Silver Lining of The Great Recession: Hiring Over-Qualified Candidates
Posted by george in capitalism, free markets, hiring the best, new ways to manage work, throughput on March 10, 2011
The Great Recession presents new opportunities for employers who have just begun to hire again.
The experts are telling us: before you decide to pass on a candidate you might think is overqualified, take a little time to get to know him/her; even though you might be inclined to dismiss the offer, the “extra” skills of the applicant could be effectively utilized to boost performance in your work group or business.
Unless you undertake this small task (a phone call?), you’ll never know the reasons why he might be interested in the specific position: does he want to shift industries?…relocate?…create a better work/life balance? Find out.
Here are a few ideas on how to go about the process of discerning whether you should pursue the overqualified:
First, define the risks:
- What are the hazards of hiring someone with more experience than you think might be needed for the job?
- Might she upstage her manager?
- Quit early into the job because she’s not challenged or because she finds a better job?
- Disparage co-workers for being stupid or inexperienced?
Second: define the upside:
- What are the possibilities, the potential benefits of taking on a worker with some bonus abilities?
- Might it propel your work group to a new level of attainment?
- Could she bring personal, organizational or technical skills that are either non-existent or in short supply that could help the group function more effectively?
- Does her character offer some features that might help others on the team…just by observing?
With these two pieces of work out of the way, you’re likely to be a better helmsman in steering the process.
Ideas that can help both in the hiring and the ”onboarding” process:
Expand Your Thinking About the Job
Stretch your thoughts about the job: in the past, you might have searched for the right candidate to fill the opening. Now, you can look into the future: are there needs that we will have in the future that this candidate could address?
Be Careful How You Bring Him On
Unmet expectations are, often, a key reason for turnover; it can be amplified in situations where the employee is over-skilled. Make sure to clearly spell out the job, in detail. Preemptively outline the tasks, responsibilities which might be “below” the skills of your new thoroughbred.
Assure that fellow employees are aware of your decision and are going to participate in making the new hire work.
Pay Her What She Is Worth
Even though it would be easy to “discount” pay, according to the experts, by as much as 25% compared to pre-recession levels, the strong advice is against that: pay her what she’s worth. It will work better in the long run.
If you can’t afford her, then it would be more prudent to pass. If you have to pay her less than market, make sure she knows what the possibilities for advancement and bonuses are and, then, she can make the decision to accept.
==========
Using appropriate strategies could help you add key people to your organization. I, for one, would recommend “pushing the envelope” to get the best talent that’s possible.
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Value of Collisions
Posted by george in how new ideas happen, innovation, new ideas on January 9, 2011
One Hunch Needs to “Bump Into” Another Hunch To Form an Idea: Artistry In Progress
The New Year is upon us: in a mystical way, many of us feel like it is a “clean slate,” a tabula rasa on which we can write our new lives: The World Of 2011.
I like this concept. I like it so much that I would advocate for a monthly “clean slate” where we could, symbolically, “start fresh.” This concept meshes with my burgeoning view that we are all engaged in the arts; we must all create, innovate — whether in business or in the arts — or we languish. Wasting away, mental or creatively, has never been one of my options and I think we would be fooling ourselves if we thought otherwise: we are engines of creativity, innovation.
With that premise of continual invention, this might be a good time to visit “where good ideas come from.” Steven Johnson, in his four (4) minute YouTube Video, provides some insights (from his studies on the subject) on how an environment that promotes the fanciful, new inklings can be helped along.
His most profound finding is that, often, we each have a piece of a great idea. Through the bumping of one hunch into another hunch, a good idea is formed. Rarely, he finds, is it just a one person event.
Going back in history, he cites the early English coffee houses of the 1650′s that created a place where ideas could brew, marinate. Johnson calls it “The Liquid Network;” the stimulants of coffee and tea were quite radical to the previous consumption of large amounts of alcohol in the form of beer (breakfast), wine (lunch) and more spirits for dinner.
What the www. (World Wide Web) now provides is the kind of connectivity, for example, that allows for more bumping, more collisions of hunches, notions. (We don’t give it enough credit.)
So, what would it take to create an ecosystem in your organization that mimics the alacrity of “The Liquid Network?” Some ingredients Johnson thinks need to be present: fluidity; information spillover; diverse views, and; different fields of expertise.
In short: chaos. Why not give it a try in 2011?
Eliminate Red Tape: Why?
Posted by george in boost performance, customer service, innovation, new ways to manage work, throughput on December 6, 2010
Policies Are Biggest Impediment to Throughput, Effectiveness
Are you interested in boosting performance, efficiency, throughput? It might be time to revisit the lessons from Goldratt’s “Theory of Constraints” and look at your organization’s rules, procedures, methods.
The simple conclusion from the book: policies, not necessarily bad ones, get in the way. Not machines. Not bad, unthinking people. What’s the solution? Think systemically.
| The 1984 Parable |
Policies, in my view, are often designed to deal with the exceptions…the customer who wants to ship to multiple locations with one billing address, let’s say. So, we create a new policy to deal with the previous ineffective one. (Look at what much of what comes out of Congress, too.)
In my experience with client organizations, I’ve seen policies — aimed at dealing with 10% of the employees, customers, whomever — take up 90% of the intellectual energy of the business, whether it’s a non- or for-profit organization. There’s no energy or motivation left to really figure out how we leapfrog from where we are right now.
This kind of stance — to develop solutions for the exceptions — could have negative systemic impacts: many of your best folks could get the wrong message.
That message might be seen as: “let’s spend a good part of our time and energy on insuring this mistake doesn’t happen again….oh, by the way, we didn’t really get damaged from that mistake…it was just a violation of another policy…” In the process, the 97% of the work that’s going well can be ignored, forgotten. More unintended consequences. Think whole-istically.
 |
| Click to Enlarge |
Theory of Constraints White Paper: Open PDF
Moskoff’s High Performance Organizations Blogpost: July 2010: Theory of Constraints.
The Hawthorne Effect: One More Time
Posted by george in better ways to supervise, business metrics, managing work, new ways to manage employees, productivity, Theory of Constraints on September 5, 2010
“The Workplace Is A Social System”
Would you like to raise productivity? Don’t implement a “top-down” initiative. That’s the simple finding from this Study of more than seven decades ago.
From 1927 to 1932, several professors from Harvard Business School, began studying organizational and social systems at the Hawthorne Western Electric (AT&T’s manufacturing arm) plant in Cicero, Illinois. The Study was only supposed to last one year, but…it got complicated. And, was extended.
This Study was one of the first “management science” gifts given to us by the stable business model of AT&T back then: regulation did produce consistency and predictability which allowed for studies like this one.
Anyway, what did they do and what did they find? First, they asked a small group of employees about ways to improve productivity and efficiency. The workers were delighted to talk to the researchers: they got a boatload of possible changes to the workplace: more than they could implement.
Humidity. Lighting. Breaks. Work group behaviors. These, and other, of subjects got covered.
No matter what they tested — increased lightning; decreased lighting — there was a positive effect. Production went up.
Why? The researchers ascribed it to the process of the workers being asked. And, of course, the researchers listening and acting on the information. (This is quite similar to another similar phenomenon called “School Belonging.”)
Would you like to increase productivity and reduce anxiety in your organization? Just ask a few questions and implement a few of the ideas that come out. Magic.
BTW, here are the major Findings from the Study:
- The aptitudes of individuals are imperfect predictors of job performance. Although they give some indication of the physical and mental potential of the individual, the amount produced is strongly influenced by social factors.
- Informal organization affects productivity. The Hawthorne researchers discovered a group life among the workers. The studies also showed that the relations that supervisors develop with workers tend to influence the manner in which the workers carry out directives.
- Work-group norms affect productivity. The Hawthorne researchers were not the first to recognize that work groups tend to arrive at norms of what is “a fair day’s work,” however, they provided the best systematic description and interpretation of this phenomenon.
- The workplace is a social system. The Hawthorne researchers came to view the workplace as a social system made up of interdependent parts.
Kanter: A Recipe for Turnarounds
Posted by george in Uncategorized on August 15, 2010
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the noted Harvard Business School professor, speaks about the steps that are needed to “turn a culture of decline into one of success.” A bigger task than most realize, she simply says “…you have to restore employees’ confidence in the system.”
 |
|
| She Looks Harmless |
“Learned helplessness” is the term that psychologists use to talk about school-aged childrens’ resignation. In that context, the internal dialogue is something like…”I’m stupid…I can’t do this…” It is the opposite of their other term: “Self efficacy.”
In the workpalce, the learned helplessness addresses the sentiment that sounds something like: “We can’t do this….we tried this before…we’re stuck and…that’s the way it’s going to stay….” It’s more than the feeling of an underdog because an underdog thinks s/he can move up, win a few.
“….as communication and the willingness to face problems openly deteriorate, infighting and finger pointing increase. Employees in different unit lose respect for one another and…for themselves. Groups start withholding information from one another. They look to maximize their own results but not to contribute to the performance of the organization as a whole.”
So, turnarounds in any organiztion, says Kanter, are special situations. And, of course, they require special skills. The first “cornerstone of confidence” is accountability. It comes from open dialogue and mutual respect. Quite a contrast to the “finger pointing” and provides the opportunity for people to step out and re-commit to the promises they previously made.
A Template for Some New Thinking: Hollywood to the Rescue
Posted by george in Uncategorized on August 15, 2010
June 1, 2010 Seems Like a Long Time Ago
Almost three months ago, James Cameron, got involved in trying to help clean up the runaway oil gusher in the Gulf.
Is truth stranger than fiction?
What could Movie Director Cameron’s involvement with an oil spill tell us about addressing some of our big problems in business, problems in the world?
Is it possible that the world of “fiction” offers us some answers to our most troubling questions, dilemmas?
Maybe, someone could write a decent script / movie for problems like Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, The Koreas…runaway profits at Goldman Sachs after they bankrupted AIG…
Go ahead: I’ll wait.
Throw Out the Performance Review
Posted by george in better ways to supervise, business in the trenches, business metrics, capitalism, new ways to manage work on July 14, 2010
Finally, Some Frank Talk About the Failings of An Old Paradigm
The Annual Employee Performance Review: both boss and employee respond with an “Ugh!” to this event. How could we justify getting rid of these archaic and unproductive exercises?
Does the process help boost organizational output, increase throughput? Doubtful. Does it make the employee feel good? Unlikely. One would be motivated to ask the logical question: “Why do we keep doing them?” I would say: “It’s a bad habit for which we…yet have no replacement.”
“First, they’re dishonest and fraudulent. And second, they’re just plain bad management,” writer and UCLA professor Culbert says in a radio interview the week of July 6.
Tough talk from (what looks like) a not-so-friendly-looking guy. (I wouldn’t want a Review from the likes of him!) But, he’s right: performance reviews don’t do much to get out in the open the challenges in the business nor facilitate a discussion of the possible solutions.
Employees come to the process anxious about its impact on their pay or career. Supervisors, managers are given a limit of how much the pay can be increased and, that small view, becomes the focus of the discussion: what did you do well? — and, of course, that becomes the employees shield — and how much more money am I going to give you. Which, of course, the boss knows before he heads into the Review.
People want their work to matter, to mean something. And, the annual Review doesn’t facilitate such a goal. The process is devoid of humanity, in many cases.
“Once you set up the metrics, that’s the only focus for the employee,” Culbert says. “The problem with performance reviews is that the metric that counts most for the employee is the boss’s opinion. So the employee starts doing what he or she thinks is going to score in the boss’s mind, and not even talk about what he or she believes is necessary for the company to get the results that really matter.”
For anyone who would like to gauge where they stand on the annual review issue, Culbert and Rout have posted a test on their site, with the slightly biased title of How Much Do You Hate Performance Reviews?
Here’s Your Brain On…
Posted by george in better ways to supervise, business in the trenches, capitalism, challenging times, innovation, web realities on June 10, 2010
…The Internet: I Won’t Try to Argue the Point
Do you remember the TV advertisements back in the ’80′s where the topic was DRUGS? Setting: a kitchen with some earth-toned appliances, a frying pan on top of a stove with a voice over that went something like: “This is your brain…” Plop an egg into the hot pan: voice over: “This is your brain on drugs.” 
The message? Drugs will fry your brain.
The ad should be modified for current times: we should drop a hard drive or a motherboard into the frying pan: “This is your brain on the Internet.”
Nicholas Carr (His Blog) is the man of the hour with his new book: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains: The Shallows. He’s on NPR, reviewed in Bloomberg BusinessWeek (talk about branding…Bloomberg??). And, of course, he’ll soon be on Oprah.
I won’t try to debate the premise. What I will do is ask us to look back, first, about 5,000 years. That was the time that the Jews were thought to be writing texts. (The Mayans could have had hieroglyphics by then, too.)
I’m guessing that, at that time, there were those who thought that a book was a revelation of a demon deity. I’ll be there were even people who could have been quoted as saying something similar to neuroscientist Michael Merzenich: we are “training our brains to pay attention to the crap.”
Excuse me? May I beg your pardon: not my brain: my brain pays attention to both the good stuff and the crap. (And, by the way, Mr. Merzenich, from an atmospheric perspective, isn’t it all crap? What has getting to the moon done for me…lately?)
Gutenberg? Some thought he was the devil. Polio, may I remind you, was the result of a naturally occurring virus but we applied technology on that one, too.
The Point, with a capital “P,” that I’m trying to make — after four or five paragraphs, sorry — is that there are always detractors to the new technologies. Technology will always advance ahead of society’s ability to understand how to use it (true for the stone axe? hmm). Stem cell research is finally coming close to its potential after W’s moratoriums.
And, finally, try not to pontificate while one is the middle of a tech revolution: the view is in the shallows. Only time will allow a more balanced view.
Moskoff Gets Some Recognition from Alma Mater
Posted by george in challenging times, customer communications, new ways to manage work on May 25, 2010
Skidmore College: Feature Piece on “Human Natured” Moskoff
My alma mater decided I had been doing enough important things to warrant some attention. Surprise to me: I feel like the cobbler with his head down, aimed toward his work.
I’m grateful for all the collaborators and supporters who have blessed me with their gifts.
A small piece from the article:
“While performance and profit are inevitable topics of discussion, what interests Moskoff most is the concept of community. ’I'd like to see people asking “Why?” more often. Asking “why” helps ‘steer the conversation towards values and principles rather than tactics,’ Moskoff explains. ’I'd like to see organiztions working on a more purposeful existence.’”
High Anxiety Makes Sense: What Model is Next, Emerging?
Posted by george in capitalism, challenging times, new ways to manage work on April 26, 2010
Macro View Creates Grave Concerns: Is Society Viable?
Phillip Blond is a senior lecturer in theology and philosophy at the University of Cumbria. He is currently writing Red Tory, a book on radical conservatism. He writes frequently for the mainstream press on economics, politics and religion “Look at the society we have become: We are a bi-polar nation, a bureaucratic, centralised state that presides dysfunctionally over an increasingly fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.”
– Phillip Blond, British author, lecturer at U of Cumbria
So, tell me: how does one run a business — for- or non-profit — in times like these? When the model that should be steering behaviors and strategies seems…absent or no longer applicable? No rudder?
Phillip Blond’s acute analysis, referenced in a David Brooks New York Times Editorial, displays one of the great difficulties of the times that mirrors the incessant reminders of fiscal betrayal by Goldman Sachs and the like: We’ve been duped! Where does one go from there? A retreat seems likely.
How to make sense of this twisted situation? Blond would argue that we need to come back to our human associations, to our original sovereign station of “the people.”
Because of the inherent flexibility of organizations — they’re more nimble than governments and…more responsive — these institutions can assist in the movement quite effectively. Ironic yes and true, too: here’s the reality: your company can be the agent of change in the world: a focus on community, association, service above self.
“The welfare state and the market state are now two defunct and mutually supporting failures.” — essay by British writer Phillip Blond.
If Blond is right, we’re in a limbo period, waiting for a more effective model to emerge. While we’re waiting, he would argue that we could be the creators of that new model: should we give it a try? First step? Try listening a bit more and talking a bit less: humans like that.