Employee Retention – Good or Bad?

photo by antkriz

Dueling philosophies on hiring and employee retention at the latest Web2.0 conference (via WSJ Blog).

Mark Zuckerberg touted the Facebook culture of hiring entrepreneurially inclined  people who burn brilliantly and then fade away (presumably of their own volition).  Tony Hsieh of Zappos provided the counter philosophy of finding the folks who fit the culture and aspire to stick with the company for 10 years or more.

Who is right?

Both.  The key that makes both of them right is that everyone is aware of the culture.  Each CEO knows exactly what they’re looking for and how to identify it.  Success is achieved by aligning the culture/working philosophy and getting everyone pulling in the same direction.

Corporate success comes from recognizing what you want to achieve and defining the culture accordingly.

Facebook is about changing our relationship with each other and the Internet.  Thus, they need people who can conceptualize a radically different world and execute to get everyone there.

Meanwhile, Zappos is about customer service.  So it makes sense that Zappos creates a very cultivative company.  How employees are treated is how they’ll in turn treat customers.

There aren’t necessarily good or bad cultures.  But there are good or bad cultures for you.

The ability to explicitly describe what each company is looking for enables people to opt-in or out of the application process.  And that same explicitness enables everyone hiring at the company to hold all applicants up to the same light and identify the ones who will be successful by honoring the company’s philosophy.

Unfortunately, most companies can’t state their cultural philosophy as passionately or clearly as Zuckerberg and Hsieh.  And, it’s not much of a surprise there aren’t many companies doing as well as these two either.

Sales People Are People Too

photo by AMagill

Neil Davidson at Red Gate Software had a great post the other day on their new approach to compensating salespeople.  In sum, they’ve stopped assuming salespeople are only motivated by money and have begun compensating them like everyone else.

Not only has this cut down on the time it takes to manage the process, but it has eliminated unintended, but perverse, incentives and helped to align their sales team with the rest of organization.

As Neil’s post mentions, fear is not a good motivator.  And as I noted a few weeks ago, neither are extrinsic rewards.

Sales people aren’t all that different from everyone else in your organization in that they have values which motivate them and they have professional goals they want to achieve.

In many cases, the exorbitant rewards that come with the ‘eat what you kill’ mentality are a stand-in for something else.  Recognition.  Though they work outside of the company’s walls more than others they want to be a part of a team and be recognized for doing a great job.

With apologies to Adam Smith, that is human nature.

We’ve boiled recognition down to money because it’s the easiest thing to do.  Rarely is it not valued.  But it’s typically not what is most valued.

When rewards (for anyone) come in the form of legal tender then you’re bound to lose them to a higher bidder when one inevitably comes along.  You wind up attracting mercenaries when you really want people who are dedicated, engaged and work well with others.

So let’s stop taking shortcuts to motivate our employees.  Money is nice, but most people just want to know that they are being fairly compensated and that when they do a good job that they will be recognized in a way that is meaningful to them.

It’s a lot cheaper and a lot more effective to try to identify people’s goals and then align the rewards to help meet them.

While I don’t know if Red Gate’s approach will work, I’d like to believe it will.   It just feels right.  I would love to read a follow up post on how this works out in another several months once the existing sales pipeline has been turned over.

What are you thoughts?  Will it work?

Rethinking Diversity

photo by laffy4k

After reading another comment by a seasoned HR professional on a LinkedIn group that blindly valued ‘diversity,’ I felt the need to explore the topic.

Too often our discussions on diversity in the workplace are rooted in the obvious.  Our analysis is literally skin deep and from there we draw conclusions that because one is [select a color] and/or [select a gender] they must have different life experiences and think about things differently.  Our teams would, therefore, be better if they were a part of them.

Stereotyping isn’t the best way to improve team performance.

While I’m a big believer in bringing together people with different expertise, I also believe you need to have a foundation upon which everyone implicitly agrees to build.  People must have enough in common so that they’re willing to explore their differences.

Being able to productively dissent requires one to a) listen, b) be able to communicate in a way that gets considered and c) have the trust of the majority that you’re still working toward the greater goal.

It’s imperative then that we assemble people who have similar values and who communicate in a similar fashion.

What to accomplish and how to accomplish it are grounded in values.  If we don’t share similar values then we’ll fail to agree on these fundamental starting point for any team.  Likewise, you and I aren’t suddenly going to have a “you got chocolate in my peanut butter” moment if what you’re saying has no chance of getting heard because of the way it’s being said.

Evolving an idea requires both sides to be willing to move off their original position (this is different than compromising).  You have to be willing to consider that you’re not 100% right.  But if you don’t trust the person with the alternative approach then you’re likelihood to move from your position is slim.  Sharing some common values makes it easier for us to trust one another because we can relate to what motivates the thinking.  We disassociate ourselves from the conversation and begin implicitly agreeing that the ‘best answer’ revolves around satisfying the values we share.

America’s current health care debate is an unfortunate illustration of this.  For the most part, both sides are a bunch of entitled white guys.  About as homogeneous a group as you’ll ever find.  Surely, they’d be highly susceptible to group think, right?  Instead they’re guilty of not thinking.  There is no willingness to move the ball down the field because their value systems are so incredibly divergent and the way they talk past each other fails to find the ears of those on the ‘opposing’ side.

I’m not advocating that we hire and assemble homogeneous teams by any means.  But I am pushing for us to consider each person individually in terms of how they think and how they communicate to establish whether they have enough in common with our existing team to make a difference.

We have a long way to go to establish equality in the workplace, but valuing diversity simply by trying to assemble the 64-pack of Crayolas isn’t going to do anyone any favors.

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This is a can of worms.  Please feel free to disagree in the comments, but do so respectfully (that’s one of my values).

Provide Context, Not Control

photo by pattyequalsawesome

Sometimes you run across derivatives of the same idea from multiple sources and it gets you to stop and listen.

Two recent examples have come from Netflix and Miles Davis.

Ultimately, it’s about how best to maintain a leadership position by enabling those around you to explore new boundaries.  Leading and corralling rather than managing.

Netflix has posted a rather lengthy, but worthwhile slide show about their culture and how they work.  They put it best by asking their managers to provide ‘context, not control’ (slides 76 – 84).  In essence, describe where you want to go, not how you want to get there.

And The Miles Davis Story (as relayed by a friend) explored Miles’ proclivity to assemble talented musicians, set the mood for the evening and then walk around the stage as they do their thing.  His job was to capture each individual’s wandering explorations and create something cohesive out of it.  Sometimes it worked brilliantly.  Often it didn’t.  But his purpose was to create something that hadn’t been felt before.  To do that you have to be willing to try things that don’t pan out.

It takes a unique type of person to be able to lead in this manner.

• You must be able to inspire.  Start by focusing on the destination and challenge people to find creative ways to get there.  Ask questions rather than provide answers (except for additional context).
• You have to be able to communicate.  You can’t over-communicate.  Make sure everyone knows where you’re going and what’s on the landscape ahead.  Everything is need to know.  Everything.  Find your preferred method, but most importantly…
• …You must be consistent.  While you may start getting self-conscious about saying the same thing twenty times – it will sink in.  Also recognize that one action counter to what you say completely undermines the foundation you’re trying to build.
• You have to be confident enough in your abilities to be able to let go.  More cattle herder less prison guard.  Your job is to recognize good ideas not to necessarily to create them.   Trust in yourself to be able to find the pearls of wisdom in disparate ideas.

It’s no wonder that people who are at the top of their game are attracted by this environment.  If you’re looking to set the direction for your industry then it’s a leadership style worth considering.

Deposit: Emotional Capital

photo by mrpattersonsir

Work is draining.  For many, rare are the days when we leave the office feeling energized.

• It drains us to work with people who communicate differently
• It drains us to combat the petty political games
• It drains us to try and adopt the company’s and our manager’s values in order to ‘get ahead’
• It drains us to figure out what is meant rather than what is said
• It drains us to just be told what to do
• It drains us to continually give ourselves pep talks in order to get our heads back in the game
• It drains us to repeatedly convince ourselves that what we’re working on is really important

As a manager you have to recognize that people are going through this.  Chances are you are too.  But change has to start somewhere.

Sure, technically your job is to make sure the ball is being advanced down the field.  But if your team is too exhausted (or detached) to run the plays how far is the ball going to move?

Your real job is to make deposits into the emotional bank so that when the inevitable time comes when the team needs to hunker down and everything has gone sideways that people are present, engaged and have the persistence to get through the rough patches.

From the employees perspective, they have gone out of their way to make the relationship work.  They started in their role excited and ready to roll up their sleeves and make a real difference.  But every slight along the way has made a withdrawal on their emotional involvement with you, the team and with the company.

• Seemingly innocuous statements may have reinforced how little you know them.
• Decisions may have been made that seemingly flew in the face of the stated company values.  That inconsistency gets noticed.
• Ideas may have been squashed prematurely.
• A teammate may have been rewarded ‘unfairly’

It all adds up and you may be responsible for making many of those emotional withdrawals.  If you expect them to dig in then you need to exert the energy to refill that account.

Focus on your people.  Feed them the projects that keep them energized.  Recognize they’re all different and build those relationships accordingly.  People do want to be treated differently.  They’re not all the same and not universally motivated by the same things.

Start today.  Hold one on ones that don’t focus on tasks but rather the individual.  The work will still get done.