The HR Cafe

Corporate Ethics

Dear HR Executive:

You're not going to like me for this. I'm going to ask you to answer a question honestly (and completely anonymously) that will reveal how ethical you believe your company's leadership is. Please read this brief scenario, then click on the link and answer a brief survey:

Corporate Ethics Scenario:

Imagine that your company sells high-quality, high-priced cement. We're in a recession, the housing market is down, and your company is hurting. The VP-Production calls a meeting with the leaders at your company to announce some bad news. He just performed tests on a huge new batch of cement and discovered that it's 9% less durable than your usual material. It's still well above all industry standards and meets all building codes, but it's not up to your usual standards. The production chief assures your leadership team that nobody besides him knows about the test results. He says there's a 10% chance that a customer would discover that the cement was subpar. He lays out three options:

1. Throw the batch away - which would be murder on cash flow and require layoffs.
2. Tell customers the cement is substandard and sell it at a lower price -- which would also hurt cash flow and harm the brand
3. Sell the cement and not say anything

Click here to give your answer.

I'll reveal the results in our next post.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference on Thursday, June 05, 2008, titled "Ethics and HR: Four Organizational Behaviors that Destroy Credibility".  In this conference our speaker, Linda Gravett, Ph.D., will reveal how to build an ethical organization.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Forced ranking survey results

Dear HR Executive:

Thanks to those who read the last post on Forced Ranking and filled out the survey. Your comments were impassioned and very insightful. I've included a number of them below. First, the results:

Which most accurately describes your feelings about Forced Ranking? (n=90)

• I've used it and feel it is effective -- 16.9%
• I've used it and feel it is ineffective -- 15.7%
• I've never used it but am curious to learn how it might help my company  -- 33.7%
• I've never used it and am convinced it's wrong for my company -- 33.7%

So, only about a third of respondents had actual experience with Forced Ranking, and they were nearly split down the middle on its usefulness. Interestingly, those who know FR only by reputation are equally curious or horrified by it.

One key point: these results no doubt reflect small to mid-size company bias. As many of you pointed out in your comments, at really small companies the numbers don't work. How do you lay off 10% of three workers in your shipping department? Even at somewhat larger companies, you'll likely encounter similar difficulty justifying 10% cuts. So, FR is probably a large-company phenomenon, although many of you were very sympathetic will its intention -- to force managers to take performance evaluation seriously!

Here are your comments, broken down by category:

Have used it and like it

It requires managers to be precise in their thinking when rating people and make additional clarifications to justify their decisions.

It's great. Really well received in the business as a tool to help managers assess and manage mediocre performance.

On it's surface, forced ranking sounds unfair, cruel and adverse to modern management practices. However, when it is done correctly, as Jack Welch did and GE still does, it is arguably not only effective and fair but perhaps the most truly meaningful performance management process. You may be surprised to find that it is the employees who actually appreciate it the most.

It's been used for YEARS in the US military, and while the system claims to rank service persons against ideal standards, it is effectively a peer ranking system. Service members know the standards, are counseled on the standards, and cannot discount the reasons for termination when it comes to that.

Many managers are reluctant to address substandard performance and/or want to tell all their direct reports that they are top performers. That's unfair to co-workers and other stakeholders. Poor performers are rewarded and superior performers can be demoralized. Forced ranking, while certainly imperfect, drives managers in the proper direction. Further, strong managers have no difficulty dealing with forced ranking processes.

Have used it and DO NOT like it

Forced ranking is a crutch to replace strong leadership. Intel has done it for years and praises itself on its FOCAL process that ultimately is nothing but a popularity contest. Managers promote those they like. I agree with Mr. Welch that the weak ones should go. I don't agree that forced ranking is the right method.

It is de-motivational. It instills a pervasive fear into an organization that can overshadow the more important things that people need to be thinking about: goals, deliverables, values, teamwork, etc.

Jack Welch... that says it all for me... an idiot... It creates a back stabbing, flesh eating group of people... survival mentality... what does it do for Teamwork...?

Once you've got a well-performing team, a mandatory haircut once a year seems extremely counter-productive and a major morale buster.

When I have had an underperformer, I addressed the issues with that person and they either "shaped up or shipped out." That was because I 'managed' them and did not abdicate responsibility to a formulaic system. A forced ranking system fosters scheming and a climate of fear among employees.

Why fire a good solid employee just to make the stats?

I think its a stupid idea. My wife worked in a CPA firm that applied this philosophy. Every year right after tax season, they fired 10% of the associates at the bottom. They called it black Friday and people spent the whole week sick to their stomachs.

Never used it, but it's a bad idea

Firing an employee is serious business. It just seems on the surface that this could have a disproportionate impact on certain groups of employees. For that reason alone, it appears to be unreasonable.

I feel that if a good manager is giving appropriate feedback on a daily, weekly and monthly review, then I feel that these tactics may not be necessary.

I feel that it demonstrates a rule by fear attitude which will ultimately bring a company down.

I feel managers should establish performance expectations with their employees. If the employee cannot meet those, then it may be time to take action. Culling the bottom 10% year after year may force you to fire good talent.

Just because an employee ended up in the bottom 10%, they shouldn't be fired. Besides, at least for our company, it would be an HR nightmare knowing that you would be firing and trying to replace people every year.

It's a cannibalistic and draconian way of shedding employees. I wouldn't work for a company that uses forced ranking.

There are so many personal and professional reasons why an employee might have had a bad year. If managers are required to fire 10% of the workforce because of one bad year, it is inhumane and the company may have lost a very good employee.

Haven't used it, but am open to the idea

Our perpetual problem with performance evaluations is that managers do the easy thing, which is giving almost everyone glowing reviews and justifying that approach by saying it's de-motivating to give people "average" ratings, rather than doing the right thing, which is providing honest feedback that people can use to improve. Forced ranking does address this issue of "grade inflation."

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Tuesday, May 20, 2008, at 1:30 pm, titled, "No More Performance Reviews! - A Revolutionary Approach to Performance Feedback". In this special 2 1/2-hour webinar, Gary Markle will explain how to replace your failed performance evaluation system with a process called “Catalytic Coaching,” an alternative methodology that actually achieves the outcomes everyone wants from performance reviews.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Forced ranking

Dear HR Executive:

How much do you really know about forced ranking? Most of us know it's a performance evaluation system that:

• Is often maligned
• Is used by General Electric, one of the most successful and admired companies in the world
• Assesses employee performance relative to peers rather than pre-determined goals
• Identifies three tiers of employees:
  
  1. The top 20%, who must be fawned over;
  2. The next 70% of middle performers, who should be encouraged and retained; and
  3. The bottom 10%, who must be fired

That last aspect of FR is very controversial. All managers at GE, for example, must fire 10% of their people in any given year. Many find that too brutal.

Former GE chief Jack Welch is obviously a big believer in forced ranking, and we recently published a short article in our newsletter Human Resources 21 that sums up why he thinks it's such a good idea. Please read the article, but before you do, please take just a moment to answer a quick survey on forced ranking. I'll report our findings next week.

Here's the article, about a Jack Welch event at Wharton. He has a particularly interesting perspective on managers who hit their numbers but don't share the company's values. Read on!

The value of candor

Too many managers avoid making hard choices and hurt not only their companies, but in the long run the employees they are trying to protect.

That candid advice came from Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, at a recent roundtable event sponsored by The Wharton School.

“I would call lack of candor the biggest dirty little secret in business,” Welch said. “It blocks smart ideas, fast action and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got.”

Lack of candor is particularly heinous, he says, when it stops supervisors from providing accurate feedback to their subordinates in a misguided effort to be “nice to them.”

‘Rank and yank’
At GE, managers adhere to a “rank & yank” philosophy – culling the bottom 10% of the workforce every year. In school, everyone gets grades and ranked, some flunk or drop out. “Why do we only give grades to kids and not to adults?” Welch asked, noting that, in order to be fair, such a system must be built on candor.

Employees must receive frank, comprehensive and regular performance reviews, he said. That way people will know where they stand, and what is expected of them.

Culture matters, too
Building a strong culture and developing leaders are key roles for any C-level executive, Welch said.
He divides managers into distinct groups. Some show they have the right values and meet their profit goals. Some do neither and get fired. Some have the right values but miss their numbers. They get a second chance.

But perhaps the most corrosive managers are those who make their goals but don’t share the values. Maybe they are loudmouths in a culture that prizes collegiality. “Those are the ones who kill companies,” Welch said.

Although it’s tough, bosses need to remove them because failing to do so can corrode a company’s culture. “In the long run, that’s worse than seeing the results of one division drop,” said Welch.
Source: knowledge@wharton.

Stephen Meyer
Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Tuesday, May 20, 2008, at 1:30 pm, titled, "No More Performance Reviews! - A Revolutionary Approach to Performance Feedback". In this special 2 1/2-hour webinar, Gary Markle will explain how to replace your failed performance evaluation system with a process called “Catalytic Coaching,” an alternative methodology that actually achieves the outcomes everyone wants from performance reviews.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Anti-bullying: Free sample policy & thoughts

Dear HR Executive:

NOTE: As a follow-up to our last post about workplace bullying, here's a free sample Anti-Bullying Policy in MS Word that you can adapt for your company. It's part of B21's Policy Manual.

There's a scary thing about this whole anti-bullying movement that seems to be gaining steam, and that could possibly lead to legislation. (By the way, in our survey 23% of HR execs said legislation was a GOOD idea; the rest either weren't sure or share my belief that it's a bad idea. One said, "Legislation will only encourage the whiners and complainers to make mountains out of molehills.")

If legislation is passed, you'll almost certainly see an increase in complaints about employees being bullied by their colleagues. Bullying is a form of harassment, and bullying legislation would merely expand the scope of what we currently think of as harassment.

The scary part is that it opens the door for employees to say that a demanding boss is a bully.

Now, obviously some bosses are bullies. The worst I ever heard of was former Simon & Schuster CEO Dick Snyder, who grew the company from $40 million when he took over in 1979 to $2 billion in 1994 when he was fired. When I was in business school, I did an "information interview" with an alumnus who worked for S&S in New York and he indiscreetly shared stories about Snyder's brutal management style. But I remember thinking two things while he was talking to me: 1. It's a free country, and if he didn't like it, all he had to do was leave. But he wasn't going anywhere because 2) He obviously took great pride about being able to survive in that abusive environment.

Now, Snyder was a caricature of the post-WWII, Industrial Age, command-and-control leader. There aren't many of him left in 2008. But there are still plenty of strong-willed, "demanding" bosses out there. And many are  effective leaders who, when it's necessary, "bully" people into getting things done. Truth be told, some employees -- not unlike my teenage daughter, who prefers Facebook to her history book and can't get her homework done -- need to be "bullied" a bit from time to time.

In that last paragraph I inadvertently highlighted the problem we're going to have if bullying legislation ever takes hold. Had I used the verb "harass"  instead of "bully," you'd have been shocked and said that no boss should ever harass employees. But the word "bully," at least when you're talking about the boss/subordinate relationship, is a much softer word than harass. In certain situations, a crisis for example, a coercive, a bullying management style can be both effective and appropriate.

Legislation is all about words. To create anti-bullying laws, they're going to have to come up with a definition that distinguishes bullying from harassment, and my guess is that they're going to have a rough time. The bullying that we really want to prevent IS harassment. The rest is ... well, something less than harassment that can handled without new legislation.

In the meantime, add an anti-bullying policy to your manual. It can't hurt. And if one day you find yourself in court, it might help to be able to say, "We have a policy, everyone knows about it, and we have a clear mechanism for handling complaints."

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Thursday, May 15, 2008, titled, "Coaching Skills for Supervisors: Become the Great Boss Every Employee Wants to Work for". The conference is designed to get managers and supervisors to embrace coaching as a breakthrough management tool, and to describe the key skills of an effective coach.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

 

Exclusive B21 survey: Bullying

Dear HR Professional:

I was surprised by the results of a survey B21 just did on bullying.

Before seeing the results, I'd have said bullying isn't really that big a problem and it's easily covered by a company's harassment policy. Now I'm not so sure.

Here's how HR executives responded:

Q. 1. In light of news that bullying now harms more employees than sexual harassment, how important is it for you to watch out for bullying at YOUR company? (n=170)

• Extremely important. Reining in bullies is a high priority for me - 21.3%
• Important. Bullying is potentially a problem and I'm concerned about it - 38.5%
• Somewhat important. It's on my radar screen but I don't lose sleep over it - 27.8%
• Not very. Bullying is a low-priority concern at my company - 12.4%

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that 70% of respondents said they're concerned about bullying. The topic has been in the news a lot. Some states are even considering workplace anti-bullying legislation.

One respondent to our survey asked, "What exactly is bullying?" That's a great question, and legislators will have a tough time distinguishing bullying from harmless banter. Here's the Workplace Bullying Institute's (yes, there is one) definition:

"Workplace Bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following forms:

• Verbal abuse
• Offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating or intimidating
• Work interference -- sabotage -- which prevents work from getting done.

The dictionary definition of a bully is a little tighter: "a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people." I hope that doesn't sound like your boss. Or worse, I hope your direct reports don't think it sounds like you.

Here are some things we should all be doing:

1. Implementing an anti-bullying policy that's separate from our harassment policies. This costs little or nothing and it makes a statement that we recognize bullying as a problem and we're serious about it.
2. Recognizing that bullying isn't a problem between two people. It's either a managerial or an organizational problem. If I started hearing that bullying was an issue at my company, I'd be wondering, What's wrong with my managers? And if I concluded they weren't the problem I'd be asking, What's wrong with our culture? My guess would be that the managers are usually at fault in these cases. Managers create a mini-culture within their departments. If they've got a bully and don't know about it ... well, that's unforgivable. If they do know about it and can't stop it, they're weak, ineffectual leaders. A manager's job is to create a team that works well together and achieves high performance. Great teams -- which never happen on their own and are always the result of good leadership -- tend to self-police. A bully on a strong team will be marginalized and ultimately rejected by the TEAM because his or her actions hurt performance. That why, if you've got bullying going on, you've probably got poor leadership and need to address it right away.
   

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Wednesday, April 30, 2008, titled, "Problem Employees: Strategies for Coaching, Disciplining, and Turning Them Around". In this conference, Amy Henderson will give participants a real-life guide for handling even the toughest problem employees.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

"Firing by process" -- My take

Dear HR Executive:

Here's my take on the "Firing by Process" scenario that HR Cafe readers so vigorously responded to last week (see comments at the bottom of the post).

Almost everyone agreed that firing by process -- that is, freezing out top executives rather than just terminating them -- is a bad thing. One called it "corrupt." Another "conflict avoidance." Another "dishonest." The overwhelming sentiment was that firing by process, or "constructive discharge," is unfair to the executive.

As someone who was once fired by process, I have a different perspective and sympathize with the realist whose comment simply read, "I would tell the person to start looking for another job." Let me explain.

There's no question that constructively discharging a senior executive is not strictly honest. But when people pass us in the hall and say, 'How are you doing?" and we say "Fine," that's not always honest either. We tell all sorts of harmless lies every day to avoid conflict and spare people's feelings.

In some cases, firing by process is a harmless lie.

If you read "Disney Wars" you probably recall that Michael Eisner was notorious for firing people by process. He's often portrayed as sadistic, prolonging people's humiliation. Only he knows the reason why he fired by process. It's possible that Eisner was too cowardly to terminate people. But maybe he felt he was doing them a favor by letting them down easy. Maybe he simply found it distasteful to throw high-paid executives with big mortgages into the street.

The key thing to understand is that at an executive level, a breakdown of values alignment, goal alignment or trust is fatal. A good CEO will give a wayward executive a chance to get back on track, but the minute a CEO realizes that a key player can't be relied on, the relationship is over. You can't be half on an executive team and half off it. There's way too much at stake. So the CEO must make a choice: fire the person now, or send a clear signal that he or she is off the team and should start looking for a new job.

When this happened to me I was no innocent victim. After many productive, happy years of service, I wanted something the company couldn't give me and was no longer what the CEO needed to execute his vision. I got the signal, put my resume on the street, and three months later was gone. I'm not sure the company benefited -- it paid me for three months when I wasn't terribly productive -- but I was better off not being fired outright. I got paid. And -- no small thing -- I had a job while I was looking for a job.

Now, there are two big caveats to what I'm saying:

1. If failing executives are disruptive and could potentially poison morale, it would be irresponsible not to fire them immediately.
2. Benevolence has its limits. If after, say, six months, the person still hasn't landed elsewhere, cut the cord and force the person to go find a job that will make him or her happy.

It's hard to argue with a strict formalist who'd say it's always in the company's interest to fire top executives immediately when it's clear that trust and/or performance have eroded. It's certainly cleaner and less risky. But as Michael Eisner would no doubt agree, life isn't like Disney movies where protagonists are pure and villains evil, and executive decisions aren't always cut and dried.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Wednesday, April 30, 2008, titled, "Problem Employees: Strategies for Coaching, Disciplining, and Turning Them Around". In this conference, Amy Henderson will give participants a real-life guide for handling even the toughest problem employees.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Firing by process

Dear HR Executive:

Below you'll see a quick description of a scenario. Please share your thoughts on how you'd handle it by clicking on the "comments" link below.

Scenario:

A senior executive at your company comes to you and says, "In the last month the CEO has stopped copying me on memos. He invited the entire executive team to his house for dinner last week, but left me out. We used to have a weekly catch-up meeting, but he keeps canceling it. What's going on? What should I do?"

You're aware that this executive has been getting weak results and have heard through the grapevine that he's fallen into disfavor. You also know that your boss, the CEO, doesn't like firing people. Instead, he "fires by process." In other words, he freezes them out and hopes they'll quit.

How would you handle this situation? What, if anything, would you say to the executive? And what, if anything, would you say to the CEO?

There are different ways to think about this. 1. What's expedient? 2. What's fair? 3. How does this practice impact the company culture?

Share your thoughts by clicking on the "comments link below."

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Tuesday, June 17, 2008, titled, "Effective Termination Techniques – How to Document Terminations (So You Won’t Lose a Lawsuit)". In this audioconference, Alyssa Senzel, Esq., will explain how to manage and document the termination process so that you’ll have the confidence to take the actions that are in your company’s best interests.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Intergenerational conflict

Dear HR Executive:

Last year somebody suggested we do an audio conference on intergenerational conflict and I nixed it. Sounded too squishy. Besides, I've got teenagers and mostly tend to see the similarities between them and the way I was as a kid. My oldest daughter loves The Doors, for goodness sake.

Then in September we did a marketing research conference call with a few dozen B21 customers that got totally derailed when someone brought up the topic of -- you guessed it -- intergenerational conflict. The live wire was the poor work ethic of millennials, and people just went on and on with anecdotal evidence that younger workers were a royal pain. (By the way, I scheduled the conference on intergenerational conflict a couple months ago, and it did so well I rescheduled it in May.)

No surprise, the people on that research call were baby boomers and Gen-X HR managers. Their complaints were predictable. Younger workers are strict nine-to-fivers, they keep their own hours, they view work as an imposition on their social life, they dress like slobs, they feel a sense of entitlement, and so on. I remember getting off the call and thinking, "Maybe they've just forgotten that they were the same way at age 24." I know I was.

But yesterday I was listening to the radio and heard Jean Twenge, author of the book, "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable—Than Ever Before." I came away more open to the possibility that maybe there is a difference between baby boomers like me at age 24 and the young people we're all hiring into our companies these days.

In a nutshell, here's her thesis, based on primary research of psychological tests taken by young people dating back to the 1960s:

"Generation Me" -- those between 24 and 34, grew up with a distorted view of their own self-importance, in no small part because of the self-esteem movement, which dictates that we must: 1) tell kids, "You can grow up to be anything you want to be"; 2) tell kids they're great even when they're not; 3) Give every kid on the team the same trophy; 4) Give trophies even to players on the team that finished 0-11 (I'm paraphrasing here).

This would be fine except for one thing: Reality. Twenge's young people enter the workforce brimming with confidence. But they soon discover that their bosses (cruel, nasty people like us) and older colleagues don't love them unconditionally. And this shock, as the book's subtitle suggests, makes them miserable.

First, let me say that Twenge is defining a broad cultural trend. If you're a millennial and feel you're different, that doesn't mean much. Nor does it mean much that what she describes sounds very much like me at that age (I was almost 30 before I got a real job, and I believed the world owed me something). There was one thing in the radio discussion, however, that resonated with me -- one of Twenge's points is that young people today see less connection than baby boomers did between performance and results. More than earlier generations, they assume that they'll become rich, famous or otherwise revered in the world without actually DOING anything to deserve it.

If that's true, the modern workforce has a special challenge. It's one thing if we hire young people with inflated self-esteem who discover after working hard and sacrificing that the road to glory is a little longer than they thought (that, by the way, would describe me years ago when I finally got my act together). It's another thing altogether if those young people believe we're lucky to have them on board and that they have nothing to prove. No question about it, on that research call we did last year, that's EXACTLY what the HR execs were saying about the young people in their organizations.

So what do you do about it? That's a discussion for a later HR Cafe post. But there are no easy answers. I read a statistic today in Chief Learning Officer magazine saying that in the next few years 77 million baby boomers will be leaving the workforce. We could lose 6% of our workers by 2010. That's going to mean a huge labor shortage, which gives "Generation Me" more bargaining power, doesn't it?

Feel free to share your thoughts on this topic. We'd all be particularly interested in hearing how you're dealing with the issue.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Thursday, May 1, 2008, titled, "Managing New Generations: Why Understanding Xers, Yers and Millennials is Key to Motivating Your Workforce". In this audioconference, Valerie Grubb of Oxygen Media will teach you a new approach to the new generations of employees so you can manage them better, make them more productive, and retain them longer than your competitors.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

The "Closing Doors" game follow up

Dear HR Executive:

If you didn't read the last post, take a minute or two and play the "Closing doors" game before reading this.

If you played the game you know the point of it. There's a downside -- both in the game and in life -- to keeping all your options open. We do better when we allow doors to close.

What's it mean to HR executives? A lot, actually.

First, the health of your company depends on the ability of the CEO and other top executives to close doors. Strategy gurus tell companies that they need to define what they're really good at and be better than competitors at that one thing. A popular model says companies must choose between "operational excellence," "product leadership" or "customer intimacy." But some of the greatest strategy insights are revealed when we ask, "What aren't we?"

Every CEO gets flooded with ideas about new markets, products, mergers, acquisitions, and so on. The ability to close doors, to say, "No, that's not who we are," is essential to success. HR executives who want a spot at the executive table also need to understand what the company "is not," and a key part of their job is making sure that knowledge cascades throughout the organization.

Second, the "closing doors" concept is relevant to HR executives in recruiting.  There's no bigger turnoff than a job candidate whose resume shows he did 10 different jobs in 10 years. And there's nothing more attractive than finding a person who did one job for 10 years and achieved mastery of exactly the skill set you need. The latter candidate knows how to close doors, the former does not. When you ask the latter candidate that age-old question, "What are you NOT good at?" she'll tell you, "I'm an accountant because I'm a whiz at numbers. But I'm just average at writing. And I don't really have the personality to be, say, a salesperson or a customer service rep." The job hopper will squirm in his chair and end up telling you he's good at everything. Which means, of course, that he's spent his whole life keeping doors open, and he's GREAT at nothing.

When I recruit I'm acutely attuned to how focused people are. Candidates who have deep levels of self-awareness are more expensive and more demanding. They know exactly what they want and have no time for you if you can't offer them an opportunity to sharpen their skills. If you make a promise and don't deliver, they're gone. But I'll pick this type of candidate every time. 

I believe it was Aristotle who said, "Happiness is using one's skills and abilities in the pursuit of excellence." He understood closing doors. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman understands it. At age 14 he went to a kibbutz in Israel and understood instantly that he was not going to fulfill every Jewish mother's dream and become a doctor or a lawyer -- he was going to spend the rest of his life writing about the conflict in the Middle East. Bill Gates closed the door on a Harvard degree, quitting after his freshman year to deploy the remarkable programming skills he'd discovered at age 12.

I constantly bore my two teenage daughters with lectures about this stuff, hoping they'll figure out their passion -- that thing they could truly be excellent at -- and close the door on distractions like becoming a famous actress or being the next Donna Karan. It's not working. But maybe when they're 30 they'll remember all my yammering and it'll motivate them to figure out what they are, and what they aren't.

Anyway, I hope this has given you something to think about. "Closing doors" is a powerful idea that has real application in the workplace. Not to mention our private lives. But that's a different story.

Feel free to share your thoughts about your experience playing the game and what "Closing Doors" means to you. Just click on "comments" below.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Thursday, May 29, 2008, titled, "How to Cut Through Resume and Interview Hype – and Prevent Hiring Disasters". In this 60-minute session, Amy Henderson will give HR executives and line managers the tools they need to cut through resume and interview hype and determine whether a candidate is actually right for the job.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

The "Closing Doors" game

Dear HR Professional:

Let's play a little game ... a purposeful game that will tell you something important about yourself and perhaps  give you insight into why you are, or aren't, an effective HR executive. It might even tell you why you are, or aren't, happy in your life.

The game comes from an experiment being run by Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at M.I.T. who's interested in how people make choices. Click here to play the game, which takes about a minute and then gives you your results. Make sure you read the directions very carefully. If you don't, the results could be skewed.

In my next post, I'll talk about what all this means. Have fun.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Thursday, April 24, 2008, titled, "Becoming a Great Place to Work: What It Really Takes". In this 60-minute session, Hal Adler, President of Great Place to Work® Institute, Inc., will walk through the common characteristics of the great workplaces recognized on FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For® list for 2007.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Accountability: Why it's so important

Dear HR Executive:

If you've been in HR a while, you know the importance of accountability in organizations. You've hired managers you thought had the accountability gene, only to learn later on that they refused to take responsibility for results, didn't "own" projects, and pointed fingers at others when things went wrong.

And you've seen low-level employees soar through the ranks because they had that gene -- they got things done no matter what. They spent money like it was their own. They admitted their mistakes, learned from them, and never made them again.

I'm the CEO of my company, and the bigger and more complex the organization becomes the more I realize how few tasks I can be directly accountable for. A company can't survive without highly competent managers who totally "own" their jobs. If something goes wrong they take responsibility. Even if a direct report caused the screw up, accountable managers are thinking, "It happened on my watch, I didn't deploy my resources correctly, I didn't get it done. How can I make sure it never happens again?"

Here's how Webster's defines accountability:

Accountable: Subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable.

I think people feel accountable for two reasons. A minority of your employees have outrageously high standards for themselves, and when they screw up they feel they've let themselves down (Tiger Woods would fall into this category). But I think more of them recognize that they're part of a team, and they feel if they fail they're letting the team down. It's the pain -- maybe even fear -- of being "answerable" to a team  that drives them. If managers don't have either that insanely high internal standard, or the fear of letting others down, they'll prove disappointing in a management role.

Next time you interview someone for a manager position, try to come up with some questions to determine whether they've got that accountability gene. They'll be better managers if they do.

A final thought: It's not enough for an organization just to have accountable managers. At great companies, accountability cascades down through all levels of an organization. Even entry-level receptionists "own" their relationships with customers and have a personal stake in meeting their needs. Here's an article that will help individual managers create a culture of accountability within their own departments. It's called "The Seven Deadly Sins of Managers," by Robert Lauridsen. Read on.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Wednesday, April 9, 2008, titled, "People-Powered Leadership: How to Inspire Accountability, Responsibility, and Results". Scott Geller, one of the nation’s top leadership experts, will outline the principles and action steps that successful leaders practice daily to achieve meaningful and lasting results.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Draconian measures from SHRM

Washington D.C., April 1, 2008

SHRM announced today draconian new measures to improve the image of HR executives worldwide. It has ordered its certification arm, the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI), to revoke the PHR, SPHR and GPHR certifications from all HR executives who:

• Create a company policy manual, shove it in a drawer and forget about it
• Develop training programs that take up employees' time but deliver no value
• Ignore employee complaints hoping they'll just go away
• Send out a memo announcing a major change in a benefits program, then act surprised that no one read the memo.
• Fire a troublemaker without adequate documentation
• Propose HR initiatives without running the numbers and demonstrating a positive ROI
• Come up with compensation plans that reward stars and poor performers equally
• Allow supervisors and managers to inflate the performance evaluations of poor performers
• Fail to benchmark salaries by industry, geography and company size, and thereby end up paying their workforce too much, or too little.
• Pay severance to a terminated employee without making the person sign a release
• Assume that if somebody's title is "Assistant Manager," then by definition she must be an exempt employee and you don't have to pay her overtime
• Fail to send out the COBRA forms!
• Conduct meaningless exit interviews that reveal absolutely nothing
• Rely strictly on want ads to recruit talent and believe recruiting is about sorting through resumes
• Can't explain how their companies REALLY make money.

Obviously no reader of the HR Cafe would be fool enough to fall into any of these HR traps ... or to believe that SHRM has any intentions of revoking certifications. But April 1 is a good time to think about the foolish mistakes many HR professionals make that can crush their effectiveness and stall their careers.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING CONFERENCE: Join us for the EMPLOYMENT LAW FORUM 2008, April 22-23  at the University of Chicago's Gleacher Center. This in-depth two-day event will give you the critical HR updates you need to stay on top of the latest employment law changes, court decisions and best HR practices for staying in compliance.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

New discrimination statistics from EEOC

Dear HR Executive:

Most would agree we've made progress on race issues in this country in the past generation. It's possible we'll even have our first-ever minority president in 2008. But new statistics from the EEOC suggest that racial and other forms of discrimination are alive and well in the workplace, and this it's no time for companies to get sloppy about preventing bias.

As the chart below shows, all forms of Title VII discrimination rose between 2006 and 2007.

Race claims are the most common (30,000+ cases in 2007), and therefore the ones HR executives need to be most vigilant about. If there's a "sleeper" in these stats, it's the overlap between Race and National Origin claims. Since National Origin cases are often motivated by racial factors, the real number of race discrimination cases is actually quite a bit higher than these stats indicate. And in the future, as our country's workforce absorbs more immigrants from Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, preventing racial discrimination lawsuits is going to require even greater  vigilance.

Below is an article that will appear in the next issue of B21's newsletter Human Resources 21. It talks about the EEOC data and offers some suggestions to help you prevent race discrimination claims at your company. Read on.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

Racial bias charges are soaring – is your organization at risk?
How to ward off the commonest kind of discrimination complaint

The American workforce’s growing diversity presents employers with many opportunities. But it also poses challenges, not least of which is the danger of racial discrimination – real or perceived.
That danger is highlighted in the latest annual statistics on discrimination charges filed with the EEOC. In 2007, charges of racial bias rose 12% from the previous year, to their highest level in 13 years.

That trend was even sharper than the aggregate rise in charges of all kinds, which was 9%, the largest annual gain since 1993.

The EEOC recorded 30,510 racial discrimination charges in 2007, compared with 82,792 total charges.

Charges of national origin discrimination, which sometimes overlaps racial bias, also rose 12%, to 9,396.

Title VII’s provisions outlawing racial discrimination at work were drafted during the civil rights era, and for years, African-Americans were the main group to avail themselves of the law.

New racial groups
But with growing numbers of Hispanics, East Asians, South Asians and other groups entering the workforce, it seems almost inevitable that racial bias charges from members of these groups will boost the total.

What can HR people do to promote law-abiding behavior among members of the various racial groups in their workforce?

R-e-s-p-e-c-t
One major key: respect. Experience over years of diversity training shows that when the training emphasizes only legal compliance, employees’ attitudes don’t change much.

And so, once the training is over, they’re likely to lapse into disrespectful behavior that easily crosses the line into illegality.

Moreover, legalistic training is more likely to foster resentment and pushback than greater understanding.
You’ll get farther if your anti-discrimination information and training stress points like these:

• People’s similarities outweigh their differences. Minority employees may have different ways of speaking and acting, but their human needs and desires are much the same as those of the dominant culture.
• Minority groups have distinguished histories and capabilities. Do your workers know the role of Arabs in developing astronomy, Indians mathematics, or South Americans agriculture? This kind of knowledge increases respect.
• Developing minorities’ potential helps everybody. Your organization functions best when all employees, irrespective of race or origin, have an equal chance to contribute and be recognized for their contributions.

UPCOMING CONFERENCE: Join us for the EMPLOYMENT LAW FORUM 2008, April 22-23  at the University of Chicago's Gleacher Center. This in-depth two-day event will give you the critical updates you need to stay on top of the latest employment law changes, court decisions and best practices for staying in compliance.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

The "velvet no" technique

Dear HR Executive:

How willing are you at saying no to people?

I'm pretty willing, probably because I have an impatient, no-nonsense left brain personality. "No" is easy and efficient, so I tend to just say no if I really have no intention to do something.

But just because some people are willing to say no doesn't mean they're good at it. And I think HR executives have to be both willing to say no AND good at saying no without offending. They're at the epicenter of employee relations, so they're continually dealing with suggestions and requests, many of which the company can't possibly accommodate. If you can't say no in an assertive but nice way, you could fuel the perception that the company just doesn't care.

Fact is, HR executives must master the art of delivering the "Velvet no".

Here's a great example:

A friend of mine recently told me a story over dinner about a great idea she had as an executive secretary at Pepsico back in the 1970s. A single mother at the time, she wrote a letter to the company president suggesting that building a daycare center would improve the productivity of Pepsico's growing cadre of single parents. The president called her in and gave her a "velvet no."

"He such was a nice man," my friend recalled. "He really listened to me. And he said no to me in the nicest way." She went on to say that he understood the pain of raising children alone, and saw the connection between her problem and an on site daycare center. He just didn't see any obligation to do anything about it.

Saying no firmly and diplomatically takes great skill, and more than just a little patience. When you do it right, people walk away feeling like my friend at Pepsico did. If you do it wrong, people think, "Why do I waste my time making suggestions?" or "These idiots wouldn't know a good idea if it punched them in the nose."

Here's a key insight that will help you deliver "velvet nos":

People won't get angry when you reject their ideas, as long as they feel that you really understood what they proposed and why they proposed it. 

I learned that from a high-level consultant who worked with top teams at major companies. To control the big egos in an executive boardroom, she suggested that when a team member proposed an idea, the leader had to make sure everybody understood what the person was proposing. Often, everyone would disagree with the idea, but the person who proposed it wouldn't feel wounded if they believed everyone really understood what they'd said.

So listen especially hard when you have to say no, and let people know you really "got" what they said.

By the way, Pepsico later created a daycare center. My friend's idea was a good one. She was just a little ahead of her time.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference Thursday, March 27th, 2008, entitled, "Conducting Tough Employee Conversations – Five Keys to Doing Them Right". Amy Henderson will provide the tools you need to make tough conversations happen sooner, go more smoothly, and produce better outcomes.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Exclusive B21 Survey: Supervisors and conflict

Dear HR Executive,

The writer H.L. Mencken once said, "Every time I have an urge to exercise, I sit down and let it pass. "

My teenage daughter has a similar attitude towards avoidance. Every time she feels an urge to do her homework, she goes on MySpace until the urge passes, usually about one in the morning when it's too late to do the homework.

HR executives no doubt feel occasional frustration with managers and supervisors who practice avoidance rather than deal with conflict head on. This frustration is amplified when avoidance creates a mess that HR has to go in and clean up.

B21 recently conducted a survey to see how effective managers and supervisors are at handling conflict. Here are the results:

Q: How well are your managers and supervisors trained in handling employee conflicts? (n=268)

• They're a crack team - terrific at defusing  conflict - 2%
• Pretty good - 36%
• They need help - 47%
• Awful. Problems fester - 12%

Got conflict resolution problems at your company? Below is an article from B21's newsletter Human Resources 21 that will help. Read on.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

The critical skill two out of three managers lack
Poll: Most managers struggle to resolve conflicts

Can most of your managers defuse conflict effectively? If you’re like most, the answer is no.

In an exclusive B21 poll, nearly half (47%) of HR execs said their managers needed help in this area and 12% admitted their managers were “awful” at handling conflict. That means a little more than one of three thought their managers were “pretty good” at handling conflict.

When you consider the way conflict can tear a team apart, you’ll no doubt agree these results aren’t reassuring.

Looking beyond a single problem
If you think your managers could use a boost in their conflict-handling skills, consider some suggestions from conflict-resolution guru Dudley Weeks, author of The Eight Essential Steps to Conflict Resolution.

One key: Line managers tend to see a conflict as a single problem to solve. Weeks suggests managers take a broader approach – and see the conflict in terms of the overall working relationship between the two parties.

That is, we all remember cases in our lives where resolving a conflict actually strengthened a relationship. That’s the goal of the conflict-resolution process, and that’s what the line manager should clearly state as a goal upfront.

If it works, this usually yields more lasting results than mediation and arbitration – which often focus on a single event and usually don’t consider the broader relationship context.

How it works
So, how would a line manager’s facilitation of a specific conflict look? First step: The manager should meet separately with each party to the conflict, and begin by asking some of the following questions:

• What do you think the conflict is about?
• What would you like to happen – and why?
• What are your needs?
• What do you think the other party(ies)’ needs are?
• What are some shared needs?
• How can you help the relationship?
• What misperceptions may be involved?

At this stage, the manager will want to clarify her role as a facilitator, not an arbiter or judge. It’s useful for the manager to encourage each party to avoid making demands, and to focus on options that benefit everyone. Now it’s time for the meeting of the manager and all the parties in conflict.

Joint meeting
The manager should choose a time and place that doesn’t favor any of the parties. Also, it helps to seek prior agreement not to interrupt each other.

During the meeting, the manager should keep these points in mind:

• Pick an opening question that promotes partnership. Don’t open the door to a rehashing of old arguments. Example: “You have a chance to use this conflict to build your relationship. Joe, how do you think this might occur?”
• Consider the parties’ perceived power in choosing which speaks first. The manager may want to “rebalance” any power discrepancy. In the conversation, watch for domination by one party, and ask questions that help restore a shared positive power.
• Be alert for statements that need to be clarified. They may contain the nub of a resolution. The manager asks the parties to clarify what they heard the other party saying rather than doing the clarification him- or herself.
• Listen hard for shared needs, and keep encouraging the parties to find mutually beneficial options.
• Remind them to talk to each other, not through the manager.
• Keep quiet if the parties are doing well. Intervene only for a reason.

One thing to look for: People often agree on the problems they face and on the results they want. But they often conflict on the solutions needed to get those results.

If managers can get the people to “partner” to come up with a joint solution (not necessarily a compromise), those managers will have a better chance of helping the “conflict partners” strengthen their working relationship.

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference March 27th, 2008, entitled, "Conducting Tough Employee Conversations – Five Keys to Doing Them Right". Amy Henderson will provide the tools you need to make tough conversations happen sooner, go more smoothly, and produce better outcomes.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Don’t let bad apples spread their rot

Dear HR Executive:

Fifteen years ago I made the worst management mistake of my career.

I hired a guy to join my marketing department and soon discovered that I’d made a bad decision. He had the background and skills that the team needed, but he was a troublemaker. Within weeks of his start date it became clear that he was a malcontent. He openly discussed how much he was getting paid (and how unhappy he was about it), and told anyone who would listen that the company was making a huge profit without rewarding employees -- which, for the record, wasn’t the case.

Being an eager young manager, I was determined to salvage my new hire. Maybe I saw some potential in the guy … or maybe I just didn’t want to admit I’d made a bad hire. Whatever the reason, I didn’t fire him. That was the real mistake.

Six months later my “project employee” was still toxic and the poisonous attitude was beginning to spread. I finally stepped up and got rid of him.

Unfortunately, the damage was done. Productivity was down, I’d wasted six months and the team lost respect for me because I let the problem fester. I learned the hard way that you need to remove bad apples from the barrel as soon as you find them.

Trying to save an employee may be worth it at times … but only up to a certain point. Eventually, you have to move on.

I hope this life-lesson and the ideas in the following article will help you prevent toxic employees from infecting your workplace.

Brian McCallum
VP of Marketing

Don’t let bad apples poison workplace morale
How to keep them from dragging everybody down

You did the whole due diligence bit – verified the resume, made a background check, called the references. And yet, six months later, the person turns out to be a bad apple, and is rotting away everybody’s morale and performance.

Sound like an all-too-familiar scenario? 

If so, consider these two simple rules: 1) Just don’t hire bad apples. (Let’s call them “spoilers,” because that’s what they do.) 2) If you already have spoilers in the organization, neutralize them. They’re rarely worth it, no matter what exceptional talents they possess.

How can you go about this? We’ll make some suggestions in a minute. But first let’s review how spoilers poison the well, and how serious this can be.

New research from the University of Washington Business School points out that bad apples can destroy a team or an entire office.

Example: A study of 50 manufacturing teams found that just one disagreeable or irresponsible member among as many as 15 teammates wrecked communication and cooperation.

The power of toxic attitudes
The worst part was, putting good people in with the bad apples didn’t dilute the toxin. Instead, the poison affected the good people. So spoiling power appears, unfortunately, to exceed that of consideration and respect.

One of three things tends to happen when spoilers are dropped into a previously functional environment, the U of W study concluded. These are:

• The group tries to get the spoiler to change. This may work occasionally, but don’t count on it.
• The group rejects the spoiler. People may come to you and say, “Please get this person out of here.” But then where do you put him?
• The group lapses into defensiveness. This scenario is the most common. The team or office falls into withdrawal, anger and/or anxiety. Productivity plummets. closing the door

What’s the cure? Spoilers aren’t going to disappear. When they come knocking for a job, they don’t wear a sign on their chest. Task one is making sure they don’t get in the door. Here are guidelines to detect and avoid bringing spoilers into your workforce:

• Check for warning signs. If you don’t already administer personality tests to job applicants, think about starting. Focus on measures of agreeableness, emotional stability and conscientiousness. 
• Doubt the interview. Sure, you have to interview candidates, and we don’t suggest you stop. But interviews are notoriously bad at teasing out real personality traits the candidate is trying to hide. Don’t let the “feel” of an interview influence you too much.
• Dig behind the references. This may seem like a lot of work. But if you can find people who know the applicant professionally, and promise them confidentiality, you’ll learn more than hand-picked references will tell you. 
• Round up the usual suspects. The best way to avoid hiring a spoiler is to rehire someone you know isn’t! Keep tabs on ex-employees who left on good terms. They may want to come back.

Neutralize ’em
OK, but what if you, or your predecessor, forgot your string of garlic and opened the door to Dracula? Short of termination, you can:

• Isolate the spoiler. You may have jobs where the person works alone or has few contacts with others.
• Put the spoiler with like-minded people. God forbid, you may have a department known for its crotchetiness. Throw the person in there. 

A final word: What if, in fending off spoilers who happen to be in a protected class, you appear to be discriminating? This is where the job description comes in. Among the qualifications, include cooperativeness, ability to work in a team and a constructive, respectful attitude.

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference on Wednesday, April 2, 2008, entitled, "Yes, You Can Fire Without Fear! What Every Supervisor Needs to Know". This course will discuss in depth three key principles that supervisors must understand to prevent lawsuits that arise from employee terminations.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

 

Talent management

Dear HR Executive:

In this post I'm going to point you to an interesting article by Peter Capelli, head of Wharton's Center for Human Resources. I hesitated, though, because at first blush it seemed directed to big companies. Capelli's point is that companies need to think about talent management the same way they think about supply management (e.g., having a "deep bench of talent" is like carrying a lot of inventory).

But then I started thinking, "You know, we're just a small company, but we worry about 'talent management' all the time." Capelli defines talent management as follows: "Trying to forecast what we are going to need, and then planning to meet that need." In the past few weeks, I've asked myself repeatedly, "Given our plans to enhance our Web sales, do we have enough depth in our IT department? Has our print newsletter editorial staff become too lean? Since we anticipate more customer calls in the future, at what point do we add another customer service rep?"

While it's true that talent management is far more complex at big companies, you could argue that the risks of poor talent management are even greater at small companies because often there is no "bench." Small companies can't afford to carry "talent inventory," so the loss of just a few key players could really impact the numbers.

Here's the article from the always thoughtful Capelli. It's called, "Talent on Demand: Applying Supply Chain Management to People." I hope it gives you some ideas for planning your company's future.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference on Tuesday, March 4, 2008, entitled, "The Top 10 Secrets of SuperAchieving Supervisors: A Toolbox for Excelling in an Oversight Role" . In this program, Colleen Bracken will give supervisors tools they’ll be able to implement immediately to cope with the huge responsibilities of their oversight role.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

 

Hiring smart -- My take

Dear HR Executive:

In the last post, I laid out a scenario that raised the question, "Should you hire for smarts or experience?"

We got some great answers from HR Cafe readers. Let me share mine.

In general, hire for smarts. I say that knowing full well that in jobs that require repetitive tasks -- e.g., data entry -- high intelligence can be a liability. Smart people will quickly get bored and quit. I also recognize that some very smart people have low emotional intelligence and can be ineffective and even disruptive in many jobs.

But generally speaking, in any job requiring decision-making that affects the bottom line, raw intelligence -- measured by a pre-employment test -- should be a major factor in the hiring decision.

The reason is that smart people:

1. Process information faster and better, and
2. Handle stress better.

Most jobs in any business -- whether it be a customer service rep, a controller or a CEO -- involve solving problems. Thousands of times every day, employees at your company are faced with decisions big and small. They're given a series of input variables, they process them, and they come up with an answer.

Sometimes the variables aren't crystal clear and require interpretation. What's more, often employees are under tremendous pressure to make decisions quickly. When they don't come up with the right answer, they create unhappy customers, miss critical production deadlines, extend credit to bad actors, enter the wrong markets, make products no one wants, cause communication breakdowns, hire incompetent vendors, etc.

The smarter your workforce, the more likely those thousands of decisions getting made at your company every day are going to be the right ones. Hiring for smarts is risk insurance. Simple as that.

One last point: There's something to be said for "practical intelligence." You could argue that it's more useful to companies than high IQ. But I'd counter that really smart people, if given the chance, will develop practical intelligence more quickly, and deploy it more skillfully, than their less-intelligent colleagues.

That's why I try to hire brains.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

POWERFUL TRAINING TOOL: Introducing Interviewing & Hiring: Straight-Talk Compliance Training for Managers and Supervisors. This concise but comprehensive training tool will help your team avoid the most treacherous hiring-related pitfalls that could land your organization in court.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Scenario: Hiring the smart guy?

NOTE: We'd like your feedback on this post. Please go to "comments" below and tell us how you'd handle this scenario.

Dear HR Executive:

A manager comes into your office and says,

"I need your advice. I've got two candidates for a marketing manager position and can't decide which one to hire. One scored REALLY high on our intelligence tests but has just 6 months' experience. The other scored about average on our test but has four years' experience. Both are personable and seem like good team players who'd fit in. Salary expectations are similar. But I'm struggling because our needs are mixed: Yes, we need somebody who can make the trains run on time, but just as important we need creativity and problem solving skills."

I've set up this scenario so there's no obvious answer. It really depends on how strongly you believe in the wisdom of hiring extremely smart people. Some hiring managers will tell you flat out that you should always hire for smarts. Microsoft, for example, would agree. And it's hard to argue with their results.

But then there's Enron, which was McKinsey's showcase client for how to win the "War on Talent." The elite consulting firm lauded Enron for hiring smart people and giving them all the resources and freedom they needed to succeed. But all these brilliant people contributed to the greatest business collapse in U.S. history.

So, the manager's question is a tough one. How would you answer? Share your thoughts by clicking on the "comments" link below.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: B21 will host an audio conference on Tuesday, March 4, 2008, entitled, "The Top 10 Secrets of SuperAchieving Supervisors: A Toolbox for Excelling in an Oversight Role" . In this program, Colleen Bracken will give supervisors tools they’ll be able to implement immediately to cope with the huge responsibilities of their oversight role.

RISK-FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION: You're invited to sign up for a risk-free trial subscription to our newsletter Human Resources 21.

Preventing discrimination lawsuits

NOTE: Below you'll find a link to a free Quick Take, a short audio PowerPoint program that will launch automatically on your computer. It will expire at midnight on Wednesday, March 3, 2008.

Dear HR Executive:

In our last post (Exclusive B21 survey on retaliation), we talked about how easy it is for unsuspecting managers and supervisors to trigger retaliation lawsuits -- even when they do the "right" thing.

Fact is, that's probably true of most lawsuits. The bosses in your organization aren't bad people who come to work each day thinking, "How can I discriminate today against an older employee, woman, minority, foreigner or gay person?" On the contrary, if you read a lot of employment law cases, what strikes you is how often good people provoke discrimination cases not intentionally but unintentionally.

Which is why you, as an HR professional, should be deeply concerned about the unconscious biases of your leadership team. Conscious biases are easy to spot and you can fire or demote bosses who have them. Unconscious biases are extremely hard to spot -- in fact, you'll most likely discover them when it's too late.

Managers and supervisors need to recognize that self-awareness is a prerequisite for success in a leadership role. They need to ask themselves uncomfortable questions about their own potential biases, especially whenever they're contemplating an "adverse action" against an employee. 

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

P.S.: B21 is conducting an audio conference next month on how to help supervisors prevent retaliation.

P.P.S.: B21 is also holding its live Employment Law Forum 2008 on April 22, where we'll update HR executives on retaliation and host of other legal topics.