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What Can You Learn From A Terrorist? [Part 2 of 4: Navarro]

After hearing Joe Navarro speak and then reading his book What Every Body is Saying, I decided to seek him out to ask him some pointed questions about what he has learned about non-verbal communication through his 25 years as a counterintelligence special agent with the FBI. This is the second in a four part series that started with Detecting Deception (click here for Part 3 and here for Part 4). For today, I’m going to focus on something that Joe calls: GUILTY KNOWLEDGE.

[JDavis] We now understand that it’s nearly impossible to tell if someone is lying. What then, is the next best alternative?

I learned to look for INDICATORS OF STRESS. If a question causes someone stress or bothers them, dig in to find out why. As you learn to identify these indicators, you’ll realize that not everything has the same weight during questioning.

Here’s an example (using a crime suspect): If I’m questioning them about a case where someone was murdered a machete, I could ask them lots of different questions about a knife, a blade or a sharp object. What I’ve found is that they probably won’t react with the same level of guilty discomfort as if I were to ask them specifically about a machete.

[JDavis] What is the most likely indicator of discomfort that someone would show non-verbally?

For decades I kept seeing a very interesting thing happening during interrogation but this one action never showed up in research. I finally realized that researchers don’t sit in front of terrorists. They sit in front of students who are being asked to deal with made up situations.

What I observed over time was that when people were really under stress or there was insecurity, people would touch their neck. Men do it more robustly and women delicately. By studying it I realized that we rarely touch our necks UNLESS we’re uncomfortable. We so infrequently touch our neck unless there is a specific issue that we feel guilty about.

[JDavis] Could this “guilty discomfort” manifest itself through verbal cues as well?

Absolutely! I call this DIS-POSESSION. Remember, for people with “guilty knowledge”, words have weight. Here’s how it works:

Interviewer (to a suspect): Do you own a Smith & Wesson Handgun?

Suspect: Yes I do.

Interviewer: Where do you keep it?

Suspect: I keep my gun in a locked safe in my bedroom closet.

Interviewer: Were you aware that I’m investigating a murder in your neighborhood in which the murder weapon was a Smith & Wesson Handgun?

Suspect: No, I wasn’t aware of that.

Interviewer: Can you tell me where your gun is right now?

Suspect: I’m not sure where the gun is.

The subtle difference here is that as soon as the gun that the Suspect owns is tied to this murder, and because the Suspect has “guilty knowledge”, you’ll notice that he dis-possessed the weapon – changing it from “my gun” to “the gun”. If that “guilty knowledge” wasn’t present, you would have heard the Suspect continue to take ownership by most likely using the statement, “I’m not sure where my gun is.”

This happens all the time between parents - If a father shows up after work and his wife needs to share that their daughter has spilled juice on his favorite chair, she’ll say, “Guess what YOUR Daughter did?”. By not saying “Our daughter”, she’s dis-possessing herself due to guilty knowledge. The minute you hear distancing, you know something is wrong. It’s NEVER positive. For further clarification, if a mother had something she was proud of she’d likely say, “guess what OUR son did? He won first place!”

One last example of this in real life: Bill Clinton referred to Monica Lewinsky as… “That Woman”

In Part 3 I’ll share Joe’s tips on what he calls “The Most Honest Part Of Our Body.”

For twenty-five years, Joe Navarro was an FBI counterintelligence special agent and supervisor specializing in nonverbal communications. A frequent lecturer, he serves on the adjunct faculty at Saint Leo University and the FBI. You can learn more about Joe through his website or by following him on Twitter.

Tags: Body Language, dis-posession, guilty knowledge, hiring manager, Interview, interview training, Joe Navarro, topgrading interview

26 Oct 10 | Interviewing | Read on | Comments (3)

Detecting Deception [Part 1 of 4: Navarro]

One of the most powerful and insightful speakers that I’ve had the opportunity to hear in the past decade is Joe Navarro. He’s the author of What Every Body Is Saying (and a lot of other books too) and a 25 year veteran of the FBI as a counterintelligence special agent.

I contacted Joe and asked him if he’d share some of his expertise with you as readers of the HireBetter Blog so that you can be more effective interviewers. He was very generous with his time and the tips he shared are SO GOOD that I’ve decided to make a short 4-part series out of the information (click here for Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4).

We started our conversation at a high level and that’s what this post will focus on. In the forthcoming blog entries I’ll dig in further around certain actions that a Candidate might take that will give you clues that you can use in your evaluation process. Enjoy!

[JDavis]: There are a lot of studies out there that suggest that Body Language is the most significant aspect of our communication. However, they all seem to say something different. What percentage of what someone is saying is their Body Language versus their Tonality and the actual Words?

The simple answer: no one really knows. Body Language is clearly the most powerful and significant of the 3 you’ve mentioned but here are some examples of how it can differ:

If you’re on a date and you’re sitting there ‘googley-eyed’ at your new lover, body language can be 98% or even more of what you’re saying
Political Events, whether debates or press events or even just stump speeches are often scripted and very orchestrated. Even with this, very few people ever remember what someone said during the debate or speech. Yet, if I simply asked you if you remembered “The Wink” most people will immediately remember Sarah Palin.
If someone you’re talking with is describing something technical or mathematical, body language accounts for very little of what they’re saying.

[JDavis]: Then what proof do you have that Body Language means anything at all?

When we look at studies of blind children talking with other blind children, they still use ALL of the same body language as people who have the gift of sight. A prime example: they even cover their eyes when they hear something they don’t like yet they’ve never SEEN other people using these behaviors before!

[JDavis]: After all of your years in counterintelligence, can you tell if someone is lying to you?

With all of the TV Shows and Police Movies that are out there today, you’d think it was possible, right? In my experience NO, I can’t tell if someone is lying or not. In fact, in 1986 Paul Ekman went out and tried to figure out if people really could “Detect Liars”. He found that the very best people were only as good as a coin flip.

To follow that up, in 2004 Maureen O’Sullivan completed an exhaustive study by looking at 14,000 Police Officers, Detectives, Judges, Psychologists (all people who you’d think, because of their training, that they would be better than average at this skill).

The results? Only 33 people (0.2%) were good enough at detecting someone who was lying to receive a grade of “above random chance” (meaning they could do it at least 66% of the time).

Police Officers and others in Law Enforcement often think that they’re expert at detecting deception. What we learned was that the people they were observing or questioning were nervous from being interrogated and the stress that they were experiencing resulted in “tells” that the police officers were interpreting as deception.

In upcoming posts I’ll share Joe’s tips on how you can keep your eyes open for “tells”, what the actions of the feet, hands, face and shoulders mean and what you should do if the countenance of a Candidate suddenly changes. I look forward to sharing these with you and hearing your thoughts.

Tags: Body Language, hiring manager, Interview, interview training, Joe Navarro, topgrading interview

19 Oct 10 | Interviewing | Read on | Comments (8)

Ask the Experts: Stop Shooting From The Hip

In an ongoing effort to Add Value for you as a Leader, I’ve been seeking out Experts who have unique talents to ask them for their experiences. This week Doug Wick, a Professional Coach and Business Advisor, shares some of his thoughts on how you can improve your hiring.

[JDavis] What do you see as the biggest challenge your clients face when they make hiring decisions?

In most cases they’re shooting from the hip. Most of them have, at best, a 50/50 chance of someone they hire being the right fit. Not only that, they often don’t have any clue to figure out or determine if someone is a solid candidate when they make their final decision. They’re simply not confident in their “system” for hiring and, even those companies who who have taken the time to build a “system” aren’t sure whether or not it’s telling them the right things about people that they’re interviewing.

[JDavis] What are the top 2 or 3 recommendations you’ve made in the past year to your clients on how to improve hiring effectiveness?

1. Embrace and utilize Topgrading. The methodology is terrific.

2. I’ve built a process to measure and review my clients’ hiring “batting average.” Through this I’ve learned to encourage people to look back and reflect on their recent hires and rank “good” and “bad”. I had a client who used the Topgrading Methodology but they still missed on a key hire and this reflective activity that I took them through following that mis-hire helped them get a better grasp on what their culture is and how to screen more for cultural fit during the interview process. If you don’t evaluate why you’ve been making mistakes you are bound to repeat the same mistake in the future. The hiring process is often very subjective. Recognizing your mistakes moves you from making a largely emotional decision to a decision steeped in objectivity with a seasoning of emotion which provides the best hiring outcome.

3. When hiring salespeople, I encourage our clients to use the Objective Management Group’s sales screening test. The outcomes [according to OMG research] produce a 96% effective sales hire. From what I’ve seen, the results do actually match up with those claims. They’re very thorough and accurate. Despite their effectiveness we still recommend doing the Topgrading interview with the candidates the test recommends to make sure their test results and track record match.

[JDavis] How instrumental do you feel regular Strategic Planning is to making the right hiring decisions?

It’s important. While it’s not as important as employing Topgrading, if a company is doing Strategic Planning they’re likely to be more aware of where they are going (and from what I’ve seen, most companies plan to improve and grow). With that sense of awareness, they are more cognizant of the need to upgrade their existing staff or add additional staff to achieve their vision. Strategic planning helps companies better understand how important it is to get the right people on the bus because they spend the time understanding their business and its trajectory.

[JDavis] Who are the companies that you’ve witnessed that have done a great job of hiring the right talent and why?

Ideal Computer Systems (Cedar Rapids, IA) – they have a really solid interviewing process that is based on a step-based interview process that makes people who are candidates go through stages that include really tough interview questions that require someone to prove that they’re an “achiever”. They also consistently do great reference checks and also ensure that they’re always doing background checks on everyone.

Meta Law (Ventura, CA) they had a very long and disappointing process of spending more than 18 months searching for a “successor” to the President of the company. They interviewed local talent and they got discouraged when they didn’t find the right person for the role. On my suggestion they went out and ran ads in places like their association newsletter that resulted in them getting introduced to a great candidate who was moving back to the city/location they are based in. Then utilizing Topgrading and not “settling” for someone just because they were tired of looking or because they didn’t want to expand their geographic reach, they made a great hiring decision. I always find it so rewarding as an outside consultant when a company can really use Topgrading and it results in an exceptional hire.

Doug Wick

Doug Wick is a certified Gazelles Coach with 12 years of coaching experience and 9+ years as an E-Myth Certified Consultant. Doug coaches his clients on how to develop Strategic Discipline. He focuses on small to midsize business owner/CEO with a ravenous appetite to improve their leadership skills and business results. Positioning Systems provides unrelenting personal commitment combined with foundational and dynamic best practice tools that enhance management proficiency and produce measurable performance.

Tags: A-Player, hiring, Interview, Objective Management Group, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, verne harnish

07 Oct 10 | Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (0)

Be Like Mike: Tips for Visualizing Success

While it’s not necessarily scientific, the HireBetter Team has determined that there are two reasons why a new hire doesn’t work out: (1) You weren’t clear on what you needed someone to do OR (2) You failed to tell the new hire what they needed to do.

To explore this further I sought out Patrick Thean, a professional Coach and the author of Execute Without Drama – a book that we have greatly benefited from as an organization.

In Patrick’s experience, for a manager to get better at visualization within hiring as well as company leadership, they will find the most success in doing the following four things:

Listen to what others have to say. Too often we are pushing people to listen to how we want them to do it. Instead, ask others “What does success look like? How would you view this journey? How will the person feel or look if they’re doing well?”
Explain the exact outcomes you want to see. Then assess the work environment that you’ve got and be honest with how much time you can spend as a manager coaching and advising them.
Walk through a single successful day with your new employee. What are the things that they might do that would drive you nuts that would cause you to want to jump out your window by lunch?
What does success look like? What are the few things that you see as the few activities that new person will be engaged in that would make them successful? What makes YOU successful during your day that they’ll need to do?

For those of you who are old enough to have watched Michael Jordan in the 80′s & 90′s, you’ll likely remember the stories of him visualizing every shot before he would take them. This exercise isn’t nearly as hard as you think it is!

According to Patrick it’s unlikely you will be “spot on” during visualization. You’re probably going to make mistakes. But if you can explain what a successful day looks like for a prospective employee and they don’t like what they are hearing, they’re probably going to self-select out!

Patrick Thean is an award-winning serial entrepreneur who has started and exited multiple startups. He received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for North Carolina in 1996 and achieved a ranking of 151 on the Inc 500 in 1997.

An international speaker and the author of Execute Without Drama, Patrick has spoken to thousands of business owners on the topics of sustaining business growth, venture capital, and strategic exit strategies. He provides practical insights on building a culture of execution.

Tags: hire better, hiring, Interview, patrick thean, Topgrading, visualization

21 Sep 10 | Employment, Interviewing, Recruiting | Read on | Comments (3)

The Top 4 Predictors of Success When Hiring

I read a few blogs on a very regular basis and this week I want to share with you a really great post from one of them. Conor Neill, on his blog The Rhetorical Journey, recently featured a video by Randy Nelson, the Dean of Pixar University, where shared how the PROOF of a portfolio is significantly more valuable than the PROMISE of a resume.

The things that you’ll read below are truly some of the most powerful tips that I’ve ever read or heard and if you’re in any kind of leadership capacity within a business, you absolutely need to read this at least once (and I’d encourage you to read it more than once) and then take the time to watch Randy’s video. This is incredibly insightful – I hope you agree!

Depth (in any area) – Randy believes that the best predictor of ability to master any one area is if somebody has already mastered another area. It is more likely that someone who has achieved mastery in golf will achieve mastery as a Pixar artist or programmer than any set of pre-existing talent as an artist or programmer. Mastery requires discipline more than talent. Discipline requires humility. In the highly important NASA search for the astronauts to travel to the moon they were looking for mastery after some form of setback. They placed a huge value on people who had failed and recovered. In doing new things (buzz word “Innovation”) the key skill is “failure recovery”.
Breadth - He says they look for interested people more than interesting people. People who are broadly curious rather than just “different”. The key question is does this person “amplify me”? Can this person take my ideas and return them with passion?
Communication - Communication requires a process of translation. When a techie speaks to an artist she must speak in language that the artist understands. Randy says that nobody can be considered articulate, because the only success of communication is that the listener can say “I understand you”.
Collaboration - This is far beyond simple cooperation. Cooperation is for assembly lines [e.g. Ford Model T production workers]. Knowledge work requries the ability for team members to amplify each other – creating truly connected human beings.

The video for this is about 10 minutes long and it’s worth the time. You can view it below.

Tags: conor neill, hire better, hiring, Interview, predictability, recruit don't absorb, talent acquisition, Topgrading

14 Sep 10 | Employment, Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (2)

ECO101 – Is Your Company In Demand?

In the Davis Household, the start of the NFL Season is always a momentous time for our family. As we’ve been watching HBO’s Hard Knocks (I’m a huge Jets Fan) and reading about the players’ reactions to having the coaches’ critiques of them being aired for everyone to see as well as how hard the coaches push the players to perform, it got me thinking about how this kind of situation applies to businesses that don’t employ professional athletes.

Specifically, a few months ago, in advance of the NFL Draft, there was a situation where a Wide Receiver from Oklahoma State was being interviewed by the Miami Dolphins and a General Manager stepped over the line. While interviews with management are very common before these Teams make their decision to spend millions of dollars, the reason this particular interview received so much press was because the GM asked Mr. Bryant, “Is your mother a prostitute?”

I’m not interested in debating whether or not this was a fair question.

Rather, I’d like to offer the following thoughts for you to ponder as a Business Leader:

One of the common complaints I hear from Business Leaders is that the process of Topgrading is too arduous to implement or, even more common, they question why an A-Player would allow someone to put them through filling out a Career History Form or go through a 4 Hour Interview. They challenge me by saying, “Other companies that want that person won’t ask them to go through all of these steps – won’t we lose the best talent if we ask them to do so much more than our competition?”

My belief is that this a simpler situation than many would make it out to be: it’s Economics 101 where you learn about Supply and Demand. However, it’s not supply and demand from the perspective that these aforementioned Leaders would think [that A-Players are in short supply and thus have high demand]. Rather, it’s whether or not your COMPANY is in demand and the SUPPLY of positions available are limited.

Everyone is aware of those companies that have such a great culture and reputation that they have thousands of people who want to get considered for each role – Companies like Google, Oracle and DELL back in the 90′s, Bazaarvoice here in Austin a couple of years ago.

With the NFL, so many young Athletes want to have a shot at “working” for a professional team that they are more than willing to subject themselves to the Combines where they are poked and prodded and then stripped down to their underwear and asked to sprint and lift weights. They take mental acuity tests (remember Vince Young 3 years ago?). Even in the college ranks, there are young men across the country who pay hundreds of dollars to attend “camps” at major universities where the instruction that they receive is secondary to their dream of getting “noticed”.

The ultimate question I would pose to you is: What are you doing to make your Culture and your Organization one where people people WANT to get in and they’re more than happy to go through an extensive Assessment Process (like Topgrading) with a smile on their face because they know that there’s a brilliant career opportunity waiting for them on the other end if they make it through?

Tags: A-Players, career history, hire better, hiring, Interview, recruit don't absorb, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology

07 Sep 10 | Employment, Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comment (1)

You’re Rescuing Others and It’s Killing Your Interviews

In observing an interview on-site with a client earlier this month I recognized a disturbing trend across everyone in the organization that, upon further research, is happening in nearly every company and in every interview. When asking someone a tough question, instead of waiting for a response, the interviewer is rescuing them.

We’ve modeled our interview process on the best practices of Topgrading® and they all start with:

In your most recent role, what was the situation when you accepted the position with respect to talent, resources, systems and efficiency?
What were your top 2 or 3 responsibilities?
What were your top 1 or 2 accomplishments?
What are the 2 mistakes that you made in the role or what would you do differently if you were starting that role again today?

What we’ve witnessed is that nearly everyone is more than willing to answer the first three questions – and when asked in this order, they feel more and more confident as you give them permission “brag” about themselves. However, when you get to the 4th question, a significant number of candidates (whether for fear of appearing weak or not wanting to have to talk about the tough parts) will respond with, “You know, I can’t think of anything.”

Because interviews are often scheduled for 30 or 60 minutes at most companies, hiring managers and interviewers often feel like there’s a ticking clock that doesn’t allow them to stop and wait and (this is the hard part) endure the awkwardness of silence. Yet throughout history, the top business leaders are in agreement that our greatest learning opportunities happen when we are making mistakes – not when things are going really well.

To learn more about the skill of the skill of purposely allowing candidates to struggle, I interviewed Christopher Mursau, the Vice President of Smart & Associates in Chicago, IL.

JDavis: What’s the benefit of letting someone struggle through a tough question?

CMursau: It sets the stage early on that you’re going to ask the questions that allow them to give positives but you also need to know about the negatives and you’re not going to let them off the hook. It’s important that they understand that when you ask them a question they need to answer it honestly and if they need some time to think – that’s ok!

JDavis: How have you learned to be patient during these difficult stretches of an interview?

CMursau: It depends on where we are in an interview – if I’m talking about someone’s career when they were just coming out of college and they can’t think of a mistake that they made (in a position from 20 years ago) I’ll often use the opportunity to let it slide to get to know them a little better. I’m also starting to “train” them about what’s coming up in future questioning – that’s why it’s called a CIDS Interview (Author’s Note: CIDS = Comprehensive, In-Depth, Structured)

There’s a difference between pushing and building rapport. Ultimately, I want the candidate to give me their best and honest answers about their most recent positions. If they’ve had 5 jobs in their career, I might let them off the hook on the 1st one but the next 4 jobs (leading up to the present day) I’m going to be more patient and more insistent on them answering the tough questions. Because I’ll ask the questions in the format you mentioned above about every position, the person I’m interviewing realizes quickly that it’s going to be awkward for them and unacceptable to me when they say, “I don’t remember” twice in a row about the same difficult question.

JDavis: How much significance do you give to the questions around admitting weakness or owning up to mistakes?

CMursau: Incredibly significant – it’s possibly the earliest warning sign for me of an interview that won’t end well. When someone is unwilling to talk about weaknesses or mistakes, it’s been my experience that they won’t respond to constructive criticism, they’ll be hard to coach and more often than not they’ll be prone to blaming others when something goes wrong. When someone has shallow insights into their strengths and weaknesses I seldom advise a company to hire that person.

JDavis: What counsel would you give to an interviewer to help them deal with the candidate who can’t find it within themselves to share the mistakes that they made?

CMursau: Give the candidate opportunities. Ask the question around the mistakes about 3 straight jobs (if they struggle twice in a row, try asking it in a slightly different way the 3rd time). Employ the “pregnant pause”. If, after the third time they can’t think of anything, it’s likely they have low self-awareness. When this is present, I’ve found it to be a leading indicator of a lot of other red flags and the likelihood of that person being a fit for your company is very, very low. I’d strongly encourage someone to end the interview if the candidate shows lack of awareness about 3 consecutive roles in their career.

Chris completed his undergraduate degree in psychology at The University of Wisconsin, and his MBA at St. Thomas University. He joined Smart & Associates, Inc. in 2001 and provides the full range of professional services.

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, chris mursau, hire better, Interview, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology

24 Aug 10 | Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (4)

Top 4 Ways to Be A Great Interviewer

David Sandler once said, “You can’t teach a kid how to ride a bike at a seminar”.

With that in mind, I personally don’t believe that you can teach someone how to be a great interviewer through a blog post. My hope is, however, that by using a few of these simple tips in advance of your next interview, you can do a much better job than you previously have.

Here are my TOP 4 WAYS TO BE A GREAT INTERVIEWER

1. Setting Up the Interview Properly:

Through my volunteer efforts with EO I was responsible for managing our Event Calendar for 18 months. During that time I learned that every great event that you’ve likely ever been to had great planning at the beginning. Some companies base their entire reputation on it (i.e. Disney). When everything is planned properly it says a lot not only about your company but also significantly increases your chances for success:

Does the candidate have a copy of the Job Description and our Company Website?
Have they been called, confirmed and sent directions to our office?
Do they know how long they will be there and what the schedule is during their time?
If we don’t share the schedule or expectations, what does that say about us?
Who will greet them when they arrive?
What’s the 1^st Impression someone will have of our company?

2. When Your Team Plans the Fight, they Won’t Fight the Plan

Be sure that the Job Description, Competencies, and Accountabilities are distributed to all of those who are interviewing the candidate and everyone on the Interviewing Schedule has gotten the chance to review and ask questions. Here’s the Checklist:

Does everyone have the itinerary for the interviews?
Have you been selective in choosing WHO will interview people?
Where will they be interviewed in our office?
Has everyone received a copy of the Candidate Packet (Resume, Description of the Role, Prior Interview Notes)?
Does everyone involved know what role the candidate is interviewing for and how/why they are being asked to evaluate the candidate?

3. Have a GAME PLAN with your Interviewing Team:

Add or delete questions based upon what previous information (resume, Comprehensive Interview Notes, preliminary interview notes) has revealed about the candidate.
Assign areas of focus for your Interviewing Team so that questions aren’t redundant and everyone is maximizing their time away from their day to day responsibilities.
Encourage everyone to establish their estimated time to spend on each section of questioning.
Refresh your memory regarding the sequence and wording of questions to ensure a smoother interview.
Remind everyone to never, ever write on a resume.

4. Setting the Stage for an Effective Interview once you’re Face to Face:

After a couple of minutes building rapport, let the candidate know about the expected time frame and then sell the person on being open and honest. Topgrading® suggests that you state your purpose and plan in the following way:

Review your background, interests, and goals to see if there is a good match with the position and opportunities here
Determine some ways to assure your smooth assimilation into your new position, should you join us
Get some ideas regarding what you and we can do to maximize your long-range fulfillment and contributions
Tell you more about the career opportunities we have to offer and answer any questions you have
Understand your career history, which will be thoroughly verified in reference checks we’ll ask you to arrange with your previous managers

Tags: Brad Smart, chris mursau, hire better, hiring manager, Interview, job description, recruit don't absorb, Scorecard, talent acquisition, topgrading methodology

19 Aug 10 | Interviewing, Recruiting | Read on | Comments (0)

I Can Smell You From A Mile Away

I had the good fortune of hearing Cameron Herold today while I am in Boston for EO’s Entrepreneurial Masters’ Program. His topic was “Leadership at 100 MPH” and a lot of the focus was on hiring with predictability and not making mistakes that really could really hurt your company.

For 2010 we’re proud to sponsor Cameron because we agree with what he teaches to Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders around the world. While I’ve heard him speak a number of times I always get a few new things each time I hear him. Here’s some quick thoughts from today that hopefully you can benefit from:

Culture’s hard to build and easy to destroy. One of the fastest ways to destroy it is to not fire people who clearly can’t do the job they’re in. Not only that, you’re doing that “problem” employee a disservice by asking them to live on pins and needles while you’re “too chicken” to let them go.
When you’re hiring someone new onto a team, don’t ever let your team’s “average performance” drop. More pointedly: if you’ve got 6 people on your marketing team and you’re about to hire a 7th, make sure that the person you’re hiring is at least more qualified and better than 3 or more of the existing team members to keep raising the bar.
Ensure that you’re very clear on what your needs are when hiring and then make sure you can “smell the right person from a mile away”. Cameron used the example of going duck hunting with his grandfather as a child. Early in the morning, as the sun was coming up, small V’s of ducks would appear on the horizon and even as they were just specs a mile away Cameron’s grandfather would be able to tell whether or not they were the right ducks for them. “Nope, put your gun down” he’d say. When pressed to explain why he would clearly describe wingspan, formation of the flock and altitude. The business application isn’t a hard jump to make: it’s easy to get excited when you’re in the thrill of the hunt but you have to be very clear about what you’re hunting.
Staying with the aforementioned parable, when Cameron was out duck hunting they’d always bring decoys to go by their blind. To an amateur, a decoy is a decoy. However, to the experienced sportsman, the use of decoys will make or break your time on the water. Choose the right decoys with the proper placement and you’ll have plenty of opportunities but choose the wrong one and you won’t attract a single target to shoot at. Business application: if you walk outside your office and look at the front door and you’re not impressed with the look, what’s an A-Player going to think? If your reception area is unattractive and your office sounds like a funeral home, how’s that 28 year-old superstar going to feel when they show up to learn more about your company culture? The morale of the story: if you’re not using the right bait, you’re going to end up eating really nasty fish or not eating at all.
Are all of your Hiring Managers fully aware of the background that you’re looking for in team members 2 years from now? If you’re hiring for the people that your company needs TODAY, and with the scorecards of the performance targets they need to hit this month, you’re likely not attracting the A-Players who will move your company forward. Instead, they’ll be the people who will keep your company stable. Are your Hiring Managers guardians of your culture? Are they clearly aware of your company goals?
Tread carefully during negotiations with top performers and try to avoid including profit sharing as part of their compensation plans. When you’re growing like crazy, profit-sharing can be a great bonus for people for their work but if your key players rely on profit-sharing bonuses to pay their bills and maintain their lifestyle they’ll bail as soon as the company hits any rough spots – and that’s when you’re going to need them the most. Build compensation packages that key team members feel is fair for the work that they’re doing and then have any profit-sharing programs be the cherry on top.

And lastly, Cameron shared the matrix of Jack Welch at GE used when evaluating his teams. Nicknamed “Neutron Jack” for his often rash and emotionally-devoid decisions, he was also widely regarded as one of their very best evaluators and developers of talent. In fact, Jack was the first CEO to implement executive-level Topgrading. This simple 4square was his way of slotting and categorizing talent that he already had on his team. I found it both really easy to understand/remember while also profound.

Here’s the image:

The Definitions:

F = FIRE THEM. NOW.
C = COACH THEM – THERE’S STILL A CHANCE.
H = HANDCUFF THEM. MAKE SURE THEY”RE LOCKED UP FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS.

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, Brad Smart, hire better, hiring, hiring manager, Interview, jack welch, job description, recruit don't absorb, Retention, Scorecard, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology

25 Jun 10 | Compensation, Employment, Interviewing, Recruiting, Retention, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (2)

The 5 Best Ways to Judge People

I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to evaluating talent and Topgrading is about the best way that I’ve ever seen to do it. It’s objective, gives you a structure to follow and makes it easy to judge prospective employees without a lot of emotion.

To keep up with the latest and greatest tips for Topgrading better, I’ve subscribed to Brad’s newsletter. You can sign up here.

His most recent newsletter was fantastic – it was titled “The 5 Best Ways to Judge People”. The most significant parts of that newsletter can be seen below. Enjoy!

When people are just learning Topgrading, it’s easiest to use the A, B, and C categories, to show the dramatic differences. Topgrading professionals are able accurately put people in the right categories. In doing this they actually have three slightly different categories – A Player, A Potential, and Non-A. We define A player as someone in the top 10% of talent for the pay, in your location, in the industry, and reporting to you.

Following are 5 of the best ways I know of to judge people in a fair, objective, legally defensible way:

1. How A, B, and C players differ on key competencies. The following chart is a bit simplistic because not all A players are that great on all competencies and not all C players are that bad on all the competencies. Indeed, in real life C players usually are A players on some competencies.

2. Look for patterns of success. The “magic” of Topgrading comes from understanding, bottom line, how successful a person was in job 1, job 2, job 3, etc., with the greatest weight given to the most recent jobs.

Last year I interviewed a smooth talking executive who had clearly been a superstar in the industry, but the guy had not worked hard for years. He had peaked years ago, was on a decline and frankly the pattern showed he was “over the hill,” someone who had lost his energy, drive, resourcefulness, and passion.

3. Recruit a replacement. This really is the best way to see if your employee is truly among the top 10% of talent available.

After you have argued with your employee, complained about unsatisfactory performance, and heard 1,000 excuses, the simplest way to see if there are better people is to actively recruit them. This can be done secretly, but go through all the Topgrading hiring steps including talking with former bosses.

Over the years I’ve heard it hundreds of times: “It became very easy to replace my employee after going through the Topgrading hiring steps, because I became absolutely certain my excuse-making employee was a C player, and I had three A players very willing to join me at exactly the same salary as my C player.”

4. Never stop building your recruitment networks. As a Topgrader, you know the best way to recruit is by staying in touch with 40 A players you’ve worked with and also stay in touch with 20 “connectors,” people who know a lot of A players.

But in addition to using your networks to recruit, staying in touch helps you figure out if your team consists of A, B, or C players. As you chat from time to time with A players you’ve worked with in the past you hear about their accomplishments, what they pay people, the standards they set … and when you share your frustrations with a certain employee, your network will give you feedback that your expectations are too high or too low.

5. Assess employees using Topgrading methods. You might already know that my first consulting engagement with General Electric was to improve their success promoting people. They improved from 25% to well over 90% success, and the internal assessment methods are almost identical to Topgrading hiring methods. Two trained interviewers conduct the tandem Topgrading interview and instead of talking with outside references (for hiring) they talk with bosses, peers, and subordinates in the company.

Tags: A-Player, A-Players, Brad Smart, career history, chris mursau, Fame, Family, Fortune, Fun, hire better, hiring, Interview, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, Scorecard, smarttopgrading, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, TORC, virtual bench

01 Apr 10 | Interviewing, Recruiting, Topgrading | Read on | Comments (7)

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