Tony Hsieh Has been beating the drum that happy employees provide the best customer experience and help assure success and sharing his wisdom on how to do it.
The other question I keep getting asked is how do you do it when you
aren’t the CEO or even a senior manager;
don’t have the budget for great perks; or
aren’t the touchy-feely rah-rah type (direct quote).
The short answer is in five words, you take time to care.
Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually.
$300 billion is a number that should get anyone’s attention.
The engagement issue is relatively simple and definitely cheap to solve.
The problem is that, as usual, employees and managers aren’t on the same page.
The research shows that for employees “the single most important [event] — by far — is simply making progress in meaningful work.”
Managers are another story.
“When we asked 669 managers from companies around the world to rank five employee motivators in terms of importance, they ranked “supporting progress” dead last. Fully 95 percent of these managers failed to recognize that progress in meaningful work is the primary motivator, well ahead of traditional incentives like raises and bonuses.”
What constitutes supporting progress isn’t rocket science, either.
Autonomy, meaning no micromanagement;
sufficient resources, meaning valid scheduling and enough of whatever to get the job done without having to beg or being left to fail without them; and
learning from problems, meaning understanding the why and how, not just the what.
If you find any of the three difficult to provide you need to look in the mirror.
The problem isn’t about having time to support progress; the problem is that your MAP doesn’t support the concept.
I find it amusing to read about research that proves what most of us already know—things such as healthy food costs more or that managers play favorites.
While 84% of those surveyed say favoritism takes place at their own organizations, just 23% acknowledged practicing it themselves, and 9% say it was a factor in determining their last promotion.
“I think the really interesting point is that almost a quarter admit to practicing it themselves, but only 9% believe that favoritism played a role in their own achievements. I guess it is therefore safe to assume that the other 91% believe they made it strictly on their own merits and hard work. Now I would call that either delusional, or defying the odds, though more likely the former.”
Many managers who believe they are fair are influenced in ways in which they are totally unaware.
When I was a recruiter I knew a manager who would not hire a blonde; he wasn’t aware of it until I proved it to him. Another manager refused to promote a talented woman until he realized it was because she looked like his ex mother-in-law.
Both of them worked through it, but before you can stop something you have to recognize that you’re doing it.
That means being aware of your personal prejudices and making a conscious effort not to let them influence you.
By the same token, you need to be aware when you’re playing to the boss-gallery because you figured out what floats his boat.
I’m not saying you have to admit it, but at least don’t kid yourself.
Interviewing; everybody’s favorite thing, right up there with root canals and ironing. Having spent more than ten years as a headhunter (my term of preference) I’ve heard a lot of off-beat, weird and totally illegal. That was a long time ago and by comparison the list on BNET is tame, but still outside the ordinary.
A number of the questions were from high tech companies and turned on math, but I wonder if they use the same questions for marketing and other critical non-tech functions—or maybe they don’t consider them critical.
How do you weigh an elephant without using a weigh machine? (Reportedly from IBM)
Given the numbers 1 to 1000, what is the minimum number of guesses needed to find a specific number if you are given the hint “higher” or “lower” for each guess you make? (Reportedly from Facebook)
How many basketballs can you fit in this room? (Reportedly from Google)
The next question strikes me as a hot potato, at the least, or a political grenade depending on the response.
Why do you think only a small portion of the population makes over $150,000? (Reportedly from New York Life)
The supposed point of this question it to see how candidates would handle a job for which they had no preparation or experience. I wonder how well it works, especially since so many young people work in pizzerias during school—but maybe not in Germany.
What would you do if you just inherited a pizzeria from your uncle? (This question comes from Volkswagen.
I like this one, but you have to wonder what happens when the candidate names a superhero and the interviewer isn’t familiar with it.
If you could be any superhero, who would it be? (Reportedly from AT&T)
Considering the above questions, perhaps this one should be asked of the interviewers and not the candidates.
Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird you are (Reportedly from Capital One)
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
For years I’ve told managers ‘you are who you hire‘ and offered them tools so they become more proficient at hiring; this is true whether the company is a startup or it’s been around for decades.
Startup hiring happens in phases, which have a predictable pattern—
hire your friends,
hire friends of friends,
hire ‘outsiders’.
The first two phases usually go smoothly, since friends typically share similar values and, therefore, are at the least synergistic as to the company culture.
Phase three presents a totally different and disconnected challenge.
Accurately identifying a stranger’s values and evaluating how well they mesh with yours is not only difficult, but also time-consuming.
And therein lies the problem—not the difficulty, but the time.
When this subject comes up entrepreneurs often tell me that I don’t understand how busy they are.
They say it’s hard enough just finding the actual skills they need without adding an extra set of cultural hoops for candidates to jump through.
If that doesn’t shut me up they use the ultimate argument, “You haven’t actually done it, so you wouldn’t know.”
However, there must be a reason that Tony Hsieh pays people not to work at Zappos after they go through training and that hiring is number one on his list of how to build a company.
Hire very carefully — you’re creating an enduring culture. “I’d rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person,” Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos told a colleague in the company’s early days. Why? “Cultures aren’t so much planned as they evolve from that early set of people.” New employees either dislike the culture and leave or feel comfortable and stay. So the culture becomes “self-reinforcing” and “very stable.”
I wrote about using culture as a screening tool way back in 1999 and have reposted it often, most recently in February.
Your culture, no matter how young, is the best filter you have for finding the kind of people you need to follow in the footsteps of Bezos and Hsieh.
Assuming, of course, that you think they are worth following.
Option Sanity™ mirrors and reinforces culture
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock allocation process. So easy a CEO can do it.
Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.
“Thinking about how I can empower my employees to be a part of the growth and innovation of the company.”
While employee empowerment is acknowledged as of key importance, it is an elusive goal for many CEOs, executives and managers. What makes Hsieh different?
Security.
Hsieh is comfortable in his own skin; secure in his own competency and limitations, so he doesn’t need to be the font from which all else flows.
As he points out, one good idea a day from him won’t come close to matching one good idea a year from each employee and not just the highly visible ones.
Some of the best ideas come from places a CEO would never have thought of.”
But employee empowerment often hits a positional brick wall that starts with the CEO and filters down through the ranks of the company’s positional leaders.
There are thousands of executives and managers who are insecure and the level of their insecurity defines to whom they will listen.
Most CEO’s who look at their corporate culture from the top-down are really preventing their company to grow faster, better, and more profitably.
And Just as true for other positional leaders as it is for the CEO.
What is most ironic is that by empowering employees, listening to everyone, adopting the good ideas without prejudice and publicly acknowledging their source does as much to enhance you as it does to push your group/company to greater success.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Roy F. Baumeister’s research showing how decision fatigue affects hiring, self-control and is tied to ego-depletion.
Self-control and will power aren’t traits you as much about as you did when I was a kid; these days the focus is on instant gratification, whether it’s a child demanding a treat, an adult looking for a new job or you-name-it.
Benefits that are substantial enough to stand up to the embarrassing tantrum your child pitches when she doesn’t get what she wants?
In experiments beginning in the late 1960s, the psychologist Walter Mischel tormented preschoolers with the agonizing choice of one marshmallow now or two marshmallows 15 minutes from now. When he followed up decades later, he found that the 4-year-olds who waited for two marshmallows turned into adults who were better adjusted, were less likely to abuse drugs, had higher self-esteem, had better relationships, were better at handling stress, obtained higher degrees and earned more money.
Impressive; certainly enough to at least get parents to think about showing some backbone and helping their kids learn self-control.
But what about those of us who are Millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers? Is our situation hopeless? Are we destined/doomed to careen through life without those benefits if we don’t already have them?
Fear not. According to other research by Baumeister your self-control, AKA, will power, can be toned by exercising it, just like any other muscle—and he wrote a book about it.
In recent years the psychologist Roy F. Baumeister has shown that the force metaphor has a kernel of neurobiological reality. In “Willpower,” he has teamed up with the irreverent New York Times science columnist John Tierney to explain this ingenious research and show how it can enhance our lives.
Wow; buff self-control.
How cool is that?
UPDATE: I just read this article about SpongeBob, which adds an interesting kicker to the research.
In another test, measuring self-control and impulsiveness, kids were rated on how long they could wait before eating snacks presented when the researcher left the room. “SpongeBob” kids waited about 2 1/2 minutes on average, versus at least four minutes for the other two groups.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Tony Hsieh Has been beating the drum that happy employees provide the best customer experience and help assure success and sharing his wisdom on how to do it.
I find it amusing to read about research that proves what most of us already know—things such as healthy food costs more or that 
Interviewing; everybody’s favorite thing, right up there with root canals and ironing. Having spent more than ten years as a headhunter (my term of preference) I’ve heard a lot of off-beat, weird and totally illegal. That was a long time ago and by comparison the list on 
For years I’ve told managers ‘
A few days ago Mark Suster wrote about 
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Roy F. Baumeister’s research showing how 
