NEW HIRE FORMULA FOR SUCCESS-----OR NOT

I actually did a formal study on how to ensure success (or an early failure)for new top team hires for a department store as part of my Master's Degree work. The formula worked.
The hard part was getting people to use it! Hiring can be such a pain that we sort of think the job is done after the hiring decision is made.

The theory is that if you follow the formula, you will set the performance thermostat for your new employee and it will hold for the long term even if following performance reviews are sporadic or poorly done. Makes sense. Make the imprint strong and thorough and it lasts. And it recognizes that at one year you know if you have the person you need or you need to help the person move on.

OK, here is the formula:

--Meet with new hire on day one. You, not the HR department. Don't do tea parties for welcome. Go over organizational history and context. Talk about strategy in detail. Spell out specific expectations. Create demand and excitement. Ask for questions. Check for understanding. 4 hours

--Meet with new hire in exactly two weeks. Ask for insights about what she has seen. (Better than a consultant, a new hire is a new eye that wants success for the company) Then ask for questions. Listen, listen, listen. Guide. Sniff for problems.  2 hours

--Meet with new hire at six week mark. Before this meeting, talk with colleagues and and direct reports of new hire. Be open that it is to enable you to give feedback to the new person. Ask for positive and negative. Share the feedback with the new hire. Listen, listen listen. Suggest good strategies for improvement. You are the coach and the standard setter in this meeting. 3 hours

--Meet with new hire at 3 months. By this time, your people will begin to respond to the new hire with either a vote of confidence or a hint of a real problem. You will pick this up in both formal and informal conversations. In this conversation you get real about any emerging issues and you may bring in HR to support success for this new hire--coaching, place to blow off steam from being new,explaining how culture works, etc. 2 hours

--Meet with new hire to do one of two things: l. Reinforce all the good things that the new person has accomplished and how they have done it. This is the giant applause moment. This is your moment to give a momento representing the company. This is the "seal the deal" moment. 2. Let the new hire know very specifically what is not working. Specifically. Ensure that a formal development plan is made. Let the person know that change is critical. No molly coddling here. At the end of the conversation, bring in the HR person who will developthe plan and resources for support. 2 hours.

--Meet with new hire at one year anniversary. Have it be a congratulatory lunch or a tough meeting about how to best enable the person to move on. Involve your top HR person. 

Twelve hours total to ensure success and to protect the talent level of your top team.

LET'S JUST SETTLE THIS ONE THING

Women executives are good mothers. Period.

I say this because  a recent statement from a good neighbor that reminded me of the unfair misperception of C-level women executives and their mothering. I say it because this is what I experienced and my writing is not theoretical. I write what I see and saw.

1. A neighbor woman who worked at home all her life, said to me yesterday, "I have been surprised to see how much you enjoy babysitting for you granddaughter! And so impressed how close you are with your adult kids. Mine hardly call and yours are in and out of your house and your kids who live away manage to make it home so often. Life is not always fair."  

There is so much in that one statement that could be explored. "How shocking that you are so normal Joyce.  And how lucky that your kids love you given the neglect they lived with! My kids were my job. I haven't received the return on my investment and you got return without investment!!

2.  I was lucky enough to be part of the professional development of many top level executive women, four of whom are CEO's now of well known companies.
Here's what I saw:

--Sometimes work was neglected and sometimes kids were neglected. Smart women made excruciating choices in a smart way and no choice was damaging long term

--One executive worked at home til late hours and got up early before kids had to get to school (I mean early) so that she could take time in the afternoon for 
important kid activities

--I remember one exec-mama (what my kids called me when I tried command and control mothering) who got dressed for work, put on a rain coat, and fed her two kids to avoid the apple sauce smear.

--The women execu-mamas I knew were ferocious about their kids and about their work and learned to live with the feeling of unresolved choice (which if kind of like a continuous stomach ache)

--Some put their families first by having decided to have the dad combine work and home duty creatively.  Family came first. Bucking the usual norms (then) worked. And bucking the norms isn't such a bad CEO quality!

I can see I have more to day about this.
The point I am making is:

Women top executives and CEO's are good moms.

7 HABITS OF LAZY LEADERS

1. They wait for problems to come to them. They have no method formal or informal to tease out problems before they become too hot to handle. 
2. They don't make decisions. They wait for a decision to happen to them by consequences that are no longer doubtful 
3. They wait way too long to promote the right people and to fire the wrong people 
4. They resist troublesome travel to touch their businesses in a meaningful way 
5. They let outside consultants do jobs they don't have the gumption to do 
6. They cut all kinds of corners for their personal convenience 
7. They think their role is more important than their work

I'm wondering about 'fun at work' which implies having fun while you work. Good. Nothing wrong with that. Then there is 'work itself as fun' which is great.
I had both for most of my working life.

Was it the era?  Was it the team?  Was it the industry? Was it the leadership I worked with?  I grew up professionally in food retailing. It's a tough industry with a tiny profit margin and it takes hardy people to work in it because the work is strenuous physically with long active days. 

All I know is we laughed a lot at work and not just during good times. There was an optimism that the job could be done--the store would be open on time, the goals would be met, the challenge would make us stronger, failure was irritating but not lethal. Everything could be laughed at. 

Am I nuts? Was there really a Camelot? What's different now? I think there are many things at play now. Exhaustion is one of the things at play that we refuse to see. (Read Arianna Huffington's book on sleep.) People live in the continuous state of the last moments in a race right before the finish line. Another factor and fun killer is the fatigue of size and the push to squeeze out growth where there is no real market. And we both obsess about and forget that we live in a global state of fear and anxiety because of random acts of terror, nature. Optimism takes work and determination and is not so innocently come by.

Dire? A little. But as a CEO or top leader you can create an atmosphere that is light, energetic and hopeful, even during the tougher moments.  Try fair, realistic, nice, light-hearted and connected. You'll grow an optimistic, energetic work force.

CATHERINE THE GREAT REALLY WAS JUST THAT--GREAT

I've been reading Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie. It's a biography of Catherine the Great of Russia.

There have been some 'great' women leaders in past history that would be just as great today. It would be a great (word of the day I guess) book for women leaders to read and weigh against their style and principles. Certainly, the learning applies to men as well.

What Catherine did:

** She wanted to lead from the time she set eyes on Empress Elizabeth who greeted her in full magnificence. Catherine said, "Yes, I want to do that." She learned by sixteen she was more competent to lead than others and wanted the top role.

**She knew how to win people to her side. She learned this when she was powerless and persecuted and became adept at garnering a following of loyal people.

**She waited. She knew what she wanted, and it took her years of ups and downs and growing into her own confidence to become Empress.

**The moment came and with help from those loyal followers she seized a moment and the throne. Seized. Took the throne. Knew when the time was right. Knew that she was right. Knew she would be killed or isolated unless she acted.

**She was generous and rewarded people grandly and publicly for achieving important results. And she rewarded possible enemies and gave them the limelight which won many over to her side.

**She understood the international chessboard and always aligned with the side that got gains for Russia. She knew when to talk directly and when to talk through others. And she knew how to snub as needed.

**She benchmarked Russia against Paris and Berlin and London. She invited learned people to come and talk with her--Voltaire was her idol. She hired from other countries, and when she needed a Navy expert, she hired John Paul Jones.

**She understood ceremony and used it well. She knew what moment needed a symbolic event and created one.

**She took care of herself. She had a cadre of people (and favorites) where she demanded informality--explicitly.  She would put a royal ban of silence on complaints and politics and gossip for social evenings of dance and cards and laughter. She prized people who made her laugh.

**She worked hard. She was hands-on and read all diplomatic pouch contents daily.  

**She stood by the principles of The Enlightenment and tried out many naive projects of self-government and pragmatically decided her Russia was not ready and needed a strict royal matriarchy.  

So looking to evaluate your CEO?  Here are the traits of Catherine the Great as told by Massie---"she had genius, natural abilities, an excellent memory, artifice without craft, the art of conquering every heart; much generosity, graciousness, and justice in rewards; and a consummate knowledge of mankind." How's that for a benchmark?

DON'T MAKE INNOVATION AN END IN ITSELF

The interest in creativity and innovation in business ebbs and flows.
There seems to be an up tick  again, maybe due to a new generation of top leaders who are themselves, are not so constrained, nor so role bound.

Anyway it's been on my mind for awhile. Good ol' Tom Peters. Read him again.
I am thinking of the 'loose-tight' dynamic he describes in PASSION FOR EXCELLENCE. Some companies get goony trying to be loose and self-consciously creative. Some have Innovation Officers. Some strive for a culture of creativity.
I think it may be putting the cart before the horse. There certainly are techniques for loosening up thought. In fact I teach those. Synectics is one of the best.

Still here is my recipe for innovation:

Make the WHAT of your business and strategy tight and clear and understood.
Let the HOW happen on its own.  Do not measure and monitor HOW. Measure the WHAT.  

Have a permeable company.  Make it easy for everyone to talk to anyone about anything.  Conversations are the breeding ground for new ideas.  Not meetings. Conversations. So both set them up and let them happen.

A rock and a hard place is what pops out innovation. And sometimes you just have to stay with the dilemma and wrestle it down.  Innovation makes your brain sweat.  It is not easy.  In fact it is the irritation of the insolvable that finally breaks down old answers into something new. 

When people talk culture of creativity, they always mention allowing mistakes.
Well. Sure. Some. I think the approach is to let the mistakes have the consequences that are natural. No extra punishment. PS--innovators and entrepreneurs do not love the risk. They love having their idea come to fruition.
They are willing to take the risk but only to the degree it is necessary. There is no throwing caution to the wind.

Encourage your employees to range broadly in their development experiences.  Don't tie it too closely to their role or there present ability.

Say 'yes' as often as you can. Let the world or the consequences say 'no'.
Create a 'yes' based culture to keep idea generation in the DNA of your company.

Last--Control you own control impulse.





Enough for today!

WAITING TO BECOME CEO

I have been thinking about the many CEO's that I know or who I helped in their development to become CEO and-----


-----all of them had to become good at waiting without becoming passive.
Some couldn't wait and actively looked for outside opportunities and most found they still had to wait. 

It takes time to groom and grow someone to become a CEO.  And it takes time for the career kaleidoscope to turn so that the opportunity comes at the right moment for the organization and for the person.  For every CEO chosen, there are one or two who are not.

I don't know any CEO who did not think they could do the job NOW. Not one.
In my experience, many got what they were waiting for.  Sometimes it was by default. She or he was the last person standing after others had left impatiently.
Sometimes it involved living through a company transition that put highest level
decisions on hold. Sometimes it took time because the Board needed to be persuaded that the best candidate was chosen. Sometimes the  CEO in place just couldn't pull the trigger that meant his or her career was over. 

So, it takes ego management, disciplined gracefulness, and incredible patience for CEO candidates to not lose their place during the time they have to wait to be chosen.  Candidates cannot be too eager or vocally impatient. They can not become timid in their work (which often does happen) and lose their strong achievement record in the process.  They cannot become bitter or sarcastic about the organization because it's plain bad form. Transitions from one CEO to another is a delicate time in an organization's life.  CEO candidates have to learn that waiting is part of the process to become the CEO.  In or out of their organization, CEO choice takes time.