It seems a long time ago now.
I was playing the classic ‘victim’ — something
had happened that I didn’t think was my fault and I said so.
And then this wise person said something I’ve remembered ever
since:
“When you point the finger of blame at someone, there
are one, two, three fingers pointing right back at you.”
(To understand that graphically, just go ahead and point at someone
close to you right now. Then
count the bent fingers of your hand that point right back to you.)
What is the point (no pun intended)?
Simply this, talk with many business owners right now and they’ll
say, “you simply can’t get great people these days can you?”
Notice the implied “it’s not my fault” in there.
Far better to say, “I can’t get great people these days.”
When you say it that way, you see where the problem is.
It’s not the lack of great people — it’s the lack of the
business being totally attractive to great people.
Or to put it another (and rather obvious) way, someone is getting
those great people, it’s just not me.
Are
you attractive?
The moment you do that, you see where the
responsibility for the issue lies. Most
people don’t make themselves attractive to great people.
Perhaps the classic question to ask is this, “Would I work for
me?”
But not only don’t we make ourselves attractive, we
inadvertently tell people we think we are unattractive by the ads we run.
Take a look at them. They’re
all the same, relatively dull and boring and offering promises that
don’t ring true or build confidence.
The classic question here is this, “If I was a great person,
would I respond to this?” (And
of course, an even better option than ads is to ask the people on the team
who are already great to go out and find some great people — after all,
they probably had dinner with them last night.
Were they saying, “you should work at our place, it is truly an
amazing place to be.”)
But suppose you don’t go down that route (although
you should) then let’s get back to the ads you might run.
Great headlines make the difference.
For example, a headline that says “Wanted, people with passion,
people with heart” will get passionate people reading and then
responding (if the rest of the ad is consistent with the message).
The exciting thing about an ad that starts with a
dramatic headline like that is that you’re most likely, NOT, going to
get hoards of people responding but you are going to get the good ones who
want more than just a job. And
so your selection process gets easier.
The
right selection is critical.
So how should that selection process be run?
The simple answer is, by the team — totally! There are several
obvious reasons — not the least of which is that since the new hire(s)
will be working with the team, they should be the ones doing the choosing
(another reason is they’ll be far tougher than you ever will be!)
Now of course, you need to give the team guidance.
And a great way to do that is to systematize the questions.
Here are some we know work really well:
·
What goals have you set yourself (great people have no
difficulty answering this question precisely; lesser people will waffle on
it)
·
What was your best and worst experience at your last
job?
·
How do you define a successful career?
·
What type of person is the hardest for you to get along
with?
·
What major contribution do you think you’ll you bring
here?
·
What would your teachers say about you?
·
Tell me about the 3 latest books or articles you’ve
read.
Evaluation
is an important step too.
And then give the team a framework to evaluate the
candidate. Break the areas up
into things like:
·
Energy
·
Optimist
·
Disciplined
·
Street smarts
·
Appearance
·
Goal oriented
and so on.
Be
different – better - from day one.
So let’s assume you’ve done all that and that
you’ve selected someone. What
then? Well, some great people
we know send engagement letters to new hires that in essence say this:
Welcome.
We’re glad to invite you to join the team.
We have a “buddy” system in place as you know so on
Monday when you start, you’ll meet with Michelle Dalton in the lobby for
a two hour tour of the office, taking care to getting to know a little
better some of the people you’ll be working with.
Between now and then, it’s really important you go to
the local bookstore and get two books (they are books by which we live by
here). One is Stephen
Covey’s ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ and the other is
“The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber.
If you have difficulty getting the books, please let John Jones
here know about that and we’ll find a way of getting copies from our
library to you.
Then, on the Monday after you’ve taken time with the
team, I’d like to see you in my office for 45 minutes or so so that we
can get to know each other and so that you can give me your impressions of
the books. I’d really like
to know what you got most from them.
Again, congratulations for joining us.
It’s going to be great working with you.
Business Owner or General Manager
Pretty neat stuff isn’t it?
And you can see immediately how they get great people to start
being even better on day one, so that those great people then go get more
great people and so on.
And of course, a letter like that speaks volumes about
where the business is and what it values.
You know instantly that when you go into a business like that it IS
a different place.
Go
ahead and test this for yourself.
What you want to do is create an environment where
people want to work.
Then you’ll have no difficulty getting great people!
In fact, people will be writing to you and calling you saying,
“this looks like a great place to work, can I work with you?”
But to do that you have to do something different, something better
than everyone else - so get to it and test these strategies they really do
work.
