Well Managed

Hiring Great People Under Pressure (part 1)

My current company hired me six years ago to build a new division. This would require setting up a number of specialized departments and the operation would have a substantial impact on the company’s profitibility, so there was a lot on the line.

I started out with only about a dozen employees. Fortunately, three of them were gifted individuals who became my management team. However, to build the division we needed to do a lot of hiring.

We faced three challenges in hiring:

• Quality. Our goal was to create the best operation in the industry so we set our hiring standard very high.
• Skills. Our industry requires employees with strong technical knowledge as well as skills in communication, decision-making, and planning.
• Speed. Our business was growing rapidly so we needed to hire a lot of people in a hurry.

We initiated an aggressive nationwide recruiting campaign for experienced employees. At first we got lucky and hired some superb people with great experience and skills. Then the talent pool went dry for a while and we kissed a lot of frogs. (Is that a mixed metaphor or just a slightly flawed one?)

When we hired our first employees we told them their workloads would be lower than at other companies but the expectations for quality and results would be extremely high. They enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to do their jobs right rather than just churn work. Unfortunately, as we went through the hiring drought our business grew a lot faster than our staff and our employees’ workloads started to climb above the level we had promised them.

Several times we went to them and said, "Look, we know you’re carrying some really heavy burdens, and we want to keep the workload commitments we made to you. When it gets too tough just give us the word. All we need to do is lower our standard one notch and we can hire some pretty decent people to help you out and bring the workloads down." Every time, our employees told us the same thing: "Don’t ever lower the standard, not even a little. We can take it. Keep looking for the right people."

That’s one of the reasons we have such a great staff today. It’s also why I think of those folks, many of whom are now in supervisory positions, as not just my employees but also my heroes.

But at the time, we were in a tight spot, caught between our need to staff up in a hurry and our commitment to maintain a high hiring standard and build a selective organization. I can tell you we managed to pull it off. How? For the answer to that question, tune into episode two of this series.

Here are part two and part three of this series.

Pull the Anti-Love Filter Out of Your Head

One day, years ago, when my children were very young, I walked by one of my daughters, who was playing on the floor, and felt an impulse to give her a kiss, but I didn’t kiss her, I just kept walking.

And then I thought, "What just happened there? I felt an impulse to kiss my little girl but I stifled it. Why?"

As I thought about it, I realized that we all have filters in our minds that sort out our impulses from our actions. We feel many impulses every day and of course we can’t act on all of them, so we have these subconscious filters that screen most of them out and turn a few of them into actions.

It’s a good thing we have those filters! After all, many of our impulses are foolish or malicious. But it bothered me that I had a filter in my mind restraining me from showing love to one of my own children. I resolved at that moment to remove that particular filter – the anti-love filter – so that every single time I felt an impulse to hug or kiss one of my children, or tell one of them "I love you," that I would do it. And that’s exactly what I did from that day on. Up until they reached the age where that sort of thing has to be restrained a bit in front of friends and so forth, of course.

But this is a blog about being a good manager, so why am I telling this story? Because of what happened at work the very next day.

I had just arrived at work and was walking down the hall toward my office. Coming toward me was an employee who was transferring from one position in our company to another. We had been interviewing candidates to fill her old job but couldn’t find anyone who would do the job nearly as well as she had.

Without thinking about it, as we approached each other I said, "You know, you’re a great employee and a wonderful person, and it’s going to be incredibly difficult to replace you." She smiled and maybe had time to say, "Thanks" before we passed each other.

I didn’t give it another thought until the end of the day. I’m generally one of the last people to leave so as I was in my office getting ready to go home the building was quiet and empty. That same employee suddenly appeared in my doorway. She didn’t look at me; she was staring at the floor with an intense expression. She said, "I don’t want to talk about it, but I want you to know this is a difficult time in my life. A really hard time. I’ve been feeling really bad about myself and I've been very depressed. And when you said that this morning, that was the first kind thing anyone has said to me in a long time, and this is the first happy day I’ve had for quite a while. Thank you." Tears had started to roll down her face as she spoke. As soon as she said, "Thank you" she darted away.

I respected her wishes. We never spoke about it.

But I’ve never forgotten that day. After she left I sat back down in my chair, emotions sweeping through me. At first, I was utterly perplexed. What was she even talking about? Then I remembered the little compliment I had given her that morning. My God, it had just been an impulse, it had just popped out of my mouth, I hadn’t given it any thought at all. I could just as easily have said nothing. In fact, why had I said anything? It wasn’t the sort of thing I normally did.

Then I remembered the day before and the filter I had removed from my mind.

Folks, each of us is a single individual. We are who we are at home and at work. Make a change in one part of your life and you will see the effects of that change everywhere in your life. Learn to be a great parent and you will be a better manager. Learn to be a great business partner and you will be a better spouse. Learn to show love to your children and by golly you will show love to your employees.

As for me, I’ve been darn sure that filter has never been reinstalled in my head. Life’s better without it. Every time I feel an impulse to express appreciation to an employee, or to pay a compliment, I do it. I think this has been one the main reasons for my success as a manager.

Plus, you just never know, do you, when one kind word might make all the difference for someone.

Never Give Anyone a Promotion (part 3)

Here are part one and part two of this series.

In the first two parts of this series we saw that rather than give a promotion we should offer a promotion. This post is about the nuts and bolts of offering a promotion.

I’ve provided a basic outline for conducting a promotion offer meeting on the Free Resources for Managers page. You can print the outline and use it as a reference when doing your own promotions. (You’re welcome!) You might want to open it or print it now, because in this post I'll be commenting on a few aspects of the outline.

Reading the outline might make it sound like the promotion offer meeting is kind of dull. But that’s just because outlines naturally tend to have a bureaucratic tone. In reality, the meeting should be lively, engaging, and energetic.

Remember, your goal for this meeting is to do everything you can to help the promotee succeed in her new position. At the end of the meeting, she should feel energized and enthusiastic but she should also be taking the situation seriously. She should be happy to have the opportunity but also prepared for the challenges ahead of her.

Here are some comments on a few key aspects of the meeting:

Greeting. Deliver the good news as soon as possible to put the employee out of her suspense. Some managers seem to take a perverse delight in drawing out the suspense while the employee squirms, not knowing whether the news will be good or bad, but that’s no way to build a relationship of trust with a member of your leadership team. When she comes in, you give her a big smile and before she even sits down you stand up and say, "I have good news: we're offering the promotion to you!" and shake her hand. Once the congratulations are done, you can all sit down together to discuss the particulars.

Appreciation. This is a great opportunity to reinforce good behaviors and make a good employee feel recognized and appreciated. Some people find giving and getting compliments to be awkward but this meeting creates a natural excuse for being open with your praise.

Improvement. If the employee doesn’t have any performance or behavior problems you can skip this step. But think hard about it. This is a great opportunity to address the kinds of things that might not come up in a performance review.

For example, a few years ago I had an excellent employee who, in brainstorming meetings, would sometimes make a frowny face and lapse into a sort of tired and downbeat tone of voice. It looked and sounded like he was giving up on solving the problem but I suspected that he was actually just thinking deeply, and that the expression and voice were just a behavioral habit. When I offered him a promotion to supervisor I described this behavior to him and he was shocked to hear it. We agreed he could not act that way as a leader and he kicked the habit very quickly.

Risk. This part varies widely. I recall one candidate who had potential but also had a lot of learning and growing to do and who didn't seem to be taking the promotion very seriously. I ended up pointing out to her that we would fill her old job, that it was the only position of its kind in the company, that there were no other positions suitable for her in the company, and that therefore if she did not succeed in her new job she would be unemployed. It was tough medicine but it sobered her up in a hurry. She took the challenge seriously and came through with flying colors.

However, there was another employee who needed the opposite approach. We were absolutely sure he would make a great supervisor but he didn't want to leave the comfort zone of his frontline position and wanted to turn down the promotion. We ended up pointing out to him that there were plenty of positions for his frontline work and promised that if he didn’t like being a supervisor after a few months he could have his old job back. He took the promotion, loved his new work, and to this day is a very successful supervisor. He and I still laugh together about the experience.

Conclusion. Make the employee sleep on the decision. This reinforces the idea that it's an important decision that must be taken seriously. If the employee says, "I don’t need to sleep on it, I accept." Just say something like, "It’s great that you’re feeling so enthusiastic about it and I’ll bet you’ll feel the same way tomorrow morning. Let’s talk then."

I'll have more to say about the nuances of the promotion offer meeting in future posts, but that should be enough to get you started. Happy promoting!

Never Give Anyone a Promotion (part 2)

Here is part one of this series.

So picture this: a supervisory position opens up in your organization and you post it internally. A bunch of your good employees apply for the promotion, you interview them all, and you pick the right candidate. You know you’re going to have to break the bad news to the unsuccessful candidates, but first you get to do the fun part: delivering the good news to the lucky person who’s getting the promotion.

This part’s a no-brainer, right? You just call her into your office, give her a big smile, offer a hearty handshake, and say, "congratulations, we’re giving you the promotion!" Then you give her a raise and a new title, go over a few details, and bingo, you’re done.

Wrong! Rewind the video my friend, because if that’s how you’ve been doing promotions you’ve been fumbling one of your greatest management opportunities.

In the previous post we looked at the goodies that come with promotions. Those are the things that make people want to be promoted. Now let’s look at the other things that come with a promotion, the things that determine whether the newly-promoted individual will succeed in her new position:

• Shifting Responsibilities. Succeeding in a higher-level position requires the candidate to clearly understand and accept the new responsibilities that come with the position. Just as important, she must commit to letting go of and delegating the responsibilities of the previous position.
• New Skills. You need to spell out the new skills the candidate will need to acquire in order to succeed in the new position. The candidate must acknowledge that she will need those skills and currently lacks them, and make a commitment to acquire them.
• Need for Growth. This is the time to candidly address any current deficiencies in performance or behavior that the candidate must remedy. Again, the candidate must acknowledge them and make a commitment to remedying them.
• Recognition of Strengths. Just as important as the need for new skills and for remedying deficiencies, you must review with the candidate all of her great strengths and fine characteristics, all of the wonderful things about her that earned her the promotion. Personally, I really enjoy this part of the promotion meeting, but many managers have a hard time doing this with sufficient detail and emotional sincerity to truly make it sink in for the candidate. However, it is vital that the candidate acknowledge her strengths and commit to continuing and developing all those wonderful things after the promotion. One of the most common reasons that previously successful employees fail after a promotion is that they change in negative ways, abandoning some of the behaviors that could have helped them succeed.
• Risk. No matter how successful the employee was in her previous position and no matter how confident you are that she'll do well in the new position, there is a genuine risk of failure. If you're running a selective organization, you must tell the candidate that in your position you absolutely cannot pretend that anyone is succeeding who is not -- even a person you like very much -- and what will happen if she doesn't succeed. Don’t let an employee just slide unthinkingly into the new position with all her attention focused on the raise and the cool new title. An honest assessment of risk is sobering and conveys to the candidate that deciding whether to accept the promotion is not a decision to be made lightly.
• Join the Leadership Team. Every one of your employees who has supervisory responsibility is part of your leadership team. (Hopefully, you’re actually treating all those folks as a true leadership team!) A frontline employee moving into management must be welcomed to the team and agree to genuinely join the team. This may require a shift in self-identity that is subtle but important.

Notice that each item on this list requires some kind of commitment from the employee. When promoting, your goal is to do everything you can to ensure the future success of the promotee, which in turn will contribute to your success and to the success of your organization. In order to maximize the likelihood of success you must gain the employee’s commitment to each of the above items. You do that by putting these items together with the goodies from yesterday’s post and offering them as a package deal. To say "yes" to the goodies, she also needs to say "yes" to all these commitments.

In the next post on this subject, we'll review the nuts and bolts of how you can successfully conduct the promotion offer process.

Here is part three of this series.

Never Give Anyone a Promotion (part 1)

Okay, I admit that once again I’m having a little fun here, coming up with a deliberately provocative way to present an idea. But this truly is an important concept for managers: you should never give anyone a promotion. Hopefully this dramatic way of phrasing the idea will make it memorable for you.

Hint: the key word here is "give."

Let’s take a step back and think about what a promotion means. There are two desirable things that come with a promotion. The first is money. A promotion usually includes a raise. In fact, in some companies a promotion is the only way to get a substantial raise. More money always has high value and is a concrete, quantifiable reward.

The second desirable thing that comes with a promotion is a set of rewards that are somewhat less tangible than money but are nevertheless very valuable. They include power, status, pride, recognition, opportunity, and a sense of progress and achievement. Let’s review these a little further:

• Power. An employee promoted into a supervisory position is being granted the authority to tell other human beings what to do and how to do it, and also to judge the value of their work and the appropriateness of their behavior. That's no small thing!
• Status. In our culture, for better or for worse, our self-identity is tied strongly to our work. A more prestigious title confers elevated status.
• Pride. There are few things in life more fulfilling than the sense of pride that comes from working hard to achieve a goal and then achieving it.
• Recognition. When you promote an employee you're giving that employee recognition for all the achievements and skills that earned the promotion. Receiving recognition is very rewarding.
• Opportunity. For an individual who wants to achieve great things, a promotion provides an increased opportunity to create, build, nurture, encourage, challenge, learn, and discover.
• A sense of progress and achievement. Most people want to feel that their lives aren't stuck but rather are growing and improving. Earning a promotion is one great way to feel that you're getting somewhere.

When you think about it, a promotion is really a big deal!

So then the question for you as a manager is: are you going to give all that money and emotional fulfillment away for nothing? Are you really just going to hand over all that financial and emotional booty as a gift and gain no managerial advantage from it?

I hope not, because that would be a terrible waste of a rare opportunity to exert a positive influence on an employee’s future success. The only other opportunity this good is when you're hiring a new employee.

Recall that there are three critical issues in hiring, firing, and promoting: who, when, and how. We're talking here about the “how” of promoting. Even if you promote the right person at the right time, if you just give the promotion to the employee you'll be missing a wonderful opportunity to help that employee succeed in her new position. It’s in your interest as a manager (and also as a human being who cares about your employees) to use all the leverage at your disposal to give the newest member of your leadership team the maximum opportunity to succeed.

That’s why you never give a promotion, you always offer a promotion. And what you offer is a package deal. The goodies we discussed above are part of that package. In my next post we’ll talk about the rest of the package and then we’ll go into the nuts and bolts of how to make the offer.

PS: Trust me, the difference between giving and offering is not a semantic trifle. It’s huge. Stick around and see for yourself!

Here are part two and part three of this series.