Recruiting Animal

Constructive Confrontation

From: How To Fight Right by Patricia Laya (edited)

Ex-Intel CEO Andy Grove was known for his constructive confrontation techniques.

Constructive confrontation does not mean being loud, unpleasant or rude, and it is not designed to affix blame.

The essence of it is to attack a problem by speaking of it in a businesslike way, Grove says.

1. Focus on facts.

2. Confront the problem, not the person.

3. The goal is to find the best solution.

Robert Sutton, the author of Good Boss, Bad Boss says:

When people fight over ideas they are more productive and creative.

Constructive fighting comes from pushing your own ideas, pounding on others' ideas, and inviting others to pound on yours too.

Pixar's director, Brad Bird, told his team: "Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together."

Lisa Earle McLeod, author of The Triangle of Truth, says confronting a dominant personality doesn't have to start a fight.

Good questions can make any two people see the win/win side to any situation. For instance:

- Help me understand where you're coming from

- Tell me a bit about how you envision this

MY COMMENT - Have you ever asked a bossy person a question? They don't take the time to explain themselves nicely.

Comment by Julie Rains: Being disarming, humble, and encouraging are understood by some but not all.

 

Kindness To Celebrities

From: You Got a Problem With That?

Another curious form of cooperation one sees in New York is the unspoken ban on staring at celebrities.

When you get into an elevator in an office building and find that you are riding with Paul McCartney — this happened to me — you are not supposed to look at him. You can peek for a second, but then you must avert your eyes.

The idea is that Paul McCartney has to be given his space like anyone else. A limousine can bring him to the building he wants to go to, but it can't take him to the 12th floor. To get there, he has to ride in an elevator with the rest of us, and we shouldn't take advantage of that.

This logic is self-flattering. It's nice to think that Paul McCartney needs us to do him a favor, and that we live in a city with so many famous people that we can afford to ignore them.

But if vanity is involved, so is generosity. I remember, once, in the early '90s, standing in a crowded lobby at City Center Theater when Jackie Onassis walked in. Everyone looked at her and then immediately looked down. There was a whole mob of people staring at their shoes. When Jackie died, a few years later, I was happy to remember that scene. I was glad that we had been polite to her.

Real Leaders Do Unpopular Things

Billy Christian has an interesting posting about leadership called McGuinty’s Bold Plan

In it, he congratulates the premier of Ontario for harmonizing the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) with the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The message is that a real leader will do unpopular things.

"Thursday’s budget," Christian says, "showed that he is a genuine leader." Why? "He has the courage to take a big political hit."

The Globe and Mail highlighted the fact that common consumer purchases like coffee, muffins, gym memberships, golf and Internet fees and vitamins would become more expensive. McGuinty knew that this kind of attack was coming but it didn't stop him.

Ironically, in spite of his praise for bold public action, Christian also implies that sometimes a leader should be deceptive.

He claims that Brian Mulroney slit his own throat when he made the GST a visible rather than a hidden tax. "The visible tax irritated people" and "it destroyed his popularity forever."

Instead of billing the public directly at the point of purchase he could have imposed the tax on the producer or importer who would have added it to the price and passed it onto the consumer. This would have achieved the same effect without damaging the leader's relationship with a short-sighted public.

Inotherwords, if you're dealing with ignorant, prejudiced, narrow-minded people it's unwise to give them information that will only inflame them because it's more than they can understand.

This is a conservative idea of leadership. I'm thinking here of conservatism as a political and social idea that manifests itself in a structured society in which the leading roles are reserved for people who deserve them by virtue of their knowledge and character.

Since the leaders have greater understanding than the popular masses they are not obliged to be fully transparent with the lower orders or to deal with them as equals. The common people govern themselves  more by emotion than deep thought and so, like children, don't have to know everything.

 

 

 

Good Conversationalist, Unimpressive Orator

James Madison was a poor public speaker but outstanding in small groups

Many observers noted the contrast between his awkward reserve with crowds and strangers, and his genial fluency with intimates.

“his form, features, and manner were not commanding, but his conversation exceedingly so and few men possessed so rich a flow of language, or so great a fund of amusing anecdotes, which were made the more interesting for their being well-timed and well-told.

His ordinary manner was simple, modest, bland, and unostentatious, retiring from the throng and cautiously refraining from doing or saying anything to make himself conspicuous.” But in private, ever since Princeton, he even liked a dirty joke.

Myron Magnet, The Great Little Madison, City Journal, Spring 2011

Conclusion: it's not always easy to judge people

 

 

Be Tough On Employees

Source: Andrew O'Connell, Harvard Business Review, Respect Employees: Be Tough on Them

The thing about organizations in the big leagues: They sometimes make you feel like crap, even if you're a pro.

Good companies are not wrong to be tough on employees. If you wade through the recent research performance, you find stark evidence that difficult environments often bring out the best in people.

Carola M. Barth and Joachim Funke of the University of Heidelberg in Germany found that people perform better at complex problem solving in what the researchers call "nasty" workplaces — environments that abound with negative feedback.

Research subjects in a "nice" work environment with lots of positive feedback are generally in better moods than their nasty-workplace counterparts, but they devote less time to complex tasks and get worse results.

I take no pleasure in reporting this. I did not like the sometimes nasty environments that I labored in as a reporter. I like positive feedback, and I pride myself on giving positive feedback.

I recently told a valet parker that he had done a "great job" of delivering my car to me. I'm sure he was glowing afterward.

And I'm a hearty fan of Bob Sutton, who has waged a one-man crusade against abusive bosses and companies, detailing the anxiety and depression they inflict.

But the reality is that it doesn't take an abusive boss to make employees feel anxious and depressed. Sometimes all it takes is a relentless corporate focus on great results.

I wish it weren't so. But wishes shouldn't delude us. While it's fine to provide a few foosball tables and organize a few company outings, it's not fine to pretend that employees come to work in order to have fun and be fulfilled.

That fiction does them a disservice. They're here to do unremitting work, maybe for years on end, and the labor is going to take something out of them. And they may get laid off for their trouble.

Don't feel badly if you find yourself saying, with exasperation, "It can't be this; it has to be this." That's just part of life in the big corporation. And it's a lot more helpful, most of the time, than "Great job."

Candid Culture

What's the best way to say "Your idea totally sucks and we're all laughing behind your back - but I like you as a person"? Mon May 09 13:12:28 +0000 2011 via web Jerry Albright
@Jerry_Albright

From: I work for the ‘brutally honest’ Dragon - by Alex Kenjeev -

Globe and Mail, Wednesday, May. 11, 2011  (edited)

O’Leary’s success in business and his direct style are two sides of the same coin.

The longer I work with him, the more I'm convinced of the value that persistent, unrelenting candour and transparency can bring to any business or organization.

In an O'Leary culture, everyone helps kill bad ideas. No formal report. No all-hands meeting. You simply let the numbers tell their story, and move on to something that adds more value.

Brutal honesty is a huge competitive asset. The faster you can say “Stop the madness!” the sooner your company can give good ideas, and good people, the time and resources they deserve.

Compare this with what you've seen at companies that discourage criticism and stifle creative dissent. They are slow, bureaucratic and wasteful. They are deeply vulnerable to competitors that are more nimble and more efficient.

Candid feedback – with money and action to back it up – is part of O’Leary's formula for finding and retaining top people. It's very simple: reward your top performers, and let go of people the minute you know they aren't working out.

It sounds harsh, but it will boost your team's morale and productivity immediately. Your employees already know who adds value and who destroys it.

The truth hurts some, but white lies hurt everyone

If you think the truth hurts, consider the cost of the alternative.

Let's say you avoid criticism and pay everyone the same amount.

Your middle people will stagnate because they won't see a link between making more money for you and taking home more for themselves.

And your worst people will stay the same, dragging down company profits and infecting the culture by proving that everyone can get away with anything.

It's hard to be fired, demoted or shot down in your job. But it can also be a turning point, and an opportunity to set off on a different track – one that’s a better fit for your strengths and weaknesses.

 

Transforming Business Language

Audio version

I got a ton of complaints last week about the way I treated poor Michael Marlatt when he was the guest on The Recruiting Animal Show.

"You made fun of his hair. How could you?".  Someone actually phoned me to tell me that. Someone else didn't like the fuss I made about his name. It looks like Marlatt but he says it's Marlay.

Other people complained that I dredged up his family history. Someone named Marlatt drowned himself in Ontario in 1888 but, really, who cares?  It doesn't mean anything today.

The only issue that might have legitimately offended him was when I corrected the way he speaks.

I told him, "Mike, if you can say something in 10 words, don't say it in 20."
I said, "Mike, if you can say something in 30 seconds, don't take 3 minutes".

And, I said, "Mike, you're a good speaker, that's true, but I think you should take some advice from me". And here's why.

Not all of you know this but in the late 1600s the English language underwent a huge change. That's when it turned into modern English. Before that, It was wild and picturesque but that didn't please everybody.

In 1667, Thomas Sprat wrote a History of the Royal Society of London. That was the social network for scientists in England at that time. And Thomas Sprat told everyone that these scientists, these men of the future, our kind of guys, were trying to make the English language easier to understand.

They were pushing for a plain, simple style. And I agree with them. If you want to be Shakespeare, that's fine with me. But don't do it in business! Don't make your speeches or writing so full of repetition and jargon that even people in your own field can't understand what you mean.

The other day I was reading the bio of a senior corporate recruiter. I could see it was in English but I couldn't understand a word she was saying. And, I'm a recruiter!

Good old Tom Sprat, he pleaded with English people to adopt a pure, plain, naked, primitive, transparent style of communication. And I'm the Thomas Sprat of the Recruitosphere! I'm trying to change the way an industry communicates. And if I have to knock some heads around to do it, don't get in my way.

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XYZ Consulting delivers training initiatives that empower both individuals and organizations to effectively eliminate the problems of frustration, conflict, low morale, low productivity and high turnover in today's workplace.

ALT VERSION: XYZ Consulting teaches people how to avoid the frustrations and conflicts that lead to low morale, low productivity and a high rate of turnover in the workplace.

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