WorkPuzzle

Become a Godfather Manager

The most common obstruction to great marriages, families, friendships and organizations is the timeless reluctance to be truthful and honest when truth might cause conflict.

I have seen this both clinically and while consulting with organizations.  For example, I recently attended a meeting with 15 individuals in the room.  There was so much pent up disagreement among the group, no one wanted to give their opinion on any issue brought to the table.  The group was locked-up and completely paralyzed.

If you ever experienced a situation like this, you know how frustrating and debilitating this can be for a team.  If you’re the manager for such a team, it is near impossible to defuse such an impasse.

That’s why a recent article in the Harvard Business Review caught my eye.  Rather than giving advice on how to fix the mess, the authors give recommendations on avoiding it in the first place.

The article was written by Ron Ashkenas and Lisa Bodell and offers the following insights around conflict avoidance.

"Most people want to be liked: It’s one of the fundamental tenets of human behavior.

Because of that motivation, many of us have an unconscious desire to avoid conflict. We prefer to “get along,” “not make waves,” and “act as a team player.” We all want to be known as a great person to work with.

The only problem with this mindset is that creative ideas and better ways of getting things done often stem from constructive conflict. Organizations need it to advance. And even in the day-to-day, workplace conflict is still inevitable because organizations are full of bright, ambitious people with different points of view, controversial ideas, and disparate values.

There’s no way that we can get along with everyone all the time. Finding the right balance between the need to deal with conflict and the instinct to avoid it is one of the toughest challenges that most managers face."

They go on to offer the following tips (one quite humorous) regarding creating a culture that invites constructive conflict. 

Quote The Godfather. In order to foster more constructive conflict and feedback, remind your team and your colleagues about Don Corleone’s admonition that ‘it’s not personal, it’s business.’

Doing this will reinforce the notion that we can disagree about ideas and strategies, but still respect and like each other — something that is often forgotten in the heat of battle.

With this principle in mind, encourage team members to ask probing questions and challenge assumptions. Eventually asking, ‘Have you thought about this?’ should feel like a productive conversation, rather than a personal attack.

Create challenge events. Rather than leave it to chance, schedule time with your team to question norms and change the way things are done. Make it clear to them that processes are expected to evolve over time (even the ones you created) and that it’s OK to push back on them.

Doing this will create a “safe space” where they can assess whether routine tasks are worth the effort, and modify them if necessary. It also allows people who might hesitate to raise issues by themselves feel more comfortable doing so in a group.

Recognize employees who question the status quo. When employees take the risk of creating a productive disruption, give them positive reinforcement. If someone pushes back or raises an uncomfortable question in a meeting, back them up rather than shut them down. If possible, use it as a teachable moment to encourage others to do the same.

Set ground rules for conflict. Since everyone struggles with conflict to some degree, develop a few standards for how your team can manage it constructively.

For example in one company’s review sessions, participants need to begin with at least two positive comments before anyone is allowed to throw in a criticism. Although it feels a little awkward at times, this practice forces everyone to take a more balanced view of other people’s work, which reduces the tension and allows for more productive discussions.

In another firm, every meeting ends with five minutes of what’s called a “plus/delta” critique of the meeting – with quick comments about what was good about it and what should be changed the next time. Again, this more structured practice makes it easy and acceptable to openly and constructively criticize.

In the short-term, it’s almost always easier to avoid conflict and come across as being a “nice” manager. But more often than not, being a little less nice might be the best thing for your people, your organization, and you."

I could not agree more. What are the thoughts of our readers?

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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. 

Are Your Job Ads Too Classified?

Did you know that 90% of the job ads posted today persist in describing the requirements of experience, skills, and education for each position as the only criteria? This would seem to be a logical system for attracting well-qualified candidates.

However, I am personally aware of several cases of individuals who have shied away from applying for those opportunities where the prerequisites are so selectively detailed. These were extremely talented candidates with many of the characteristics that would make them great employees in any field.

So why didn’t these candidates apply? Because, based on the ad content, they believed the company was more interested in experience and skill level than talent, drive and desire.

There are multiple layers behind why the “traditional” way doesn't work. You have probably heard me say that this method doesn't speak to the person. For example, “skills” do not tap a person’s curiosity, awareness or attentiveness or how they work in a group or leadership situation.

Finding more about who they are, what they are interested in, and how they view a beneficial working relationship will give you the relevant information needed to identify the successful employee. 

 Lou Adler, a widely read author in recruiting circles, recently wrote:

"Earlier this year, I saw an ad for Facebook’s VP of Human Resources. It listed a bunch of experience requirements interlaced with some generic responsibilities and hyperbole.

To me this is backwards. It’s far better to define the job before defining the person. If a person has successfully accomplished something similar, he or she has exactly the level of skills, experience and academics required.

The worked required to be done determines the skills needed, the skills needed don't define the work required.  80-90% of the people who get promoted internally into these same spots don’t have the experience, skills and academics listed as required for someone hired from the outside.

What they do have is something far better – a track record of performance that indicates they can take on a bigger role in the company.

It seems obvious that if a company wants to hire people who are both competent and motivated to do the work required, they need to start by defining the work required.

Yet somehow this basic concept is lost when a new job opens up. Instead of defining the job, managers focus on defining the person. The end result is not a job description at all, but a person description.

This limits the selection pool to a narrow group of people just like the people the company has hired in the past. By default, this precludes expanding the company’s diversity hiring program or raising the company’s overall talent level.

For The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, I asked one of the top labor attorney’s in the country, David Goldstein from Littler Mendelson, to review the idea of using performance objectives to define the job, rather than skills. Here are a few of his comments (you’ll find his full report in the book):

 ‘A properly prepared performance profile ...and focusing on “Year 1 and Beyond” criteria may open the door to more minority, military, and disabled candidates who have a less “traditional” mix of experiences, thereby supporting affirmative action or diversity efforts.’

Hiring a more diverse and talented workforce starts by defining the work required for success, not the skills, experiences and academics needed to do the work.

This is not rocket science, just commonsense, but apparently commonsense is not one of the skills required for hiring people."

Lou’s article and book are extremely valuable tools in today’s competitive hiring environment. I am excited by the fact that most of our clients use this hiring method and apply the philosophy it evokes.

Perhaps it may be easier to practice these principles when it comes to independent contractors such as real estate agents, but it is also the right thing to do. 

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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. 

Cognitive Ease—The Secret to Great Interviewing—Part 2

Earlier this week, I suggested that most people show up to an interview experiencing “cognitive strain.”  Unless you can help a person migrate to a place of cognitive ease, they’ll have a difficult time hearing and engaging most of what you’re trying to communicate.  If you didn't read the first article in this discussion, you may want to catch up before trying to digest today’s topic.

How do you get someone from a state of cognitive strain to a place of cognitive ease?  Daniel Kahneman spends several chapters in his best-selling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, addressing this topic.

Part of the answer to the question can be summed up in this diagram:

The items listed on the right side are the feelings we want the candidate to have when they leave the interview.  These traits are the natural results of feeling cognitive ease.

Some of the causes that produce cognitive ease are listed on the left side.  As you might suspect, if you can become proficient at influencing the items on the left (by the way, this is not a complete list—there are many more elements), candidates will start experiencing something remarkable at your interviews.

As I mentioned earlier, Kahneman spends several chapters explaining and citing research for these causes.  Not all of these would relate to interviewing (although a surprising number do apply), so we’ll just explore “related experience” today.  If you have an interest in learning more, you can delve into this topic by picking up a copy of his book.

Here is a simple question that Dr. Kahneman often asks his audiences:

“How many animals of each kind did Moses take into the ark?

The number of people who detect what was wrong with this question is so small that it has been dubbed the Moses illusion.  Moses took no animals into the ark; Noah did.

The idea of animals going into the ark sets up a biblical context, and Moses is not abnormal in that context.  You did not positively expect him, but the mention of his name is not surprising. It also helps that Moses and Noah have the same vowel sound and number of syllables.

As with triads that produce cognitive ease, you unconsciously detect associative coherence between Moses and ‘ark’ and so quickly accept the question.”

By default, the human mind wants to maintain (or get to) a state of System 1 thinking.  One of the ways it maintains this state is to look for related experiences.  When you heard just a few words (animals and ark), it quickly pulled a story from memory that allowed you to answer the question without leaving a state of cognitive ease.

The error you made (and we all make) illustrates how quickly the mind retrieves, depends upon, and desires related experiences. 

Let’s suppose I ask a different question:  How many chickens did Eric take to the marina? 

Of course, you quickly get frozen with this question.  Who’s Eric?  Why does he have chickens?  Is he taking the chickens to a boat, or is there a restaurant near the marina? And, so on.   Your mind does not even consider the first part of the question—how many chickens are there?   

In the first question, none of the background mattered because the “related experience” filled in the context.

Side note:  The relationship between related experience and cognitive ease is leveraged frequently by companies such as Geico during their marketing campaigns.  Next time you see or hear a Geico commercial, see if you can detect it.

What does this have to do with interviewing?

A “related experience” is one of the best pathways to get a candidate to a state of cognitive ease during an interview.

The point is not to deceive anyone in the interview process (we make the assumption that you’re offering the person something that will be advantageous for his or her career), but instead allow them to feel good about you and your organization and trust the things you’re communicating.

How do you find related experiences?  Here are two sources you can use immediately:

Pop culture.  How many times have you been in a meeting and someone says…"this is like the TV show Survivor.  Someone is going to get voted off the island."  This is a related experience.  Find two or three references in pop culture that would relate to the points you commonly make during and interview.

The candidate’s own experiences.  If you spend time (the first 20 to 30 minutes of the interview) drawing out and listening to the candidate’s story, you’ll have plenty of material to draw upon to find related experiences.  Restating the candidate’s own experiences and then relating it to the realities of working in your office is very powerful.

If you can master the concepts of related experience and cognitive ease, you will take your interview skills to a whole new level.   You’ll not only reap the rewards of hiring more agents, but you’ll also experience some cognitive ease for yourself!

 

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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. 

Cognitive Ease: The Secret to Great Interviewing

Think of yourself sitting in a canoe in a swift flowing river.  You’re paddling desperately with the intention of making it 100 yards upstream. 

To get there, you’ll need to focus on the task, apply some paddling skill, and consistently exert yourself.   Because you’ll be fighting against the current, you’ll experience some frustration and probably arrive out of breath and needing to rest.

In a figurative sense, this is how most people feel when they go to an interview.  The fast-flowing current is called “cognitive strain,” and it’s a silent factor that works against you in every interview.

In the next couple of WorkPuzzles, we’ll teach you how to alleviate cognitive strain and start conducting your interviews in the calm water of “cognitive ease.”

A few weeks ago, I introduced you to Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winning psychologist who recently published his best selling manifesto called Thinking, Fast and Slow.

If you didn’t catch the previous discussions on this topic, I’d recommend reading the first blog in this series.  It will give you some background for today’s WorkPuzzle.

In his book, Kahneman introduces his readers to the concept of “cognitive ease.”  In simple terms, it is the natural desire a person has to make decisions and judgments using “System 1” thinking.

As you may remember, System 1 is the fast, intuitive, and automatic way of making decisions and judgments.   System 2 is the slower way of thinking that requires more conscious judgments and critical analysis.

Dr. Kahneman defines cognitive ease in this way:

“Whenever you are conscious, and perhaps even when you are not, multiple computations are going on in your brain, which maintain and update current answers to some key questions:

Is anything new going on? Is there a threat? Are things going well? Should my attention be redirected? Is more effort needed for this task?

You can think of a cockpit, with a set of dials that indicate the current values of each of these essential variables. The assessments are carried out automatically by System 1 and one of their functions is to determine whether extra effort is required from System 2.

One of the dials measures cognitive ease, and its range is between “easy” and “strained.” 

Easy is a sign that things are going well—no threats, no major news, no need to redirect attention or mobilize effort. 

Strained indicates that a problem exists, which will require increased mobilization of System 2.

When you are in a state of cognitive ease, you are probably in a good mood, like what you see, believe what you hear, trust your intuitions, and feel that the current situation is comfortably familiar. 

When you feel cognitive strain, you are more likely to be more vigilant and suspicious, invest more effort in what you are doing, feel less comfortable, and make few errors, but you also are less intuitive and less creative than usual.”

With these definitions as a background, would you rather have someone be experiencing “cognitive ease” or “cognitive strain” during an interview?

Obviously, you’d want the person to be experiencing cognitive ease.  If candidates are suspicious, uncomfortable, and lacking the creativity to imagine themselves in a new career, your interviews are not going to come to life.  It's very difficult to build a relationship with individuals who remain in this state.

Here’s something you may not have considered:  Every candidate you interview (especially if the person is a “new to real estate” candidate) is experiencing cognitive strain when they arrive at your office.

There are very few exceptions to this rule.  Interviews are stressful.  Being in a new environment, meeting new people, receiving a bunch of new information, and having the perception you’re being evaluated puts people squarely in System 2 thinking. 

One of the secrets of successful interviewing is helping a person migrate from a state of cognitive strain to a place of cognitive ease during the 45 minutes you spend with the candidate. If the candidate remains in a state of cognitive strain (and most people do), the person will not have the ability to truly hear and engage most of what you’re trying to communicate.

How do you do this?  Daniel Kahneman has some great insight on this topic based on the research that he and others of have done.  It’s fascinating stuff, and we’ll cover it during our next WorkPuzzle discussion.  

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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. 

"Gallup-ing" Towards Success

Ten years ago I had the unique experience of attending the annual Positive Psychology Summit held at the Gallup, Inc, headquarters in Washington DC. If you aren't familiar with Gallup, some of their most outstanding work has focused on researching what makes companies successful. My visit left a lasting impression and I have continued to follow their various studies, in particular that of job fulfillment.      

Dr. Gallup’s early work, the topic of job satisfaction, has been studied and written about in more than 10,000 articles and publications. Because most people spend a high percentage of their waking hours at work, studies of the workplace are of great interest for many professionals. The process of managing and improving the workplace is crucial and presents great challenges to nearly every organization.

Since the 1950's Gallup has conducted thousands of studies amid some of the world's most well known countries. They have taken the analyses (called meta-analyses) of a multitude of questions and responses and condensed it down to 12 simple yet powerful questions. This is now known as the Gallup Workplace Audit or informally as the Q12® (questions included below). The answers to these questions have been shown to have considerable impact on an organization. In fact, the analyses and further studies indicate that the answers to the Q12® and how a company responds to them, can largely define the success of a company over time.

"The quality of an organization’s human resources is perhaps the leading indicator of its growth and sustainability. The attainment of a workplace with high-caliber employees starts with the selection of the right people for the right jobs. Numerous studies have documented the utility of valid selection instruments and systems in the selection of the right people... After employees are hired, they make decisions and take actions every day that can affect the success of their organization."

(Schmidt, Hunter, McKenzie, & Muldrow, 1979; Hunter & Schmidt, 1983; Huselid, 1995; Schmidt & Rader, 1999; Harter, Hayes, & Schmidt, 2004).

All this really says is, if your employees are engaged in their job, the performance outcome is raised exponentially. And don't forget, performance is directly related to the company objectives of customer ratings, profitability, productivity, turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage, absenteeism and quality.   Employment engagement and hiring the right people matters. These are not just business clichés. Are you taking this as seriously as it needs to be?

Take a look at the questions below. How do you think your employees would answer the questions? Where are you "on track" and where could you make improvements? How could your organization benefit from knowing this information?

You could be a company who "Gallup's" towards success!

The Q12® are:

Q00. (Overall Satisfaction) On a 5-point scale, where “5” is extremely satisfied and “1” is extremely dissatisfied, how satisfied are you with (your company) as a place to work?

Q01. I know what is expected of me at work.

Q02. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.

Q03. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

Q04. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.

Q05. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

Q06. There is someone at work who encourages my development.

Q07. At work, my opinions seem to count.

Q08. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

Q09. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.

Q10. I have a best friend at work.

Q11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.

Q12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

Q12® META-ANALYSIS Copyright © 2006, 2009, 2013 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. 

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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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. 

What You Really Need to Know About Hiring and Retaining Millennials

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to present to a group of recruiting leaders who were gathered in Chicago for the Realty Alliance conference.  Several of the attendees oversee very high-performing recruiting organizations, so there was much to share and learn.

One of the topics we addressed was the recruitment and retention of agents from the “millennial” age group.  This group is generally considered those in the workforce who are currently 18 to 32 years old.

We are starting to hear more chatter on this topic as real estate companies strive to hire agents who, from an age perspective, are more reflective of the population at large.  I recently read that by 2014, millennials will account for 36% of the American workforce and will make up 75% of the global workplace in 2025.

So, what is the secret to hiring agents in this age group?

It’s not as complicated as some human resources pundits would have you believe.  For example, I recently read an article in the Washington Post outlining the “ten things millennials want from the workplace.”  Here are my five favorites from the list:

1.  Not money (ie. It’s not about the money)

2.  Goofy perks (like scooters to get around the halls of the office)

3.  A focus on social responsibility (apparently, older generations do not care about social causes…)

4.  A focus on social justice and community service (not sure how these are different from social responsibility)

5.  A “pass” on doing stupid things in their personal life (and then posting it on Facebook).

Maybe the authors just surveyed the Occupy WallStreet crowd to get the data for their article, but it seems surreal to me.  We have millennials working for our company, I have two kids who are millennials, Dave has three kids who are millennials, and none of them focus on these issues.

I believe it’s safe to assume that if you tried to implement such advice, you’d quickly twist your organization into a pretzel of dysfunction.  Unfortunately, greater than 90% of the articles I’ve read on millennial hiring over the last couple of years attempt to highlight the surface (and often silly) differences between younger and older generations.

Here’s a better idea.  Why not focus on what we know to be true about all human beings and draw out the similarities between generations?  Also, it is better to focus on core issues that drive human behavior and engagement.

A good place to start on collecting this information would be the Gallup Organization’s classic Q12 research.  Gallup has been working on measuring employee engagement in organizations for more than 30 years.  While they did not specifically focus on generational differences in this study, there is a surprising similarity among outcomes across age groups during this 30-year period.  You can download a meta-analysis of this research if you care to read more.

Some media outlets are finally starting to pick up on these similarities that connect back to more reliable research.  For example, FoxBusiness recently published an article citing a recent “What Millennials Want From Their Employers” survey.   This survey found that millennials want:

1.  To do meaningful work and be part of companies doing meaningful work.

2.  A career that has a believable and viable future.

3.  A mentor—someone to show them how to be productive and do their best work.

4.  Community—they want some of their coworkers to also be their friends.

Do these ideas resonate with what you want from your work environment? I bet they do.  Why?   Because they are among the basic things most humans want from their work.  

As you might suspect, all four of these themes are strongly demonstrated in Gallup’s Q12 research, which was originally collected from mostly baby-boomers and some generation X data sets.

The most important workplace engagement themes ring true across generations. 

Focus on these similarities, and you’ll be much further ahead.  Ignore the articles that highlight superficial generational differences.  They may be fun to read, but they won’t help you hire more successfully or coach more effectively. 

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

 

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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. 

What Value Do You Have to Offer a Candidate?

I am a firm believer that everyone receives information in different ways and at different times. Recently, my son Noah reminded me of this and it touched on an application in the interviewing process. 

Noah is an avid runner.   He loves it--distance or speed, lacrosse or cross-country.  He is currently involved in a speed and agility training course.  His first session was two weeks ago.  He came away feeling positive about what he’ll get out of it, but not really understanding what he was being taught.  He had his “AH HA” moment in his second session.  I don’t know what was said or done, but all of the sudden, he got it.

One of the more frequent questions we receive when presenting to companies centers around the interviewing process, especially as it pertains to new-to-real estate candidates.  

Here's the question: What is it that makes you a good recruiter/hiring manager?

Even though we discuss this topic freqently (sometimes with the same audience) each member seems to take away something different each time the question is asked. 

The answer that seems to resonate most with me is:  It's the value that you impart to the candidate.

At some point in the interview process you learn the candidate’s story, what they have liked/disliked in their work history, what about their bosses they have liked/disliked etc.  As you then discuss what you heard, you can reiterate their points of pain in such a way that will demonstrate that a career in real estate could be a good match simply based on what they shared with you.   

Is there value in this dialog?   Absolutely! 

Your value started the moment they walked in the door, and continued while you genuinely listened to their story…everyone wants to be heard.  Your value continued as you had an honest discussion about their story and how a new career in real estate could align with their own goals and career preferences.

Your value does not stop there…it is now at critical mass.  It is what you extend to them between the interview, through licensure and hiring that will determine your overall success in recruiting YOUR top talent.

Keep your value in front of them.   Isn't it a natural instinct for humans to hold onto what they value? 

If you answered yes, by extension would you agree that your high potential talent would then hold onto you as a valuable resource and partner in reaching their career goals?  

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Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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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. .

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments: An Introduction to Daniel Kahneman

A few weeks ago, I started reading a fascinating book called Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. 

I usually move through business books quickly and zero in on the few ideas that seem applicable.  I suspect most business books are intentionally designed to be consumed in this manner.  They’re “sugary” and easy to digest knowing the attention span of the readers (me included) is relatively short.

So it took some courage for Kahneman to write a 500-page book full of substantive content that is fairly difficult to understand.  I’ve been reading for a couple of weeks and I’m only 20% finished!  I recently picked up a couple other books to read in parallel because this one is going to take while, and I don’t want to rush through it.  If I did race through it, I feel like I’d miss a bunch of great insights.

To provide some background, Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2002.  Since Kahneman is a psychologist (not an economist), it was unusual for him to win this prize.   In fact, he was the first non-economist (by profession) to win this award.  He won the prize for developing Prospect Theory-- a behavioral economic theory that describes the way people chose between alternatives that involve risk.

Studying Prospect Theory would be beneficial for anyone in the real estate profession (I can’t think of a Nobel-prize-winning topic more applicable to the day-to-day work of a real estate agent), but the topics we’ll be discussing in future WorkPuzzles will focus more on the psychology of making decisions and forming judgments.  Here is quick summary of what we’ll hope to learn:

In his best selling book, Daniel Kahneman will take us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think.  System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical.

The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from recruiting your next agent to diagnosing what causes some of your agents to consistently make the wrong choices—each of these can be better understood by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.

Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us (and those we manage) into trouble.

Tomorrow, I’ll share some specific insights concerning some of Kahneman's ideas and how they apply to recruiting.  In the future, I'll occasionally revisit this topic with new insights and ideas that apply not only to recruiting, but also coaching and personal performance as well. 

If you want to read the book on your own, the Kindle version in a great bargain (only $4.99 on Amazon) right now.   Also, there are several summaries of this book available if you’re more of the “cliff-notes” type of person. 

Regardless, I believe there is a lot learn from Daniel Kahneman’s manifesto.  Writing from a near 80-year-old’s perspective, he has much wisdom to share.

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Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

 

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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. 

The Unintended Consequences of Rewarding Outstanding Performance

Last year, we wrote a series of blogs outlining some of the research concerning the usefulness of  "carrot and stick" motivation techniques.  The findings of the research were very clear:  Providing extrinsic rewards cannot be blindly relied upon to help motivate individuals to perform better.

It's not that rewards should never be used.  In some cases (and for some people), incentives do have a positive impact on both individual and team performance.  But, don't be lulled into thinking this motivation technique is some kind of magic bullet.  It's not.  Offering an incentive can sometimes produce negative results.

In the case of our previous series, researchers demonstrated that trying to incentivize tasks that involve creativity was particularly ineffective. New research has now demonstrated offering incentives to top performers in your organization may also prove counterproductive in the long run.

The new research was recently summarized by Max Nisen at Business Insider, 

"Prizes and rewards are designed to produce more effort, to give people something to strive towards. But what happens once they actually get it? According to a new study by Harvard's George Borjas and Notre Dame's Kirk Doran of recipients of the Fields Medal, the most prestigious prize in mathematics, winning big actually kills productivity.

Mathematicians who win it publish far less in the years afterwards than similarly brilliant "contenders"

It goes to show that major awards and recognition can have unintended consequences. 

The drop off is pretty massive, as this chart shows:

This is explained, in part, by the classic economic "wealth effect." The impact of the Fields medal is significant. It's more prestigious than any other prize, and though the financial reward is a meager $15,000, the career and research opportunities available to a winner expand massively. 

Because they've achieved so much "wealth" in terms of prestige, job security, and opportunity, winners are more likely to choose leisure activities over work, just as someone who suddenly comes into significant monetary rewards might.

Not only do they produce fewer papers, but the ones they do write are relatively less important. And winners take fewer mentees, as well.

The authors did find one surprising positive effect. Though they publish less, winners also take more risks in the future. They've already reached the pinnacle of their field, so they feel free to pursue moonshots, new areas of mathematics that they think are fascinating or vital.

The risk is quite large. The winners know they're capable of doing extraordinary work in a particular area. Moving outside of it makes future results far less certain. Their particular gifts or talent might not translate well, and they're going to have to learn new skills and an entirely new body of research in the new area, which is all very time consuming.

The researchers term movement outside the core field, "cognitive mobility," and its increase explains about half of the drop off in productivity for medal winners.

The prize frees them up in an extremely significant way. In the years leading up to the medal year, the likelihood of a mathematician straying from their comfort zone is very rare, at just 5%. For prize-winners, the rate quintuples to 25%."

This research obviously covers a very specific and unique population, but it has implications for high performers in any area. Whether it's promising a promotion, a raise, or an award, leaders have to think about the aftermath as well as the competition itself.

It's important to reward achievement, but it may also have the unintended side effect of creating complacency. At the same time, there's something to be said for giving top performers the opportunity and safety net required to do really innovative work, even if it's less certain and takes longer.

When this research is paired with Daniel Pink's observations highlighted in our previous series, it should be worth at least a prolonged head scratch. As I said previously,  

"These days, carrots and sticks will often do more harm than good. The time has come to tap into the deeply human need to direct our own lives and create new things and to do better by ourselves and our world."

Exactly.  

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Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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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. 

Situational Leadership in the Recruiting Process

Occasionally, a book is written that sums up something so obvious it clarifies much of what we know and already do well.  At the same time, it inspires us to strive to perfect those very same things.

Ken Blanchard’s classic The One-Minute Manager developed some ideas about differing management styles that continue to inform me in a variety of circumstances, not just at work.  Read the following excerpt from an article addressing Blanchard's ideas and think through its implications on the entire recruitment, hiring, and training process of a new agent hire. 

"Situational leadership is a term developed by Ken Blanchard. As a situational leader you are able to adapt your leadership style to fit the situation of your team member or employee. This means you can deploy four different leadership styles depending on the situation.

As you assess which style is needed, you need to make a conscious choice about which of your own behaviors is needed. With directive behavior, you provide structure, control and close supervision for the people who need it. With supportive behavior, you use praise and two-way communication to facilitate the work of your team.

Blanchard sees four leadership styles growing out of combinations of supportive and directive behavior: directing style, coaching style, supporting style and delegating style.

In 'directing' style, the emphasis is on control and close supervision of the worker. In 'coaching' style, the leader provides more explanation of what the job entails and solicits suggestions while still staying in control of the situation. With 'supporting' style, there is a team approach between the leader and follower with the leader emphasizing support of the follower rather than control. Finally, in 'delegating' style, the leader turns over responsibility to the worker.

When I coach people on how to use Situational Leadership I usually talk to them about their own evolution in their current organization. I usually say, 'During your first week, how did you feel? You were likely excited and a little anxious. You also wanted to know what you were expected to do and shown how to do it.' You needed your supervisor to be using a ‘Directing’ leadership style.

Most of us evolve in our careers from needing Directing leadership at the beginning and then Coaching, then Supporting, and finally Delegating leadership when we become experienced and reliable.

Of course people develop at different rates and the Situational Leader needs to know where each person is in their evolution in order to determine what type of leadership they need. As Blanchard describes in his work, the level of a person’s development is measured by assessing their ‘competence and commitment’.  

Competence is the level of a person’s knowledge and skills as they relate to doing their job. Commitment, on the other hand, is the level of the person’s confidence and motivation. Most leaders find Commitment to be the most difficult to assess.

Success in leadership comes when the leadership style is matched with the characteristics of the follower. Problems with leadership come when the leadership style does not fit the follower."

What struck me about the relevance of situational leadership to the recruitment process is the evolution from the very first contact. The recruiting professionals who are skilled at switching from one style to another and back again quickly are most successful.  Why?  The savviest recruits may need each style.

Also when the recruiting process is shared across multiple roles in an organization, it is also important to pass this leadership information on to others in chain of contact.  This allows each new phone calll /interview to begin in the right framework rather than backtracking and repeating what others have already done.

Question: What styles do you find yourself naturally using the most? What relevance is it to be aware of these variations? 

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Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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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.