I ended Tuesday’s post about micro cultures by saying, “That’s why cultural fit or, at the very least, cultural synergy, is the most important trait to look for when hiring at every level.”

The result was several phone calls and a few emails asking for specifics. I’ve offered specifics multiple times over the years, so just click the links for the answers.

• How to check cultural fit; and
• how to avoid bad hires and wrong hires.

But when all is said and done, the hardest part of good hiring is walking away from candidates with the right skills and the wrong attitude.

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Part of the allure of starting a company is the idea of being your own boss and creating the kind of place in which you always wanted to work.

That’s what drives Tony Hsieh and thousands of others.

The problem is that in order to accomplish that goal you will have to go far beyond your comfort zone; much further, in fact, than you would working for someone else.

I just started working with “Tomas,” a new founder, and during our first conversation he described himself as an introvert who preferred not to respond to questions or comment until he had time to process the conversation/information.

OK, it’s frustrating and makes conversations very one-way, but I bided my time to see what the impact would be.

It didn’t take long to find out.

First, I sent an introduction to “Bill” who was willing to share expertise that Tomas badly needed; Bill responded immediately, asking when Tomas was available, but Tomas didn’t write back.

The next day Bill went ahead and called, although he hadn’t heard back. His feedback to me was that it was a non-conversation and he thought he might even have offended Tomas in some way.

None of this made sense to me. I had spoken to Tomas the evening of the day he got Bill’s response and he said he would respond to is as soon as our call ended.

We talked again yesterday. When I asked why he hadn’t sent the email when he said he would he said that he hadn’t had time to “craft the email.”

There was more and after hearing him out I told him the problem (as I saw it) was that along with being an introvert he is a perfectionist and doesn’t want to make a move until he is sure he is right. He also prefers to proceed linearly.

Tomas’ response? He said I knew him well.

I told Tomas that as an entrepreneur he will have to get out of his comfort zone.

He will not always have the luxury of a day or more to process conversations or craft perfect emails.

He needs to practice thinking and responding on the fly—especially on the small stuff.

I said that he will make mistakes and that’s OK; they can be corrected.

Tomas’ vision is brilliant; it solves a problem faced by millions and holds the promise of making their lives better.

I will do everything I can to help Tomas succeed, but only he can choose to leave his comfort zone.

Image credit: JJ Chandler.com

This post is dedicated to all the entrepreneurs who believe that changing the world involves more than a new way to sell to consumers.

John Ericsson was a mind-boggling entrepreneur 150 years ago; one of the few modern entrepreneurs on the same level is Gary Cola.

Ericsson designed up the Monitor, the iron-clad vessel that helped win the Civil War, but doing so was a long way from smooth sailing.

Ericsson’s design was groundbreaking and some of its concepts are still in use today, such as the revolving turret for its cannon. Before the Monitor, he shopped his ideas around and was turned down by many “investors.”

He finally responded to a NYTimes ad from the Union Navy that ran for six days, “…for a two-masted ship “either of iron or of wood and iron combined,” with a delivery date for the plans of less than a month.

Ericsson met the deadline, but the reaction to his plans was as far from positive as you can get.

“Take the little thing home and worship it,” one board member said disdainfully, “as it would not be idolatry because it was made in the image of nothing in the heaven above or the earth below or the water under the earth.”

But that didn’t stop Ericsson, who looked for and found an evangelist in no less than President Lincoln.

To understand just how unique Ericsson’s vision was, consider this,

“What makes the Monitor so remarkable is that she’s almost a stealth vessel because all the systems except the ordnance are below the waterline. Keeping the engine safe from attack was a big breakthrough. Not only did Ericsson create this radically new type of vessel, but his designs were so nearly flawless that foundries and contractors from around the Northeast could fabricate the parts, and they all fit together when the ship was assembled in Greenpoint. It boggles the mind.” –Anna Holloway, curator at the Monitor Center.

The Monitor was built in just 118 days, was made almost entirely of iron and had an armored revolving turret that held two cannon.

I’ve talked with many entrepreneurs who get discouraged because their idea isn’t software, isn’t social and doesn’t involve the Net.

Yes, there may be scoffers; yes, it may be harder to get funded; yes, it may be difficult to hire, but that doesn’t mean you should stop—it can be done. And if (when?) you get discouraged read again the stories of Ericsson and Cola and take heart.

Which do you think will be remembered 150 years from now?

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

How often do you encounter ID ten T errors?

Do you think ID ten T errors are technology or human based?

How accurate is your identification of ID ten T errors?

How often is your analysis influenced by your own preexisting ideas or MAP?

How do you deal with ID ten T errors?

Do you ever produce ID ten T errors? (I do.)

How do you deal with your own ID ten T errors?

Image credit: Street Sign Generator.com

What’s your attitude to Friday the 13^th?

My attitude is perverse—it’s usually a lucky or, at the least, neutral day for me.

My sister says I was born perverse (as in contrary), which I cannot deny. It’s not intentional; I don’t think about it; it’s just the way I am.

For the heck of it I looked Friday the 13^th up on Wikipedia and learned that it’s relatively modern, with no references before the 1800s, in spite of what you saw in The Da Vinci Code.

Did you know that if the first day of a month falls on Sunday it will contain a Friday the 13^th?

Good things happen to me on Friday the 13^th; for instance,

• I closed the three largest deals I’ve ever done on Friday the 13^th in two different years of a previous 13 year career.
• I found two of the three houses I’ve owned on Friday the 13^th.

How do you feel about Friday the 13^th?

What has happened to you on Friday the 13^th?

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ztij0/233038619/

“What’s more important to you, being right or winning?”

That is what I asked a caller today.

“Frank” has been sequestered on jury duty for several weeks and when he returned to work he found that right after he left his team was assigned a new project and they were just finishing.

Frank said that the project had gone well, was on time and in budget, but he was upset that they had used a different approach from the one he preferred.

That’s when I asked, “What’s more important to you, being right or winning?”

You’d think that was an easy answer, but I was met first with silence and then with multiple reasons proving his approach was better.

He agreed that on time/in budget was a win, but still felt they should have done it his way.

So I ask you, “What’s more important, being right or winning?”

Image credit: immrchris on sxc.hu

Have you ever wondered what the perfect attitude is? Not just a top dog or the person out front, but for any entrepreneur who aspires to succeed and, for that matter, every person who lives and breaths.

I recognize it when I see it, know when I’m doing it, and can explain it when I’m coaching, but I’ve never seen it so perfectly boiled down to ten short words—all self-explanatory, nothing to look-up or study or requiring training.

I found those words in a friend’s description of how his daughter lives.

Like 3 year olds, be passionate, humble, impatient, grateful…daily.

Do it and change your life—and your world—guaranteed!

Image credit: LizMarie on flickr

When the economy slows, it’s easy to ignore retention factors because management kids itself into believing that replacing people is no big deal.

But slow as it’s happening, the times they are a’chnging.

At least here and there, in companies that really understand the importance of attracting and retaining scarce talent.

“To reduce “female brain drain,” global companies such as Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, Booz Allen Hamilton, Hewlett-Packard, Best Buy and dozens of others are increasingly offering a variety of flexible work options.”

Don’t get me wrong. These companies aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their corporate heart or caring social consciousness, they’re doing it because it makes financial sense, AKA, vested self-interest.

“Business analysts and executives say talent retention and the forces of demography are the chief reasons large, traditional companies accommodate the needs of female employees. Fifty-eight percent of college graduates are women, and nearly half of all professional and graduate degrees are earned by women…the number of women with graduate and professional degrees will grow by 16 percent over the next decade compared with an increase of only 1.3 percent among men.”

And the need is going to get worse.

“Whether you can hear it or not, a time bomb is ticking in C-suites worldwide. Its shock waves will resonate for decades. The explosive: indisputable demographics. Surveys…indicate that the number of managers in the right age bracket for leadership roles will drop by 30% in just six years. Factor in even modest growth rates, and the average corporation will be left with half the critical talent it needs by 2015.”

It’s not just large firms, SMB companies are active in the effort, although they often skip the language and the programs are more informal—which is why they’re often described as “being like a family.”

Although the work-life trend started with women, the guys want it, too, and Millennials assume it as a right.

The economy will turn around—it always does; more Boomers will retire; demographics will prevail; talent will be scarcer and the companies that already know how to offer balance will have an enormous recruiting edge.

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Success has as many definitions as there are people and the best ones are those that are private. You know, the ones you think about at 3 am or hug to yourself as you fall asleep at night.

Most of the quotes about success follow predictable lines and there are enough to count instead of sheep if you’re having problems sleeping. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad choice for today, it just means I had to look a little harder to avoid boring you.

Oh well, in a salute to the norm we’ll start with Harry F. Banks comment, “For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.” Or we can translate it to Miki-speak and say it’s all in your MAP.

And that means, as Adlin Sinclair said, “You are the embodiment of the information you choose to accept and act upon. To change your circumstances you need to change your thinking and subsequent actions.”

Lily Tomlin hit the nail on the head when she said, “The road to success is always under construction”

And Anon backs that up with a nice little play on words, “Success comes in cans; failure in can’ts.” (I love language plays like that.)

Albert Einstein offers up a great formula for success, “If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.” Funny how many people forget just how critical ‘Z’ is to achieving ‘A’.

But it is T.S. Eliot who offers up the real truth of the subject, “Success is relative: It is what we can make out of the mess we have made of things.”

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Good grief, where did the time go? Thanksgiving is over, and that means the year is close to ending, but first comes the holiday season. Nothing but parties and get-togethers for the next 4.5 weeks.

Frank Ogden said, “Holidays are the greatest learning experience unknown to man.” I think he has a real point, otherwise most of us wouldn’t keep repeating the same actions and activities every year that don’t work for us—isn’t that similar to Einstein’s definition of insanity?

Sadly Philip Andrew Adams hit the nail on the head when he said, “To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance.”

Holidays are funny things, rarely does your version of what happened match those of the other people present. But does that matter? Denis Norden said, “It’s like your children talking about holidays, you find they have a quite different memory of it from you. Perhaps everything is not how it is, but how it’s remembered.” How very true, your reality is based on your memories, not someone else’s version of the same event.

Bob Edwards made a very valid observation when he said, “One can always tell when one is getting old and serious by the way that holidays seem to interfere with one’s work.” Based on that I’m still not old, no matter what Social Security says, and I never will be—what about you?

Ben Franklin’s wisdom is accurate as ever, “How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.” You may not agree, but it seems these days the more vocal the religion the greater the intolerance and hate; I’d rather go back to the days when faith was private and tolerance waxing.

But it’s Pepper Schwartz who sums up the holidays perfectly, “Holidays in general breed unrealistic expectations. The minute you start wondering, ‘is it going to be wonderful enough?,’ it never will be.” The trick, obviously, is not to wonder, just assume. Believe with all your heart; know that it will happen and it will.

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