WorkPuzzle

How Do People Look For Jobs? Part 2

Earlier this week, I challenged you to spend some time learning what a person goes through when they look for a job, change companies, or investigate new career options.  By better understanding a candidate’s mindset, you’ll be more equipped to engage him or her during the recruiting dialog. 

As you spend time contemplating this topic, I thought it might be helpful to connect you with some companies that have put a lot of time and effort into growing their knowledge in this area.  To do this, we’ll take a look at a recent competition that you may have missed.   

For the last eight years, Electronic Recruiting Exchange (ERE) has sponsored their Recruiting Excellence Awards.  In essence, this organization highlights those companies that have successfully learned how to engage candidates. 

Like Super Bowl ads, some of these sites and ideas are a little over the top.  So, don’t think you have to “keep up with the Jones” regarding their methodologies.  Instead, as you look at these examples, focus on what these companies are saying about, and to, the candidates.  How are they engaging people who are considering a career change? 

And now, for the competition results (with my selection on what is most relevant for real estate companies).  The envelope please… 

1.  Best Company Career Website:   

RMS.  You may not have heard of this company, but lots of candidates know who they are.  One judge says that the RMS career website is “...hands down, one of the best sites I’ve seen.  Graphically and emotionally intelligent, not too heavy on graphic elements.  Tells the story.  Interaction.  Heads and shoulders above all of the other sites.”  

Check out their website:  http://www.rms.com/careers/ 

2.  Best Employee Brand:  

Sodexo.  This company quickly launched an enhanced employer brand aimed to be compatible with the new, consultative/solutions consumer brand.  In the 2011 fiscal year, Sodexo hired about 50 specialized and tough-to-recruit professionals within a few months. 

Doing so involved positioning the company as an expert in the energy field, which meant delving into such things as guest blog posts on websites for the energy industry, as well as having people speak at industry conferences.

Check out their website:  http://www.sodexousa.com/usen/careers/careers.asp

3.  Best Employee Referral Program

Improving Enterprises.  This is a great example of how even small companies can do great things.  Even after its recent growth (adding 50+ employees), this company has just 148 employees.

Briefly, the way its referral program works is this:  If employees refer someone, they get a point.  Points add up and are paid on a quarterly basis.  Points are considered when the software-developer distributes its profit share.  Top performers are recognized at Town Hall meetings.

It has a "Two by Tuesday" program designed, the company says, to mitigate “extremes in the ebbs and flows of recruiting.”  Every Tuesday, the company spreads the word regarding their most important openings.  People have a week to submit referrals.  There’s a race to be the one who refers the most, with daily updates provided.

The company might get 100 referrals in five days, with two or more hires made.

There’s a lot more...open houses, pizza parties, several mini-conferences on the weekends, Monday Night Football and Movie Nights...all aimed at having referred candidates show up.

Check out their website:  http://www.improvingenterprises.com/

4. Best College Recruiting Program

US Navy.  In 2011, the Navy implemented two new recruiting strategies that significantly improved the NUPOC program.  NUPOC — the Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate program — involves recruiting college students and graduates with science and engineering backgrounds for five-year positions to work on nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.   

With the first program, the Navy funded trips for 121 educators to experience a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier or submarine, visit a submarine learning facility, and interact with sailors.  The goal was for faculty to then tell their students, and other professors, about these opportunities.

Also, the Navy Recruiting Command partnered with a group called the University Engineering Alliance — formerly the Big 12 Engineering Consortium — allowing the Navy to provide keynote speakers for engineering summits, nuclear experts for classroom presentations, and otherwise work with faculty to present material in classrooms.

In the end, 242 students were hired through the NUPOC program last year, and the accepted applicant’s average GPA was up 5% to 3.43.

Check out their website:  http://www.navy.com/careers/nuclear-energy.html

5.  Best Military Recruiting Program

AT&T.  AT&T provides localized job notifications to the Transition Family/Support Centers of all branches of the military.  In 2011, AT&T participated in more than 50 traditional and virtual military career fairs.

This company's recruiters reach out to military transition offices, Army alumni programs, and elsewhere.  They created a program where veterans working at AT&T provide job search assistance to veterans applying for AT&T jobs.

Perhaps most importantly, it’s educating hiring managers and recruiters on the value of veterans, how to make heads or tails out of military jargon on resumes, and on the myths about veterans’ ability to integrate into corporations.

Check out their website:  http://att.jobs/military 

Hopefully, the work that these and other companies have done will inspire you to consider how you can better engage those who are considering a career change.  Who knows, maybe you’ll land your company on one of these "best of the best" lists in the years ahead...

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

How Do People Look For Jobs?

As real estate professionals, I’m sure that most of you have put countless hours into trying to understand the process a person goes through to buy or sell a house.   

I’m sure you’ve even documented “trigger events,” such as a job relocation, a change in marital status, financial changes, etc...all of life's events that cause a person to start moving forward in the process.    

Absent a trigger event, you undoubtedly also teach the agents you manage the importance of maintaining a relationship with a large group of people who are potential buyers and sellers, who may be at different stages along the pre-sales continuum. 

As a real estate agent, it only makes sense to become an expert in what people experience in the process of buying and selling a house.  After all, it’s much of what an agent’s livelihood depends upon. 

Fast forward in your career... Now you’re a manager who is responsible for hiring new agents and retaining those who generate revenue for your office.  Let me ask you a question: 

Are you an expert in the process a person goes through to find a job, change careers, or determine when it is right time to leave a company? 

If you think about it, the mastery of this body of knowledge is much of what your livelihood depends upon!  I would encourage you to become a student of this topic.  And, as you do so, focus on sources outside the real estate industry. 

How do you find these sources?  I’ll give you some specific ideas later this week in my next WorkPuzzle posting.  But, to whet your appetite, here are a couple things I ran across this week that helped to build my knowledge on this topic: 

Job Board Research.  Last summer, the International Association of Employment Web Sites or IAEWS, conducted a benchmark study for job boards, and the results were just published last month. 

Part of this study focused on candidate behavior and found that 75% of the people who visit/use job boards and career sites are “window shoppers.”  These “window shoppers” are individuals who do not register on the job board’s site, rather, they come and go without applying to any jobs. 

What does this mean?  Well, the first lesson to be learned is that there are a lot of people who start a job search long before they are willing to make commitments and put noticeable action towards the process (ie. they are not desperate, but are starting to consider a change).  Supplemental research shows that that this talent pool tends to contain the highest quality candidates! 

The second lesson here is that huge opportunity exists for hiring managers who learn to how to coax people in this group to engage in their employment process.  The study cited that the average job board gets between three and five responses/applications from each job posting.  This metric can and should be used to measure your effectiveness at engaging candidates from this important group. 

Understanding Entrepreneurs.  You probably know intuitively that those individuals who make the best real estate agents have an entrepreneurial bent.  But, do you know how entrepreneurs (especially younger ones) think?  It seems it would be a good idea to spend some time learning about this topic if you hope to attract these types of individuals to your team. 

Well, you’re in luck!  Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, just co-authored a book on this topic.  Here is part of a summary that was recently published in 800-CEO-READ: 

“Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha’s The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career makes the point that that all humans are entrepreneurs.  At some level, each of us has the will to create and survive. 

When you start a company, you make decisions in an information-poor, time-compressed, resource-constrained environment.  There are no guarantees or safety nets, so you take on a certain amount of risk.  

In today’s work environment, the same challenges tend to characterize a traditional job -– you never know what’s going to happen next.  Information is limited.  Resources are tight.  Competition is fierce.  The world is changing.  

This means you need to be adapting all the time.  And if you fail to adapt, no one – not your employer, not the government – is going to catch you when you fall.”  

If this is what people are experiencing in the workplace, are you able help your candidates identify and articulate these fears and concerns?  If so, you’ll be much better equipped to communicate how a real estate employment opportunity may be the best option for some people.   

Later this week, we’ll take a look at a few specific companies that have figured out how to engage candidates successfully.  I think you’ll be surprised by what you'll learn.  

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Why Money Isn't The Right Incentive

Our most committed readers know that we have summarized the research on "carrot and stick" management and why it doesn't work.  You've read why offering more money actually decreases innovation and motivation.  If you need a refresher on the subject, feel free to check our past articles on the subject (WorkPuzzle 1, 2, 3, 4).

Before I share additional angles on this subject, I want you to know that I don't dislike money.  In fact, I like it very much!  But obsession with money, or using it as a primary motivator has been shown to have unintended consequences that negatively impact our ability to flourish.

In an interesting research paper, Jia Liu, Dirk Smeesters and Kathleen D. Vohs illuminate another interesting fact about money.  Apparently, just introducing the idea of money can have a negative influence on cooperation.

Here is Daniel Pinks description of the research:

"The researchers carried out a sneaky experiment that had two components.  First, they asked their participants to fill out a questionnaire on a computer.  The questionnaire itself wasn’t important.  What was important was the desktop wallpaper.  For half the participants, the wallpaper showed a pattern of shells; for the other half, it showed a pattern of Euro notes and coins.  (In the parlance of social psychology, that second group was 'primed' with money.)

Next, they took the participants and another person of the same gender into a room and gave them a beverage to taste.  This is a new sports drink called Vigor, they told their subjects, and we want your opinion of it for a marketing study.

A minute later, the other person — who was actually the experimenters’ confederate — got up to leave the room, mentioning that he or she had already tasted the drink.  Some of the confederates added, 'This drink tastes really good. I just love it.'  Some said, 'This drink tastes really bad.  I just hate it.'  Some said nothing.

Then came the test:  Did the money prime make any difference in the participants’ opinions about the beverage?

Ample research, especially the extraordinary work of Robert Cialdini, has shown we’re quite susceptible to social influence.  When we hear that other folks like something, we tend to like it, too.  And that pattern held — at least for the people who saw shells in their computer background.  These folks liked the beverage more when the confederate said he or she liked it, and less when the confederate said he or she didn’t like it.

But for the subjects primed with money — again, just some background images of Euros — the response was the exact opposite.  As the researchers write:

'The confederate’s passing comments exerted a backfiring effect on evaluations of the drink among participants for whom the idea of money had been activated.  They liked it more when the confederate said that the drink was bad, and less when the confederate said the drink was good.'

What’s going on?

Liu, Smeesters, and Vohs say that money cues can operate as threats and 'produce contrarian reactions that are the opposite of the source’s intent.'  Other research has shown that being reminded of money can make people more single-minded and more apt to work harder — but also less social, less cooperative, and less likely to help others."

The authors summarize their findings with the following:

"Money has bigger effects on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior than simply what it can do as an exchange medium or store of value.  People could behave toward money as if it is the ultimate tool, the quintessential vehicle to get what they want and need.  Yet, often people behave toward money as if it is a drug that possesses an abundance of motivational and reward properties...Mere reminders of it are enough to drastically change people’s preferences for work, play, and interpersonal relationships.”

As a manager, what impact does this information have on your philosophy of where fee splits should enter the conversation?  Yes, it's important to be fair and offer a decent reward for a job well done, but it shouldn't take center stage.  If it does, it will likely produce the opposite result from what you desire.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Towards Creativity: Why Brainstorming doesn't work and what does.

I don't normally read The New Yorker magazine, but the title of an article, "Group Think: The Brainstorming Myth," caught my attention.  I've been under, what turns out to be, the false assumption that the tenants of brainstorming for creativity and ideas were supported by research...you know, the idea that your team must meet and encourage a plethora of free flowing ideas, absent any criticism or challenge?  This common belief is based on the idea that if members of the group are scared of critique, they will prematurely inhibit themselves from sharing ideas that just might have merit.  This idea, which has been accepted as truth for several decades, turns out to have no research to back it up.

The first study of the techniques of brainstorming, performed at Yale in 1958, refuted it completely, and yet nobody paid attention.  People kept using the practice of brainstorming as if it were truth.  Most of us have been following a principle that was cooked up by Alex Osborn, a partner of the advertising agency B.B.D.O., who simply thought it was a good idea.  

The good news is that perhaps the recommendation of brainstorming and other group process recommendations has worked to increase the way companies view creativity as part of a group process.  Ben Jones, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, has quantified a trend toward viewing creativity as occurring through group process.  

There are two pieces of his conclusion that I find pretty exciting:  One, that creativity occurs within community.  There is something about developing a community of people around a central goal that cultivates and initiates creativity.

The second principle is equally compelling:  Jones discusses the work of Charlan Nemeth, "...whose studies suggest that the ineffectiveness of brainstorming stems from the very thing that Osborn thought was most important.  Debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them relative to every other condition.”

Did you get that?  We need to debate and critique ideas to develop them well.

This idea immediately resonated with me.  As recently as last week, I presented an idea to an individual I respected.  He challenged me on one aspect of the problem, we argued our sides, and we both went away significantly altering our view of the bigger picture.  Here's another example of healthy criticism at work...I have read that members of Led Zeppelin were legendary debaters of ideas and direction, but generally, in the end, worked through their differences to create their own brand of very popular music.  

Most banter about work-related ideas, it's been found, doesn't occur in the conference room.  Rather, the best and most innovative ideas result from casual conversations occurring between team members toward a better idea, product, or service, around the water cooler, or over coffee. 

So what does this mean for you? 

First of all, don't get complacent about change.  History is filled with extinct businesses that resisted change.  They believed that they had right answers when they probably weren't even asking the right questions.  Does anyone remember when Yahoo and MySpace were the big internet players?  And to change well, you need a deliberate culture of healthy banter about ideas with an openness to disagree and critique ideas.  Smart people will invite this, and most importantly, thrive as a result.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Improving Your Presentations

I know that many of you present material to groups as part of your job.  In working with organizations over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to attend some of those presentations. 

While some of you are master presenters, some of you struggle to provide presentations that are interesting and meaningful for your audience.  If you’ve ever had to sit through one of these presentations, you know how painful it can be. 

The large majority of real estate leaders lie somewhere in the middle, between these two extremes.  Their presentations are well done, but could use some improvement.  I’m not sure how self-aware I am, but I would guess I fall into this group. 

This is why a recent blog written by Michael Hyatt resonated with me.  Hyatt offers five simple and practical ideas to quickly tune-up your presentations:  

"1. Don’t give your presentation software center stage.  This is the biggest mistake I see speakers make.  They forget that PowerPoint or Keynote are tools designed to augment their presentation, not be their presentation.

Never forget:  You are the presenter.  Your message should be the focus.  Not your slides.  Not your props.  And not your handouts.  You are in the lead role, and you need to retain that role.

No amount of 'razzle dazzle' or slide effects can overcome a weak presentation.  If you don’t do your job, slides won’t save you.  It only makes a bad presentation worse.

2. Create a logical flow to your presentation.  Better yet, tell a story.  The absolute last thing you want to do is turn your presentation into a random assortment of bulleted lists, which is what often happens, especially when PowerPoint is involved.  There must be a flow.

Start with a good outlining or mind mapping program.  Decide if your talk is going to be a persuasive speech or an enabling one. (It should be one or the other.)

3. Make your presentation readable.  Memorize this sentence:  'If people can’t read my slides from the back of the room, my type is too small.'  Now repeat it over and over again while you create your slides.  If people are squinting during your presentation, trying to make out what’s on the slide, you’ve lost your audience.

In my experience, you must use at least 30-point type.  Obviously, it depends on the size of the room, the size of the screen, etc.  This is precisely why you can’t afford to leave this to chance.  You must test your slides and make certain they are readable.

Here are some other things to remember regarding text:

• Avoid paragraphs or long blocks of text.  If you really, really must use a paragraph, then whittle it down to the bare essentials.  Use an excerpt—a couple of sentences.  Emphasize the important words.  Put the text block by itself on a single slide.
• Use appropriate fonts.  I recommend a sans serif font for titles (e.g., Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, or—my personal favorite—Myriad Pro, etc.) and a serif font for bullets or body text (e.g., Times New Roman, Garamond, Goudy, Palatino, etc.).  Most books are typeset this way because it make them more readable.  The serifs help you recognize the characters (and thus the words) faster.  It makes the text more readable.  It’s also customary to use san serif fonts for chart labels.
• Avoid detailed reports.  If you need to include a report in your presentation, hand it out.  Don’t force people to try to read a ledger printout on a slide.  (Financial people take note!)  If you must show a report, use it as a picture and then use a “call out” to emphasize the part of the report you want people to focus on.  Better yet, just fill up a whole slide with the one number you want people to take away from the presentation.
• Avoid 'title capitalization' unless (duh!) it’s a title.  Sentence capitalization is much easier to read.  For example, 'Sales are up 100% in the southeast region' is easier than 'Sales Are Up 100% In The Southeast Region.'  This is especially true when you have numerous bullet points. 

4. Remember, less is more.  Fancy slide transitions and fly-ins get old quickly.  I strongly recommend that you keep things simple.  A basic dissolve from one slide to another is usually sufficient.

Also, have all your bullets appear at once rather than one at a time.  Avoid sound effects—they serve no other purpose than to annoy the audience and distract them from your presentation.

Finally, cut down the number of slides.  You don’t need a transcript of your speech with every point and sub-point.  Yawn!  People are only going to remember the major points anyway.

5. Distribute a handout.  I have changed my mind on this over the years.  I do not think that you should distribute a handout before you begin speaking.

If you do so, people will start reading ahead instead of listening to you.  It’s just one more distraction to keep them from focusing on your message.  It also eliminates any surprises or drama you have built into your presentation.  Instead, I tell people that, 'I will distribute a handout of the slides when I am finished with my presentation.' "  

So, here’s your homework:  Spend some time in the next couple of weeks tuning up your presentations.  Create a simple “rule sheet” with the items listed above and see how you compare, and then make improvements.  Once you’ve gone through your presentations, do the same for your agents and those whom you manage -- Many of these individuals make presentations in their roles as well.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

How Close Are You?

I’m currently on the road visiting clients, and just happened upon a cable TV program, chronicling the evolution of the principles of Facebook.  Although there's been a lot out there on this topic, I was struck by something that I had never heard before.  One of the Senior VP’s said that there had been massive competition at the very beginning.  She said that several colleges had groups of tech geeks stumbling upon similar social technology and developing it quickly, at that same moment in history. 

I don’t know why this surprised me, as this is exactly how almost all great inventions have occurred throughout history.  There comes a time when hundreds of people with similar interests and near equal drive converge with the development of some sort of service or tool that then generates a race, with stiff competition, to the finish line.  

So the question is:

• Why did Zuckerberg beat others to Facebook? 
• Why did Gates beat others to software? 
• Why did the Wright Brothers beat Dr. Samuel Langley to flight? 
• Why did Roger Banister beat other runners to the four minute mile? 
• Why does this matter to you? 

Well, although an extremely small percentage of individuals and companies will achieve these grandiose goals, what makes these people tick could be applied to us normal folk, and help us work with more hope, develop better dreams, and execute better than we do currently.

I recently read an article highlighting the significant difference between water heated to 211 degrees, and water heated to 212 degrees.  Although the difference is only one degree, a very small margin, that degree makes a huge impact....It is the difference between very hot water, of very little value (211 degrees)...and boiling water that produces steam which can power a locomotive (212 degrees).  

It leaves me wondering how small the margin of error is that may mean the difference between extreme success at providing an excellent product, service, or innovation to the world, versus just getting by... 

How close are you and those you coach to crossing over this margin and achieving tremendous success?  Don't get complacent...it may be just around the corner...

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Convincing Candidates It’s the Right Time to Begin a Real Estate Career

I just returned from a trip to the East Coast where I had the opportunity to spend some time with the owners and executive teams of several of our clients.  While my mission was to give presentations on the best practices of both new and experienced agent recruiting, I think I brought back more information than I provided...as is often the case.   

One of the common themes I heard as I listened to the recruiting challenges and obstacles that hiring managers face is that an increasing number of candidates are facing financial challenges with regard to starting careers as real estate agents.   

On the surface, it appears that the problem lies in the fact that candidates are just short of cash... However, as I started to question this premise, I quickly learned that the problem is more complex.  The real issue has to do with perception.  

From the candidate’s perspective, the risk-to-reward ratio in the real estate industry has risen to an unacceptable level. 

Let me explain.  When the real estate industry was growing aggressively in years past, the perception was that a significant amount of money could be made by venturing into this career field.  While the risk (start-up cost, lost opportunity of doing something else, potential of failing as an agent, etc.) was just as substantial back then as it is now, the chance of a potential payoff was much higher. 

So, the perception of declining rewards is the real problem.  Financial backing has a way of surfacing when a person believes a considerable reward can be reasonably attained.  This is why there is more than $1 trillion in education loan debt in the United States.    

So, how do you convince a skeptical public that opportunity still exists in the real estate industry? 

One way to do it is through the use of data.  To show how this can be done, I’d like to introduce you to Tom Prall.  Tom is the owner of Carpenter Realtors, a very successful 30-office real estate company in Indianapolis. 

If you walked into Tom’s office, you’d see stacks of research on his desk that he skillfully uses to guide his company.  If you went to one of his sales meetings, you’d be handed paperwork that meticulously describes, from a data perspective, the business reality of what is going on around you.  And, if you’re engaging Tom in a conversation, you best have some data to back up your assertions—otherwise it gets a little uncomfortable.  

In a recent email exchange, I told Tom that some candidates are losing hope in the career potential that real estate has to offer.  Shortly thereafter, I got a phone call that started… "Ben, I don’t think you’re looking at this correctly…"

During the course of our phone conversation, Tom laid out a case that now is the time for young candidates to embark on a real estate career.  The case was built on an analysis that included the total number of transactions, total number of agents, and per agent productivity averages for the Indianapolis market.   

The analysis also included trending from a peak in the market in 1979 that closely resembled the peak in the market in 2006.  He also tracked what happened during the subsequent six years in both cases. 

Something interesting emerged in Tom's analysis:  There is a tipping point when the per agent productivity averages start to grow by more than 10% year over year.  In the Indianapolis market, there are indicators that strongly suggest this tipping point will be crossed in 2012, thus making it a advantageous time to begin working as a new real estate agent.  The “economic wind” will likely be at a candidate’s back for the first time in six years! 

I believe Tom has figured out something very important:  

If you’re going to be successful at hiring under today’s market conditions, you need to be able to make a compelling case that the “reward” in the risk-to-reward ratio is both real and significant. 

If you’re accustomed to using anecdotal evidence, dated testimonials, or even cute stories about agent hires of the past, you may find yourself coming up short when it comes time to convince the best and brightest to join your team.  Like Tom has illustrated, be ready to have a serious, data-driven, business discussion about the financial prospects of becoming a real estate agent. 

By doing this, you’ll be better prepared to defuse the objections candidates have about start-up costs and initial risks.  If the reward part of the equation is compelling, candidates will again become motivated to find the money to get started.

Here's some homework for you.  Create one of two presentation items (a graph, a chart, an illustration, etc.) that demonstrate that now is the right time to become a real estate agent.  Print these items out and be ready to use them during your next interview. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Four Things Highly Productive People Do

One of the most important elements of a Real Estate Manager’s job is recruiting.  One of the most common tribulations managers face is time management.  They are tasked with deal doctoring, putting out fires, coaching, and in some cases selling, in addition to the general day-to-day operations of their office(s).  

Ilya Pozin, founder of Ciplex, a digital marketing and creative agency, interviewed Tony Wong, a project management guru who has served with the likes of Toyota, Honda and Disney.  As a result of this interview Tony shared seven characteristics of a productive person.  While seven points of interest were enumerated, I gleaned four that were of interest to me, and I hope to you.

Ilya first starts out by highlighting the fact that we are lovers of distraction.  I am indeed.  I see an email come in…I am right on top of it, regardless of the project at hand.  Ilya advises me to stop multi-tasking.  Yeah, right…I am a working mother of two active boys, and an avid tennis player…multi-tasking is my life.  Well, perhaps I need to settle down and focus if I truly want to be more productive.

Here we go…the tips towards being more productive:

1. “Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks.  Break down work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less:  Sketch an outline or list of tasks that will lead you to your endgame.  That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.
2. Be militant about eliminating distractions.  Lock your door, put a sign up, and turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging.  In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. 
3. Work on your own agenda.  Don’t let something else set your day.  Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out.  You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing.  After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, and then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day.  
4. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals.  Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity.  Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes.  (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.)  So take a break:  Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge." 

Okay, so this may be a lot to swallow, especially to execute all at once.  Baby steps...It may not be practical to apply all of these; It certainly depends on the job and the person, but I agree that even small steps towards productivity will lead to a more successful year in many aspects of the work/life balance.

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Stress, RESILIENCE, Hope, and Meaning

Many of you have experienced continuous, intense, and unrelenting stress over the past few years.  I have been spending more and more time thinking through the ramifications of stress, resilience and its long-term lessons for anyone who works. 

Dr. Salvatore Maddi, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California says:

“People who are high in hardiness enjoy ongoing changes and difficulties.  They find themselves more involved in their work when it gets tougher and more complicated.  They tend to think of stress as a normal part of life, rather than as something that's unfair.'' 

I wouldn’t say that I “enjoy” ongoing challenges.  Do any of you?  I believe Maddi might be exaggerating a bit to get our attention. 

However, there has been a great deal of research on the topic of resilience--This research has provided us clear characteristics, helping us differentiate people who thrive under stress, from those who become less healthy and tend to languish.  

Researchers have identified the traits of commitment, control, and challenge as the “transformational coping skills” shared by those who become stronger during stressful times.

More specifically, studies have shown that people who possess these coping skills are able to:

• Find the personal meaning in a challenge, rather than detaching and giving up;
• Plan out sound problem-solving strategies;
• Facilitate an atmosphere of support and encouragement among co-workers; and
• Help those around them build the traits of commitment, control, and challenge (they decrease the isolation, powerlessness, and fear that others feel).

I see in these findings something deeper that has certainly helped me thrive in stressful times, and I urge each of you to analyze yourselves...  At the core of the findings resides the affirmation of the values of community and meaning as essential ingredients in dealing with stress. 

How can we think about meaning and work?  The answer, I believe, can be found in whether an individual can articulate and truly believe the WHY of their work. 

Many, I find, can only articulate the HOW and the WHAT of what they do on a daily basis. 

These are the people who are the consumers of the world; They go to work to extract meaning from their work, rather than add value and meaning to every part of their jobs, and within the community they find themselves.  Don’t get me wrong, we are all guilty of doing this part of the time, but many people live there permanently.  

Then there are the gems...the people who can tell you the WHY of what they do.  With these individuals, there is a constant, unseen background of meaning and purpose that goes beyond bringing home a paycheck, motivating them to find meaning and hope behind every endeavor. 

These are the people we are drawn to...the people we find ourselves running to as a refuge in the storm.  What can you do to become one?  Figure out the WHY of your work...

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

MEASURING ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKING INFLUENCE—PART 2

Have you ever heard of Kred and Klout?  No, they are not your long lost Norwegian relatives.  They are new online social networking sites that are attempting to measure a person’s online influence.

Both for these companies (and a few others as well) have created scoring systems that attempt to put a value on the combined online influence a person has on various online social networks.  The Klout scores work on a scale of 1 to 100, while the Kred scores range from 1 to 1,000.  In both cases, the higher the score, the more influence the person has established online. 

As I mentioned in our last discussion, marketers are very interested in finding and working with people who have a lot of online influence.  If you can get a highly influential person to support your product online, good things can happen...this has been the case for some time.

The idea of a hiring manager researching a person’s online activities is not a new or uncommon idea either.  Dr. John Sullivan makes this point in a recent ERE article:

“It is now quite common to find, assess, and do reference checks on candidates using Google searches, LinkedIn, and Facebook profiles, and the assessment of work samples that can be found online.  In fact, a Microsoft-sponsored survey conducted by Cross-Tab found that 79% of HR and recruiting professionals responded that they currently use online reputation information as part of their hiring process.”

What is new is an attempt to measure this online influence in a way that one person can be easily, quickly, and fairly compared to another person.  The jury is still out on whether such a comparison can truly be fair, but we’ll leave that for the HR technicians to debate.

What I do think is worth noting is a potential connection between an individual who has a high Klout or Kred score, and the skills and capabilities that can be very useful in the real world.  Dr. Sullivan catalogues some of these talents:

1. Communications – they have shown that they are effective and frequent communicators
2. Relationship building — they are successful at attracting and building relationships with others
3. Influencing – they have the ability to influence others and to get others to read and spread their messages
4. Reputation — their reputation, credibility, recommendations, and ability to produce “Liked” content means that they will be listened to
5. Reach – their extensive contacts, friends, followers, and subscribers means that any messages they send will reach thousands
6. Branding – individuals with high social media scores have demonstrated they know how to build a personal brand and that knowledge may be transferable to product branding
7. Crowdsource solutions — their extensive network means that they will be able to quickly “crowdsource” answers to problems that they encounter
8. Writing ability — individuals who have a long blog history have demonstrated both their writing style and ability
9. Knowledge of technology — they have demonstrated that they are on the leading edge of social media technology
10. Adaptable – they are capable of continually adapting to the rapidly changing social media environment (if they have maintained their scores over a period of time)

Are these the skills that you’d like in the next agent you hire?  I can’t say that I’ve seen a more complete list of the characteristics that would make someone successful as a real estate agent!  If an online social networking score reliably benchmarked these skills, then you may have just stumbled onto the Holy Grail of real estate recruiting!

Like most things that sound too good to be true, there are a few caveats worth noting.  First, these measurement systems are in their infancy.  Ask around the office and see how many people have a Klout score.  Probably none.  Now ask how many have Facebook pages.  Probably most.  Facebook became a lot more interesting and useful once everyone was using it.  

The same is true for a Klout score.  Until a majority of candidates standardize on a common scoring system, use the system, and are willing to reveal it during the recruiting process, the concept will have limited value.

Secondly, these scores can be manipulated.  By nature, each provider will have weaknesses in their approach to capturing and evaluating the data.  And, just as search engine optimization techniques are used to manipulate web page rankings, these weaknesses will be exploited by some candidates in an effort to increase their scores.

For now, have some fun with this concept.  Go to one of the sites, register, and find out how influential you are in the world of online social networking.  Then, keep your eyes on this concept... If it grows, it may become very useful.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.