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Those of you who are regular readers of my blog, or read/listen to any business or life guru, know that communications are at the heart of any kind of success. The ability to express an idea in a truly memorable manner can solve a long standing problem. Here is one example, I hope it provokes both laughter and thought this Friday…

Last year, according to a radio report, a middle school in Oregon was faced with a unique problem. A number of girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Warnings and posted notes didn’t help. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had clean the mirrors every night.

To demonstrate how difficult it was to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance guy to clean one of the mirrors. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it into the toilet and then cleaned the mirror.

Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

The ability to get one’s point across can be found at all levels of an organization!

Have a great weekend!

Innovation drives the sacred P’s—productivity and profit. It is the hot topic, not just for products and business processes, but across the organization. Innovation isn’t always earth-shaking or about the next big thing, but large or small, it’s always better. Companies spend big bucks on innovation assistance, hiring top consultants, going on special retreats, etc.

The problem is that that usually taps only the higher levels of the company and can limit innovation based on the company’s financial resources.

What you want is a simple, inexpensive way to tap the creativity in your people; the same people who are constantly dealing with your products, processes and customers, know them intimately and frequently have innovative ideas or can ask creativity-provoking questions that are just as valuable.

The CEO (or top person in the department, group, whatever) must support the innovation wiki for it to succeed big time. Here’s how to do it.

Start with a wiki on your intranet or at a free host

Write a brief description of the wiki’s purpose: That you want to create a “field of dreams and innovation” for all your people to play in to take the organization to the next level.

Then add some basic ground rules tailored to your own organization:

• All ideas are welcome, no matter how outrageous or revolutionary they seem.
• No idea is too small; no subject too minor.
• Good ideas have nothing to do with position in the company hierarchy.

Next, recruit “early adopters,” those people who love to be on the bleeding edge of what ever is going on. Then create a major internal PR effort encouraging everybody’s participation. Keep the topic in the company’s public eye with constant references.

Finally, the most important ingredient to making your innovation wiki a success is to use the ideas—if you don’t use them people will lose interest very quickly—whether directly or as the springboard to something else, and publicly credit them to the originator. You may want to add some kind of incentive or award for each one used (even if the use is indirect), but it’s most important to offer major, public appreciation.

Do all this, and they will come.

Company culture is a hot topic in the business press; CEOs are working to foster “cultures of innovation;” and culture is being lauded or blamed for a variety of happenings. The bird’s eye view of what’s important in culture is as varied as the experts who comment, but what’s the worm’s eye view—what do plain vanilla employees think and want? It’s important, since without them there is no company.

It used to be when I talked with people that it was easier for them to articulate the attitudes and behaviors they didn’t want to encounter in the workplace. Even today, with a far more savvy and sophisticated workforce, people still tend to focus first on what they don’t want:

• Too much politics: personal, group, or in senior management.
• Unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Poor management practices such as erratic management; intimidation; micro-management; belittling or contemptuous treatment; poor scheduling; no loyalty; the attitude that “we don’t have enough time to do it right but we have enough time to do it over;” workaholism; etc.
• Any form of harassment, whether overt or covert
• A generally negative attitude, i.e., the glass is half empty
• Arrogance or an elitist attitude.
• An unwillingness (at whatever level) to seek and implement the compromises necessary to meet most of the organization’s needs within the required timeframe.

But when you get them to focus on the positives, the sophisticated and savvier mindset of this workforce is even more obvious when discussing the factors they desire. Here are some of the high points that people say they want for themselves and from their managers and company:

• The opportunity to truly “make a difference.”
• To be treated fairly.
• To trust the management and be trusted by them.
• To embrace the idea that work can and should be fun.
• Accurate prioritizing of company, team, and individual goals while keeping them synergistic.
• A positive “can-do” attitude (aggressive, but realistic—the glass is half full).
• Continuing development and quality improvement in people, products and services, and processes.
• Committing to employees, customers, and investors—and meeting those commitments.
• An open, accurate, company-wide flow of information starting from the top.
• An environment that encourages people to reach their full potential, professionally and personally.
• A conscious effort to stamp out “not invented here” syndrome (in all its varied forms) so as to not waste time reinventing the wheel.

There’s great value in this worm’s eye view. By eliminating what employees don’t like, and giving them what they want, you create a foundation on which to build the kind of innovative, profitable culture craved by investors, customers, and the rest of the outside world.

Pretty much everybody has read articles and experienced “people chemistry,” that instantaneous reaction we have to a new person that makes us anxious to increase our interaction—or eliminate it all together. We don’t have this extreme reaction to everyone we meet, but when it does happen it has nothing to do with thinking—it’s strictly a deep, primal reaction.

The interesting thing I’ve found over the years is that a positive reaction can turn negative after additional exposure, but I have never seen negative chemistry turn positive.

Why is that?

Based on my experience, it’s because people with bad chemistry can’t “hear” each other. No matter what one says or does, the other will hear/see something totally different. No communication, no connection. Whereas, positive reactions turn negative when the person turns out not to be who/what we expected, but we learn this because we can “hear” them.

Illogically, we assume that if we have good chemistry with two people that they will have good chemistry with each other, but it doesn’t always work that way. Back when I was headhunting, Randy, a favorite client of mine, needed a general manager for a new division. I introduced him to Jim, one of my very favorite people. I had great chemistry with both and when they met they really hit it off. Wayne said that they were in such sync that they practically finished each other’s sentences; everyone else who was involved in the interviewing was high on Jim, so Randy arranged for his boss to fly in for dinner with himself and Jim. Randy considered it more of a courtesy, since he and his boss had great chemistry and he had always approved Randy’s choices.

(Bet you can see it coming.) Randy called me the morning after in total shock. He said he had never seen anything like it. From the time they shook hands it was as if they were speaking different languages. Afterwards, his boss said that Randy must have been nuts to think that Jim could do the job, let alone join their team.

When I spoke with Jim, he said that he couldn’t believe that a team led by Randy, of all people, had to put up with someone like that as boss. No way would he ever work around that guy.

As a manager, it’s hard to pass on a candidate with great skills, but if you, or one of the team, truly has bad chemistry with the candidate (or the candidate with one of the team) then you’re much better to take walk away, then to hire and hope things will change later.

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I used to write a column called Ask Miki for the Oakland Tribune and I occasionally still get interesting questions to which I respond directly. They often use a yahoo.com address, but are interesting and relevant, so I thought I’d occasionally share both letter and answer with you.

Dear Miki, I’m president of a small ($2.5M) company. I have three sales people who I manage myself. Although we’re doing OK, I’d like a better way to judge the pipeline in order to more accurately forecast our revenues and reduce nasty surprises. Part of the problem is time, but I’m also not sure I know the right questions to ask my people. Currently we track the following:

• Est sales date
• Est sales amount
• Probability of win

Any ideas?

JB

Hi JB, Based on my experience, you have a lot of company! I frequently find that the people managing sales in startups and small businesses have neither a sales background nor a lot of time to devote to the subject in spite of its importance. In addition to structuring your compensation to focus your salespeople specifically on the product mix you want them to sell, you need to set up a simple structure to make sure that they ask the tough questions. Asking the tough questions is Sales 101, but that doesn’t mean it happens.

First you need the definition of a tough question: Any question to which you don’t want to hear the answer.

In sales the hardest question the salesperson asks is the one to which the potential client will say “no.” It’s what’s called a “closing question” and it can take place anytime after the first hello. Salespeople often avoid closing questions to keep the discussion going, kidding themselves and their boss into thinking it’s a live one. A no means having to make more cold calls to refill the pipeline whereas it’s more comfortable to believe that they can heat it up again with additional contacts.

More subtly, salespeople (like the rest of us mortals) want to be liked. By asking the question that will either take the deal to the next level or be no, the salesperson is risking not being liked any more, i.e., rejected, AKA, no.

I doubt that there’s even one salesperson alive who at sometime in their career hasn’t clung to a deal long after it should have been put to rest—if for no other reason then to make the pipeline look good. What you, as the sales manager, must do is create a structure that makes sure that a deal shows dead when it’s dead. Sure, that deal might be resurrected at some point down the road, but it doesn’t belong in a pipeline meant to forecast revenues.

To create the structure you need to analyze the steps that it takes to make a sale in your field. A step means moving the deal to the next level. For example, the levels might be:

• First contact (telephone call, email, networking, trade show, etc.)
• First meeting w/ presentation
• Additional meeting(s) (the number depends on what you’re selling)
• RFP/proposal
• Close

There are many small closes within each step, but what you don’t want to do is micromanage your salespeople (or anyone else, for that matter) by timing every single tiny step possible within each level and having them report daily on the status. The point is that a deal shouldn’t remain more than two months (and depending on your business that may be stretching it) in the same level. The best way to determine this is to sit down with your salespeople and analyze past deals as opposed to you (or anyone else) setting an arbitrary amount of time that “feels right” or “seems logical.”

Your sales people should set their own schedules and track of their own pipelines. Meet with them once or twice a month, weekly when a person is new or is having problems, depending on the deal timeline you’ve established. If a deal is due to move to the next level in Feb. but doesn’t and is moved to March and doesn’t, then the salesperson needs to be able to factually defend it. If it doesn’t move at the next stated deadline then it should be taken out of the pipeline. Removing it from the pipeline doesn’t mean that the salesperson severs contact with the company, but it does mean that the deal isn’t forecast as revenue producing—for either the company or the salesperson!

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There you sit, coffee at the ready and a stack of resumes to go through. As you read through them making notes, think about the skills underlying the things they’ve done and how they could benefit your company. Look past the obvious to more subtle parallels that would accelerate a transition to your industry—the software to turn a valve in the process industry is the same as the software that controls a telecom switch since both are real-time—doing so gives you more latitude in acquiring candidate gold.

Generally experience falls into one of four categories no matter the industry or field. Below are descriptions of each category, along with a real-life example of it.

Category 1: What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get

This is the resume and the candidate that everybody wants to get every time. Be it functional or chronological, the resume states everything in an honest, straightforward, unembellished manner. It is cohesive and coherent, interesting and easy to read—and all too rare (a reflection as much on conflicting resume—writing advice as on writer personality). As you read it, you find that each part of it supports every other part. Career progression is logical and reasonable. It makes sense! Intuitively, you feel it is solid and you want to talk to the person. (Well, what are you waiting for? Call her!)

Category 2: Humble Pie

This resume comes from candidates who are usually tongue-tied and self-deprecating in person. The reason can be personality or the result of working for someone who believes in “management by belittling” or other abusive practices. No matter the reason, there is often gold for the manager who can read between the lines. Look for things like substance in the feel of the descriptions of work done, even if the person does not indicate a leadership or substantial role.

Jack, manager of software development, received a resume from Linda describing work done on several products that were of interest to him. He was looking for a senior person, one who could contribute to the architecture of his company’s next generation of product. Although the resume did not mention any kind of architectural or even lead experience, it seemed to have an underlying, in-depth knowledge of the technology involved. Jack felt that Linda could not have written it without that knowledge, so he called her and, as a result of the conversation, invited her in for an interview.

The interview took real effort. Linda was naturally shy, but there seemed to be something more. Jack and his team worked hard on drawing Linda out. What finally surfaced was that Linda was, in reality, the architect for the last several products she had worked on, but the credit had gone to her team leader, who claimed her work as his own. When she protested, he warned her that she could lose her job and that she wasn’t skilled enough to work as a “real” architect. While that was why she wanted to change jobs, she did not have the confidence to present herself as an architect. Linda did not feel anybody would believe her.

Category 3: The Assumer

This is one of the more frustrating types of resume. The candidate touches on projects and work that seem to be applicable but with no detail. At every point, there is the assumption that the reader will know and understand all the underlying skills and abilities necessary to do the work described. Frustrating, but if the candidate’s career progression supports the experience mentioned, then he is worth a phone call.

Carol, manager of digital design, needed an engineer capable of writing the firmware to integrate several different parts of a new system design. At first reading, Lloyd’s resume seemed to have all of the right words in it. But with the second reading, Carol became concerned. Although Lloyd mentioned various projects he had worked on and the technologies involved, he gave no details about his design work. He did have seven years of experience, however, and he had progressed to project lead. He also stated that he wanted to continue in a hands-on technical role.

Carol decided it was worth a call. She felt that Lloyd could not have become a team leader if he hadn’t accomplished something and produced some real results. Before calling, Carol copied the resume and went through it carefully. She marked every item she felt needed clarification and jotted down questions. She called in the evening and made sure Lloyd had time to talk. After asking every question and receiving knowledgeable, comprehensive answers, she told Lloyd about her position and company and invited him in for an interview. Lloyd’s response was enthusiastic, but he said he was curious about one thing. He had no problem answering all of Carol’s questions but was surprised that she hadn’t just read the resume since all of the information was there!

Category 4: The Puffer

Finally there’s the resume that nobody wants to get. It’s the resume that raises everybody’s expectations—and then lets them down with a bang. It’s especially frustrating because besides wasting large amounts of time and energy, it undermines people’s attitude towards the entire staffing process.

The first sign of a puffer (like the fish that becomes twice its size by filling up with air and is poisonous if handled incorrectly) resume is that it relies heavily on certain words and phrasing:

• LED the effort
• PARTICIPATED in the presentation
• RESPONSIBLE FOR the initial design
• INITIATED the process
• IMPLEMENTED the concept

Although the resume looks good during the gross sort, when read carefully the descriptions of the experience do not include enough detail to support the work claimed to have been done. Additionally, experience described does not match with the specific position, education, or overall career progression. This may be no more than a feeling that it is hollow, but you should trust your instincts. If you want to double-check, a quick phone call will give you the answer.

Michael, the CFO, received a number of responses to an ad for a controller. He did the first gross sort and then turned his team loose on them. One resume stood out. Tracy had �participated in the design of the MIS system; implemented new cost controls; initiated the Telecom 2000 study. Although everybody agreed that Tracy seemed to have both the skills and experience they needed, no one felt comfortable with the background. Michael concurred with his team but decided to call the candidate as a reality check.

When asked about the specific things mentioned, Tracy responded with more generalizations. When pinned down, he admitted that his participation in the MIS overhaul involved presenting his department’s wish list at a general company meeting; the cost control implementation involved doing the presentations of the new controls, assisting other managers in their use, and suggesting, based on casual reading, that the company should look into what technology would be available in the next decade and what it would cost. When Michael broached the fact that the resume was misleading, Tracy responded angrily that managers were all alike and tried to disparage the work of their subordinates.

Your secret hiring weapon
Yesterday I promised you a secret hiring weapon, guaranteed to give you an edge over most of your competition, so here it is (sound of trumpets, roll of drums)—speed! Speed is the number one thing you can do to impress a candidate and give yourself an edge in any labor market. The faster you can move, the greater your ability to land the people you want.

The turnaround time from when a resume arrives at the company, whether by email, fax or snail-mail, to the initial phone interview (which should be 30 – 60 minutes, the equivalent of a full, first-time interview) should never exceed 48 hours—and less is better. If the phone interview goes well, schedule the on-site interview with you and the whoever else interviews within the next 48 hours; and if the candidate flies be prepared to check the references and make an offer. Speed—nothing beats it when you’re hiring.

Have a great weekend!

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One thing you can do to instantly double your hiring productivity is to recognize that mining candidate gold is not a multitasking function. Move away from the computer, turn off your cell and Ipod, and focus. Try it, it will work.

No matter the format, the following information will be found somewhere.

Contact information: Make sure it's there. then note name and phone number on every page— resumes come apart, files get deleted, accidents happen—and nothing is more frustrating then losing the contact information for a candidate who seems perfect.

If the address is out of town keep reading even if you don’t want to deal with a relocation. The candidate may rent, or be moving with a spouse, or want only minimal or no relocation assistance. If everything else looks good, it's worth a call to find out the exact circumstances.

Objective: An objective broad enough not to limit the resume has almost no value and the ones that state specific titles or activities may not apply to the opening, but the candidate doesn't know what titles your company uses, how your positions are defined, or the scope for movement within your company, so keep an open mind.

Summary: If well thought out, this can be very useful. It can alert you to points of interest, give you insight to the writer’s view of himself, and provide a skeletal sketch of his skills and experience. But because a really good summary is difficult to write, don’t be put off if it sounds trite or is missing your buzz words.

Education: The trickiest part of a resume because it carries both unconscious and emotional impact. Even when it's ancient history, some managers continue to be more impressed with “name” universities then with post college experience. Many experts believe people forget about half of what they learn in school after three years. After five years, the importance of the college attended should drop by half and continue to diminish in importance as time passes.

Even at name schools, there are many extenuating circumstances. For instance, schools that have top-ranked graduate programs, such as Harvard and Stanford, may have weaker undergraduate programs. By the same token, people who work their way through school at night working full time will bring skills not found in those who attend full time with no need to work.

If you view school as just another part of a person’s professional experience, you will have gone a long way to keeping it in perspective.

Experience: This is where you really need to read between the lines. To illustrate: Bulleting accomplishments is a popular technique, but frequently what is bulleted is part of the job description,

• “Managed a group of 27 engineers” is not an accomplishment, it's what the person was hired to do.

However,

• “Over a three year period managed a group of 27 engineers with no attrition.” is a major accomplishment.

Worse, the accomplishments you're looking for can be buried in the text as a throwaway, because previous managers didn't consider them important.

• “Managed an interdisciplinary team of 27 developing a totally new generation of widgets. The project was completed over a three-year period on time and in budget, due in part to no attrition.”

Keyword Section: These are more prevalent in resumes that were designed to be scanned. It will list every word (or word combination) possible to increase its chances of being found in a keyword search—I recommend that humans skip keyword sections.

Join me again tomorrow to learn about the four categories of resumes and get your secret hiring weapon, guaranteed to give you an edge over most of your competition. 

Most people hate writing resumes, partly because all the advice from books/experts/friends often contradicts each other, which makes a difficult task even harder.They’re in good company because most managers hate reading resumes, although they don’t need to contend with conflicting information, because there is no information! (This is probably the only managerial action in the world that does not have at least a dozen how-to books devoted to it.)

It’s not rocket science to know that reading resumes takes time. And the payoff is iffy—you win some, you lose some, but the payoff for not reading resumes is absolute. No ifs, ands, or buts—you lose.

The trick to increasing your productivity is to increase your resume-reading skill with the aim of having the fewest face-to-face interviews resulting in as many hires as possible.

Whether the resume is chronological or functional, straightforward or fancy, long or short, the most important point to remember when reading is not to make assumptions, rather make notes and then ask questions! You are NOT hiring the resume. Resumes are merely brochures for potentially interesting “products,” creating enough interest for a “product demo” so that you’ll “buy.”

The great secret in reading a resume is the ability to read between the lines. You are not reading for speed but rather for comprehension. You want to understand what the candidate is trying to say as opposed to what he does say, or, conversely, to see through what the candidate says to reality.

Here are some key points to keep in mind:

• You cannot screen a resume without knowledge of the specific req as well as the general needs of the organization.
• The length of the resume is less important than the contents.
• There should be strong correlation between the length of time worked, the experience described, and the positions achieved.
• People tend to value those skills their current/old managers valued. The skills you seek may be underlying the skills described.
• Today everything in technology and business is constantly changing. The person who has successfully changed industries, technologies, careers, etc. has abilities that usually go unnoticed.
• In a tight labor market, recognition of “change-ability” allows you to source candidates unrecognized by your competitors.
• Take notes and jot down questions on a separate sheet of paper, including your name, then staple it to the resume.
• If you are unsure of the candidate’s viability, pass it to another team member with your notes and a specific query.
• Resume turnaround time should not exceed 48 hours, including second opinions.

As you hone your resume-reading skills, you will add key points based on your own experience�always remembering there are exceptions to every rule.

Do’s and Don’ts

• Do trust your instincts and intuition. Both are based on subconscious pattern recognition, which in turn is based on your experience, business philosophy, and ethical code. Sometimes the pattern is buried so deeply you may not be able to explain it. However, prejudices and assumptions are not the same thing.
• Don’t look strictly for your words. Frequently people write resumes in the language of where they work, stressing those things that their current boss thinks are important. The skills you are looking for may be in the background or only implied.
• Do stay aware of possible trade-offs. In today’s rapidly changing world, flexibility and speed of learning is worth a great deal.
• Do stay aware of red flags such as chronological gaps, frequent job changes, a hollow feel, etc.
• Don’t reject a good resume with a red flag or two without allowing the candidate a chance to explain. Use the phone. Stay cautious, but ask and listen carefully!
• Don’t expect to find value in all resumes. Use a reasonable amount of time and effort and then relegate it to the circular file.

More tomorrow.

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The following letter is in the April 10 issue of Business Week.

How To Hire The Candidates Least Likely To Succeed
“Net movie mogul” (Voices of Innovation, Mar. 20) illustrated a disturbing and widespread problem with corporate hiring practices: Mika Salmi possesses proven drive, ambition, persistence, and the ability to recognize opportunity. Yet 125 companies rejected him outright.

Many companies today use software to screen resumes based on keywords and rely mostly on human resources clerks with little or no true business experience to review selected resumes. How can they recognize the traits shown by Mika and people like him? Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Cuban would have been rejected by HR departments at many companies. Career ads for these companies need to carry the disclaimer: “Achievers and mavericks need not apply.” George Muenz
Vancouver, B.C.

I especially appreciated this comment because managers are always asking me for recommendations that will make hiring easier and less time-consuming, but as Mr. Muenz points out, most of these “labor saving” features are used up front in the screening process, which is much like having your six-year-old pick an architect based on the ads in the Yellow Pages and a list of words..

Screening resumes to find the real cream is both an art and a skill, one that every manager needs to learn and then improve with practice. Unfortunately, it takes time and effort and many mangers don’t see the payoff.

Too bad, since the payoffs (plural) for really knowing how to screen resumes are enormous.

For instance, you’ll be able to successfully

• kick-start innovation by recognizing people who can diversify your organization;
• hire outside-the-box, strengthening your team;
• hire in the tightest labor markets, eliminating the need to buy candidates; and
• be the manager for whom everyone wants to work.

And last, but surely not least, you’ll enjoy

• better reviews and more promotions—because managers are judged based on the accomplishments of their organization, not for what they, themselves, do hands-on.

It’s your choice, screening resumes isn’t magic, so come back tomorrow and start learning how!

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It never ceases to amaze me how often managers state strong views from positions of extreme ignorance—and consider their positions/comments invincible. Minor details such as facts, documentation, surveys, articles, etc., in no way sway them from the stand they've taken. They seem to thing that any change they make in a public statement will be taken as a sign of weakness by those around them, especially subordinates.

How wrong they are.

Excellent managers don't just listen, but also truly hear what is said; and they are totally comfortable using phrases such as:

• I don't know.
• Tell me more.
• Educate me.
• Please explain.
• What do you think?
• Let's discuss it.
• I was wrong.

None of us knows everything about any given topic, no matter how narrowly defined, nor creative enough to think of every possible shading, tangent, ramification or repercussion applicable to, or stemming from, it.

It's an old saw that the way to managerial success is to hire people smarter than yourself, but once they are hired you need to create a culture where they will be heard.