Posts Tagged ‘hiring’

The Happy Bozo Theory.

August 10th, 2009

Having years of experience as technology headhunter, I know first hand top tier technologists have to be pretty unhappy before they will seriously consider/move to a new company/job.

For the most part, moderately unhappy software professionals may complain, but usually they’ll stay put in their current job; the devil you know is often perceived as better than the devil that you don’t.

I learned really early on happy people at best “window shop;” but they aren’t going anywhere until one or more events push them into the moderate to seriously unhappy stage before they will go somewhere else.

Interestingly, HR Executive Online has an online article summarizing research results contradict the theory satisfied employees result in happy customers; as captured in recent study results of two professors of Manchester Business School in the UK:

A Happy Ending?
By Lin Grensing-Pophal

Forget the conventional wisdom: Happy employees do not result in happy customers. So say Rosa Chun, a professor of business ethics and corporate social responsibility, and Gary Davies, a professor of corporate reputation, at Manchester Business School in the UK.

Their thesis, based on a study that found no correlation between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction, was outlined in a brief article published this spring by Harvard Business Review.

“Our own surveys of the customers and staffs of 49 business units of 13 service organizations in the UK, in fields ranging from financial services to retailing, failed to confirm that service businesses with more contented staff also have more satisfied customers,” they write.

“In fact, we found a positive correlation between the two at only one firm … . At two other firms, we found a negative correlation: We observed that factors that increased customer satisfaction decreased employee happiness.”

The authors acknowledge that “satisfying customers is crucial to a business … [and] satisfying employees is a worthwhile aim in itself for many reasons.” They note, however, that there is no hard data supporting a link between the two.

“Simply being served by a satisfied employee isn’t enough to win customers’ loyalty,” Chun and Davies write.

- More -

I actually had to take a few minutes to think about that; initially that conclusion seems counterintuitive.

I now think there is a crucial factor which the researchers may not have factored in – which is evaluating the caliber of employees the companies they studied both hired and tried to retain. As Guy Kawasaki previously blogged:

“Hire better than yourself. In the Macintosh Division, we had a saying, “A players hire A players; B players hire C players”–meaning that great people hire great people. On the other hand, mediocre people hire candidates who are not as good as they are, so they can feel superior to them. (If you start down this slippery slope, you’ll soon end up with Z players; this is called The Bozo Explosion. It is followed by The Layoff.) I have come to believe that we were wrong–A players hire A+ players, not merely A players. It takes self-confidence and self-awareness, but it’s the only way to build a great team.”

Or – Happy Bozos do not guarantee happy customers.

In fact, Happy Bozos usually guarantee your best customers will run far, far away.

I think successful businesses combine Guy’s theories on hiring:

Insist that managers hire better than themselves. For example, an engineering manager should hire a programmer who is a better programmer than she is, not worse. By the way, this principle starts at the level of the board of directors when hiring the CEO.

Eradicate arrogance. Arrogance manifests itself in two principal areas: first, when your employees describe the competition using terms like “clueless,” “bozo” (ironically), or just plain “stupid.” Second, when your employees start believing in “manifest destiny”–that is, that your company deserves, and will achieve, total market domination. Your competition probably isn’t stupid, and trees don’t grow to the sky.

Understaff. Hire fewer people than you’re “sure” you need to accommodate that hockey-stick growth you’re “sure” you’re going to achieve. When you’re in a rush to fill openings to respond to growth, you make mistakes. Unfortunately, many companies adopt the attitude of “Hire any intelligent body, or we’ll lose business–we’ll sort everything out later.”

Undergrow. This is the flip side of under-staffing. I am suggesting intentionally forgoing sales. Staying small and fine is a perfectly acceptable management policy. At the very least, calculate the entire impact on head count of getting that additional sale, new line of business, or acquisition.

Look beyond the resume. The goal of hiring is building a team of great employees. One proxy for a great employee is a relevant educational or work background. However, the perceived “right” educational background and work experience are not sufficient conditions for excellence. Hiring a bozo with the “right” resume can drag down other employees and increase the probability of hiring more bozos. Not hiring a great person because she lacks the “right” resume is not as harmful but is a mistake too.

Diversify. Some companies look like the corporate version of the Stepford Wives: people are too similar. For example, everyone has a PhD. Everyone grew up in a white, upper-middleclass family. Everyone went to an Ivy League school. It’s a bunch of Me and Mini-Mes. When this happens, it means that form is overruling function, and the way people succeed is by representing the right form, not excelling at the right function. That’s back asswards.

Merge and purge. You owe it to your employees to take corrective action, and, if necessary, terminate people as soon as issues come to light. You may be thinking, “Let’s wait and see; maybe he’ll improve; our numbers are still great, etc.,” but this is unfair to everyone involved. If there’s a problem, fix it. If you can’t fix it, then make it an “exployee”–thereby, establishing performance excellence as a corporate standard.

with Dr. Bobby Baker‘s theories on core customer centric common sense:

* Are you providing clear direction to your people?

* Are you fostering a sense of community for your people?

* Are you giving your people the license to succeed?

* Are your people aware of your brand, specifically with regard to your customers?

* Are your people fully engaged?

* Is there a sense of over-arching positivity in your work environment?

The real question is - do you?

Scapegoat Wanted, Part II

July 15th, 2009

Several weeks ago I blogged about some of the more… interesting… employment opportunities making the rounds within Seattle.

Not surprisingly, at least one of them is still open… or, should I say, RE-OPENED.

Two friends were contacted right around the time of my original post, but by two different agencies trying to staff that same job; one actually interviewed with the hiring manager for that role; their summary of that experience sparked my original post.

Today, another agency contacted my friend about that same job, which now has a few new requirements.

Enjoy:

A competing agency filled that contract senior project manager position on June 1st; their new employee hired for that role started June 29th.

Today the agency who filled that job called me today and asked me if I’d be willing to start a job, oh…tomorrow?

I asked what the positon was…they began to rattle off something all too familiar: Must be very proficiant with SharePoint, must know Excel and know how to use lookup formulas. They need someone immediately.

But – this time the project manager must be less of a leader and be more of a team player. And the contract was demoted to PM2 instead of PM3.

Hmm. After subtracting the federal holiday Friday, July 3 – that contract Senior PM survived either 11 or 12 days with that team. Based on the original job posting – I think they earned a gold medal for sticking it out that long.

I’m sure the next update will be equally entertaining, if not more so. The already late project is now three weeks further behind; it’s a safe bet that hiring manager and team are more pleasant and flexible than ever.

Stay tuned…. :)

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965)

Are we falling or flying … and will we ever know?

Posts Tagged ‘hiring’

The Happy Bozo Theory.

Scapegoat Wanted, Part II