Don’t Believe Everything You Think

In turbulent times like these, it’s critical to hire people who have a growth mindset.   But growth is not always so easy.  Before we can learn something new, we must often “unlearn” what we think we know.   That makes unlearning a business imperative. 

To adapt to rapid change, we must learn how to view things from new perspectives, and find ways to regularly challenge our out-dated assumptions.  

“The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” Alvin Toffler

In a brilliant paper on unlearning, professor William Starbuck notes that senior managers, technical experts and organizations are all very resistant to evidence that contradicts their beliefs. 

“Top managers’ perceptual errors and self-deceptions are especially potent because senior managers can block actions proposed by their subordinates. Yet, senior managers are also especially prone to perceive events erroneously and to overlook bad news. Although their high statuses often persuade them that they have more expertise than other people, their expertise tends to be out-of-date. They have strong vested interests, and they know they will catch the blame if current policies and actions prove wrong.”

Counteracting the accumulated weight of senior managers, experts and organizational inertia is no easy task, but because the essential requirement for unlearning is doubt, any stimulus that creates doubt can be helpful.  In your own thinking, you may find that adopting these 8 mental practices will be particularly helpful:

• “It isn’t good enough.”  Dissatisfaction is the most common reason to doubt current methods, but often it is the slowest to bring change.
• “It’s only an experiment.”   When people see themselves as experimenting, they find it easier to test their assumptions, and listen to feedback – they have less interest in trying to look successful, after all not all experiments are supposed to turn out perfectly.
• “Surprises should be question marks.”  Both disruptions and pleasant surprises can reveal weakness in current thinking and stimulate improvements … but only if you use the opportunity.
• “Assume all dissents and warnings have some validity.”  Organizational hierarchy sends good news up the chain of command, but often blocks bad news from rising.   The paper outlines 4 sensible ways to address warnings.
• “Collaborators who disagree are both right.”  Rather than declaring one viewpoint right, and the other wrong, reconciling apparent contradictions between conflicting viewpoints often reveals that they are not contradictions at all, leading to new insights.
• “What does a stranger think?”  New people view problems from a different perspective than insiders.  Don’t just assume they are naive.
• “Work backwards.”  Cause and affect may not be so simple.  If you think A affects B, train yourself to look for evidence where B provides feedback that affects A. 
• “The converse of every proposition is equally valid.”    If you want to break free of your assumptions, try reversing your arguments.  For example: Do superiors impose authority?  Or do subordinates grant it?

Admittedly, I am ”often wrong, but never in doubt.”   But that said, I can attest to the profound impact of incorporating just a few of these practices into how we run Staffing Advisors.  

Can you imagine what would happen if  your organization adopted all of them?

The Hidden Problem of Genial Generalists

Well rounded employees, we all like working with them.  They are the cheerful, upbeat, utility player – the kind of person you can put anywhere and they do well.  Often described as team players, self starters, and good all around generalists.  Small companies particularly love them.   Entrepreneurs like having people around who can “turn on a dime” and are not flustered when the company turns in a new direction. Utility players do not have job descriptions, but are more commonly doing a  hodge podge of unrelated tasks – making these people very hard to hold accountable – which is, of course, the hidden problem with hiring genial generalists.  Utility players are not very demanding to manage, but it’s hard to get spectacular results from them.

If you want to keep your small company small, hire lots of good generalists.  Give them a diverse blend of responsibilities.  Have them fill in the gaps when you launch new initiatives.  Have them cover for vacant positions, or help out underperforming workers.   Rely on their good nature to “roll with the punches” if you have not fully thought through a change initiative.   You’ll enjoy their cheerful demeanor when you move the goal posts. 

Just don’t plan to grow.

If you want to grow, to meet your business goals, then hire some people you can hold accountable.  Instead of hiring only genial generalists, hire some hard-driving, achievement oriented people - people who are really good at setting and achieving goals.   (Yes, there are plenty of results-oriented people who can still play well with others). 

When you hire top performers, you may not have as much fun when you change direction, you will get more “push back” when you muddle their responsibilities, and you will definitely have some explaining to do when you move the goal posts.   

But you will be much more likely to reach your goals.

We’re Going to Double Next Year … No, You’re Not

I love, love love working with entrepreneurs.  I love their indomitable spirit, the reckless relentless optimism.   I choose to spend my time with visionaries, not skeptics – firmly believing that the person who says “It can’t be done” is often interrupted by someone doing it.   And I think you should never doubt your ability to change the world.

That said, when an executive who has not grown their business in any of the past few years tells me they expect to double their business next year, I am skeptical.   One magical hire will not make this happen for anybody.  Venture capitalist Tony Tijan calls this simplistic thinking the “Fallacy of Financial Metrics” in a recent post on the Harvard Business blog.  Tony makes several excellent points including:

“In both entrepreneurial and larger companies, we too often spend time focusing on the desired financial performance target, rather than the inputs that drive those numbers. Because boards, investors and management demand an objective way to measure performance, we often go right to the result without focusing on what caused those results.

Financial performance is a result, a by-product, a consequence of something else. The financial “numbers” ultimately represent the scorecard we care about, but they do not help us understand how to score.”

Executives often tell me they want someone with “fire in the belly” or a “burning desire to win” – they want someone who can “run through walls”, someone who does “not need a handbook” to figure it out.  And once hired, the CEO often tells me they plan to ”set them loose” on these thorny, still unresolved problems.  Except here is the problem.  While the problem is probably old, the new hire is going to be, well, new to the organization.  So the new hire needs to learn how the problem came to exist, and understand all the contributing factors.  And the new hire will not, despite assurances to the contrary, have carte blanche to change the company.  Therefore, the new hire is coming into a company that will constrain their actions in all kinds of subtle and not so subtle ways.   Einstein put it this way “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” More directly to the point – as my friend Jamie Notter puts it – “Culture eats strategy for lunch.”

Top performers know all this.  They are called top performers because they know how to find work environments that give them a chance to shine.  And they often find ways to shine in work environments where others fail – but they never stack the deck against themselves.  So if you want to recruit them, talk to them about your actual challenges, don’t feed them happy talk about financial metrics that may occur once their hard work is done.  (Read:  The Truth is Great Marketing).  If you want to assess their fit to your job, look for the competencies they have to solve your actual problems, their proven track record of relentlessly driving the actions that will get results, and stop looking for “fire in the belly” and other attributes that are nearly impossible to quantify.

And after you do these things?  Yeah…  THEN I believe you will double next year.

Small and Midsize Employers Lead Innovation, and the Recovery

The secret of great entrepreneurs is “Smarts Guts and Luck” according to a recent article by venture capitalist Tony Tjan.  As he puts it, his “central philosophy” is that “human capital trumps everything else . . .  it is all about the people, and we would take a B business plan with an A team over an A plan with a B team any day.”

In a recent survey by Intuit, 9 of 10 small business owners see opportunities for their business despite the recession.   In the “Future of Small Business Report” the authors note that “With no large corporate fortress separating them from the marketplace . . . small businesses rely on an almost instinctive muscle memory approach toward innovation to survive and thrive.”  As business guru Peter Drucker puts it:

“Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service.” 

The Boston Globe ran an article entitled “Innovation may fuel economic recovery.”   They quoted George Colony, the CEO of Forrester Research as saying “It’s obvious that the new economy – whatever we’re going to emerge into – is going to be built by the innovation that will emerge during this recession.” 

In a recent survey, the Boston Consulting Group ranked the US second among large large countries for manufacturing innovation (and 8th overall). 

Unfortunately I find that most small businesses are chronically underserved when it comes to recruiting people who can drive innovation and results.   For this reason, I’ve written extensively on the need for search firms to innovate.   In a post on “The Outlook for Recruiting” on  ERE, Raghave Singh reached a similar conclusion.

 ”…much of the growth in jobs is expected to occur in small and medium-size businesses that have no need or cannot support full-time recruiters. An increase in needs for sourcing, as opposed to full-service recruiting, will occur as employers seek to minimize costs.”

While I agree with many of Mr. Singh’s points, I disagree that growing enterprises will have to settle for less than “full service” recruiting.  I’m convinced that search firms will either learn how to meet client needs at a price they can afford, or they will cease to exist.   

One thing is certain about innovation -  after the recovery, the world will look different.   So what are you doing right now to make it different?

Recessions Spur Innovation

Adversity often brings out the best in people.  Our current recession holds the potential for sparking both innovation and collective action for social change.  Many people do not realize that the Great Depression sparked enormous management innovation (see  ”Recession: The Mother of Invention?”). 

Many successful organizations started during an economic slump. Why?   Market upheavals provide rich opportunities for innovation.   Wary buyers begin looking for more cost-effective ways to meet their needs so new business models gain traction in the market.  (For that very reason, I’ve argued that search firms must innovate their way out of this recession).

Some people say a lack of venture capital money is really not a constraint to innovation.  Tim O’Reilly in an article in Forbes, sees it this way “many of the great waves of creative destruction . . . didn’t even start with the profit motive.  Rather they started with interesting problems and people who wanted to solve them . . . because exploring new ideas was fun.”   He suggests that venture capital follows innovation, not the other way around.  “The people inventing the future are doing so just because it’s fun.”

In this economy, fear of change might be the biggest danger facing your business.  So, here’s the question: are you innovating?   Are your employees showing resilience and really swinging for the fences, or just playing it safe?

Greatness is Never a Given. It Must be Earned

Nearly 2 million people gathered to witness President Obama take the oath of office a few hours ago.    I have long thought that Barack Obama brilliantly articulates the values we share as a nation, and, like Lincoln, calls upon ”the better angels of our nature.”   His inaugural address was no exception.

 ”In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given.  It must be earned.”

“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spririt, so defining of our character, than giving all to a difficult task.  This is the price and the promise of citizenship.” 

I have long admired and felt privileged to serve so many of our clients who are “giving all to a difficult task.”   It’s a great joy to work with entrepreneurs pursing a vision for a better world, NGO‘s who race into war-torn regions despite enormous personal risk, feisty organizations who toil at the forefront of clean energy, education, health and safety, and protecting the environment.   As the President said today “…everywhere we look, there is work to be done.”  Amen to that.  Let’s get started.

Where the Jobs Are…NOT

“Green collar” jobs, infrastructure investments, financial bailouts…just exactly where will the new jobs come from?  In the Washington region – where the federal government accounts for almost a third of our total economy - we benefit when when Treasury struggles to fill jobs to support the $700B rescue package,  we benefit when the  FDIC hires 1400 new bank examiners,  and when the State Department adds 1,500 positions, and when the FBI starts its Hiring Blitz.  This is why Dr. Fuller reported at the GMU Economic Conference that our local economy still has a “worker shortage” and is still ”importing” people from other areas to fill our jobs.  I’ve been calling it The Great Talent Migration, and it appears it will only increase in 2009 as massive government spending offsets job declines in other areas like construction.  in 2009, DC is projected to gain high paying jobs, not lose them.

Our search practice is thriving.  Maybe it’s because we get better results for far less money than traditional firms, but mostly it’s because hiring is still a challenge for most organizations.  Across the region we have small firms who are expanding, association clients filling key roles in education, certification, and member services.   We’re filling jobs in marketing, nonprofit development, finance and accounting, IT, and HR.   And more and more of our best candidates are coming from outside the region.

So is the “green revolution” overblown?  Well, it depends what you call a green job.   According to a recent analysis done for the DC Office of Planning, the so called “green collar” jobs are often just the same construction workers who were being laid off  in the downturn.  But I think their survey placed too much emphasis on just the green building movement, and not other green jobs. Commenting on the study findings, GMU economist Stephen Fuller observed that the green jobs thing is “substantially oversold.”