What Bank of America and Apple Can Teach You About Recruiting

Like many of you, I was intrigued by the all the turmoil in the financial markets last week.  It made me glad that my occupation is not tied directly to the financial industry.  Some of my business associates in those career fields had a very stressful week.  I guess being a stock broker would have been better than being a policeman in London, but not by much!

Bank of America As I discussed the financial news with one of my business partners (who happens to be our company's CFO), he again suggested that I consider buying some Bank of America stock.  He's mentioned this stock tip a couple of times in the last six months (of course, I didn't listen), but this time it came right after the stock lost 17% of its value on Monday.

I'm normally not one for watching stocks, but with this conversation fresh in my mind, I came across an article in Yahoo Finance that caught my eye.  The article started like this…Apple

"CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — How many of you are willing to bet that Bank of America stock will outperform Apple's in coming months?  Hardly any of you, I am sure.

After all, Apple is on an unbelievable tear — close on the heels of Exxon Mobil to become the most valuable company in the world.  Bank of America, in contrast, is off nearly 50% from its 52-week high, which was set in early January — including a stunning 17% drop on Monday of this week.

But your aversion to betting on Bank of America over Apple just goes to show how hard it is to be a genuine contrarian."

As I thought through that last sentence, I couldn't help but ponder how this principle has proven true in so many areas of my life.  It has always been tough for me to go against the flow, let alone convince someone else to be a contrarian (if you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about).

But, that's exactly what you're doing if you've tried to convince an individual to start a real estate career in the last few years.  From the candidate's perspective, it's very counterintuitive.  In fact, for most people, it borders on being perceived by their friends and family as complete craziness!

Is it crazy to become a new real estate agent under today's market conditions?  For many people…yes, it is.  But for some, it is as profound a decision as buying low and selling high. 

The article goes on to explain how the process of connecting a company's market cap to its future potential is notoriously flawed.  A much better indicator of future stock performance is the natural and long-term migration that most stocks have towards a baseline of business fundamentals (sales, earnings, book value, etc.).

So, would it be a smart move to buy Bank of America stock?  Who knows… But what I do know is that if I were responsible for selling financial advice based on the concept of being a contrarian, I'd certainly learn how to articulate this line of reasoning.    

If you're an owner, general manager, or recruiting manager, I would recommend you put some thought into selling a real estate career from this perspective.  

Like some financial advisors, many interviewers try to remain positive and just pretend that nothing is wrong.  Your interviews will be much more authentic if you identify and address the fear and anxiety a person undoubtedly feels from considering entry into an industry that appears to be depressed.  Bring this objection out on the table–believe me, it's there.

It's up to you to bring the benefits of entering a real estate career in today's market to the forefront of your conversation.  If people were comfortable operating with a contrarian mindset, there would be a lot more people buying Bank of America stock right now…  


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.

The Spark of Greatness in Everyone: Part 2

As I mentioned earlier this week, I spend roughly half of my work life practicing as a Clinical Psychologist (my first love, really).  I enjoy that, on occasion, I get a new and inspiring glimpse into the resiliency and brilliance of the human condition…I love seeing undiscovered treasures that are hidden within each of us, begin to surface.
 
I went into some detail about one of my clients who is a very successful businessman, and who was also, unfortunately, exposed to many years of significant and continuous childhood trauma.  I described how his sanity remained intact due to the fact that he had a very special gift…a gift of being able to boil complex business problems down into simple, core solutions.  He took solace in his goal to see this gift used for good in the world.Sifting for diamonds...

I had also mentioned that because of his gift, he was drawn to find others who were compelled to exercise their gifts in the world and "find ways to do what others think is impossible."  He was motivated to recognize gifts in others and developed some fundamental beliefs about people.  To recap, here are three of his beliefs that I mentioned last time:

  1. There is a Spark of Greatness in everyone…
  2. Very few leaders are looking to find or develop that spark…
  3. And, if they are, they never know when they'll run into someone with a special gift to match the needs of their organization.

I also asked these questions of managers:

  1. Do you look for that Spark of Greatness in others?
  2. And, when you find it– Do you look to develop it?
  3. Do you make snap judgements that may lead you to miss potential talent?

I asked my client, "How do you interview to find people who want to develop to their full potential?"

He replied:

"The questions I ask help me figure out whether a person wants to be developed to their fullest.  I ask questions that get at whether they can see the difference between bosses who did this previously (mentored them to be their best), and those who didn't, and what their response was to each of them.  If they can't resonate with the power of tapping their strengths for the good of the organization and for their own satisfaction, I seriously doubt their ability to find their own spark and attempt the impossible."

He goes onto say:

“I have a firm belief that anyone who is willing to ride out market highs and lows, ups and downs…and be satisfied, isn’t the type of individual who will achieve something special.  Instead, I believe it is possible and preferable to be surrounded by people who want to exceed market expectations.”

As I think about his comments, what comes to me is this:  You need to be looking for people who hunger for Autonomy (a healthy need to be self-directed), for Mastery (a desire to tackle new learning and new goals), and for Purpose (a higher principle that will fuel their motivation).

Conversely, I asked him what he would recommend to those savvy candidates looking for jobs…What should they ask their prospective managers in order to successfully detect those who want to develop people well?  He offered this:

"Candidates should ask a hiring manager, 'What in your career are you most proud of?'  The next questions would be, 'Is there an employee (agent) you've worked with that you are most proud of?  Why?  Tell me about the situation?  How is your relationship now?  Could I talk with that person?'"

Another line of questioning would seek to uncover how many and what types of people have followed the leader.  Good leaders bring their teams with them as they move from company to company.  My client explains:

"Ask the hiring manager, 'How many people work for you now, who worked for you in the past?  Why did they follow you?  Who, if you had a spot, would you recruit right now?  Why?'  People who naturally think this way will have a bunch of stories off the top of their heads."

How would you, as a manager, answer these questions?  Would the most savvy candidates be attracted to you?  Would you have powerful and numerous examples of bringing out the best in people?  As an owner of a company, how many of your managers would fare well with the most skilled, less desperate candidates?

My guess is that many of you continue to interview as if you only expect the most desperate and time-wasting candidates to request an interview.  If that is your default recruiting mindset, then your system of recruiting agents is terribly broken, and you will miss out on the best and the brightest….because the best and the brightest are watching you.  You will, by the very nature of recruiting well, have to go through many duds to get to the stars — And the stars don't respond well to arrogance.  Let me be clear:  The very best candidates will detect disrespect a mile away…and possibly, before the interview ever begins.

Sure, it takes enormous amounts of your effort and energy to make these discoveries, but so does mining for gold or sifting for diamonds…


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.

The Spark of Greatness in Everyone

As many of you know, I spend about half of my work life practicing as a Clinical Psychologist.  This is not only my first love, professionally, but it occasionally gives me new and inspiring glimpses into the resiliency and brilliance of the human condition, and allows me to uncover some of the undiscovered treasures that are hidden within each of us. 

Spark2 One of my clients is a very successful businessman, who was also, unfortunately, exposed to many years of significant and continuous childhood trauma.  No one under those circumstances escapes unscathed, and many get stuck in a world full of hopelessness.  What kept him going?

It turns out that he was one of the few people who, on his own and by the grace of God, became aware that he possessed a very special gift.  The gift first began to reveal itself when he was just eight years old — At this young age, he was compelled to read almost anything he could get his hands on, if it had to do with great wars and leaders of the past.  He was especially enamored by leaders who could see things (solutions) that no one else could see, and through that "seeing" could convince others to attempt "the impossible."

This special interest, he would learn, didn't exist in a vacuum or appear out of the blue.  To the contrary, he began to see that the very existence of the interest in reading (what most of us would ignore) was because it was an extension and sign of his gift.  It was later, in his work life as an adolescent, that he began to see clearly that he had a knack for finding efficiencies that no one else could see, and implementing the changes necessary, much to the amazement of his employers.  And even later in college, graduate school, and beyond…he clearly grasped that he had a knack for boiling complicated political, financial, or business ideas and images down to single page descriptions that would get to the heart of the business solution that seemed to elude everyone else.

Because of this gift and his history, both at home and in business, he has developed many foundational ideas that have successfully guided his hiring and his expectations of others.  Here are just three of his beliefs:

  1. There is a Spark of Greatness in everyone…
  2. Very few leaders are looking to find or develop that spark…
  3. And, if they are, they never know when they'll run into someone with that special gift to match the needs of their organization.

If you are a manager of people, ask yourself these questions:

  1. Do you look for that Spark of Greatness in others?
  2. And when you find it– Do you look to develop it?
  3. Do you make snap judgements that may lead you to miss potential talent?

In the next issue, I'll further this discussion with comments (as described by this client) regarding how to interview in a way that uncovers people who want to develop their talents, and how to elicit those cross interview questions that I'm hoping agents will be asking you.


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.

Nine Steps That Will Help Your New Agents Get Up and Running Quickly

I had a conversation with a real estate executive yesterday, and a common theme again surfaced:  It is very difficult to bring new talent into the real estate industry and help those individuals attain a sustainable level of productivity.

There is no doubt that market conditions have made the process more difficult, but I don’t believe that this is the core problem.  There is still a tremendous amount of opportunity in the real estate industry.  I’ve watched hundreds of agents (through the performance statistics our company tracks) become productive in the last few years.  

How did they do it?  That’s an important question, but an even more important question is…How did their manager, trainer, or mentor help them find this success?  This is the primary value a real estate company offers a person who is starting a real estate career.  Make this your passion, and I believe you’ll find both success and meaning in your leadership role.

How can you become more successful in this role?  This is a complex question.  Here’s one idea that I ran across this week that resonated with me:

Help the new agent understand they are in an execution business.

Jim Estill The concept came from a outstanding blog written by Jim Estill.  Jim is entrepreneur who started a company out of the trunk of his car in 1979, called EMJ Data.  In 2004, he sold EMJ to SYNNEX for $350M.  He now runs a venture capital firm called Canrock Ventures.  Here is Jim’s advice on helping a new entrepreneur (agent) find success in an industry that has low barriers to entry (like real estate): 

"Some businesses have such barriers to entry and such competitive advantage that they can still thrive even with poor execution.  Companies that have patents, government regulation, rocket science (very tough intellectual property to copy), massive development costs to get into the business, high capital cost, high market share etc.

EMJ was an execution business.  It was simply not that hard for anyone to get a product line to distribute.  Over time we were able to grow to create barriers to entry with things like size, having the 'good' lines, and having market share within a niche, but in the end, it was always still an execution business.

It can be fatal for an entrepreneur not to realize that their business is an execution business.  Ask – Is it really that tough for someone to copy what we do?  If the answer is no then follow these steps for success:

9 Ways to Thrive in an Execution Business

1 – Be frugal.  Frugal does not mean cheap, it means getting appropriate value for money spent.  Spend on function, not on show. 
2 – Focus on process.  The key is to create replicable steps that can be repeated time after time.  As an early entrepreneur, often this means trying it yourself.  Time how long it takes to make 10 calls.  Track which message gets the most meetings.  Refine and learn.
3 – Test everything.  Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheap.  This is a continuation of Focus on Process
4 – Look for areas of minor competitive advantage.  Really that is what execution businesses are all about.  Although they may lack the monopoly or defacto monopoly characteristics of other businesses, they can have minor advantages in many different small areas.  If I look at why EMJ was a success, it was not one thing, it was a number of tiny things.
5 – Know your numbers.  By nature, execution businesses have small margins for error.  Competition ensures that there are few 'high profit' opportunities.  So knowing what areas make and lose money and knowing true costs is essential. 
6 – Look for niches.  Often execution businesses can develop competencies within a specific expertise.  Within a niche, it is easier to be the expert – less to study, less people with your focus.  It is also easier to figure out ways to thrive and customize your company to address only those specific things the niche needs.
7 – Work hard.  We worked long and hard year after year.  My work ethic was a competitive advantage.
8 – Take full responsibility.  It does not matter if the economy is good or bad, if China is selling for X, if the US$ is trading at Y, or 'the VP sales cannot sell well enough' or any other 'condition.'  Those are just conditions.  We live with them and figure out how to be profitable.  There are no excuses – If we fail, we are the ones that did not execute well so we need to change our product, our approach, our tactics and anything else. 
9 – Study and practice time management.  I think that is why I ended up writing a book on time management.  This is really an extension of Be Frugal.  Time is the biggest cost so get the best value from it possible.

If you can teach your new agents to exectute well, they will be successful.  And at that point, you'll be exectuing well also. 


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.

Relationships or Objects: How Do You Treat Your Candidates?

The most common recruiting questions that I get from real estate owners and general managers usually involve the topic of interviewing.  More specifically, everyone wants to know if their hiring managers are interviewing effectively…and if not, how improvements can be made.

As you know, effective interviewing is critical to the hiring process.  While our company encourages the use of assessment technology early in the hiring process, many factors important for assessing a candidate can only begin to be captured by sitting down with a person in a face-to-face meeting.

At this point, there are many great practices and research-based methodologies for making the most of an interview.  However, even the best techniques will produce poor results if they are not built upon an appropriate understanding of people.

John Sumser, a recruiting consultant that I’ve referenced several times in WorkPuzzle, wrote a very insightful article on this topic.  He makes the simple point that if you treat candidates like objects or transactions, you’ve short-circuited the recruiting process before it has even begun.

“At the heart of good recruiting…is the mastery of relationship management.  Relationships are hard to develop in volume and many people take statistical shortcuts in processes that develop relationships based on the luck of the draw.

The reason that direct marketing techniques generally have a bad name is that they tend to Relationships-hrexaminer treat people like objects as a precursor to a deeper form of relationship.  The message in this approach is 'If I can figure out what value you bring to me, I will invest in a deeper relationship.'

No good relationship begins with the proposition that it will depend on my understanding of the value I’ll get.  They begin with the question 'What value can I give?'  They start with the notion that the 'objects of our desire' are people first.  When they are 'objects' first, the very beginning of the relationship is sowed with the seeds of its ultimate failure.

In situations that require people to sift through volumes of potential relationships, the tendency to objectify feels like a quick shortcut to successful completion of the task… Remembering that each resume represents the desires, hopes and aspirations (and sometimes desperation) of a person is a nearly superhuman task that requires the constant availability of forgiveness, a sense of humor and a willingness to see beyond the data.  It is tremendously hard to keep this perspective fresh and foremost, particularly in a reactive environment.

But, it is the process of evolving and maturing relationships, that characterizes real sales or recruiting effectiveness.  It’s a process that can be supported but never automated because it involves the feelings of the person doing the recruiting or selling.

…All of the sourcing and record keeping programs in the world won’t begin to compensate for a recruiting process that treats potential candidates as objects.  To the extent that current systems perpetuate the myth that data constitutes a relationship, they are major contributors to the problem.”

Treating candidates with a “relationship-based” framework is a high calling—it is not an easy thing to do.  Seeing the candidates you interview as human beings first requires patience, compassion, and a sincere desire to want the best for those you engage.  Self-interest is a powerful motivator for all of us, but it can be crippling if you’re a short-term thinker or have a transactional mindset.

Please understand, I’m not suggesting that you run a charity or abandon your focus on results.  Quite the opposite.  Our highest performing clients understand and build upon this principle of sincerity much better than those who struggle to meet their recruiting and performance goals.  There is really no way to be successful (in the long-term) if you build upon a deficient foundation. 


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 to spot a Narcissistic Agent…and how they can poison your company

I have probably had more people ask me about narcissism than any other disorder in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders.  This doesn’t surprise me.  Unlike most other disorders, narcissistic individuals can be very successful, and almost always very charming (when they want to be).

Narcissism Most questions about this topic come out of pure curiosity, but some inquiries about narcissism come from executives raising concerns over a common dilemma: "This successful person (client, agent, other executive etc) is causing me constant headaches!" 

In lay terms, "narcissism" means an almost total self-absorbtion. These individuals are focused on getting a continual stream of adulation on the one hand, and exhibit a complete lack of emotional vulnerability on the other.  Narcissistic individuals can appear very charming superficially, and are often times (but not always) the life of the party.

The primary focus for them is to be "perfect" in every way in order to be above criticism or critique of any kind.  They don't seek out any depth or attachment in relationships.  Their egos are extremely fragile and to protect themselves, they devalue any input that may reveal flaws.

After seven years of successful therapy with one particular man who had this condition, he told me that he remembers a cheerleader in high school telling him (the star football player), "You are the most conceited person I have ever known," to which he replied: "Conceited?  Me?  No!  Conceit is a flaw; I have no flaws!"

Unfortunately, when untreated, these individuals can ruin the overall reputation and character of a company or office.  Narcissists can behave in ways that may lead other agents to want to sever ties and leave a company to get away from the arrogance. They tend to increase conflict, and lead to political and counterproductive office competition.  Narcissists are likely to withhold information that could benefit everyone, including your customers, in order to get their needs met primarily.

So, regardless of how much market share a narcissist brings to your office, you need to seriously weigh the hidden costs:  How do they impact morale?  How many consumers do they turn off on their way to getting deals done?  How do they represent your company?  Do they act with the values that your company stands for?
 
I’m hesitant to give you a symptom list for Narcissists, but I will offer you just a few tips to consider when coaching, assessing, and training your agents to succeed in their attitudes towards others (From Bob Sutton's "17 things I Believe"):

  • One of the best tests of a person's character is how he or she treats those with less power.  Train your agents to treat everyone equally. 
  • Most agents are either novices or experts:  Encourage your experts to seek-out novices to help; and your novices to seek out experts whom they can learn from. 
  • Encourage good questions rather than encouraging smart answers. 
  • Find people who err on the side of optimism and positive energy with others. 
  • Avoid pompous jerks whenever possible.  They not only make you feel bad about yourself, chances are that everyone in your office will eventually start acting like them.    

 


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.