing - where we are going and the traffic around us.

The process applies equally to all things psychological - to our thoughts, emotions and interactions with others. 

Unbidden, our mind identifies what is similar about every situation we encounter and automatically creates/evolves working presumptions, from prior learning (experience), to speed up our capacity to deal with the [new] situation we now face. Whatever is fast and effective that will reduce the demands on our conscious attention at any one moment.

But as usual, there is no free lunch.

As remarkable as the pattern recognition/learning process is, we are all aware that it is definitely not error proof.   Our brain makes its best approximation based on learning from prior experience and the information available in the moment.   Being an approximation, it is by definition not exact.  Our best approximation may be insufficient in the face of changing circumstances, or at times, just plain wrong.

But, whether we will admit to an error is determined by an interdependent and equally elusive process - our ego.

When our pattern recognition/learning software meets our ego with its unique needs, a working approximation or presumption can stop being treated as an hypothesis - this could be right - and can easily be ‘elevated’ by our ego beyond 'opinion' to the exultant rank of ‘truth’ or ‘fact’.

In short, it is easy to believe our own press - that we know all the answers.   

All humans run the danger of operating from the ultimate ego-based presumption that,

"My presumptions are accurate - there is no reason for me to stop to check how accurate or relevant, in fact, they are."

Suddenly, rather than just having a useful hypothesis as a starting point, we act or speak with a degree of conviction unwarranted by the quality of information we used to come to the conclusion in the first place.

We jump to conclusions - and promptly set our working hypothesis/presumption into mental concrete.

At this point we are operating in a closed loop.    New information will have to be glaringly different before we are likely to reconsider.   The chances of learning plummet.

A simple example.

Some time ago, I was at a meeting that dragged on beyond its scheduled end time (surprise, surprise).
I had a touch of gastro and the need to ‘go’ became steadily more important than continuing to sit in the meeting.

One of my colleagues next to me, however, read my shifting in my seat as my unexpressed disagreement with the opinions of the presenter.   Later he told me he had thought,

“Well, from the way you were moving around in your seat, I could see I wasn't alone in disagreeing with what was being said.”

This sparked sufficient motivation for him to ask questions.    Good questions as it turned out but originally motivated by an erroneous interpretation of my restlessness.   Lengthened the meeting too which I definitely could have done without ....

We both had a good laugh afterwards, as we realised it had been his turn to jump to an incorrect conclusion.   In the meeting, to him it had been obvious what my restlessness meant.   He never doubted his presumption.

In the blink of an eye,

presumption
became conclusion
became fact. 

I believe the pressures, both real and self-imposed, under which many managers work exacerbates the allure of j-t-c.

It is not unreasonable for managers to desire to be (or to be perceived to be) in control, to be right, to be able to do things once, quickly, especially when working to tight deadlines with stretched resources.

Faced with these pressures, anyone, manager or otherwise, can easily be seduced to jump to conclusions rather than pausing to check the validity of his/her presumptions.

The interaction between our pattern recognition/learning process with all the subtleties of our ego needs can so easily mis-lead us into something of a thinking "slippery slope",

• Without sufficient self-awareness, presumptions filtered by our ego can lead us to poor judgements - jumping to conclusions.

• Without questioning our presumptions, we can end up thinking in stereotypes. 

• Thinking in stereotypes allows our minds to automate the formation of opinions and attitudes more quickly, with less reflection with views becoming more entrenched – our mind learns to form new presumptions through a lens of increasingly unconscious, distorted stereotypes.   We end up in the thinking world of "isms" - racism, sexism, elitism, ageism.

Stereotypes can be so seductive.   They can give the illusion of certainty; of our being in control, bolstering the ego's needs for self esteem, and perhaps, for some, reinforcing a sense of self-worth and superiority.

Let us not kid ourselves: stereotypes represent the lazy end of the human thinking process.

I was speaking with a manager recently who was complaining about an error in a customer order.   He certainly wasn’t slow at ‘pointing the finger’ at who he said was to blame.   Presenting presumption?    Don’t blame the manager …. 

From the perspective of an outsider to the team, the incident seemed to me to be a reasonable reflection of the state of affairs in the team.    The manager's autocratic management style had effectively squashed any initiative from his staff - they no longer questionned his instructions and concentrated on doing what they were told - "to the letter".  I think a similar incident is likely to repeat sooner rather than later. 

The manager's use of cliques and quick stereotypes combined with his very evident ego suggested he was not interested in considering that his presumptions on how to lead and manage an effective team might need serious revisiting ...


With our ego sitting ever alert, the real danger to our thinking is that we don’t consider what we are presuming,

Selectively filtering information we attend to, to see what we are looking for,

Hear only what confirms presumptions,

Selectively interpret neutral information to confirm the conclusion we seek,

We suspend judgement,

Ah, this makes sense, therefore I’m right.

 

Experience,
self-awareness and wisdom

... matched with patience to stop and question ...

are all that we have to bring to bear against the seductive allure of jumping to conclusions and thinking in stereotypes …

Cheers
Nic

people do what it pays them to do

 

There is a saying I use to remind myself to think carefully about the complex motivations behind the behaviour of any person.   A little reminder to myself that I find slows my tendency to jump to a conclusion - that I understand fully what's going on, and am sufficiently informed to judge how important some issue or event might be considered by someone else...

 

"People do what it pays them to do.”

For me this suggests a straight forward equation:

if the benefits outweigh the costs,
then people act;
if not, they don't.

Quite simple really.   

Well actually, no.   Assessing motivation is anything but simple.   
My litany has to be qualified by 2 important, but anything other than simple, corollaries,

Corollary 1

"How a person determines what is a benefit (or a cost) and how they value each benefit (or cost) is personal, not universal." 

Worth remembering that not everyone responds equally to the same stimulus.

• Money? Sure everyone wants it, but its effect as a motivator varies enormously.
• For some, a major driver is status; others it’s all about work value.
• Some are motivated by change in their work environment, and yet others by the fact that things don’t change.

For most people, it really is a mixture of all of the above and more.

 

Corollary 2

“A person's motivation in any one moment is almost always not just a simplistic reaction to what is happening at that moment.    
Rather, it is the sum of their reaction to the moment measured against all the facets that makes them human."

With work colleagues, I at times have little idea of what is going on in their life – our relationship is primarily defined by the work place.    I am conscious that I may have a very incomplete understanding of what their recent history might be; what prior experiences have significantly shaped their attitudes; subtleties of culture, values etc that in turn shape how their thinking generates presumptions, assesses motivation. 

And it is so easy to presume you know - to project one's own value system as the basis for assessing and interpreting the motivation of others.

Example 1

A newly-appointed manager was commenting on how one of his subordinates was anything but enthusiastic.   He found her unresponsive, demotivated.   She did what was asked but no more.   Just didn't join in ....

His initial conclusion?    The subordinate obviously wasn't all that interested in her work.   

Fortunately he was wise enough to seek additional information from the HR Department before he sought to act.

Being new to the company, the manager was the one person who did not know the heavy burden his subordinate was carrying away from work, with quiet dignity.   No one thought to inform him.   
Great induction, guys.

The manager's initial conclusion, based on the incomplete information available to him initially, was certainly plausible but not the only one possible.   He re-learnt an old lesson - that it pays him to not jump to conclusions that he understands everything affecting his staff ... but to pause and question before acting.

 

Example 2

I encounter versions of the following scenario frequently in the workplace.

A strongly extroverted manager who prefers to think out loud, talk face-to-face about issues and decide what to do there and then.   Some of his team enjoy the dialogue and face-to-face interaction with the manager.   Their contribution is immediate and welcomed.

In the mind of the manager, these staff members are obviously performing well ... .

However, the balance of his team are not extraverted but introverted.   They prefer to think before they speak, and prefer time to consider their opinions.   They see the manager's approach to decision-making as gung ho, sloppy and the speed of his discussion alienating.  They felt the manager was missing other options, potentially jumping to conclusions, responding without sufficient thought.

These team members consider themselves disadvantaged by the strength of the manager's personal preferences in how he works with others as well as by what they see as an unnecessarily precipitous, shoot-from-the-hip management style.

Clearly, the manager is assessing contribution and individual performance through his own strong preferences rather than concentrating on work outcomes, strategic thinking and valuing difference.   A strong personality who is yet to learn how to get the most out of all of his people.

I usually get called in at the end of the first round of performance appraisal process ....

 

Example 3

A year or so ago, I was on an interview panel – one of three interviewing a candidate who on paper was a very good match to our selection criteria.   The candidate presented as a personable, vivacious woman with ready wit and evident intelligence, supported by good research prior to interview.

She was skilled in the way she influenced the panel, using highly polished interpersonal and verbal skills, her physical beauty and vivacity.    I could feel her attempt to persuade us to ignore any doubts and accept her point of view.

And this is for me a key interviewing skill – to retain the mental separation necessary to examine the dynamics in the discussion - to recognise the subtleties and embedded presumptions of what is said and the manner in which it communicated. 

Our unanimous opinion was that this candidate was ambitious, talented but not perhaps a great team player.   

For the panel, it paid us to be cautious in who we added to a team already operating well.

For our candidate, her vivacity, good looks and evident intelligence have resulted in her learning that it pays her to be as she is.


Cheers
Nic

what's in it for you?

Ignoring the universal question ...

 

“And I am sure that once we talk to Graham about this, he will be keen to…”

I had just received the first draft of a proposal, and was scanning it while listening to a colleague.   I thought the underlying idea was good but something about the proposal wasn't right.   

Let me back up a bit.   I had been approached to join a small group in submitting a proposal to 'Graham', a senior manager with a target client, and with whom we were all at least familiar or had had previous consulting work

The initial draft of the proposal covered the usual topics,

• aim and summary statement of why it would be of benefit,
• our respective experience and qualifications, and
• stepped carefully through each stage of how the consultancy would be delivered …

so the client would know exactly what he was buying.   That's good, right?

"Wrong" said Alex. 

Everyone stopped to listen.  Alex has the marketing nous.   His reaction to the draft proposal?   A good idea but the proposal needed substantial revision ….

"No", he said, "not just revision, refocus."

The first thing he reminded us that people usually do not buy process.

In almost all cases, process doesn't sell,
benefits do.

 

In Alex's view, the draft proposal failed to answer the universal question,

"What's in it for me?"   (WIIFM)

or from Graham’s perspective, 

"What's in it for him?"

Rough draft # 1 certainly outlined some benefits for Graham but they were lost against a volume of material focused on stepping out the proposed process and the experience we had to complete each step.

Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing (www.actionplan.com) who works to assist professionals with their marketing, talks of each person listening to their own 24 hour, 7 day a week, personal radio station ‘WIIFM’.

Clearly, the (admittedly very rough) draft proposal #1 was not properly tuned to Radio Graham WIIFM.  There was too much static around the benefits for Graham.

 

Draft # 2

Ah, the contrast!    Draft # 2 featured a complete re-focus.  It was written for Graham and his company.

• Introduction outlining difficulties we knew they were encountering with some of their clients,

• Clear statements of the commercial benefits from assisting to resolve some of these difficulties.   As many benefits we could think of in working with us to achieve that outcome: money saved, time saved, angst relieved, resources freed etc. including how good it would feel personally for Graham and his colleagues in doing so ...

Only then did we talk about ‘why us?’   Our relevant experience to give confidence in achieving the benefits - yep, another benefit statement.

And finally, right at the back, a bit about process – half what originally had been in draft #1.

Alex was happy.    Further editing and off to Graham …

Reaction?

Graham liked the idea and the proposal itself.   Saw it as workable and worth pursuing. 
But only after he returns from overseas …    

OK – so the proposal stalled for a reason we could not control.   What was important was Graham’s reaction had been positive.  The proposal had done its initial work.   The benefits were clear to him.   Unforeseen circumstances, his going overseas, put us on hold but in Graham's active pending basket…

 

The universal question

So let me go back to the universal question - WIIFM?

For managers, the universal question needs to be carved into a block of wood and nailed front and centre to their desk as it underpins everything in leadership and management. 

The best managers have learnt that the greater the benefit to their team from having them as the manager,

• the greater the likely motivation in the team,
• the greater the likely performance from the team,
• the happier the workplace is likely to be,
• the more likely they will be able to retain (good) staff.

Each and every time you interact with one of your subordinates or colleagues, it might pay to pause and consider,

"What’s in it for them?"

• "What options do I have in the way I get them to complete this task or respond to the question?"
• "What is my subordinate/colleague learning from me right now?”
• “Do they understand the context fully?   
• What presumptions am I making that they may not share?"

With the universal question in mind, all our subsequent questions are reshaped. 

Cheers
Nic

I remember meetings like this …

Early one recent morning, I was sitting in a cafe in relative peace and quiet reading the morning paper. Close to me slowly gathered a team of 10 people for what turned out to be a weekly sales meeting. One of these classic out-of-the-office breakfast meetings with free coffee and croissant as token compensation for everyone turning up earlier than the normal starting time ….

Like it or not, I was to be a passive observer to the meeting.    What I did not anticipate was being presented with a free lesson in how to run a (non )productive meeting – sales or otherwise - and what lessons the sales manager was inadvertently reinforcing…

The abrupt change in conversational tone marked the start of the meeting - to the second of  8 o'clock.  The informal discussions between arriving team members suddenly were replaced with something best described as ‘glazed resignation’.     I soon learnt why.

The sales manager launched into action speaking decisively in facts and figures, providing information and rapidly issuing instructions.     Confident, no room for uncertainty.  Every word and mannerism reinforcing the sense of a man in control – of himself and of his team.  In doing so, he was respectful; wasn’t rude, abusive, or arrogant.    Better described as tunnel-visioned, linear, well-intentioned, driven.

 
The meeting moved efficiently through its agenda: basically a series of  9 individual reports to the sales manager.   Each subordinate in turn endured what felt like to me to be a ritual, weekly, public humiliation of justifying their last week’s activity as well as their proposed schedule for the week ahead.   
Whilst one reported, eight others sat silently, redundant to the immediate conversation, not drawing attention, mentally hibernating, eyes awake, until it was their turn under the sales manager's microscope.

Hang on!    I remember meetings like this!

In asking for comments, the sales manager paused for a brief moment before answering himself, speaking quickly, to the point.   No time for debate that might lengthen the meeting and delay the day ahead …. Responses by staff were confined to providing specific information or asking questions of what he thought they should do … in effect, seeking additional instructions.    And our action man seemed very happy to issue them.

His comments were relevant, certainly.     But, throughout the meeting there was hardly an opinion that wasn’t his.     Nine people who attended the meeting were taught, once again I would guess, attendance was compulsory but their thinking certainly wasn’t.

In fact, I have very bad memories of meetings like this…

At its end as staff rose to go, conversation again slowly restarted - the earlier chatter could now be better described as quiet mutterings typical after any such meeting,

"Thank heavens that's over for another week.  When it's not my turn to sit up and perform, I end up drinking so much coffee to stay awake."

Or the one I really liked because it summed it up so well,

“He’s [sales manager] like a broken record … we could have taped last week's meeting, blindfolded everyone this week and spent the time guessing when we were using the tape or when he was speaking …"

General laughter. And a concerned look from the sales manager from across the collection of café tables, “were they laughing at him?”

 

Yep, they were - I remember those post-meeting mutterings; the derogatory humour at the manager’s expense (that’s compulsory); and the plotting how to generate a plausible excuse to get out of next week’s meeting …

 

So, let me, as a conscript observer, describe the atmosphere and style of the meeting.

• atmosphere – depowering, disengaging, demotivating; a defensive culture based on justification. 
• management style - autocratic; authoritarian; marginalising.
• knowledge management - linear; repetitive; information/fact based; redundant.

From the sales manager’s behaviour and choice of words, what might we conclude regarding his beliefs of himself, and his perceptions of his role and status?

What attitudes did I hear embedded in almost every comment he made throughout the meeting?     Impressions were,

“I am the boss; listen and you will learn from your superior…”

“My ideas work”  from which we might infer that everyone else’s thoughts are less valuable, less relevant ….

“It is more efficient (read: faster) to listen to me as I know what is important ….”

“Learn to do what I say, not think for yourself; you will be slower and you might be wrong. I am confident I will not.”

 

Well, given attitudes like those, what fundamental lessons did the sales manager appear, however inadvertently, to be teaching his staff?

Learned helplessness – “take the problem to the boss, he works it out.”

“The boss prefers to make decisions.”

"My opinion doesn’t count ...”

“Good performance is doing what you are told to do and not anything else.”

"Initiative is frowned upon.”

And of course, “Tuesday mornings are an absolute pain …”

What has the sales manager perhaps taught himself?

“I have to make all the decisions as my staff can’t.”

“The best way to run a sales meeting so as to keep to schedule and keep control is the way we do it.”

“If I don’t keep on their backs, they won’t do the work and sales will drop.”

“The best way to teach staff is to tell them until they get it.”

“I can summarise most issues faster than any of the others, so for the sake of efficient meetings, it makes sense for me to do most of the talking.”

Based on my observations and interpretation of his behaviour, what would I have liked to ask the sales manager?

Three areas to explore,

• What does he believe is essential in a good manager?   Get him to describe examples of great managers he has worked with, and identify the factors and behaviours that made them so good ….

• What does he believe he does well and what could he do better?   How could he find out? What else could he do that would support his staff to do the best they can?

• The sales manager needs certain information from his staff.   What options does he have that doesn't require nine staff to be lined up each week for their turn to justify themselves?    How could he, in turn, add value to individual team members so that they are both well informed and learn from interactions with him?

Yes, this might mean a radical new approach to sales meetings!!

Oh yes, I remember meetings just like this one.   It summarised perfectly what my then manager didn’t understand what my colleagues and I needed,

• to be led not ‘administrated’,
• to be motivated not constrained,
• to pool our collective ideas to create something greater, not have the same information, the same maxims presented week after week …

He never listened, never got it.   It was a significant reason why I and others eventually left.

Oh yes, I remember meetings just like this one very well …

Cheers
Nic

counting the cost of an ‘office affair’

A while ago, I was approached by a client to investigate a sudden management team ‘communication’ problem in one of his company's divisions.  Once the rubble was cleared away, what was left were the immediate and long-term effects of an office affair.  Without going into the gory details, a very senior manager was concentrating on studying anatomy, and his Executive Assistant (EA) had a related and significant change in her opinion of herself and the importance of her role as gatekeeper between the very senior manager and the balance of his management team.  Messy.   

What struck me at the time quite forcibly was the added stress others in the organisation had had to endure.    Which also made me pause to consider the potential commercial costs from the company's perspective. 

I came to an early conclusion: from an organisational point of view - the best outcome of an office affair is neutral.

That’s it. The best outcome for a company from an affair is that there is no detrimental impact in the short and long-term. In all other circumstances, it seems to me the company loses directly or indirectly.

I would really like to hear of circumstances where there was a direct affair-related benefit to the company. I am excluding unsubstantiated (apocryphal?) claims of horizontal sales successes, thank you very much. (Or to put it another way, it would make for an interesting customer survey: “So you can confirm that we only got the order because our sales rep slept ….”    You get the idea.)

 

Point #1  - What happens next?

In a related aside, my then 15 year-old son demonstrated wisdom beyond his years regarding why he would never go out with girls from his own school, 

“If you break up, Dad, you are both still at the same school. You’ve got years of afterwards to get through. Not smart.”         
(Such wisdom at such a young age .... must be his Mum’s influence…)

Most affairs end. Some amicably; some due to one partner rethinking; some just fizzing out; some by discovery.   So in line with a 15 year-old’s wisdom is point #1 - What happens next?    What about all those ‘afterwards’? 

What are the odds both can continue to work as before, unscathed?

In the best case, yes.   In all others, less than certainly.  I wonder how frequently the reasons given for someone resigning hides another truth: that an office affair never ends (or for their spouses, is proven to end) until there is physical separation/ no contact.

And for the company?  It pays in lost productivity, and resultant associated costs of recruiting new staff, retraining, etc. - that will probably be attributed to ‘natural’ turnover.

 

Point #2  - Impact on work colleagues can be subtle and often difficult to assess or anticipate.

Back to our very senior manager: he granted his EA a ‘significant’ salary increase (read: % greater than most) that given the quietly growing knowledge of their relationship, resulted in some staff being disgruntled about lack of  fairness … and some classic cracks about the latest innovation in how to conduct a ‘performance’ appraisal.   
At this point, it was irrelevant how well the EA completed her work (and opinions varied greatly on that point): any salary review or bonus payment above the norm was construed as undeserved.

So, for the company, one unanticipated impact of the affair?    A degree of loss of trust by staff regarding transparent fairness by management in how they [staff] are treated and valued; that the performance appraisal system, for example, reflected work-based merit.

In this case, it got worse.  The clearly-defined role of an EA became distorted due to an inflated sense of self-importance.   The EA had been encouraged to consider her role as more than a diary gatekeeper - more like a gatefilter.   

For managers, the EA was now unpredictable and ‘politically dangerous’.    Messages to the very senior manager were correspondingly more cautiously expressed and subtly slowed as managers sought greater consensus prior to putting forward concerns or new ideas. 
It was no surprise, then, that the problem presented initially to the Group MD as a management team communication issue ...

With many circumspect office affairs, there is probably little if any impact on work colleagues; here it slowly became anything but ...

The inevitable was predictable once others started to pay a cost.   I heard later that the EA 'decided' it was time to move on; the very senior manager found he had lost the until then complete trust of the Group MD and some time later also left.

The whole episode, along with its associated costs, was filed away under

"one of the many unpredictable things
a CEO has to deal with
- the less said the better".

Cheers
Nic

the art of obtaining constructive feedback

These days at least 95% of applications for a new job are received by e-mail.  Personally, I do not think it too much to ask of executive recruiters that each applicant receives both:

• an acknowledgement of receipt of his/her application by return e-mail; as well as
• provide a second follow-up outcome email – a simple "thanks but no thanks" for those who made an effort to put their hat in the ring but were not successful.

After sending a recent ‘thanks but no thanks’ email, I received two phone calls in quick succession.   Both candidates missed making the final interview list and rang to seek feedback on their respective applications.   

The difference in their approach to the same conversation made an extraordinary difference to the outcome. 

‘Tony’ was the first to ring: what happened in the first seconds of his call gave great insight into the art of how (not) to obtain meaningful feedback ...

He launched into the conversation,

"I would appreciate receiving some frank feedback.  Given my significant experience, I am amazed that I was not offered an interview."

  His request for feedback was fine but I distinctly recall the words ‘significant’ and ‘amazed’ were accompanied with a tone of voice that suggested a prickliness of someone ready to argue the issue.

His phone manner recalled my hesitation when reading his application originally regarding his written expression …a sense he was not shy in stating how confident he was in his experience and what he had to offer.   There is a balance in all things, if you get my drift.   On this occasion however, he was clearly not the best candidate in either experience or qualifications. 

Irrespective of how good or bad I might be at providing feedback, in those opening seconds he communicated one basic point.   His primary emotional reason for the call was not feedback but to reassure himself of his intrinsic worth; the very reasonable need to be acknowledged as valuable and experienced.

My response was caution: I was conscious of immediately being careful with the words I chose in reply.    I felt he wasn’t listening for learning but possibly for ‘ammunition’ to mount an argument.   I became guarded, less frank, and potentially less useful.

After his phone call, I sat and thought about Tony and his approach to the phone call.   I had to laugh at myself: I undoubtedly have approached similar circumstances in the same frame of mind.

For Tony, what would usually be the aim of seeking feedback on his application?   Clearly, to find out more of what the recruiter is looking for so as to improve his résumé and hence, increase the chance that the (next) recruiter is persuaded to ring and ask for an interview.

Tricky things, résumés. They need a lot of work to get right.

Literally five minutes later, ‘Greg’ rang to thank me for informing him of the outcome of his application (he thanked me) and politely asked for feedback on his application.   He asked open questions about content, layout - he raised issues, seeking my opinion.   He had clearly prepared in advance, thought of what he wanted to know, areas to explore.

It was more than that though.   Preparation is important but it was his attitude that was the key.   Greg clearly communicated to me that here was someone keen to do better and here was a recruiter he could tap to do so.    I was struck by his intelligent approach to the conversation …. and no, this was not because I like the sound of my own voice...    His attitude immediately created an ease in speaking with him.    He did not challenge what I said; rather he listened and then asked clarifying questions.    It was well done.

Oh yes, I made careful notes on his file regarding both his preparation and obviously sound inter-personal skills.   If he applies for another position I am managing, I will have good reason to pause and think more carefully.   After all, I now have first-person information in addition to his résumé to motivate me to call!    And I'll bet his résumé improves too …

So let’s go back to the start.   

Because it is before the request for feedback is made that the probability of realising the potential of constructive feedback is won and lost.

Thought # 1 is clear – asking for feedback is usually a good thing.    The response to requests for feedback is generally positive.   We all like to offer our cent’s worth and most of us are very willing to do so with little prompting …

Thought # 2 – one agenda and one emotion at a time!    With Tony, his opening words introduced other emotions, other motivations over and above seeking feedback.    If you are not ready to listen then wait until you are.

Thought # 3 - feedback is as good as the motivation of both parties allow.
With Tony, I didn't even have the opportunity to be useful (or not!): he wasn't listening.    Greg on the other hand was all ears …

Thought # 4 – if you seek feedback, then your role is appreciative enquiry – that is shut up and listen!    Asking for feedback infers you value the opinion of the other person.   That they have a valid point of view, a position of authority, or experience that generates respect.   If it is worth asking, then it is at least worth listening.

Thought # 5 – in constructive feedback, preparation and then ‘open’ questions generate more information and are not perceived as defensive or laden with other issues.  This is a one-off opportunity to collect new data - your primary task is to listen.   Thinking about what is said should be reserved for later, after you have had time to consider what was said and why.

Thought # 6 – take notes and say so – it is much harder to argue when you are also trying to write notes of what is being said!       Besides, this greatly assists your own post-discussion debrief.    In this case, these were my opinions that were sought; both Tony and Greg are welcome to agree or disagree, use or not at their leisure.

Thought # 7 – emails are cheap – send a thank you!!!

Tony may not have helped himself, or maybe he did the best he could at that moment.    However, he and Greg certainly reminded me that preparation and attitude in how I approach such a simple task dictates ultimately the value of what I receive.

 

Cheers
Nic