The economy is improving a bit, enough that companies are doing some hiring. And, just as in the past, the same idiotic attitude is surfacing.
It starts with a reference to the need for employee engagement and that ‘experts’ say that the companies with the best long-term success rates retain and grow their human resource base from within the company to ensure it.
But when a company fulfills its human resource needs by hiring from the outside, in most cases, it’s picking up the “rejects” from other companies.
And that part sends me ballistic.
Of all the totally wrong-headed attitudes I’ve heard on the subject of hiring, there is only one that is comparable and, in fact, they go hand in hand.
During every recession I’ve seen the theme is that the only employees worth hiring are the ones who are still working.
Even now, in a recession that dwarfs the previous ones and companies have cut 50% or even more of their workforce and are still cutting, those who are laid off are tagged as “dead wood” or “difficult.”
My blood still boils when I remember the excellent people who were completely trashed by that attitude.
I do agree that growing people from within is good company policy; however, there are dozens of reasons why a company not only would, but should, hire at levels other than entry.
No company can go through significant growth and not hire from the outside—it’s a given part of that growth. For example, most startups and high-growth companies have neither the diversification, nor the depth, of talent needed when growth kicks in, so they hire at all levels.
Hiring strictly at entry level and promoting only from within can create a hidebound culture steeped in a not-invented-here mentality, not only for products, but for processes—as happened at both IBM and HP.
There are dozens of other reasons (think about your own experience), but the reject and the dead wood attitudes are not among them.
The dead wood/difficult premise is BS, flawed, short-sighted and plain stupid.
The common belief that “stars” are independent of their circumstances just doesn’t stand up to analysis.
Most people work to the quality of their managers and the validity of the company’s culture—if they don’t shine it’s because they aren’t engaged; give people good managers and good culture and they can all be stars.
It is beyond stupid to lay work quality issues at the door of employees with no consideration of management or culture.
Bob Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford and a Professor of Organizational Behavior, by courtesy, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, but he is best known to the majority of people as the author of The No Asshole Rule.
He is also a genuinely nice guy, has a prominent email link on his blog and actually responds when you write him.
The blog is called Work Matters and it’s one of those ‘if you read nothing else…’ things. In the left column Bob has listed “15 things I believe” and my favorites form today’s quotes along with links for context.
Engaging your people is a priority these days, but to do it you must foster an environment of trust, where the messenger is never killed and people feel safe saying what they really think. It also helps if you have the kind of ego that doesn’t stand on its dignity.
Here is one approach.
Start with how many times you have said or heard people say ’should have’, as in “We should have…” or “My boss should have…?”
What if you could harness the creativity behind those thoughts to improve performance in an organization (whether team, executives or somewhere in-between)—the company’s; the group’s; the individual’s; your own?
The idea is to take that “should have’ attitude and make it a constructive function to foster corporate/personal growth and motivation, since the more comprehensive the view of their job and company the more creative people will become.
Drawing in all your people, no matter their level, encourages them to see a larger picture, juices creativity, surfaces ideas from unlikely sources and enhances their sense of ownership, i.e., engagement.
Improvement happens because how they think is the basis for how they perform.
If your MAP makes you the type of manager to whom this appeals then encourage your people to ask
“Why did she do that?”
“What can I learn from his decision?”
“What would I have done differently?”
Later ask, “Would it have worked?”
Discuss the responses and implement the insights.
For more great stuff on engagement, click over to Becky Robinson’s LeaderTalk for a roundup of articles on engagement from some terrific bloggers.
A client called and during the conversation he complained about his receptionist. He said he was close to firing her, but would prefer a different outcome; he thought a third party could help resolve the problems.
When I asked “Jack” what the problem was he said that “Judy” was disrupting the culture and refused to do her work as expected. For example, she insisted on having two pencil cups on her desk; he preferred organizing his desk based on Feng Shui principles and that two cups were nothing but clutter. He had explained this to Judy to no avail.
This is an extreme example of the puppetmaster mentality, but not counting the micromanager who really believes her’s is the only way, I’m willing to bet you have been on the giving or receiving end of this attitude, if not both, at some point—most of us have.
Whether you consider yourself a leader, a manager or leadager, yours is not the only way—or even the best.
There are many ways to approach a task or goal. Some may seem more efficient, but, in fact, will lower productivity if they are counter-intuitive for a particular worker.
As long as the task is done or the goal achieved ethically, on time and in budget the route to accomplishment doesn’t matter.
Forcing your approach on your team forces them to become puppets.
Then, like Christopher below, they are dependent on you for all creativity, innovation and productivity—at least until they resign.
ROWE stands for “results only work environment” and it means just that. No set hours, no clock watching, get the job done and be evaluated based on the results and resulted in a 35% jump in productivity
These days Ressler and Thompson run CulutreRx, teaching ROWE to a variety of companies, such as GAP.
ROWE is a business strategy that’s been proven to profoundly improve workforce productivity (as much as 41%) and reduce voluntary turnover rates (as much as 90%). And, ROWE is a magnet for the talent you want to attract.
Best Buy’s culture is one that encourages creativity and good ideas at all levels, so it’s no surprise that another stand out came along a year later.
Julie Gilbert conceived and started the WOLF initiative in 2004 (she was given full ownership rights including the intellectual property and the right to take it outside anytime in exchange for building it first at Best Buy).
WOLF’s focus is to promote and enhance the role of women both inside the company and outside in their role as customers based on three precepts:
Commitment – to the business, customers and other members of the pack
Networking - amongst at all levels internally and externally to nurture and support one another
Giveback – giving back to women and girls in local communities.
Sound all warm and fuzzy to you? Are you fighting back a snicker and thinking that there is no way your company would ever mess with that?
If so, try shrugging off Best Buy’s results.
Revenue
$4.4 billion increase in revenue from female customers (11% increase in total company revenue)
Market Share
Highest ever female market share in company history
Females became the majority of the most “valuable “customers
Brand Reputation
Largest increase in brand perception in company history
Network
Passionate, global, viral customer networks growing market share and innovating new business offerings
Over 40,000 members in 40 plus countries
Performance Outcomes
5% reduction in female turnover resulting in a minimum of $25 million in savings
18% increase in the number of female employees.
100% increase in females in the most profitable business unit
40% increase in female General Managers & General Managers In Training
60% increase in female Operations Managers
30% increase in female Customer Experience Managers
ROWE and WOLF both came from the same company while Brad Anderson was CEO.
His response to the question “Where do you find new business ideas?” says it all.
I believe that some of our best ideas have come from the people who are furthest removed from the CEO’s office – those line-level employees who interact with our customers each and every day.
Without a culture that encouraged and supported innovation from all levels ROWE and WOLF couldn’t have happened.
The MAP that enables that culture can function at any level no matter the company’s overall culture. Yes, it’s more difficult, but you can create an environment in which your people’s creativity blooms.
Great Place To Work just released their Best Places to Work rankings for large, medium and small companies in countries around the world. So out of the thousands of companies how are the best places to work chosen?
Our approach is based on the major findings of 20 years of research - that trust between managers and employees is the primary defining characteristic of the very best workplaces.
At the heart of our definition of a great place to work - a place where employees “trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with” – is the idea that a great workplace is measured by the quality of the three, interconnected relationships that exist there:
The relationship between employees and management.
The relationship between employees and their jobs/company.
The relationship between employees and other employees.
In other words, it all comes down to trust and culture.
The funny thing about trust and culture is that the managers at all levels who strive to build trust and work create great, fun, inclusive cultures are reading this and nodding their heads, while those that don’t are clicking off to another site, because all the proof in the world won’t change their minds.
Imagine the level of idiocy required to blind people to studies such as this.
The North American winners in each category may surprise you—they certainly surprised me.
NetApp is the #1 large company;
Ultimate Software is the #1 medium company; and
Badger Mining Corporation is the #1 small company.
Ever wonder which companies are at the other end of the spectrum? The companies where the culture ranges from suspect to toxic and executive compensation outrages both employees and the rest of us?
It is reality that bloggers, coaches, academics, and other gurus write about how to engage the workforce, build cultures, develop leaders, motivate, and increase retention; companies pay substantial amounts to coaches and consultants to develop and implement programs; management agonizes on how to increase productivity through better use of its human resources.
It is reality that many companies are moving to “just in time” workforces; using temps and contractors at all levels with no health insurance, no vacation, no benefits—hire when you need them and dump when the project is done.
Business Week offers a comprehensive overview of this trend in a cover story entitled The Disposable Worker.
The forecast for the next five to 10 years: more of the same, with paltry pay gains, worsening working conditions, and little job security. Right on up to the C-suite, more jobs will be freelance and temporary, and even seemingly permanent positions will be at greater risk.
Obviously, there are people, especially at more senior levels, who have no problem with this approach; they relish the movement, change and challenge.
But they are the minority.
Everything described in the first paragraph is geared for companies that actually hire their workforce.
Typically, it’s a different set of experts who advise companies on outsourcing and temp workforces.
I ask you:
What will motivate workers to contribute at the level needed in today’s competitive global enviornment when they have nothing vested in the company?
Why should people who may not be there tomorrow put forth the initiative that underlays all leadership today?
How do you engage people when they have no idea how long they’ll be around?
In short, how do you get people to care when they know without a doubt that the company doesn’t care about them?
Many of this week’s posts will revolve around culture, so it seemed apropos to start the week with some interesting views on culture.
Louis V. Gerstner, former CEO IBM, says,“The thing I have learned at IBM is that culture is everything.”
Many experts are coming to that realization—decades after the average employee figured it out.
They didn’t use that term 30 years ago when I was a recruiter, but candidates talked about wanting to work where they “felt comfortable” and “fit in;” where they were listened to and were happy.
Edgar Schein, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, says, “The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.” “If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”
Robert Mintz said, “The crimes alleged at Enron were not the acts of a few greedy senior executives, but truly was an indictment of almost the entire corporate culture.”Of course, it was those same greedy execs who fostered that culture.
Jane Howard said, “We believe it’s our responsibility to create a unique corporate culture. If we do that well, we believe we’ll have enthusiastic employees. If we have enthusiastic employees, we’ll have loyal customers, and if we have loyal customers, we’ll have a sustainable business.”
Shades of Tony Hsieh, who built a culture so powerful that other execs pay him to learn how to implement something similar in their companies; “Our No. 1 priority is the company culture. Our whole belief is that if we get the culture right, then everything else, including the customer service, will fall into place.”
Zappos is a long way from fast food, which is often considered the bottom of the cultural heap, but many execs in that industry are hyper aware of culture’s effect. As David A. Brandon, CEO of Domino’s Pizza said, “You can’t overcome a bad culture by paying people a few bucks more,” something that management ought to remember.
Finally, research from Harvard Business School’s John Kotter & James Heskett found that culture has a major effect of the bottom line, “We found that firms with cultures that emphasized all the key managerial constituencies (customers, stockholders, and employees) and leadership from managers at all levels outperformed firms that did not have those cultural traits by a huge margin.”
The economy is improving a bit, enough that companies are doing some hiring. And, just as in the past, the same idiotic attitude is surfacing.
Bob Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford and a Professor of Organizational Behavior, by courtesy, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, but he is 
Engaging your people is a priority these days, but to do it you must foster an environment of trust, where the messenger is never killed and people feel safe saying what they really think. It also helps if you have the kind of ego that doesn’t stand on its dignity.
Often
A client called and during the conversation he complained about his receptionist. He said he was close to firing her, but would prefer a different outcome; he thought a third party could help resolve the problems.
Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson started changing the work world in 2003.
(or small ones)
It is reality that bloggers, coaches, academics, and other gurus write about how to engage the workforce, build cultures, develop leaders, motivate, and increase retention; companies pay substantial amounts to coaches and consultants to develop and implement programs; management agonizes on how to increase productivity through better use of its human resources.
Many of this week’s posts will revolve around culture, so it seemed apropos to start the week with some interesting views on culture.
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