Hey HR, Wanna Influence? Change the Way the Game is Played

What do Zappos, Netflix and Amazon all have in common? If you guessed cool, new companies you wouldn’t be wrong, but their is something even more fundamentally amazing about them. They have all changed the way the game is played within their respective industries.

Look at Netflix for example. Netflix shares are up 130% (Over $100 now!) over the past year while Blockbuster is down to over 50% (now trading at $0.40). Netflix did not look to just get into the DVD rental business, CEO Reed Hastings set out to change the way the game is played! His company is now worth over $5 Billion while Blockbuster is worth under $100 Million. Netflix continues to focus on innovation by now working on streaming video through multiple platforms.

When you look at most HR organizations, processes and systems today they look a lot like they did 50 years ago. Recruiting looks the same, performance management looks the same and little has changed in the way that training, compensation or benefits. HR, unfortunately still looks a lot like Toby on The Office, outdated and out of touch.

If HR really want to become influencers we need to innovate. We need to come up with a better way to recruit, develop and retain people. We need to find better ways to develop talent. We need to work in real time as the last few years of economic uncertainty have shown that long-term planning has little value.

I love to hear and read about innovation in the workplace, but the last few conferences I have gone to have been disappointing. The presentations I am seeing today the same things I was seeing from HR pros 7-8 years ago. It’s time to innovate.

If you are innovating or have seen some innovative HR initiatives that work drop me a line, please!

This is Gonna Hurt!

Deere Says New Health Care Reform Law Will Increase 2010 Expense By $150 Million After-Tax

In case anyone was trying to figure out what some of the short term ramifications of Obamacare might be, here you go. John Deere just increased their expense forecast by $150 Million dollars. On my back of an envelope math this could potentially eliminate 2000+ jobs just this year alone. And this is just John Deere. Expect many more similar statements to come out from companies over the next few months as they plan to incorporate various aspects of the law.

We may see some benefit from this in the long term, but in the short term it’s gonna hurt bad!

Just found this now: Caterpillar is going to take a $100 Million hit THIS QUARTER!

Creating Space for People to do Great Things

One of my favorite 360 feedback questions is “To what extent does the individual… Create Space for People to do Great Things”?. A 360 feedback tool gathers up feedback for an individual from multiple sources: supervisor, peers, subordinates, colleagues and other 3rd parties, hence the term 360 (Use hence in a sentence – check). It provides a 360 degree view of the individual’s behaviors, strengths and weaknesses. As I often use 360′s to help leaders develop ther skills, I believe the space question is one of the most important questions. Great leaders create space for others to excel.

In football, almost every single great run by a running back or wide receiver is set up by a key block. Without the block, it’s just a couple of yards. With it, the possibilities are endless, he.could.go.all.the.way… . A great receiver can help a running game by requiring defensive backs or even linebackers to play deeper on the play. This creates space for a running back to tack considerably yardage onto an average play. Wayne Gretzky was so feared by opposing players, their concern for where he was at any given moment cleared up space for Messier, Kurri and others to rack up an amazing number of points when they played with him.  Individuals can create the space for others to do great things.

Too often at work, or even at home, we get so bogged down with the day-to-day things that need to get done that we never provide the significant other people in our lives the opportunity to do great things. I believe that every individual has the know-how to go above and beyond and accomplish greatness, but how often are they really given the chance? Do we let them take the necessary risks? Deviate from the game plan for the potential big score? What is stopping us from letting it happen? What are we afraid of?

I was recently shopping in a local supermarket. 2 friends of my wife commented on how they thought it was great that I (the husband) was doing the shopping. Their message was that their husbands were incapable of doing the grocery shopping (I think?).  I told them that I was sure that their spouses would have no problem doing the shopping, but how would they handle their husbands coming home with the wrong items? Could they manage not commenting or saying anything derogatory. One responded honestly and said, “I know he will get the wrong things, that’s why I don’t even bother letting him go”. There it is, he’ll never even have a chance to develop into a great shopper becasue he will never be given the opportunity. Her loss.

So this year if you make one resolution, may I suggest this one. Create space for others to do great things. Whether they are employees, peers, supervisors, friends, children or spouses. If you give people the space they can do amazing things.

Owning Up Follow Up

Since my last post about a week ago http://avionod.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/great-customer-service-own-up/ I have been thinking about why is it that “owning up” works as well as I believe it does. What is it about the vendor owning up to their mistake that makes us feel that much better? It just seems to elicit a positive emotional response.

Today I was listening to The BS Report, a podcast by Bill Simmons. His guest was Chuck Klosterman, they were discussing the Tiger Woods saga. Chuck brought up the point that Tiger should come out and own up to everything he has done. He believes that this would not be PR suicide on Tiger’s part because once you’ve owned up the ball is now in the consumers court. The consumers, us, now have the choice to continue to be Tiger fans or not. Until he says something the choice isn’t ours yet, it is still Tiger’s. The longer we wait the more upset we get because we are not in control.

There it is! Makes perfect sense!

As long as the vendor/athlete stays silent we sit there waiting for a response or communication from them. We don’t feel like we can act until they do. Once they make their statement the onus is now on us to make a decision (onus = on us) as to how we want to respond, but it is in our court. At least we feel some sense of ownership for the next steps. We can decide to maintain the relationship or walk, but either way it’s up to us. As long   as we feel like we are in control of the next steps we emotionally feel better. If they do not respond the issue continues to boil up in us and creates even more animosity then the original event.

Great Customer Service – Own Up

Although I may complain about it from time to time the truth is I am thrilled with my LIRR commute. The trains are generally on time, conductors are nice and aside from the occasional time I get stuck with one of the old trains, it’s a pretty comfortable ride.
Today as I got on to my train I noticed a letter from the LIRR signed by LIRR president Helena Williams. In it, she apologized for delays caused by snow last week and pointed out some of the great work the LIRR did overall through the storm (2 points for employee recognition). She then went on to point out an incident with one train that became stranded. She reviews the details of actions taken by the LIRR and then ends with this “While no injuries were reported among the customers or the crew and all were safely transferred onto another train at Farmingdale under extremely difficult blizzard conditions, we must do better.”
Leadership/Customer Service lesson: When things go wrong own up to it. No reasonable customer expects 100% perfection, but they do expect 100% honesty. Personally, I was not even aware of the stranded train, but I am impressed with the response.

Social Media for Recruiting

Let’s face it, job boards are basically useless at this point. I recently read, but can’t find it now, that job boards only account for about 3% of all hires. This SHRM article states that networking and in-house references are the best source of candidates.  The big buzz these days is using social networks for recruiting, but as I look at some of these examples (Twitter and FB posts) I still think recruiters are only scratching the surface of social networking’s real potential.

Recruiters use Twitter to post positions or redirect candidates to their recruiting site. That’s not networking, that’s posting. All you have really done is extended your job board out a little further. It only goes to those currently following you on Twitter. The odds are if they are following you they also know how to find your job board already. You really haven’t extended your reach much.

Here is what recruiters need to do. Send an email to all of your employees with each job opening separately worded for different social mediums. Ask the employees to cut and paste the openings they want to share with their network, using the appropriate message created for the medium they are posting it on. In other words, email out a Tweet that you ask all your employees to post to their Twitter accounts. The same for FB and LinkedIn.  Now your building a network! If 25 employees Tweet the opening and each employee has 100 followers even if only 5% of followers RT but also have 100 followers, you have now hit 500 people, most of whom you don’t know. They key is making it easy for the employee and not asking them to come up with the Tweet or FB posting. This is one HR/Recruiting should spoon feed.

Want to track back which employee was the source of the referral so you can reward them? You could have a numeric code that each employee could attach to their tweets and posts that the candidate is asked to submit with their application. This way you know where the candidate came from.

Bottom line, if your going to use social networking make sure your making the best use of your social network!

Lessons in Management from PeeWee Hockey

This past Sunday I took my 7 year old to his weekly hockey game.

That’s him in the middle. At this age it’s basically a helmet with a stick running after other helmets with sticks for an hour. Not pretty, but they gotta start somewhere! My son’s team is, unfortunately, not very good.

As we watched the teams warm up before their game this Sunday, the vision of the other team taking on-target slap shots from the point while our boys struggled to have stick meet ball, had one parent reminiscing about the Mighty Ducks movies and how while the other team always looked so good, the Ducks won in the end. (btw has anyone seen Emilio Estevez?) No such luck, we lost 1-0 and are now 0-4 on the season, but we have come really far over the past 4 weeks. The kids know where to go, the position they play and what direction to shoot. This was not the case the first week when we lost 7-0.

I did not put too much thought into the improvement the team has made until I was walking out the door with my son, going over some of the key plays he made and trying to distract him from asking me to take him for the obligatory post game treat. As we were about to leave, his coach came running over, crouched down next to him and spent the next 15 seconds going over all the great things my son did during the game. He got up and ran to the next kid and did the exact same thing. Then another.

I was amazed at what he was doing, not that I haven’t been amazed by the coach before. Last Saturday he had a baby and was still at the game on Sunday. This Sunday he made a Bris in the morning and was at the game in the afternoon. What was amazing was that the coach was not only making each kid feel special, but he had figured out the key to elevating his team, recognition. Nothing is more of a motivation to repeat a behavior then being told that said behavior was the right behavior. When a kid hears that he did right, he can’t wait to come back the next week and do it again.

Employees are like kids, except for the whole paycheck thing. The best way to motivate an employee and get them to repeat the great things they do is to recognize them for it. As managers we need to get our from behind our desks more often and recognize our employees accomplishments in real time, not at performance review time. It doesn’t have to be a lot, just a timely, detailed message about something they have done well. Once they see and hear that they have been recognized there is little doubt that they are incentivized to do it again.

After the first game my son asked if he could switch teams, he couldn’t handle losing 7-0 every week. Since that first week he hasn’t asked again. Now he looks forward to having the chance to show his coach what he can do. They say the number one reason employees leave an organization is their manager. I’m sure this is true, but what part of management is it? I know one thing is for sure, if an employee feels like they are doing a good job and no one is noticing they are going to find someone who will notice. As long as they feel like their work is being recognized they will definitely stick around.