It's Talent, Stupid!

Getting Fired Is Lucrative Work - Notes from Smart Resourcing Part 1

So the lovely DeeDee and the wonderful team at Recruiter kindly invited me to attend their Smart Resourcing conference today and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Partly because some of the presenters provided moments of inspiration, but mainly because the twitter feed running through the conference was vibrant, opinionated and downright engaging. 

However a cloud was in the room and it was at it's darkest when questions like "so you want me to do all this but I don't have the budget" or "so you want me to do all this but how do i know it's going to work?" (my personal favourite). Look, the world has changed if you want to make excuses for your Resourcing department maintaining the tired status quo by blaming it on your boss, your budget, the culture, the incompetent recruiters you hired, the shite agencies you engage, or us telling you to do something, feel free...however is that living or merely surviving?   

I know I've been there.  I was infamous when in-house for not listening to the "man", actually I was notorious for sticking a finger up to the "man"...sure the "man" fired me twice but the business I served rehired me twice, the "man" was pissed, my stakeholders delighted. So much so that the second time I was fired i was put in to the Top 2% of Talent, given a personal contract that included a quarterly retainer worth more than my first proper annual salary, being fired was lucrative work :-). 

The thing was my team operated like that because we were trying to get ahead of the curve, we knew having the best people was our competitive advantage, it became our mission in life. The prize for our amazing Employee Referral Scheme was an Alfa Romeo Convertible , way before Social Media my team were holding Video Interviews and Instant Messaging dating sessions for hiring managers and candidates, our Sourcing team were doing sourcing stuff on the emerging Internet that still isn't done by 75% of corporates today.  We were cutting out search firms and using research houses in 1999, of course the "man" would rather we'd paid £40K to a big search firm to balls it up, not his fault then!

The "man" hated my team, because it made him look inanimate and that's because he was. We didn't ask permission, we asked for forgiveness, we failed all the time but did it fast, we tried everything once and measured the life out of everything so if we did it again we knew it would work. We broke brand guidelines, compensation rules and every other convention the "man" said we should follow...we never broke our budget though and never compromised the integrity of our stakeholders or candidates. 

The point is if you were at the brilliant Smart Resourcing Conference today and thinking, bollox where do I start? Just start, it doesn't matter where, it doesn't even matter if you are right or wrong, just start. If you haven't got any money, it doesn't matter Twitter is free, LinkedIn is free, making the candidate experience a fantastic one can be done with little or no money at all...just raise a finger to the "man" and do what you know you have to do...of course you could not, in which case i guarantee you wont get fired...or ever be paid what you think you're worth, your choice :-) 

R 

Special needs - whos to blame?

“Revelations” this week from an Ofsted report in the UK concluded that half of special needs children have been misdiagnosed; that better teaching and greater pastoral support would probably have done the trick.

Now I’m more than just slightly wary of blogging on special needs, not because I’m afraid of not being politically correct, but because it might overshadow what I’m really trying to say…

Controversial topics are a nightmare to talk about because they end up becoming a debate in themselves, so we never get to the heart of what’s going on and just tread carefully around the edges, but here it goes…

I’ve just read a quite fantastic book about how the world of work is changing, about how to make yourself indispensable, and how it’s no longer justifiable to claim things just happen to you because you’re so used to being a cog in the system.

Read it, it’s called “Linchpin” by Seth Godin.  It will change the way you approach what you do from now on.

We’ve grown up in a world of help and cushioning. We’re given stuff (like training courses, medication, therapy or even a diagnosis of “special needs”) when we have problems or challenges. 

Why?

Because it saves time. 

And because sometimes getting to the root of the real problem might mean doing something difficult or brave, like under-resourced teachers providing kids with the support they need.

We are faced with these problems at work too.  The difference is we all have the incredibly fortunate circumstance of being in charge of what you do.  Yes, WE ARE IN CHARGE OF WHAT WE DO – kids don’t quite have that luxury, and this debate about special needs will no doubt rumble on for some time because of it.

So, you can presume that you’re just one of those individuals that isn’t ever going to be good at presenting, or you can choose to do something you find uncomfortable, more often. You can choose to have a difficult conversation with an underperformer about why they’re not on target for the month, or you can wait until the official figures are produced and say, “well I knew that was going to happen.”  You can lie low, get on with what you’re supposed to, and in doing so make yourself eminently replaceable, or you can choose to do something outside of the norm, something you haven’t been taught to do, something that might threaten the system.

Because that’s what leaders do.

If you want to be successful you cannot rely on the world of help and cushioning to which we’ve all become so accustomed. You have to choose to be brilliant. No amount of help, or training, is going to get you there without this.   

Cheers,

Tom.

What really happens when we don’t demonstrate value

The Chemistry Group recently conducted a survey that found 89% of senior HR professionals have difficulty measuring return on investment in development programmes.  This staggering statistic has led us to think about the importance of measuring value.

We looked to the 19 medals won by Britain’s athletes at July’s European Championships.  Team GB produced 6 individual golds compared to none in Gothenburg 2006.  Two of the medal winners, Mark Lewis-Francis and Christian Malcolm, bounced back after losing their lottery funding this season.

 
 
It’s an interesting area, lottery funding... 

So, how does funding affect performance? 

When established stars like Mark and Christian lost their funding, I wonder if it scared some other athletes into better performance this year.  This is the ultimate in performance measurement – losing your funding means you rely on savings and sponsorship, go back to work and be an athlete part-time, or (as Christian considered) retire. 

“With athletics, you have to win to get paid more. With football, you can lose and you still get your £100,000 a week. I don't know the exact figures, but only a few athletes will be able to make that in a year – and they have to be world champions." (Roger Black, Telegraph)

If we in HR had that pressure, how would we react?  If we knew that failing to provide learning that changed the business and results meant we would lose our budget and funding, how would we behave differently?  Would we try harder to make world-class learning that would stand up to measurement and scrutiny?

We all know it isn’t possible to measure everything, and that sometimes there isn’t a direct link between the learning and business performance.  But you can always find a way.  If you have the time and inclination, you can read about many evaluation models - the Kirkpatrick model, The Bell System approach, the CIRO approach, Saratoga Institute, or IBM or Xerox approach.  Chemistry simplifies evaluation by using a simple 5As model to measure value.  We start by looking hard for learning and development interventions that could drive business KPIs – i.e. they are credible and Attributable.  We then look for stories and Anecdotes, Attitude change, different behaviours and Actions, and then Achievement of results.  We encourage people to treat anecdotes as a legitimate measure of success, and then open lots of feedback channels and ultimately measure against that commercial target or objective.

So, think of yourself as a track and field athlete.  You’re not well paid when compared to other professions, and sports, but you love what you do – however pressured and demanding it is in this environment.  You do what you do because you believe that people are the soul and heartbeat of your company.   However, if you want to keep your funding, or win it back, then you need to link your work to its commercial impact and measures.  Whoever provides your funding, keep them happy by proving the value of what you do.  It’s easier than you may think.

 

Cheers, 

Mark.

Stripping for a living just got tougher: A shift in what makes a great sales person

We’ve been considering the implications of what we’ve learnt about sales people over the last 10 years and suddenly I feel bad for all the hard working naked ladies out there! 

There’s been a BIG turnaround in what makes a good sales person, one that’s surely impacted strip joints nationwide! 

Realising this my first thought was to go out and do my bit at replacing the missing notes in the thong-strings. Sadly Mrs P didn't appreciate the true gravity of the situation. Instead, I’m desk bound jotting down my thoughts. 

So what has changed in sales that’s affecting takings at the local gentlemen's club? Well, the truth is that relationships are no longer key in sales success. Wining and dining clients, playing a round of golf with and remembering their kids’ names is no longer guaranteed to seal a deal. 

 

Content is king. It's not who you know but what you know that makes you competitive. Chemistry uses Schroder's Behavioural Model to look at how people behave in the workplace. Over the last 10 years we’ve seen a shift in the equation for a great Sales Person. 

Old Sales Equation: 

 GI3+CE4=IO3 

Gathering Information at Level 3 (GI3) means the sales person has knowledge of the client & of their own product, but it won’t be particularly broad and it won’t move beyond their own product category or market. 

The lack of content is compensated by the ability to Create Empathy at Level 4 (CE4), a real understanding of the client at a deeper level, knowing their likes & dislikes, remembering to send them a birthday gift etc. Classic relationship sales. 

IO3 is the ability to win a deal at a feature v benefit level. Our research shows that sales people who used a relationship but lacked content were able to Influence customers at Level 3. In the old days this was good enough. 

A GI3+CE4 sales person is chaotic, sells on charisma and gravitas, not pulling together internal resources for their client and generally needs sweeping up after! A Telco sales person would have their Sales Engineer to compensate for lack of knowledge and their Bid Manager to ensure they’re organised. 

Lack of resources and a desire to do more with less, means that sales has changed. The new sales equation is more complex, requiring a more professional approach. 

New Sales Equation: 

GI4+CE3+MH3=IO4 

The new sales person needs CONTENT, they must bring value, something to make the client more competitive or faster to market. 

Today’s sales people must devote time to acquiring content. Subscribe to news feeds, READ (I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t read), meet people to gain new insights. 

Clients value CONTENT far more than relationships, yes be a nice person, understand your client and their needs, but it iss OK not to be their friend. They value your CONTENT not the size of your entertainment budget! 

Lastly, our studies show that the best sales people are PLANNED & execute well. Not only do they have a plan but both their internal and external stakeholders are aware of their role in the plan. 

So CONTENT+relationship+PLAN=Win-Win(IO4) 

Your customers will not only spend more, they’ll spend again. Importantly, you willl have a competitive differentiator; CONTENT is king & never the same to everyone. 

The world of sales has changed, it's WHAT you know that counts, not WHO you know. 

To complete the analogy, relying purely on your relationship is a slippery brass pole to failure.

Cheers,

Roger.

Wayne Rooney & Recruitment Companies - Both A Product Of Their Audience?

So if we didn't press our noses up against the window of the News of the World glass and clamour to read about Wayne's latest prostitution ladened escapades would they publish the toilet they call a newspaper?  

If companies cared about who they hire and how, would recruitment companies behave the way they do?  

For me the answer to both questions is no.  However I only really care about the latter.  

The truth is that if corporate organisations did these 4 simple things, the good recruitment companies would thrive and the bad ones would fail...the sun would shine, the birds would sing and you may never hear a rant from me again.  Upside for everyone :-)

1. Be clear What Good Likes for your role and the business.  Write it down, get your stakeholders to agree, articulate it in a way that is not a job description.  "people who get on here well do...", "you will see them behave...".  Be honest about your culture the positives and the negatives.  Insist the consultant interviews and feeds back to a couple of "role models" in your business.  The consultant needs to understand clearly what good looks like, that involves an investment from both sides.  If they don't, don't work with them, this is too important for doubt.

2. Get the recruitment company to prove to you beyond all doubt that their recruitment methodology assesses objectively the areas that make people successful in your business.  How do they interview?  Sit in on an interview.  Visit their offices (if they don't let you in to the consultants working area, don't work with them, they are not to be trusted), meet their people, interview them, hang out with them.  Understand them...you are just about to give these people the responsibility for the single most important thing you will do, invest time.

3. If all this feels good, pay them their rate card...don't jerk them around, this is too important for that.  If you don't trust them, don't negotiate, paying 5% less doesn't make your decision better!  

4. Commit - the agency are learning, they are experts at sourcing and OK at selection, so they won't get it right first time or maybe not even second...this is too important for you to give up, so believe that they are not getting it wrong on purpose and they will learn.  This means you could brief 1 agency or maybe 2...if you find an agency that fits criteria 1 & 2, you don't need another...

If however you still want to ring an agency and say "I'll send you a job description, when can i have CVs by? And we don't pay more than 15%", then you will get the response you deserve, unfortunately the candidates that get "sprayed" your way did not ask to be treated like a commodity.

So I hold out no hope that some halfwit footballer will be able to keep his pecker in his trousers and that I won't be able to resist the salacious headlines that it will attract.  

However I have complete faith and hope that recruitment company behaviour can be changed by their audience becoming a tad more discerning.

R

"I'm sorry to tell him someone close to him has died..." And Other Recruitment Company Lies...

OK, I'm fuming...

Of course doing what I do I get a lot of people saying, "i'm thinking of getting in to recruitment, any advice?"

My first question is, "why?" 

Let me be clear, if you want to get in to recruitment because the commission at the firm is good, or you enjoy sales...don't please don't...recruitment done well is NOT a sales job.  I can hear the screams now, "yes it is, you sell to the client and the candidates, it's the ultimate sales job"...if that's how you feel, go sell IT software or hardware, baked beans, consultancy if you like but please for gods sake leave the poor candidate out of your sales grand plan.

Recruitment done well is an altruistic act, your agenda should not feature, only those of the candidate and the client.  You will frequently give advice that hurts your short term sales and spend time listening and advising people whom you have no idea will or will not make you or your company money.  You will spend your time reading and growing your knowledge of how individuals and culture do or do not mix, your content around why people are right for a company or not will be authoritative, objective and based on sound judgement.  You may make money doing this, you may not...the success of a recruitment business can not be judged on turnover or profits but on how many lives it positively impacted.  

If the world was fair this would mean great recruiters would own and work for highly profitable recruitment companies, but the world isn't.  Which means the toe rag division of a large recruitment business from whom my friends friend has just resigned because they told him to use the line, "I need to talk to him urgently as someone close to him has died" just to get the candidate on the phone, will remain profitable.

So here's my advice, if you want to get in to recruitment, get in to it because you want to help people and you like people...finding a recruitment business that will take that as an interview answer may just be the one you were looking for.

R

Back to school: There’s no time to be anything but brilliant at work

Today I went back to school and here’s what I learnt… 

The great thing about being passionate about what you do, is that it attracts genuine people.  Be genuine and you attract genuine...genius! Today, one of these good people introduced me to Craig Tunstall, perhaps the greatest CEO who isn't. You see Craig is the Head Teacher of the Kingswood Federation, which will shortly incorporate 3 schools and 2 child care centres. He has been responsible for turning around Kingswood Primary School in SE17, and the school round the corner, oh and the one over the road, and after meeting Craig you can completely understand why.  Actually you know why as soon as he says ‘the children matter’ for the 5th time in two sentences, it's a rallying cry, a vision, a banner and a bloody good one. 

Perhaps the most fun I had was working with the guys at Energis on the turnaround.  The reason; there were no rules.  We had complete carte blanche to build the best team in the world, no politically correct rules and no compensation parameters.  We just had to build the best team, no excuses, and we were judged on this one outcome. Impetus was provided by the fact the company was shot to pieces, we acted fast or went under, simple.

When talking with organisations about change, the biggest challenge is always the fact there is perceived to be no burning platform; the programme no matter how creative or business centric is held back by people who are happy with mediocrity and who survive by being average.  I always think, if the house was really on fire, if this was properly f@$%ed and you were going to lose your job you wouldn't be saying "no", you’d either get on board or move out the way’...wouldn't life be simpler.

Well Craig has created his permanent burning platform, even for those schools that aren't broken his mantra is ‘children matter’.  Every day educating a child is time you won't get back, if you weren't brilliant, you won't get a second chance with that day, with that child...WOW!  Mind blowing.  We all go through life, thinking, I'll do better tomorrow, that presentation will be better next time, tomorrow I'll start that diet (OK that might just be me), next week I’ll make sure I praise my colleague, but enter the mindset of Craig and his team, where a lost minute of brilliance could have a fundamental impact on a child's future life and everything feels immediate.

So the first thing I learnt at school today was that if you don’t want to be

brilliant at work, every minute of every day, resign and let someone else be

brilliant, because there is no time for anything else. Oh and ‘children matter’

but to be honest I could have told them that.

Roger.

IT'S A NO FROM ME! Is Talent all it’s cracked up to be?

Much to the excitement of the ladies in the Chemistry office X Factor started on Saturday.  Monday morning was greeted by cries of ‘Oh My God, did you see X Factor?’ followed by spirited banter over everyone’s favourite auditionee.  Getting the most talk time was Madonna wannabe Katie Waisal.   We all agreed she had an excellent voice, but scraping through with just two Yeses the judges seemed to think there was something missing, that her talent alone was not enough.

 

Since McKinsey declared the War for Talent, today’s businesses are going talent crazy.  ‘Talent Management’ departments are popping up everywhere, ensuring that only the most talented candidates are hired.  But does hiring the best talent mean that they run the best business?  The answer is all too often no.

One of the pitfalls of the obsession with talent is that companies spend all their resources hiring talent, but very little developing it. It is no surprise that music guru Simon Cowell has at least one of his protégés in the X Factor final every year.  Not only does Cowell spot the raw talent, he understands the importance of growing it into something incredible, an ethic that companies worldwide should recognise and emulate.

But it’s not just a lack of development that can be dangerous.  Companies are overseeing the other important factors that makes a candidate stand out and succeed in business; factors such as personality, their motivation, and how they fit into the company’s culture.

The people who really succeed in business are the ones who don’t rely on talent alone.  They are the one’s with a hunger to improve themselves, the one’s who insist their managers invest in their future.  Yes talent is important, but without the desire to be the best you can be it will only take you so far. 

Let’s take last year’s X Factor winner Joe McElderry.  The boy can sing I’ll give him that, but although talented he was bland and lacked drive. I struggle to remember one performance he did...  And then there was Jedward. The Dublin twins could barely hold a tune, but who could forget the time they pranced around the stage shooting ghosts asking ‘Who ya gonna call?’ And the image of the boys in their red PVC cat suits belting out Britney hit ‘Oops I Did It Again’ will be forever etched in my memory.

 

Love them or hate them (and I fall into the latter category), and despite an obvious lack of vocal talent, the boys were hungry for notoriety, had personality by the bucket load and a strange likability that kept viewers voting week after week.  Let’s face it, with the launch of their own TV show, Let Loose, it looks like Jedward were the real winners that series.

So is talent everything? It’s a no from me.  While a nugget of raw talent is a bonus, it’s the way a company invests and develops and a personal desire to be brilliant that makes a good employee a great one.  So while Shayne Ward has scuttled into obscurity, I’ll put money one the fact that when I ask you what time is it, half of you will answer Chico time :-)

Cheers

Cesca

What makes an inspirational leader?

I’ve been thinking about my blog topic this time round.  Considering the recent furore surrounding Fabio Capello and his management of the England team and the speculation on whether we’re entering a double-dip recession, I thought this could be an interesting question to ask.

 

What makes an Inspirational Leader?

 

At Chemistry we’ve been profiling leaders over a number of years and we’ve found that there are certain traits that come up over and over again.

 

1. An inspiring leader should be a great communicator. If it’s done badly, it has such a huge impact on the business – just ask Mr Capello!

 

2. An inspiring leader should take a personal interest in his/her people.  A great leader will encourage development, put strategies in place to help everyone realise their potential.  They will challenge people, motivate people and reward them for their efforts. I’m sure David Beckham would have appreciated a call before Fabio answered the question about Beckham’s inclusion in his 2012 plans by saying “No, probably he is a little bit old”.  Not a good way to end the career of someone in your team who has always been prepared to give more than 100% and has literally put their life on hold in order to be considered for the job. 

 

3. An inspiring leader should exude confidence.  Not only do they have confidence in themselves but they will naturally make others feel confident too.  A successful leader will create an organisation in which others are encouraged to share success, to build excitement, to build confidence and have overall feel optimistic about the future.

 

4. An inspiring leader should be passionate.  Love him or hate him, I don’t think there are many that would argue that Mourinho isn’t passionate.  

 

 

5. An inspiring leader has vision.  My colleague Tom’s recent video talks about improving performance and one of the points he makes is having vision.  It’s not just about numbers and targets, an inspiring leader will do that in their sleep, however, creating a vision for everyone to get behind and encouraging others to create & realise their own vision really sets the inspiring leaders apart.

 

Thinking about all of these things, I know that personally I’m motivated to do better when working for an inspirational leader. When you work for someone that feels genuine passion for what they do, it’s infectious.  Who wants to work for someone that doesn’t inspire you?

 

I’ll finish with a quote I came across during my research.

 

"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." - Stephen R. Covey

 

Do you know where your ladder is leaning? 

Thanks,

Lorraine.

Is competency-based interviewing a good predictor of future performance?

I’ve been working in recruitment for a number of years and have seen competency based interviewing done with varying degrees of success, ranging from the comically bad to the quite good. 

According to the CIPD “Competency is defined as the behaviours that employees must have, or must acquire…in order to achieve high levels of performance.”  This definition puts the focus firmly on behaviours of the individual, how and why they do what they do.  But is past behaviour the best predictor of future behaviour?

The answer to this question is a resounding “YES”, depending on a few decisive criteria:

1.       1)  It must be assessed against a robust framework

2.        2)  It must dive deeper than “what they did” and try to get to the “how” and “why”

3.       3)  It must be carried out by someone that knows what they’re doing (which is quite rare in the world of     recruitment consultants!)

What not to do:
I have to share a story of ‘comically bad’ competency-based interviewing.  Early in my career I started with a new head hunting company and was shadowing the MD on an assignment.  The MD was doing the interviewing/chat (it was a traditional head hunting business after all and they love the “fire-side chats”).  It got to the end of the chat and the MD handed the candidate a piece of paper with a list of competencies and told him to take them away and email him with examples to satisfy each “competency”.  Now, I was pretty junior, but even I could have taken that list, along with the job description and knowledge of the client, and made up examples to satisfy each of the competencies.  The point being, “WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT ASSESS?”

This is an extreme example, but the fact is that most competency-based interviewing is inadequate, and at best will assess knowledge as opposed to behaviour.  It asks questions that will start “Give me an example of…”, which anyone with half a brain can give an answer to, even if they don’t have an example.  The skill is getting to the innate habits that the candidate exhibits in the work place (the behaviour), this will then begin to give you the how and why.

So, how should you do competency-based interviewing?
Simple, don’t tell the candidate what you are looking for.  Don’t lead them by asking for specific examples, simply get them to talk to you about how they do stuff at work and dig in where necessary.  Score the interview against a framework of behaviours e.g. the “Schroeder High Performance Managerial Competencies (HPMC) framework”.  This will give you objective data to assess the candidates and better predict their future performance.

So, the answer to the question posed at the start is Yes, but perhaps a more pertinent question would be “Is the interview technique that is referred to as ‘competency-based interviewing’ really assessing competency, or is it in most cases simply assessing knowledge?”

Thanks,

Colin.