Month: January 2012

“Many managers make poor staffing decisions. By all accounts their batting average is no better than .333. At most, one-third of such decisions turn out right; one-third minimally effective; and one-third outright failures. In no other area of management would we put up with such miserable performance.” – Peter Drucker, management icon.

I recently gave a presentation to a group of business and community leaders on how to select talent to grow their organization. Given the expense associated with recruiting top performers and the high cost of making poor choices, you would think that those responsible for hiring would follow a systematic process that results in high quality hiring.

Yet, I am continually amazed, when reviewing staffing practices, how frequently I find in companies the lack of workforce planning, inconsistent procedures, ineffective interviewing, indecision or a quick decision based on gut feel rather than good data, etc.

Here are seven best practices for selecting top talent.

1. Don’t shoot from the hip.
   Have a well-thought-out recruitment and selection process in place. Prepare in advance for interviews. Take hiring seriously.
2. Identify the interview team.
   Make sure you have the right people to evaluate applicants’ qualifications and also they’ve been trained on interviewing techniques. Not all supervisors are great interviewers.
3. Develop a role expectation or job description.
   It’s important to have everyone on the same page about what is required. If one person thinks a certain personality type is needed while another thinks differently, then there will be problems deciding whom is the best applicant.
4. Ask open-ended questions based on the position requirements.
   It’s usually not very helpful to ask candidates “Can you do x?” Most likely they’ll say yes because they think they can. Remember, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Instead, ask something like, “Tell me how you handled dealing with x?” See Behavioral Interviewing: Hire the Right Person for the Job.
5. Decide who will ask the candidate what questions.
   It’s usually best to divide the questions based on interviewer’s area of expertise. For example, let finance people ask the finance questions.
6. Take notes and be consistent.
   I guarantee that you will either forget what the first interviewee said or mix his/her responses with subsequent interviewees if you don’t take notes. Ask each applicant the same questions so that you can compare answers and more accurately compare them. This may save you discrimination headaches.
7. Prepare a scorecard.
   Develop a rating system to analyze and compare each applicant. Decide on the criteria you will use to rate each applicant. Also decide on how you will decide – majority vote, consensus or the manager will have final say.

Management Success Tip:

The purpose of any hiring process is to discriminate (albeit fairly) among applicants. You must be able to differentiate those who will perform well from those who will not. Your goal is to select the right people, with the right skills, for the right jobs and at the right time. You can probably teach a turkey to climb a tree—but it is easier to hire a squirrel. Also see The Top Five Hiring Mistakes.

Readers, have you ever hired turkeys rather than squirrels? If so, let me know about it. What were your lessons learned?

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• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

I saw this question as a search question for training and while I don’t know the reason behind the question, it seemed logical to try to answer it. This may not be the answer people want to hear, but it is an alternative.

I’ve actually addressed the question of icebreakers before. I don’t like them personally (but my excuse is that I’m an introvert), but when they are necessary–especially for some trainers and some trainees–I use them. Those who like icebreakers would probably say “most.”

• Introverts who derive their energy from internal sources rarely gain from icebreakers; they don’t need other people for strength and energy. If you don’t involve them in another way, they tend to be wallflowers on the company dime.
• Icebreakers take up valuable time. A good trainer can grab an audience, swing ’em around a few times, and train ’em before the icebreaker is done. Okay, a little skepticism and exaggeration. But, nevertheless, icebreakers do take time that could be spent training.
• A trainer who is well-prepared knows his or her audience to the point of jumping in and making the party fun, and if the training is well-planned the trainees are well-acquainted and appropriately ranked in equal groups, there is no need for an icebreaker to introduce them to one another.
• Icebreakers can make training fun; so can a good trainer with personality.
• Let’s see…what else do we use icebreakers for? Introduce the topic. Really. We need an icebreaker for that. An informed and well-led workforce is prepared.
• Without icebreakers what have we? Activities, games and, oh, rewards for when the adult/children get it right. To some adults, this is downright insulting. We all like candy–those of us who are not diabetic (but a good reward trainer thought of that already). How does this help us focus on training, learning to do our jobs better? No one gives us candy there. We could put a jar on our desk, but that’ll just make everyone like us or just come to our office for a snack.
• Icebreakers are used to break ice in the ocean so ships don’t get ripped apart. Thinking of it that way, we use icebreakers to break the ice in a classroom. Really? They are the same?

I see icebreakers as a trick and a cheap trick at that. Disagree with me if you want. I want trainees willing to learn, who come in a professional manner prepared for that next job. Realistic? Probably not in a lot of cases. You know what’s coming next. Because someone came in and convinced leadership that icebreakers would ready the class for learning and activities would give them hands-on training. Make sure they do what you promise. I have no problems with doing what works, but make sure it does, and it sticks. Someone who leaves and says, “That was fun,” probably means it. “Did you learn anything?” “I”ll never tell.” Clues, people.

When does the real training work get done? We should be planning a way other than treating our trainees as school children to treat them as adults. If that means training leadership to hire grown-ups to do the work, so be it. We are setting ourselves on a path of professional mediocrity. We let anyone train who says they can train (especially the business skills), anyone who has a gimmick or set of tools to entertain an audience. We don’t tell them to grab a training group and steer them to the direction the company wants to go anyway. Here’s my solution: Use your club! If they don’t want to learn, don’t make them. They can leave the class and deal with their bosses directly on the issue of training. Maybe that’s the real learning solution for them after all.

There I am. Took my club and knocked those no-gooders right out of the cave. It’s one answer. Maybe we should re-evaluate how we handle our classes of adults. We call it “adult learning” and yet it has all the makings of Kindergarten.

Not done yet today. I feel the need to use that club on bloggers who feel the need to tell us the worst degrees to have in this economy. We could re-structure schools at the same time, making sure those jobs promised will go to the graduates with those degrees. I could be wrong, but this seems like wrong thinking to me. Well, that’s it for now. Check out the The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development. Pssst. The Cave Man I’m talking about used real fires to warm up the cave. Happy Training.

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