The most important decisions business people make are not ‘what’ decisions but ‘who’ decisions. And Jim Collins is the expert in recruitment.
Recruitment
Are you familiar with the saying people are your business? Do you believe it to be true? We certainly do.
And we believe that one of the most difficult, yet most important elements of any business is the recruitment process, as Jim Collins is saying.
Hiring is life’s blood of a business, so it goes. The message is simple … some people are better than other people. More importantly, some people are a heck of a lot better than other people.
During the hiring process, you really must take into consideration many candidate behaviors, attitudes, and strengths.
Even the person who is talented, sometimes they don’t have the right personality and team chemistry to add to your team. (Check out employee traits that will disrupt your business)
Bringing in exactly the right people is paramount for any business and teamwork is one of the most important ingredients for most businesses.
Related post: The Story and Zen of Getting Things Done
Tuning in during the interview process to gauge how well a person would fit in the office every day, where they’d inevitably interact with their colleagues and be part of the office ecosystem, matters quite a bit.
If you want to build an effective team, it starts with having the best people. Creating a talent advantage begins with smart hiring. That said, it never ceases to amaze me at the number of businesses who put little energy and time into mining for talent.
Smart leaders do more than just hire smart people – they have a smart hiring process and focus on the qualities they want.
Put simply; people matter. The problem is that very few people actually possess the talent to identify talent. Identifying and recruiting talent requires much more than screening a resume and having a set of standard interviewing questions to guide you.
There are issues of values, vision, culture, context etc. that need to be creatively and intuitively addressed in the hiring process.
In today’s post, we’ll share our philosophy on the best qualities to look for to ensure that you hire tier-one talent.
We recommend the following 10 behaviors, attitudes and strengths to look to hire and develop in both our and our client businesses:
Recruitment is life’s blood … judgment
Some employees speak when others won’t … a good thing.Some employees are hesitant to speak up in meetings. Some are even hesitant to speak up privately.
An employee once asked me a question about potential layoffs. After the meeting, I said to him, “Why did you ask about that? You already know what’s going on.”
He said, “I do, but a lot of other people don’t, and they’re afraid to ask. I thought it would help if they heard the answer from you.”
Remarkable employees have an innate judgment for the issues and concerns of those around them, and step up to ask questions or raise important issues when others hesitate.
Types of recruitment … different
That pretty much sums up highly creative people: they are different. They will have different backgrounds to averagely creative people — and that background may very well include working experience.
They will behave differently to averagely creative people and they will offer different results: creative results. If you keep this in mind, it will not be hard to find and hire creative people.
The challenge will be challenging them sufficiently to keep them.
The best employees are often a little quirky, sometimes irreverent, even delighted to be unusual.
They seem slightly odd but in a really good way.
Unusual personalities shake things up, make work more fun, and transform a plain-vanilla group into a team with flair and flavor.
People who aren’t afraid to be quirky naturally stretch boundaries and challenge the status quo, and they often come up with the best ideas.
Creative spirit
An unusual personality is a lot of fun… until it isn’t.
When a major challenge pops up or a situation gets stressful, the best employees stop expressing their individuality and fit seamlessly into the team.
Remarkable employees know when to play and when to be serious; when to be irreverent and when to conform; and when to challenge and when to back off.
It’s a tough balance to strike, but a rare few can wear their creative spirit with ease.
Some people are rarely satisfied (I mean that in a good way) and are constantly tinkering with something.
Great employees follow processes. Remarkable employees find ways to make those processes even better, not only because they are expected to… but because they just can’t help it.
Not afraid to fail
You want the great ones who are not afraid to fail. The last thing they worry about is making mistakes or failing in a task.
They understand risks and realize progress depends on going a little beyond, even when they realize they won’t be right all the time.
Take initiative
The smaller the company, the more important it is that employees can think on their feet, adapt quickly to shifting priorities and do whatever it takes, regardless of role or position, to get things done.
They are good at taking initiative.
When a key customer’s project is in jeopardy, remarkable employees know without being told there’s a problem and jump in without being asked—even if it’s not their job.
Passionate
The best employees are humble yet very passionate about what they love. The remarkable ones find strong egos very distasteful … yet they wear their passion 24/7.
They can as easily follow as to lead and in all situations pay attention to be strong team players.
The best of the best employees are really motivated by continuous learning. They thrive when they are given opportunities to do new things where they push the boundaries of their learning.
They tend to soak up new knowledge like a sponge and keep coming back for more.
All of these qualities of remarkable employees are rarely found in one individual, but you should always be looking for them all.
Your employee team’s makeup requires them all, even if not in any one individual.
Do you have any stories from your hiring experience vault that you could share with this community?
Need some help in capturing more improvements in your staff’s leadership, teamwork, and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics that relate to improving the performance of a business. Go to Amazon to obtain a copy of his latest book, Exploring New Age Marketing. It focuses on using the best examples to teach new age marketing … lots to learn. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More hiring material from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Recruitment Process … Avoid These 5 Killer Hiring Mistakes
Who Will Be Your Next Employee?
Employee Traits … 7 You Need to Be a Social Business
Shrinking customer base? It’s not too late to give your brand some juice to jumpstart its needs.
Can a brand come back to life? Marketers and customers have often wondered this. Well-known and successful brands like Marvel, Apple, Lego, and Volkswagen have been on the verge of dying out before turning things around. There’s even a company that has been purchasing and reviving dead brands like Brim, Nuprin, Salon Selectives, Eagle Snacks, and Underalls. So how can brands achieve such a feat?
Look carefully.
I’ve helped companies devise the following strategies that didn’t just revive their brand, but helped them grow and find success.
Watch the Warning Signs
Brands can start by being vigilant, and acknowledge any problems they encounter. This way, they have a chance to pivot quickly before it’s too late. That’s where a company like Blockbuster went wrong, and where Netflix saved the day: instead of noticing that customers preferred to have movies sent to them, the chain kept building new stores rather than changing its existing model.
Netflix could have followed the same direction, but the company paid attention to trends and provided the streaming subscription service that customers wanted.
If you want to prevent your brand from dying, pay close attention to shrinking customer base and revenue. If your brand is stagnant and hasn’t evolved or adapted to the changing market, competitors will appear more enticing and innovative. Be mindful of this and you can prevent your brand from ceasing to exist in the first place.
Redefine who you want to be a brand to
if the current audience places a declining level of value on it, think about who might be able to use it in ways that enable you to regain value. Starbucks redefined the value of coffee globally by making coffee hip, urbane, and tailored to individual tastes. Now they’re looking to do the same thing with tea. In a world that really does believe it’s seen or searched it all, discovery is a powerful consumer motive.
sometimes changing the value of a commodity can be as simple as changing how it appears to others. Think about the difference in pricing and perception between bottled beer and beer on tap. However, new packaging alone won’t make up for a product that doesn’t add value. What it can do is signal the unrealized value that you want consumers to take up on.
Formulate your offer in different ways
the water industry changed how we think of water by adding vitamins and/or carbon dioxide and then segmenting those offers to specific audiences. Today, the world spends more than $100 billion a year on bottled water. What could you do to what you have to make it more than it is right now?
Think of the product or service in new ways
when you redefine what something is or could be, you reframe its context and it’s much easier to redefine what it can be used for. When you stop thinking of milk as a drink, for example, and start thinking of it as a food, as Fonterra did, you change the scope of the product you’re working within so many ways.
Very the story around it
New storylines can change how people perceive a product. Water, beer, and wine have all used stories to engage consumers and to deliver a new sense of worth. Increasingly, there are opportunities to link undifferentiated products to differentiating stories around the environment, supply chain, conduct, purpose, and cause.
Psychologist Dr. Norman Holland, in an interview with Stephen Denny, explains why: “When we adopt a brand for our own use, we integrate it into the stories of our daily lives.” Once integrated, of course, that storied brand has a new value for buyers because now it’s personal.
Name it in a variety of different ways
The deer industry in New Zealand renamed its venison offering “cervena” to differentiate it from deer meat sourced from elsewhere and to make a strong country-of-origin play. If you’re selling copper and everyone else is selling copper, what can you call your copper to distinguish it from what people can source anywhere? Again – renaming alone won’t be enough. In the case of cervena, the change in name spoke to an idea that consumers were interested in, and eliminated the concern, amongst American consumers, that they were eating Bambi.
Package it in different ways
The red meat industry is now starting to segment its offer and to assign different perceptions of value to cuts and breeds that not too long ago would all have just been beef. Angus is a classic example. Others are packaging along ethical lines to put daylight between themselves and others and to appeal to consumers who are prepared to pay more for feel-good foods.
Cage-free and free-range eggs are part of this trend. (What’s interesting for those interested in moral labeling, however, is how those terms and others can be defined in some jurisdictions. It doesn’t necessarily mean what it appears to mean.)
Distribute it differently
Changing the distribution channel can be a highly effective way to transform your white label product into something valued by a more specific audience. iTunes rebuilt the value of music by reinventing the concept of the single into a single digital track and allowing people to buy the music they wanted in a new way, at a new price. Tablets are having the same effect on books and magazines – redefining how consumers access content and buy it. It’s a very different value equation than it used to be – but at least it’s a value equation.
Price package it in different ways
This is a particularly effective approach when combined with segmentation. Go after various parts of the market with products that demonstrate various levels of value add and are price pointed accordingly – e.g. a bulk product at a bulk price, a high end or specialized product priced at a top-end price, and a consumer-focused product that may even operate at flexible price points. Forced into what was close to a death spiral for many, the airline industry repriced to find new ways of achieving yield. First, they cemented the front-end profit by giving business and first-class passengers more space and more comfort to protect margins.
Then they unbundled their economy offering, adding new categories like Premium Economy, cramming in more seats in cattle class, and instigating fees for service that have kept the asking price low whilst charging at every point for things that were once considered included. This evolution hasn’t exactly been a success from the travelers’ point of view, but it has certainly forced a rethink on what is paid for, and how.
A note of caution. While, as outlined above, there are a number of ways to stave off deterioration and even to restore value to goods whose value has decayed, there is also no denying that the product or brand you make has a best-before date in terms of margin. Unless you assume commoditization and continually look for ways to slow its advance or reverse its influence, it will get your brand in the end.
The key to successfully staging a resurgence in the value of your brand is to think of each of the nine tactics outlined above as a multiplier. To an extent, the more multipliers you can employ simultaneously, the greater the chances that you can lift your brand. Focus them specifically on the key needs and unmet desires of your (new) target market.
To lead is to measurably help others succeed. What is the top way you seek to grow your staff and business? You say growth is not a priority? Not really? But it is surprising how many businesses don’t seem to make the growth of their business a continuing priority.
Related: Studying Innovative Change for Creative Business Ideas
Have you defined a business growth strategy? You would be surprised how many of our clients say they are happy with their size and therefore don’t have a growth strategy.
That is a big mistake in our opinion. In the life of a business, there are only two options … you can either keep up or surpass your competitors through a business growth strategy or lose market share.
Business growth obviously can be planned in various degrees. If your business is at the size you desire, a minimum or status quo strategy may be the best for you. In any case, you need to execute some form of a growth strategy to at least maintain the status quo.
We believe that developing and growing your staff should be at the heart of any plan to grow business. If you want to grow business by developing your people, consider these 7 tactics:
Grow your staff … start with effective teamwork
Your team is your business, quite literally. It is only as good as the weakest link and your ability to provide strong and effective leadership.
You, as a business leader, must be a talent hound for future hiring, be a strong mentor and coach, and continually work to build your leadership skills and a staff that works effectively as a team. You will need to delegate effectively and continuously rotate your people throughout business roles. Being successful with these tasks and you will be amazed at how quickly your team will develop.
What would you say are the most significant leadership competencies?
Are they ones that you continue to hone and develop? Do they hold the keys to future successes in your business?
Related: Leadership Accountability … What Makes Great Leaders Most Accountable?
I have been in the military and business world for forty years and often get asked what I believe are the most important leadership competencies. It takes time and practice to be a top line leader. You are not borne with leadership competencies. And you are never done developing them.
My experience leads me to this list of 10 business leadership competencies that most successful leaders all share. They rank as the most significant to success as a leader in my perspective.
If you want to be a better leader, work on continuously developing this list of leadership competencies:
Lead with questions, not directions
Continuous learning
Maintain a work-life balance
Boost team self-esteem
No fear of failure
Collaboration
Balanced listening
Foster team players
Inspire and motivate
Have patience
Organization culture
Organization culture is a very integral part of any business as the best companies pride themselves on their employees, community stewardship, and a stimulating workplace. This culture is passed on to customers, who are more likely to go out of their way to stop at such businesses instead of a competitor because of the values they share with the company. You even see the culture in most of their creative marketing.
It’s also important to recognize that culture comes from the people—it is the people. Think about the individuals within your organization—what are their personalities like? Who are they outside of work?
What tickles their fancy? All of these things lend to the culture of your organization, and ultimately your products.
Culture matters … a lot more than you may believe. You can either spend time finding employees who share your organization’s values or deal with managing conflicts that arise due to opposing values.
Ignore culture in the hiring process and all other hiring initiatives will be diminished, if not lost altogether.
Grow your staff … hiring is key
We believe that one of the most difficult, yet most important elements of any business is the hiring process. The message is simple … some people are better than other people.
More importantly, some people are a heck of a lot better than other people.
During the hiring process, you really must take into consideration many candidate behaviors, attitudes, and strengths.
Even the person who is the most talented, sometimes they don’t have the right personality and team chemistry to add to your team. Remember this: hire for attitude and culture mix and train for the skills you want.
Grow your staff … effective employee engagement
Are your employees giving your company their all? Do they believe that what they’re doing is important? Do they feel appreciated? Do they show up for work each day filled with passion and purpose? If so, you should share employee engagement lessons with this community.
A red flag should go up if you answered “no” to any of these questions. Why? Business owners who aren’t taking care of their employees are missing out on significant cost-savings and profits.
Here are some surprising statistics we found recently. Only 31% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs. Wow. That fact means that 70% are not that actively engaged. And this is amazing to us.
Highly engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. People that are actively engaged in helping move the organization forward. 88% of highly engaged employees believe they can positively impact the quality of their organization’s products, compared with only 38% of the disengaged. 72% of highly engaged employees believe they can positively affect customer service, versus 27% of the disengaged.
When thinking about these stats, pay attention to the impacts on business performance. They are truly significant,
Talent search mode
You should always be in a talent search mode, even if you are not yet ready to hire. Never let your organization be put behind the talent 8-ball, as great talent is rarely available on a moment’s notice.
Some of the best hires we’ve made over the years were people that we spent months, and in some cases, years developing relationships with.
I am a big believer in adaptation and change. You should always seek to be flexible and keep several alternative paths in front of you.
Always be on the lookout for ways to reinvent ways for self-improvement. Our most favored quote on change and adaptation is from Charles Darwin:
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Just remember to substitute success for survival and you will have a very valuable tip.
Conclusion
Never be done with your hiring and building your staff. Remember that life is a continuous learning experience for you and the team. It is the foundation of business growth. Team building and talent development take work and a consistent process, but you will be pleasantly surprised the impact it will make on your business.
Do you have hiring or team building experience to share? A question or comment?
Are you devoting enough energy to build a growth team?
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s leadership, teamwork, and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on mentoring from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Are You Looking for an Extraordinary Fast Track Career
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
