Great Hires: Avoid Costly Mistakes
Picking people for a job is like going to the store to buy apples. Before you go, you ought to know whether the apples are to be eaten fresh, make into applesauce, baked into a pie or made into juice. Then, you can make the appropriate choices. This is also true for hiring winners.
The goal of selection interviews, buying apples, is to make the most appropriate choices...to hire the right people for the job. The goal is to match applicants with openings. More specifically to match applicant's qualifications with the job requirements. The interview is a subjective tool that attempts to forecast a candidate's performance.
No selection tool can predict future performance with absolute certainty. But, if you understand the job requirements, examine the applicant's past performance and use good interviewing techniques, you're more likely to avoid bad hires. These are people who turn out to be a round pegs in square holes; people who you train and then leave; and people who just aren't motivated to give their best.
So how can you avoid such costly hiring mistakes?
According to Roger Staubach, "In business or in football, it takes a lot of unspectacular preparation to produce spectacular results." Therefore, the first step to successful hiring is preparation. If you really want to know if that person you're interviewing has the requisite qualifications, you'll have to do more than a 30-second scan of the resume and "shoot from the hip" questions. A thorough, accurate, and focused job description is essential for effective interviewing. You may think it's a bureaucratic nuisance but it can be a valuable tool in deciding who is the best person for the position.
A job description is an outline of the primary responsibilities of the job. It should list the major task in order of importance. You need to have as complete a knowledge of the job as possible, not only the present "must have's" but the future needs of the position as well. Then you need to determine the skills required to perform the job. Job skills include technical skills and performance skills. Both are equally important.
Technical skills are typically learned through education, training, or on-the-job experience. For example, typing, computer programming, machine operation, financial analysis, and graphic design are all technical skills. You might think of technical skills as what a person "can do".
Performance skills are how a person will do the particular job. These are more like work habits and personal characteristics and are transferred from job to job. Flexibility, assertiveness, paying attention to details, ability to cope under pressure are all examples of performance skills. They are as important as technical skills.
Research has shown that many "bad hires" are due not for technical reasons but because of motivation, energy, values, or interpersonal skills. If you do not explore these skills, you may get a highly qualified person who is not able to work in a particular atmosphere or group of people.
Example:
In a recent conversation with a manager, who had just finished formulating a job description for the head of a growing information systems department, I was told: "Initially, I thought I needed someone who had technical mastery. But when I defined the job in terms of its objective, what I realized was that I needed someone who could develop the department and determine what the rest of the company required of it. I needed a communicator and negotiator, not an inspired computer wizard".
Three basic questions:
Remember, in any selection interview you need to know:
Can this person do the job that they are interviewing for? That's the technical fit - the basic skills to do the job.
Does she have the traits and desire to effectively do the job? That's the motivation fit - the basic personal attributes to do the job.
Does she fit into the culture? You know what works and what does not within your company, and this is a very important barometer of success.
Get The Edge: Start Hiring Winners! Marcia Zidle, the 'people smarts' coach, works with business leaders to quickly solve their people management headaches so they can concentrate on their #1 job to grow and increase profits. She offers free help through Leadership Briefing, a weekly e-newsletter with practical tips on leadership style, employee motivation, recruitment and retention and relationship management. Subscribe by going to
http://leadershiphooks.com/ and get the bonus report "61 Leadership Time Savers and Life Savers". Marcia is the author of the What Really Works Handbooks resources for managers on the front line and the Power-by-the-Hour programs fast, convenient, real life, affordable courses for leadership and staff development. She is available for media interviews, conference presentations and panel discussions on the hottest issues affecting the workplace today. Contact Marcia at 800-971-7619.
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Dont Let Your Measurements Mislead You
Don't Let Your Measurements Mislead You
There aren't too many words that can strike as much fear and loathing into the hearts of your internal customers, and sometimes your own employees as the words "Operational Measurements". Operational Measurements often get a bad rap because of their misuse by well intended, but misinformed management. And it's easy for your employees to view Operational Measurements as some kind of cheap trick to force more work out of them as you constantly try and force more and more production from your team. Meanwhile, your sales team thinks that you will use Operational Measurements to cloud the issue of customer satisfaction by pointing to your "great numbers" while leaving the customer very unhappy.
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Yep, Operational Measurements are good. . . . except of course, when they are bad.
In simple terms, Operational Measurements are progress meters that can tell you how well, or how poorly your group is performing. The key to successful Operational Measurements is to make sure that you are managing and measuring your key processes. It all starts with your departmental or company objectives. You should have 2 to 3 major objectives, depending upon the size and scope of your organization. The key is to focus on whatever it is that you are really being asked to deliver on, and then set up your objectives, and Operational Measurements in a way that can tell you if you are succeeding or not. If your objective is production based (i.e. produce 50 widgets per month) then make sure that your measurements track the number of widgets produced. If your measurement is time based (i.e. complete widgets within 10 days of receipt) then once again, make sure that your measurement tracks to the objective. You would be surprised how easy it is to create measurements that sound important, but have nothing to do with your stated objectives. For example, if you goal is to paint 10 houses each month a metric that tracks how many brushes you use may sound important for cost control purposes, but it really has nothing to do with the objective. By focusing on the number of brushes you use, you may actually impede your ability to complete the goal of 10 houses. Ensuring that your objectives and measurements are in synch will keep you and your department focused on the prize.
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In a nutshell, that's why you need to have good, clean Operational Measurements in place.
Many of the things you can count, don't count.
Many of the things you can't count, really count. - Albert Einstein
Any time your organization receives some kind of a work order from a customer (internal or external) adds value to it, and then either completes it or passes it along to another organization, you qualify as an Operational Organization. As an Operational Organization you need to have solid measurements in place to measure, validate, and eventually improve your own internal processes.
But there is a downside to Operational Measurements as well. The downsides can take many forms, but the most common are when you start to measure everything that you do, simply because you can. Also, when your measurements rather than your customers, begin to drive how you do business.
Are you counting the right things? The right way? Are you counting so many things that counting them has turned into your primary business? Are you helping your customers, or hurting them?
That's the difference between good Operational Measurements, and bad ones.
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Remember, not everything that counts, can be counted. And just because you can count it, doesn't mean you should count it.
Let's use the example we previously discussed of a house painter. For our purposes here, this is a big house painting company with multiple crews who do different types of painting. At the start of the year the decision is made to set a new objective for your crew. You are now being asked to paint 13 houses per month with the same size crew, up from just 10 last year. You sit down with your crew and begin to look for ways to improve productivity. You make the necessary changes to your team or process and then set out to accomplish your new goal. Your changes are effective and productivity improves and you start reaching your new goal.
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You get a memo from your boss that goes something like this.
"The bean counters tell me that your paint brush usage is up 15% above last year. Every dollar counts, so I'm putting together a special task force to cut the number of paintbrushes being used. We need to reduce our paint brush usage to 10% below last years level within 30 days."
And . . . . we're off . . . . this is what I sometimes refer to as "The Operational Measurement Shuffle".
What is the Operational Measurements Shuffle? It's a dance that management sometimes does where we lose focus on our objectives and instead start dancing with a lot of extraneous information that may LOOK important, but really isn't. Sometimes it's not entirely clear when the Operational Measurements Shuffle actually begins. But if you pay attention, you'll see the dance by the end of the first chorus.
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"That's right. Our paintbrush usage is up. In order to meet our goals for the year (13 houses per month) we made a change from regular paintbrushes to disposable paintbrushes. The new brushes cost 30% less than the old ones, plus we save on turpentine, and clean up time at the end of each day. So our paintbrush usage is up, but our costs are flat or down."
With a good boss, that will end the discussion. You've answered the questions, explained the variance, and shown that there is just cause for the increase.
But a bad boss will not listen at all, or will just pretend to listen and then suggest new measurements on paintbrush usage. With a bad boss the fact that there is a valid reason for the increase in paintbrush usage is not really relevant. Paintbrush usage is up, and it must be reduced. For a bad boss, it's as simple as that.
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