What's your mission question?

Hi all,

Great article I just read about mission development. It's not always about the flashy and articulate statement you formulate, but rather the substance behind it. Mission questions make your mission statement more complete.

Take a look!

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672137/forget-the-mission-statement-whats-your-mission-question

Stay inspired, be developed, be the change!
~AI

On Board, or Over Board?

Too much info, your new employees will be drowning!

Hi all,

It's been a while, but I've been traveling quite a bit lately, so thanks for bearing with me.

When it comes to building a successful organization, we've already agreed it comes back to the people. First it starts with a leader that has a compelling vision. Then that leader grabs like minded individuals who will be partners to that vision. Then the selection process of everyone that aligns with that vision begins. Once you bring someone on to your team though, the work has just begun.

Employees need a few things to be successful and also happy upon joining a new organization. They need to understand their roles, and they need to understand the company culture they are a part of. If you don't provide these things, you run the risk of setting the employee up to fail, or worse, damaging your credibility with that employee and their network. Here is the benefit of investing in an effective on boarding program...you can cover both of these things.

US and UK employees cost businesses an estimated $37 billion every year because they do not fully understand their jobs, according to IDC

Here are a few areas that you can and should control when developing an on boarding program:

1. Duration
• When  you select people to join your team, understand that there is a need on both ends. The department or office needs the new person to fill the void that's currently open, and the new employee needs to be trained to be the person the department or office is looking for. We are guilty of wanting everyone to be factory equipped and ready to roll on day 1. That's just not fair to the new member of your team. On the other hand, you can't take weeks to get someone in the office so that they are "fully prepared".
• Be moderate in the time your on boarding process takes. You have to balance the need to fill a void with the need to be successful, and you can do that with a process that isn't a millisecond long but also not a century. Traditionally a week is long enough to create initial acclimation to culture, systems, and people, as well as set expectations for future growth and success.
2. People



The right people need to meet your team...make a good impression!

• When members of the organization come to see new selections, they are getting an opportunity to see new talent, and also explain what their roles are within the organization. It's a "who's who" introduction within your company. Who should your new selections meet during their on board process? It would be easy to say everyone and anyone. Unfortunately, the way schedules are and the way companies are moving, this isn't possible. Everyone has responsibilities and meeting the newest members of the team isn't always on forefront of their minds. The best way to do this is to divide the introductions into two areas: nice to know, and need to know
• Nice to know:
• These are your executives, high ranking members of various departments, and maybe even an emeritus if you have one. You don't need them all to come, in fact you don't want them all there because it's not a productive use of the entire team's time to be at a new employee orientation. One representative per area usually can do the trick. 
• The visibility of these individuals enable each new employee to see that the company is globally invested in each and every one of its people, to the point that they want to see the new talent coming into the organization. Also, it creates some facial recognition and approachability for new employees, who can see that the even the members of the highest level of the organization are friendly faces who still exemplify the company values to this day
• Need to know:
• These are direct supervisors, and people that each new employee will deal with on a consistent basis. Some examples include a member of HR, Accounts Payable, a Benefits Administrator, etc. 
• These introductions and the explanation of their roles will clarify who to go to when the employees need a specific service. You don't want to be the reason an employee asks their direct manager about when they're being reimbursed every time. You'd rather that go through the proper channels. The on board process is integral in creating and maintaining effective and efficient communication within an organization. Without it, too many people get copied on too many emails that don't even concern them. This drags out the resolution process, and in turn creates frustration between teammates. Head it off at the pass guys. Introductions to the "need to know" will pay off dividends that you'll never need to see to know they're effective.
3. Content
• "Manage the message"
• We hear this a lot in business these days, and it's not a bad thing if the spirit is pure. Meaning, you manage the message to create the right environment for your new employees to flourish. Your employees should feel informed, educated, and most importantly excited with the content you provide them with. Some key areas you should cover in the on board process are new hire paperwork, company policies and procedures, culture, and systems training. If you touch on these areas, you ensure that your team is clear in the expectations set for them by the company from a tactical and cultural standpoint
4. Mentorship



Mentors do wonders...even among felines

• Mentorship is an overlooked component of the employee life cycle. It's a shame, because individuals who fit this mold can really make a difference in the employee experience. Mentors are "A" player individuals within your company. The ones that you wish you could clone and then clone again. These individuals have unique traits that you hopefully look for in other employees you bring on, but they are the ones that are usually the most excited about and engaged in the company and it's future. Many times they are the most successful individuals you've ever had on your team. Do your best to pair up each individual with a mentor in their RESPECTIVE department. Succession planning comes into play huge here, because if you're identifying your talent and nurturing it, then selecting individuals to be mentors shouldn't be hard. Your performance review and succession planning processes have already identified who your "A" players are, and then they should have mentorship ingrained in them at a relatively early age in your company.
• Mentors are not just for the on board period. They should be providing status updates and coaching throughout the first 90 days of being on the team at minimum. They are building a relationship that should help the new employee get acclimated to the company, and at the same time give HR and the department manager a pulse on how the new member of the team is coming along.

Ultimately, the on board process can be a game changer for you. Individuals who are better prepared to do their jobs are naturally more successful. But employees who better understand your company's values, culture, and what they stand for are more inclined to be more invested in your company, because it becomes their company as well. Involve every department, whether through development of content or appearances, in the on board process so that you can create global value for the program throughout your organization. The more people that know this program happens, the better and more successful it will be. 

May your on board processes be shorter than a century, and longer than a millisecond. All aboard!

Stay inspired, be developed, be the change!
~AI

Seattle tidbits...

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've been here...I've been traveling quite a bit. I spent last week in Seattle attending an amazing conference on the future of dentistry, The Summit. Networking with colleagues, sharing ideas, and discussing systems that will steer groups toward success were the highlight of my week.

This matters, no matter what industry you come from

The beauty of organizational development is that it is a field that transcends industry. Regardless of whether you pull teeth, you operate on hearts, or you manufacture tires, people are people and culture is culture. If you can create an environment that fosters hard work, mutual respect, and accountability, your team can and will be engaged in your mission, vision, and values. It starts with the right leadership and the right vision. Nonetheless, a people strategy matters in every industry. Apple, Google, Zappos!, and the Ritz Carlton are all in different industries. What makes them great though? The same exact things. 

The Director of Training at the Ritz once told a group of us that bench marking for success wasn't about competitors in an industry. Moreover, it's about the organizations that are truly great. Benchmark against the greats, do what they do, and adopt their strategies. There's a reason Zappos! does its own trainings for outside groups: what they have is universally adoptable, and it transcends industry. Culture is culture, people are people. OD and what we do will and should matter to you, because it affects you, no matter your craft. 

We've been talking about mission, vision, values, and lastly talent strategy. I'm feeling like we should keep walking through the employee life cycle, and so retaining your talent will be our next series. On-boarding, performance management, accountability, tough conversations, all of this is key if you're keeping the right team once you bring them on.

Stay inspired, be developed, be the change!
~AI

Goldman Sachs...Perception vs. Reality

Hi all,

Hope everyone is doing well. Happy February! 

Posted a link to an article I read a few months back, but I'd love to share. Last month we spoke about how to build a culture. A former employee of Goldman Sachs came out last year with a scathing opEd in the New York Times about the company. I've attached both his article and the response from the Executive Vice President of Human Capital.

So tell me guys, who's right here? Perception vs. Reality is a time old struggle...here it is again. Fire away in the comments section!

Greg Smith OpEd, NY Times

Goldman Sachs Responds (Video)

Stay inspired, be developed, be the change!
~AI

The Seats on the Bus...Build the gauntlet, trust the gauntlet

4. Build the gauntlet, trust the gauntlet

Don't take the gauntlet literally...it won't end well

They say patience is a virtue for a reason. Virtues are hard earned, but well deserved. Patience in your selection process is so crucial for a myriad of reasons, starting with the mighty dollar. According to an AARP study, the cost of replacing an experienced worker is at least 50% of that person’s base salary in turnover related costs. According to a study at Berkeley, the hiring of a new recruit alone will cost about $7000. Links to both articles are posted below. If you’d like to look at how much it will cost to replace an employee at your organization, Express scripts has a cool calculator you can use as well. Their link is below as well.

• AARP on Turnover
• Berkeley on Turnover
• Turnover calculator

Long story short, it’s not cheap to replace someone, so you want to keep your talent once you select them. That in mind, your process should not be a rapid fire, one and done type of interview. Your HR team is talented I’m sure, but they should not be the final say on whether someone moves forward or not. You need to paint a full picture of the kind of candidate you want, but as a selecting manager you should be actively involved in the process from start to finish. The process itself, for you strategists out there, should touch every aspect of the organization. You want individuals that not only have the requisite skills to do the job; you also want individuals who can fit into the culture you are trying to build. This is why it’s so important to define your values and the behaviors you believe reflect them early in your company’s life cycle, because behavioral and cultural style interviewing is crucial in garnering the right fit for a team.

The selection process should touch HR, the selecting department, and whichever departments the role is to interface with. It sounds a like a lot, and the recruiter side of me is screaming “hurry up! We have requisitions to fill”, but you don’t want to get this wrong. It’s too easy to do it, so take your time. If you’re going to implement this strategy, you need to earn buy-in from all the parties we mentioned. It’s not a haphazard process to ask people to give up an hour of their day every few weeks or so to sit with a candidate that won’t even be in their department. Remember to be a creator of value when you are asking someone to sacrifice their time for you. You are letting them know you value them as a partner, but that you also want to get this right for everyone’s sake.

Once you’ve communicated the importance and you have the buy-in, everyone needs to be speaking the same language. Interview training is a rarity within smaller companies today, and for larger practices it’s not widely practiced within a department. Take the time to either partner with HR or a member of your team that’s well versed in the legal and behavioral intricacies of talent selection to build and host these trainings. If you put a bunch of people in a room and just tell them to ask questions they’ll do it, and they’ll all be looking for different things. Create the expectation of what to look for, and your team will take that expectation and make sure it aligns with their own personal expectations. Once we get this process in place, we’re ready to get cooking.

So long recruiter, hello in house system!

The selection process is not easy at any level. Your entry level positions many times get overlooked because they don’t command the salary of a C suite, but trust me, they will affect your bottom line too. One paper cut doesn’t hurt, but ten or fifteen and you’re regretting the day you asked for more stationary in your office. If you don’t have integrity to the systems that permeate every level of your organization’s talent management strategy, you’re going to have too many of those bad hires and not enough good selections. Be deliberate, involve the right people, don’t settle, and look at what you needed, want, and will need and want. Say goodbye to those recruiters, and hello to your new talent management system! Enjoy!

Stay inspired, be developed, be the change!

~AI

The Seats on the Bus..."Involve me, I will understand"

3. "Involve me, I will understand"

He wants to know who you selected..tell him

Alright! So now we’ve laid the foundation for what we want in a candidate by defining the needs and wants of the role, as well as committing to selecting candidates for roles we have prepped for them. It’s time for the interview process to start. This is the most critical component of the selection process, because now you’re linking theory to practice. Everyone needs to be on the same page, especially in smaller organizations. One of the most frustrating things for any department or small organization is hearing about a new member of the team for the first time…AFTER they’ve been selected. “Well am I going to like this person? What’s their background? How did he/she get hired?” All of these are valid questions. Let’s nip the gossip in the bud by remembering one thing: global involvement = global accountability.

When you want to bring new talent to your organization, let your team know about it. For larger organizations, it’s usually a department selection, and department heads should announce what they’re looking to bring on to their team. If you’re in a smaller organization, letting department leaders know what you’re looking for, you can give them the heads up. The second half of making them aware is offering them a chance to be involved.  There was a Chinese proverb that was told to me once by a mentor of mine:

“Tell me and I will forget

Show me and I may remember

Involve me and I will understand”

Involve the team...you won't regret it

When you offer your team, whether other department leaders or members of your department, a chance to be a part of the selection process, you immediately do two things: create trust, and create investment. We all want to be depended on in some capacity. It’s human nature to feel that connection with others. In involving your team in the selection process, you let them know that you value their opinion in bringing someone in that will affect the culture, performance, and overall dynamic of your organization at either a macro or microcosmic level. Trust is the framework upon which a great relationship is built, and that goes for the one you have with your team. This is an easy way to nurture that relationship. Also, you remind your team that it isn’t just your team, but their team. Investment is the key to engagement. Engagement is the key to performance. It’s amazing how telling them to weigh in on a candidate in some capacity will motivate them, and also help you make an informed decision that is in the best interest of your team.

At the same time, we’ve got to be practical in our involvement of our team. They have jobs to do, and if they are involved at every level of the process, you’re hurting productivity. My personal recommendation of where I have seen this to be successful comes in the final stages of the selection. A panel interview where the candidate meets the team and the team meets the candidate is very helpful. The team gets to ask their questions, and at the same time you have put a candidate before them that you are confident in, because the candidate has run your “selection gauntlet”: They have passed an HR screen, yourself as the hiring manager, and any other pieces of the selection process that you have at your organization. Your team has a wealth of information in front of them about the candidate to help them in their assessment. It’s not that it’s fail proof, but at the same time, it almost is, and that is fine. We want to get the selections right without disturbing the team dynamic. Involve the team, and the team understands.

Home stretch next week team! Stay with me and let's get a dynamite selection process together!

Stay inspired, be developed, be the change!

~AI

The Seats on the Bus...Right Bus, Right Seat

Hi all,

Keeping with our theme of talent selection, let's just jump right back into where we left off...

2. Right Bus, Right Seat

This...never works

This is a hard one for employers. We see dynamite candidates with such unique skill sets that they could do anything, and we salivate, especially in this job market. “We have to pounce on this person, or they’ll get swept up by a competitor”, you think to yourself. When this happens, you start strategizing with your team, thinking where you can fit them in so you don’t miss out on the candidate. There’s something to be said about seizing an opportunity, but there’s also an old adage about trying to fit a square peg into a round hole…it doesn’t work.

Too often as employers, we are guilty of thinking that a candidate with specific skills can fit into the box that is our organization, even though we don’t have the right role for them at the current moment. We don’t know what the ideal role would be, we don’t take the time to find out or craft it, and so we make sure we offer just to ensure we don’t lose him/her. What you’ve done here if you’re guilty of this, and many of us are, is do a disservice to both the organization and the newest member of the team. When you think someone will be a great fit for your company, you have to remember why you think that: because that skill set and attitude will be a game changer. You have to let that skill set and attitude flourish in the right role, or you just filled a requisition with a body, albeit a talented one. With that in mind, placing a candidate just to keep him/her will often result in you not getting the optimal performance you expected, and your new selection being dissatisfied with the work and the company.

People will be who you want them to be..don't settle

In today’s job market, many people will take any job they can get, and that involves sacrificing their personal passion to earn a paycheck. While there is nothing wrong with this in theory, we have to be weary of feeding into this. The survivor mentality is admirable, but no one wins here. You will get performance, but once the lore of having a job again wears off, employees are human, and they will get restless. “I’m not being used properly. I can do more”. This is wonderful to hear, because they want to grow.  But it will fester and become discontent after a while. Discontent breeds attrition, and attrition affects morale and performance. Not the ideal situation we planned for. But we could have avoided this in the first place if we had held true to our principles. Put the right person in the right seat, and the bus that is your organization runs with little turbulence. Start fitting square pegs into round holes, and watch out for morale issues, performance issues, and real questions about the integrity of your talent selection process from candidates and employees themselves.

Alright guys! Almost there! 2 more and we're through our talent selection conversation. I hope this has been helpful. Stay warm!

Stay inspired, be developed, be the change!
~AI