Nick Morgan, Harvard Business Review; Steve Jobs's Disastrous iPhone 4 Press Conference:
"I watched with growing dismay and disbelief as Steve Jobs struggled through his press conference last week about the iPhone 4 dropped calls. Jobs has a rightly earned reputation as a remarkable communicator; indeed there has been at least one book written about his presentation style as something worthy of emulation. But his usual elegant combination of enthusiasm and sang-froid deserted him at Friday's press conference. Jobs was defensive, angry, and ultimately ineffective. It's a classic example of how not to conduct public relations.
Jobs usually comes out beaming and full of enthusiasm for a new product or update. His body language reflects that enthusiasm; he's open, gestures comfortably with his hands, and makes a good connection with his audience.
Today, he was deep in his own personal maelstrom of defensiveness and hostility. His head was frequently down; in fact his whole posture betrayed his unhappiness. He frequently hid his hands behind his back — a classic defensive posture — when he wasn't clasping them in front of his stomach (another defensive posture).
He began by showing a long demo whose sole purpose seemed to be to demonstrate that other smart phones drop calls too. This is akin to defending yourself by saying, "Yeah, well, Jimmy stole cookies from the cookie jar, too!" In other words, it's no defense at all, and it looks nasty, dragging everyone else into the mire with you.
Saying, "We're not perfect; smart phones aren't perfect," repeatedly, Jobs added a kind of surly repetitiveness to his defensiveness.
Then he got into the data, which in fact shows that not many people are complaining about the iPhone 4, and it's not dropping many more calls than the 3GS. But his tone was angry and defensive, so his argument sounded petulant rather than contrite.
When a company wants to put out a PR fire, the only way to do it is to humbly acknowledge whatever mistakes happened and offer to do something concrete about it to see that it stops or it won't happen again. Jobs' attitude throughout was, as he said about 10 minutes in, that the whole thing was "blown out of proportion." That won't win back the customers whose calls were dropped, and it won't satisfy the press.
Transparency is the key for all PR blunders, but transparency without attitude. Unfortunately, Jobs had attitude oozing from every pore. So much so that when he said, "We care about every user," he sounded like he didn't mean it. Putting his hands behind his back at that precise moment didn't help either.
So pervasive was his anger that it colored the best moment in the news conference, when he announced that every iPhone 4 user was going to get a free case to solve the antenna-dropped calls problem. That should have initiated the beginning of the end of the PR fiasco, because it was the right thing to do: take action to repair the damage in a way that brings some benefit to the customer. But the way Jobs handled it sounded grudging. He said that Consumer Reports suggested Apple should "just give everyone a free case - so we are." His tone was close to a snarl.
Jobs ended on stronger ground, talking about his — and Apple's — passion for delighting their customers. Here he was on a happier plane, and he managed to sound more convincing, if still a little grumpy.
Jobs is Apple's spokesperson, and he usually does a terrific job. But in this case, his anger and his defensiveness got the better of him. Apple is now a dominant player in the consumer technology market and it can't afford this kind of ham-fisted performance. Jobs should remove himself from the lineup and let someone else take over. Or he should get over himself and cheer up. But Friday's press conference was not good corporate PR.
Nick Morgan is President of Public Words Inc, a communications consulting firm, and author of Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma."
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/07/steve_jobss_disastrous_iphone.html
Monday, July 26, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Aaron Levie, co-founder and C.E.O. of Box.net, an online file storage company; New York Times, 7/25/10
Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Aaron Levie, co-founder and C.E.O. of Box.net, an online file storage company: Always Keep a Few Tricks Up Your Sleeve:
"Q. Talk about the culture of your company.
A. Everyone has a start-up mentality still, and we’re small enough where you get the right kind of energy and dedication, so everyone feels really a part of what we’re doing. People are able to question each other about strategies, whether they’re in marketing, engineering or product.
We try to keep it fairly low on hierarchy. Everyone is encouraged to be entrepreneurial and people tend to be extremely passionate, but it’s not about taking credit or being arrogant about what we’re doing.
We’ve been able to do away with just a lot of the corporate kind of things that I think slow down organizations and don’t result in productive behavior, and instead we’ve been able to get a lot of people focused on really having a good time, which helps us stay fast and innovative. And I think that ultimately is the only reason that people even want to go to work or want to stay in business — to have a good time while collaborating to accomplish a big vision.
Q. So what are some specifics?
A. We had our first ever “hackathon” at Box a few months ago. The engineering team pulled an all-nighter, from 8 p.m. until noon the next day, on projects outside their daily job description.
We then had a judging panel at lunch, and the entire company got to watch the engineers present some amazing new features. It was fun and people goofed off but it was also really inspiring, and I think it brought the whole group together.
Q. What were some important leadership lessons for you?
A. In middle school, I did magic shows. It actually applies to what I’m doing now because it’s all about getting in front of people and telling a story, something that people buy into that is hopefully entertaining. It’s all about capturing people’s imaginations and getting them excited about what’s possible.
Q. What about as a C.E.O.?
A. I think a big jump was to managing or helping the managers of the people doing most of the hands-on work on projects — being one degree away from the action and figuring out and understanding what that means in terms of leadership.
Q. And what does that mean?
A. As much as I would love to be involved in every single decision that gets made in the organization, not only is that not scalable, it’s also not leveraging or capitalizing on the amazing experience of the people that we have on the team. It’s really hard to let the details go. Every sort of decision is really interesting. So you come up with a big goal, and hopefully everyone comes together to figure out how to accomplish it.
Q. Talk more about that process.
A. I’ve made some mistakes in terms of getting involved at the wrong level of the problem or the wrong time. I’ll think I’m speeding things up by saying, “Oh, let’s just solve it that way,” but then it turns out I’m slowing things down because I’m breaking a healthy system that’s emerging.
Q. Let’s talk about hiring.
A. One thing that’s really important is understanding what they’ve done in their career. Just walk me through how you got to where you are today. What are the factors that led to specific decisions — that can give you a level of insight into behavior and how they make decisions. One thing that I’m asking now is to talk about a project or job — “What could you have done differently to do that bigger or get more revenue or execute better?” You see if they can look back on their decisions and find out where they could have improved.
Energy and persistence are the two most important factors, in addition to just having a clean résumé where there’s nothing crazy going on. In a business like ours, we have to be super, super competitive, and we have to be able to get people who are going to be persistent and relentless and have a level of energy that gets them through challenging things.
Curiosity is another big thing and a way to identify who’s going to be energetic and have the right attitude. Sometimes the best people are the ones who are very curious about our business model, how we’re going to grow. They actually care a lot about us as a company; that’s actually been a pretty good way to find people who are going to be really dedicated to the business.
And ultimately, we’re looking to hire people who can adapt to what a role might become, not just what it is today. When you’re at a start-up, things move and scale very quickly, and you want to hire people who can grow with the company and into roles that expand beyond the job description they were hired for.
Q. If you could ask a job candidate just a few questions, what would they be?
A. “What questions do you have for me?” That will help you see how they’re thinking about the challenges. A lot of times I’ll say, “When you’re thinking about Box as an opportunity, how do you compare it to other organizations? What do we have that you want to be a part of?” Getting them to articulate the values back to you about what kind of organization they want to be a part of can actually be very useful.
Q. What advice would you give to somebody who’s about to become a C.E.O.?
A. I think people are always able to achieve more than they think they can. While that’s cliché, I don’t know if managers think about that enough. You have to set your sights extremely high.
We often go through a process of thinking about the best way to execute on something, whether it’s a product launch or a sales strategy, then come back again after a day or two and figure out how can we do this even bigger or better. It often leads to better decisions and ideas.
It’s also important to know where your gaps are and what resources you need. So, one thing that I often do with my co-founder is to look at the organization and figure out what we’re missing, where our gaps are, where our weaknesses are, and then how do we solve for those things. We know our strengths, and sometimes it’s important to look at your strengths. That way, you sort of continue to push on those and invest in those areas. But it’s really important that you constantly know why you wouldn’t succeed, and what you need to do to change that.
Feedback is really critical, too. The day you notice there are challenges or issues, you get involved — don’t let things boil up.
I think bad politics are incredibly dangerous, so it’s important to make sure that people are communicating well. Culture and morale are super important. It’s best to not force it, but let it happen organically and genuinely. It certainly helps if you know a couple magic tricks, but if you don’t, then there are other things you can do.
Q. Given your experience with magic, I take it you’re comfortable in front of a crowd. What was the biggest crowd you played to?
A. Probably about 400 people. It was a corporate event. I did corporate parties and stuff when I was 11 or 12 years old.
Q. How much did you charge?
A. About $300. We’re making more money now, so I’m very happy about that."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/business/25corner.html?pagewanted=2
"Q. Talk about the culture of your company.
A. Everyone has a start-up mentality still, and we’re small enough where you get the right kind of energy and dedication, so everyone feels really a part of what we’re doing. People are able to question each other about strategies, whether they’re in marketing, engineering or product.
We try to keep it fairly low on hierarchy. Everyone is encouraged to be entrepreneurial and people tend to be extremely passionate, but it’s not about taking credit or being arrogant about what we’re doing.
We’ve been able to do away with just a lot of the corporate kind of things that I think slow down organizations and don’t result in productive behavior, and instead we’ve been able to get a lot of people focused on really having a good time, which helps us stay fast and innovative. And I think that ultimately is the only reason that people even want to go to work or want to stay in business — to have a good time while collaborating to accomplish a big vision.
Q. So what are some specifics?
A. We had our first ever “hackathon” at Box a few months ago. The engineering team pulled an all-nighter, from 8 p.m. until noon the next day, on projects outside their daily job description.
We then had a judging panel at lunch, and the entire company got to watch the engineers present some amazing new features. It was fun and people goofed off but it was also really inspiring, and I think it brought the whole group together.
Q. What were some important leadership lessons for you?
A. In middle school, I did magic shows. It actually applies to what I’m doing now because it’s all about getting in front of people and telling a story, something that people buy into that is hopefully entertaining. It’s all about capturing people’s imaginations and getting them excited about what’s possible.
Q. What about as a C.E.O.?
A. I think a big jump was to managing or helping the managers of the people doing most of the hands-on work on projects — being one degree away from the action and figuring out and understanding what that means in terms of leadership.
Q. And what does that mean?
A. As much as I would love to be involved in every single decision that gets made in the organization, not only is that not scalable, it’s also not leveraging or capitalizing on the amazing experience of the people that we have on the team. It’s really hard to let the details go. Every sort of decision is really interesting. So you come up with a big goal, and hopefully everyone comes together to figure out how to accomplish it.
Q. Talk more about that process.
A. I’ve made some mistakes in terms of getting involved at the wrong level of the problem or the wrong time. I’ll think I’m speeding things up by saying, “Oh, let’s just solve it that way,” but then it turns out I’m slowing things down because I’m breaking a healthy system that’s emerging.
Q. Let’s talk about hiring.
A. One thing that’s really important is understanding what they’ve done in their career. Just walk me through how you got to where you are today. What are the factors that led to specific decisions — that can give you a level of insight into behavior and how they make decisions. One thing that I’m asking now is to talk about a project or job — “What could you have done differently to do that bigger or get more revenue or execute better?” You see if they can look back on their decisions and find out where they could have improved.
Energy and persistence are the two most important factors, in addition to just having a clean résumé where there’s nothing crazy going on. In a business like ours, we have to be super, super competitive, and we have to be able to get people who are going to be persistent and relentless and have a level of energy that gets them through challenging things.
Curiosity is another big thing and a way to identify who’s going to be energetic and have the right attitude. Sometimes the best people are the ones who are very curious about our business model, how we’re going to grow. They actually care a lot about us as a company; that’s actually been a pretty good way to find people who are going to be really dedicated to the business.
And ultimately, we’re looking to hire people who can adapt to what a role might become, not just what it is today. When you’re at a start-up, things move and scale very quickly, and you want to hire people who can grow with the company and into roles that expand beyond the job description they were hired for.
Q. If you could ask a job candidate just a few questions, what would they be?
A. “What questions do you have for me?” That will help you see how they’re thinking about the challenges. A lot of times I’ll say, “When you’re thinking about Box as an opportunity, how do you compare it to other organizations? What do we have that you want to be a part of?” Getting them to articulate the values back to you about what kind of organization they want to be a part of can actually be very useful.
Q. What advice would you give to somebody who’s about to become a C.E.O.?
A. I think people are always able to achieve more than they think they can. While that’s cliché, I don’t know if managers think about that enough. You have to set your sights extremely high.
We often go through a process of thinking about the best way to execute on something, whether it’s a product launch or a sales strategy, then come back again after a day or two and figure out how can we do this even bigger or better. It often leads to better decisions and ideas.
It’s also important to know where your gaps are and what resources you need. So, one thing that I often do with my co-founder is to look at the organization and figure out what we’re missing, where our gaps are, where our weaknesses are, and then how do we solve for those things. We know our strengths, and sometimes it’s important to look at your strengths. That way, you sort of continue to push on those and invest in those areas. But it’s really important that you constantly know why you wouldn’t succeed, and what you need to do to change that.
Feedback is really critical, too. The day you notice there are challenges or issues, you get involved — don’t let things boil up.
I think bad politics are incredibly dangerous, so it’s important to make sure that people are communicating well. Culture and morale are super important. It’s best to not force it, but let it happen organically and genuinely. It certainly helps if you know a couple magic tricks, but if you don’t, then there are other things you can do.
Q. Given your experience with magic, I take it you’re comfortable in front of a crowd. What was the biggest crowd you played to?
A. Probably about 400 people. It was a corporate event. I did corporate parties and stuff when I was 11 or 12 years old.
Q. How much did you charge?
A. About $300. We’re making more money now, so I’m very happy about that."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/business/25corner.html?pagewanted=2
Sunday, July 18, 2010
12 Things Good Bosses Believe; Harvard Business Review, 5/28/10
Robert Sutton, Harvard Business Review; 12 Things Good Bosses Believe:
"What makes a boss great? It's a question I've been researching for a while now. In June 2009, I offered some analysis in HBR on the subject, and more recently I've been hard at work on a book called Good Boss, Bad Boss (forthcoming in September from Business Plus).
In both cases, my approach has been to be as evidence-based as possible. That is, I avoid giving any advice that isn't rooted in real proof of efficacy; I want to pass along the techniques and behaviors that are grounded in sound research. It seems to me that, by adopting the habits of good bosses and shunning the sins of bad bosses, anyone can do a better job overseeing the work of others.
At the same time, I've come to conclude that all the technique and behavior coaching in the world won't make a boss great if that boss doesn't also have a certain mindset. My readings of peer-reviewed studies, plus my more idiosyncratic experience studying and consulting to managers in many settings, have led me identify some key beliefs that are held by the best bosses — and rejected, or more often simply never even thought about, by the worst bosses. Here they are, presented as a neat dozen:
1. I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
2. My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.
3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day.
4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe — and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.
6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do the same thing.
8. One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is "what happens after people make a mistake?"
9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too.
10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.
11. How I do things is as important as what I do.
12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.
What do you say: does that about cover it? If not, tell me what I missed. Or if you're not quite sure what I mean in these brief statements, stay tuned. Over the coming weeks, I'll be digging into each one of them in more depth, touching on the research evidence and illustrating with examples.
If you're like most people I meet, you've had your share of bad bosses — and probably at least one good one. What were the attitudes the good one held? And what great, workplace-transforming beliefs could your worst boss never quite embrace?"
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/05/12_things_that_good_bosses_bel.html
"What makes a boss great? It's a question I've been researching for a while now. In June 2009, I offered some analysis in HBR on the subject, and more recently I've been hard at work on a book called Good Boss, Bad Boss (forthcoming in September from Business Plus).
In both cases, my approach has been to be as evidence-based as possible. That is, I avoid giving any advice that isn't rooted in real proof of efficacy; I want to pass along the techniques and behaviors that are grounded in sound research. It seems to me that, by adopting the habits of good bosses and shunning the sins of bad bosses, anyone can do a better job overseeing the work of others.
At the same time, I've come to conclude that all the technique and behavior coaching in the world won't make a boss great if that boss doesn't also have a certain mindset. My readings of peer-reviewed studies, plus my more idiosyncratic experience studying and consulting to managers in many settings, have led me identify some key beliefs that are held by the best bosses — and rejected, or more often simply never even thought about, by the worst bosses. Here they are, presented as a neat dozen:
1. I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
2. My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.
3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day.
4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe — and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.
6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do the same thing.
8. One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is "what happens after people make a mistake?"
9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too.
10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.
11. How I do things is as important as what I do.
12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.
What do you say: does that about cover it? If not, tell me what I missed. Or if you're not quite sure what I mean in these brief statements, stay tuned. Over the coming weeks, I'll be digging into each one of them in more depth, touching on the research evidence and illustrating with examples.
If you're like most people I meet, you've had your share of bad bosses — and probably at least one good one. What were the attitudes the good one held? And what great, workplace-transforming beliefs could your worst boss never quite embrace?"
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/05/12_things_that_good_bosses_bel.html
How to Prevent Hiring Disasters; Harvard Business Review, 5/27/10
Amy Gallo, Harvard Business Review; How to Prevent Hiring Disasters:
"Hiring someone can be a time-consuming and nerve-wracking task. In an ideal situation, you find the perfect person for the position — someone who hits the ground running, increases your unit's performance, and eases your workload. In the worst-case scenario, your seemingly perfect hire turns out to be far from it and you spend months dealing with the aftermath, including finding a replacement. Either way, it can feel like a referendum on your judgment. So how can you be sure your experience is more like the former than the latter? If you outline and adhere to a disciplined process, you can greatly improve your chances.
What the Experts Say
Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior adviser at Egon Zehnder International and the author of Great People Decisions and "The Definitive Guide to Recruiting in Good Times and Bad," argues that hiring decisions are pressure-filled for a reason. "It is crucial to get hiring right not only for the hiring entity, but also, and very importantly, for the person being hired," he says. A new hire isn't to blame for a bad hiring decision, but will shoulder much of the burden when a role doesn't fit.
A carefully crafted hiring process can help avoid most mishaps. Adele Lynn, founder and owner of The Adele Lynn Leadership Group and author of The EQ Interview, urges that companies regard hiring as more of a science than an art, or worse a leap of faith.
Prevention is the best medicine
You can greatly reduce your chances of getting hiring decisions wrong by following a clear and consistent approach that includes knowing the traits valued across the organization (such as humility or an entrepreneurial spirit); conducting fair, structured interviews that include multiple people from the organization; and agreeing on a standard ranking system to evaluate candidates.
Getting the right person for the job requires time and discipline. Be careful of the time trap, warns Lynn. "Often, companies are desperate to fill a position, so the interview process includes some generic questions and some information about the position," she says. Needing to fill the role yesterday is not an excuse for shortchanging the process.
Know the specific competencies you're looking for
Fernández-Aráoz says we are hardwired to hire people who are like us or make us comfortable — but that does not always yield the best candidate. In fact, you need to be aware of what he calls the "typical unconscious psychological traps" that lead one to make inferior people decisions (e.g. overrating capability or making snap judgments). Outline the specific competencies — above and beyond the traits you look for in all new hires — that the ideal candidate needs. What skills are required? How much does experience matter? What behaviors does he need to exhibit in the role? For example, this is a role requiring 7 years of computer programming experience but also an ability to work collaboratively with team members on high-pressure projects.
Screening for the right soft skills is critical. Seasoned hiring managers will tell you that it's much harder to coach behavioral issues than it is to teach someone the technical aspects of the job.
"And people who fail in a new job mostly do so because of their inability to develop proper relationships not only with their boss but also with their peers and subordinates," says Fernández-Aráoz. To assess relational skills and emotional intelligence, "the interview should include behavior-based questions and motive and reflection questions," says Lynn. For example, "Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a co-worker and explain how you resolved it." The aim is to uncover the candidate's true colors. Does he blame others for his mistakes? Does he rationalize his behavior? Or does he accept responsibility? "You get a much more thorough understanding of how a person will behave in the future," says Lynn.
On-board with care
When a new hire seems to be struggling, on-boarding can also be to blame. "Most companies let their new hires sink or swim, and as a result many sink. Some form of integration support reduces the chances of failure, accelerates learning, and increases the contribution of any new hire," says Fernández-Aráoz. The right onboarding approach can help you get immediate value from your new hire and position her for success. But perhaps the most important element is expectation-setting. "Especially with knowledge workers and younger workers, there is a strong need to communicate both expectations of performance and behavior," explains Lynn.
When it happens anyway...
Sometimes even when you follow all the rules, you may still end up with the wrong person in the job. When you suspect a poor fit, proceed carefully. Start by asking others to corroborate your opinion. Don't start a witch hunt, but discreetly ask if they see the situation in the same way. Then, once you've identified where the mismatch is, ask yourself if the problem is coachable "People are ineffective for many reasons and some of those reasons are definitely correctable," says Lynn.
"Unless it's an egregious breach of values, generally coaching and reiterating behaviors and performance expectations should be the first step." Provide feedback to the new hire early on and lay out a plan for getting her up to speed in the problem areas. If the issues persist, consider finding a more appropriate role for her in your organization.
In the worst cases, termination may be your only option, particularly if you find that the problem is not coachable, if you are unwilling to further invest in coaching, or if the error or behavior is intolerable. It should be your last resort, however. "Most likely as the hiring manager you have a large share of responsibility for the mistake, and thus should never fire a person without thoughtful consideration," says Fernández-Aráoz. If you have to let someone go, take a hard look at the hiring process you used and figure out how to change it next time around.
Principles to Remember
Do:
Identify the competencies an ideal candidate needs
Ask interview questions that uncover the drivers behind the candidate's past and future behavior
Give the new hire early feedback about her performance
Don't:
Prioritize technical skills over relational ones
Assume you've made a bad hire without checking your perception with others
Immediately move to termination, without first considering coaching or transferring"
http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2010/05/how-to-prevent-hiring-disaster.html
"Hiring someone can be a time-consuming and nerve-wracking task. In an ideal situation, you find the perfect person for the position — someone who hits the ground running, increases your unit's performance, and eases your workload. In the worst-case scenario, your seemingly perfect hire turns out to be far from it and you spend months dealing with the aftermath, including finding a replacement. Either way, it can feel like a referendum on your judgment. So how can you be sure your experience is more like the former than the latter? If you outline and adhere to a disciplined process, you can greatly improve your chances.
What the Experts Say
Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior adviser at Egon Zehnder International and the author of Great People Decisions and "The Definitive Guide to Recruiting in Good Times and Bad," argues that hiring decisions are pressure-filled for a reason. "It is crucial to get hiring right not only for the hiring entity, but also, and very importantly, for the person being hired," he says. A new hire isn't to blame for a bad hiring decision, but will shoulder much of the burden when a role doesn't fit.
A carefully crafted hiring process can help avoid most mishaps. Adele Lynn, founder and owner of The Adele Lynn Leadership Group and author of The EQ Interview, urges that companies regard hiring as more of a science than an art, or worse a leap of faith.
Prevention is the best medicine
You can greatly reduce your chances of getting hiring decisions wrong by following a clear and consistent approach that includes knowing the traits valued across the organization (such as humility or an entrepreneurial spirit); conducting fair, structured interviews that include multiple people from the organization; and agreeing on a standard ranking system to evaluate candidates.
Getting the right person for the job requires time and discipline. Be careful of the time trap, warns Lynn. "Often, companies are desperate to fill a position, so the interview process includes some generic questions and some information about the position," she says. Needing to fill the role yesterday is not an excuse for shortchanging the process.
Know the specific competencies you're looking for
Fernández-Aráoz says we are hardwired to hire people who are like us or make us comfortable — but that does not always yield the best candidate. In fact, you need to be aware of what he calls the "typical unconscious psychological traps" that lead one to make inferior people decisions (e.g. overrating capability or making snap judgments). Outline the specific competencies — above and beyond the traits you look for in all new hires — that the ideal candidate needs. What skills are required? How much does experience matter? What behaviors does he need to exhibit in the role? For example, this is a role requiring 7 years of computer programming experience but also an ability to work collaboratively with team members on high-pressure projects.
Screening for the right soft skills is critical. Seasoned hiring managers will tell you that it's much harder to coach behavioral issues than it is to teach someone the technical aspects of the job.
"And people who fail in a new job mostly do so because of their inability to develop proper relationships not only with their boss but also with their peers and subordinates," says Fernández-Aráoz. To assess relational skills and emotional intelligence, "the interview should include behavior-based questions and motive and reflection questions," says Lynn. For example, "Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a co-worker and explain how you resolved it." The aim is to uncover the candidate's true colors. Does he blame others for his mistakes? Does he rationalize his behavior? Or does he accept responsibility? "You get a much more thorough understanding of how a person will behave in the future," says Lynn.
On-board with care
When a new hire seems to be struggling, on-boarding can also be to blame. "Most companies let their new hires sink or swim, and as a result many sink. Some form of integration support reduces the chances of failure, accelerates learning, and increases the contribution of any new hire," says Fernández-Aráoz. The right onboarding approach can help you get immediate value from your new hire and position her for success. But perhaps the most important element is expectation-setting. "Especially with knowledge workers and younger workers, there is a strong need to communicate both expectations of performance and behavior," explains Lynn.
When it happens anyway...
Sometimes even when you follow all the rules, you may still end up with the wrong person in the job. When you suspect a poor fit, proceed carefully. Start by asking others to corroborate your opinion. Don't start a witch hunt, but discreetly ask if they see the situation in the same way. Then, once you've identified where the mismatch is, ask yourself if the problem is coachable "People are ineffective for many reasons and some of those reasons are definitely correctable," says Lynn.
"Unless it's an egregious breach of values, generally coaching and reiterating behaviors and performance expectations should be the first step." Provide feedback to the new hire early on and lay out a plan for getting her up to speed in the problem areas. If the issues persist, consider finding a more appropriate role for her in your organization.
In the worst cases, termination may be your only option, particularly if you find that the problem is not coachable, if you are unwilling to further invest in coaching, or if the error or behavior is intolerable. It should be your last resort, however. "Most likely as the hiring manager you have a large share of responsibility for the mistake, and thus should never fire a person without thoughtful consideration," says Fernández-Aráoz. If you have to let someone go, take a hard look at the hiring process you used and figure out how to change it next time around.
Principles to Remember
Do:
Identify the competencies an ideal candidate needs
Ask interview questions that uncover the drivers behind the candidate's past and future behavior
Give the new hire early feedback about her performance
Don't:
Prioritize technical skills over relational ones
Assume you've made a bad hire without checking your perception with others
Immediately move to termination, without first considering coaching or transferring"
http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2010/05/how-to-prevent-hiring-disaster.html
Steinbrenner: The Boss Unbound; New York Times, 7/18/10
Benedict Carey, New York Times; Steinbrenner: The Boss Unbound:
"Even the most devotional hymns to George Steinbrenner, the Yankee’s principal owner, who died last week at age 80, aired the man’s sturm and his drang, his outbursts of pettiness and tyranny. That was George: hated to lose; loved to compete; needed to be on top of the mountain.
And yet it was such a sizable mountain — enough cash to ransack the free-agent market year in and out, enough to carry fantastically overpaid underperformers (Carl Pavano, Kevin Brown) — that the baby-Zeus routine seemed unnecessary. Mr. Steinbrenner’s idol, Patton, was a man of the battlefield, after all, not the baseball field or the owner’s box.
Couldn’t a driven, but lower-key owner have done just as much in the same position? For that matter, couldn’t someone (his son Hank, perhaps?) have parked the Boss in management training for a week or two? No one wants a wimp, but old-fashioned bluster seems nothing if not old fashioned: there must be a better way.
Yet recent research on status and power suggests that brashness, entitlement and ego are essential components for any competent leader, the precursor to ascent and its spoils; they are the traits that provide the seedbed for risk-taking and a soft place to land when some of those risks go wrong. Yes, there are reasons to be an impatient, over-the-top boss — to a point.
For all their professed suspicion of authority, people crave hierarchy and tend to cede authority precisely to those individuals who want to take the reins. In studies of group behavior, it is usually the overconfident, outspoken individuals who take on leadership roles.
And sure enough, the experience of attaining it amplifies the very traits that started people climbing in the first place. People given authority, even in artificial role-playing experiments, become less compassionate by some measures, and even less able to read emotions in the faces of other people. Just the perception of having power raises people’s confidence, and heightens sense of control over events beyond their influence — like the roll of dice, for instance, in one study.
“When you’re in power, and want to stay there, you are not free to be yourself; you are expected to live up to your role as a dominant decisive, absolute authority — and to internalize it, to drink your own Kool-Aid,” said Jennifer Overbeck, a psychologist at the University of Southern California. “It’s very hard to have to act out that role and keep some part of yourself separate.”
Mr. Steinbrenner appeared dumbfounded at times, for instance, when the Yankees could not sign the free-agent players he wanted.
“The illusion of control comes in part from this finding that when they’re in a position of power, people are much more influenced by ideas in their own head,” and less likely to consider counsel from others, said Deborah Gruenfeld, a psychologist at Stanford.
One reason for this bias — and perhaps the most striking recent finding from the study of power — is that leaders who make tough calls from their gut come across not only as more decisive than those who deliberate, but more morally assured. In a series of ongoing studies, presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology meeting earlier this year, Dr. Overbeck found that participants choosing a leader gravitated toward those who made quick decisions in moral dilemmas.
“We don’t know whether this is because people believe that these preferred leaders really do have a superior set of moral rules, or that there’s something else going on,” Dr. Overbeck said.
Either way, this sort of dynamic does not elicit humility. As a rule, people tend to rate themselves as more virtuous than the next guy, a finding psychologists call the holier-than-thou effect. When approving employees or underlings agree, there’s a risk of creating a holiest-of-thou monster.
That’s why, in the end, the most effective leaders find a way to mix some patience with their Patton, to persuade rather than intimidate, to convince people that their goals are the same as the boss’s. Such “soft” skills don’t necessarily come naturally to a people who have spent most of their life in an escalating fever of self-approval and moral superiority.
But come they sometimes do. Last week, old hands in the Yankee organization, including the former manager Gene Michael, remarked that the Boss of the 1990s was a different man than he was in the 1980s, when he was continually firing managers, insulting players and digging up dirt on Dave Winfield — a stunt that got him temporarily banned from baseball.
The man who returned had more patience and, over time, less need for public displays of anger. And in 1996, after an 18-year drought, his teams started winning championships again.
“He still gave off that passion in later years, still had that confidence, that ability to motivate and inspire people,” said Adam Galinsky, a psychologist at Northwestern University and a longtime Yankee fan. “But he allowed his baseball people more leeway, and only then did the team succeed. When he was at his most intimidating — that long period with no success, all those years with Don Mattingly — that’s exactly when the team suffered most.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/weekinreview/18carey.html?scp=4&sq=steinbrenner&st=cse
"Even the most devotional hymns to George Steinbrenner, the Yankee’s principal owner, who died last week at age 80, aired the man’s sturm and his drang, his outbursts of pettiness and tyranny. That was George: hated to lose; loved to compete; needed to be on top of the mountain.
And yet it was such a sizable mountain — enough cash to ransack the free-agent market year in and out, enough to carry fantastically overpaid underperformers (Carl Pavano, Kevin Brown) — that the baby-Zeus routine seemed unnecessary. Mr. Steinbrenner’s idol, Patton, was a man of the battlefield, after all, not the baseball field or the owner’s box.
Couldn’t a driven, but lower-key owner have done just as much in the same position? For that matter, couldn’t someone (his son Hank, perhaps?) have parked the Boss in management training for a week or two? No one wants a wimp, but old-fashioned bluster seems nothing if not old fashioned: there must be a better way.
Yet recent research on status and power suggests that brashness, entitlement and ego are essential components for any competent leader, the precursor to ascent and its spoils; they are the traits that provide the seedbed for risk-taking and a soft place to land when some of those risks go wrong. Yes, there are reasons to be an impatient, over-the-top boss — to a point.
For all their professed suspicion of authority, people crave hierarchy and tend to cede authority precisely to those individuals who want to take the reins. In studies of group behavior, it is usually the overconfident, outspoken individuals who take on leadership roles.
And sure enough, the experience of attaining it amplifies the very traits that started people climbing in the first place. People given authority, even in artificial role-playing experiments, become less compassionate by some measures, and even less able to read emotions in the faces of other people. Just the perception of having power raises people’s confidence, and heightens sense of control over events beyond their influence — like the roll of dice, for instance, in one study.
“When you’re in power, and want to stay there, you are not free to be yourself; you are expected to live up to your role as a dominant decisive, absolute authority — and to internalize it, to drink your own Kool-Aid,” said Jennifer Overbeck, a psychologist at the University of Southern California. “It’s very hard to have to act out that role and keep some part of yourself separate.”
Mr. Steinbrenner appeared dumbfounded at times, for instance, when the Yankees could not sign the free-agent players he wanted.
“The illusion of control comes in part from this finding that when they’re in a position of power, people are much more influenced by ideas in their own head,” and less likely to consider counsel from others, said Deborah Gruenfeld, a psychologist at Stanford.
One reason for this bias — and perhaps the most striking recent finding from the study of power — is that leaders who make tough calls from their gut come across not only as more decisive than those who deliberate, but more morally assured. In a series of ongoing studies, presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology meeting earlier this year, Dr. Overbeck found that participants choosing a leader gravitated toward those who made quick decisions in moral dilemmas.
“We don’t know whether this is because people believe that these preferred leaders really do have a superior set of moral rules, or that there’s something else going on,” Dr. Overbeck said.
Either way, this sort of dynamic does not elicit humility. As a rule, people tend to rate themselves as more virtuous than the next guy, a finding psychologists call the holier-than-thou effect. When approving employees or underlings agree, there’s a risk of creating a holiest-of-thou monster.
That’s why, in the end, the most effective leaders find a way to mix some patience with their Patton, to persuade rather than intimidate, to convince people that their goals are the same as the boss’s. Such “soft” skills don’t necessarily come naturally to a people who have spent most of their life in an escalating fever of self-approval and moral superiority.
But come they sometimes do. Last week, old hands in the Yankee organization, including the former manager Gene Michael, remarked that the Boss of the 1990s was a different man than he was in the 1980s, when he was continually firing managers, insulting players and digging up dirt on Dave Winfield — a stunt that got him temporarily banned from baseball.
The man who returned had more patience and, over time, less need for public displays of anger. And in 1996, after an 18-year drought, his teams started winning championships again.
“He still gave off that passion in later years, still had that confidence, that ability to motivate and inspire people,” said Adam Galinsky, a psychologist at Northwestern University and a longtime Yankee fan. “But he allowed his baseball people more leeway, and only then did the team succeed. When he was at his most intimidating — that long period with no success, all those years with Don Mattingly — that’s exactly when the team suffered most.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/weekinreview/18carey.html?scp=4&sq=steinbrenner&st=cse
Corner Office, Interview with Dawn Lepore, chairwoman and chief executive of Drugstore.com; New York Times, 7/18/10
Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Dawn Lepore, chairwoman and chief executive of Drugstore.com: Never Duck the Tough Questions:
"Q. Do you remember the first time you were somebody’s boss?
A. I was hired at Schwab in 1983 to be the manager of the information center. The person who wanted the job was way more technical than me, and that was the reason he didn’t get the job. He was in love with the technology — I wasn’t. He was not happy about having me come in over him. And he said, O.K., you’re so smart — let’s see you do it.
Those were the days when the computers were shipped in, and they were not all put together. So you’d get these little chips, and you have to put them in the motherboard. And so he said, “Well, there’s a shipment here for you.”
So I go to the dock and there are all these boxes with computers in them. I put together 30 computers. After the guy saw me do that, at least I had a little bit of his respect, and we went on to have an O.K. relationship.
Q. What was the lesson for you?
A. Every time you take on a new role, building credibility is incredibly important. I don’t think you do it by being smarter than everybody else or knowing more necessarily than everybody else. I think you do it by rolling up your sleeves, by showing commitment, by proving that you’re willing to learn, by asking for help.
All those things earn you credibility, especially if the people who work for you feel like you’re not going to sit back and take credit for what they do, and if they get a sense that you’re going to support them, help them grow.
Q. Other key moments like that?
A. My biggest promotion was moving into the head technology role at Schwab. It’s an important job at Schwab; it reports to the C.E.O. I was 39, and it was very unusual to be a woman running technology. I remember the person who promoted me said that he had several board members call him and say: “Why did you do that? That was a really dumb decision, putting a woman in charge of technology.”
Q. Just because you were a woman?
A. There were no women C.I.O.’s back then. And I don’t have an M.B.A.; I didn’t have a computer science degree. I have a music major. It’s a very unusual profile to be in that position. The reason I got the job was that I took on really tough assignments, things nobody wanted, things that people thought were kind of impossible or thankless tasks. So I proved that I could take on things I didn’t know, and learn. I was willing to take risks, and I’ve always been a good synthesizer. And I was good at building relationships across the company.
Q. So how did the transition go?
A. The first year or 18 months were rough. I found out later that people were calling me the Ice Queen. And I was devastated. But it’s because I felt like I had to be perfect — I couldn’t show any vulnerability.
I had a boss at the time who called me and said: “You know, I really believe in you. I gave you this job, I want you in this job, I really believe in you. You have to get better, though. You have to hire a coach, you have to improve, here are the things you have to do.”
But just having him tell me, I really believe in you, I want you in this job, it made me relax. It was like, O.K., I’m not going to get fired. He’s going to give me a chance to learn on the job and so now I’m going to be a little bit more open and be willing to ask for help.
Q. What other feedback did you get?
A. So, I’m incredibly intuitive. As the technology was evolving and the business was evolving, it was very intuitive to me what we needed to do. But I was not very good about putting that into words. And so people wanted to know, where are we going? And I was absolutely convinced that it was going to be fine and we were going to figure it out.
I’m very comfortable with ambiguity. But when you’re leading a large organization, people are not as comfortable with ambiguity and they want you to be clearer about what’s happening, where you’re taking them. So I had to get better at communicating what I was thinking.
We went through a big organizational change, too. We had to lay some people off, we changed the skills, we did a whole skills review because this was moving from old technology to new technology. And so the morale got pretty low. And I would have employee meetings, and they could give me questions anonymously, and I promised them I would read them and answer any question. And there were some pretty ugly questions, like, “Who do you think you are to lead?”
I read every one, and I answered every one, and I stood up in front of the whole group and I did it. So I think over time, they saw I wasn’t going away, I was going to stick, and then we started to get big wins. Getting some wins always helps you as a leader.
Q. That was a risky step to answer those anonymous questions.
A. I’ve always felt that you have to be transparent as a leader and that you have to be willing to take criticism openly. The worst thing you can do is have people with stuff on their minds that they won’t tell you. I think that’s the kiss of death as a leader. And if you’re leading an organization, you want people’s energy going into the competition, solving big problems; you don’t want it going to what’s bothering them inside.
And people make assumptions — they see little pieces of data and they put something together and they come up with one and one equals six. They don’t have the context. And nine times out of 10, if somebody asks you the question and you give them the context they say, “Oh, now I understand why you did what you did.”
Q. What were the most important leadership lessons for you?
A. My strong beliefs are about commitment, loyalty and taking on hard things. And I’m not quite sure where that came from. When I majored in music in college, I still remember people telling me I wasn’t really talented enough to major in music. But there was a piece of me that just felt like, if you tell me I can’t do something, that’s what I want to go do. And I had to work three times as hard as anybody else, and practice three times as long, just to be able to give the same recital that somebody else was able to give. It’s really important to me to take on things that I thought I couldn’t do and prove to myself and to others that I could do them.
Q. Any bosses you had who were big influences?
A. I had a very bad boss early in my career. She was older than I was. She’d started in the financial services industry and she’d had a very hard time, so I think that probably shaped her as a leader. She was very smart but had terrible communication skills. She did not make people feel valued or comfortable or like they were supported at all. And I remember what that felt like. And I thought, I’m never going to do that to people.
Q. How long did you work for her?
A. Many years. I almost left twice.
Q. What’s your advice to people stuck working for a bad boss?
A. Life is about trade-offs. And you have to be conscious of the trade-off you’re making. I felt there were enough other positives in the environment and enough opportunity that I stuck it out. But, you know, I was unhappy. I had to kind of just take a deep breath and say, O.K., I know this is going to end and I’m willing to put up with this.
But you can’t be a victim. If you let yourself become a victim, that’s the kiss of death. So you’ve got to feel, O.K., I am choosing to do this, and when I decide I can no longer do it, then I will take action. So I will not let myself be so belittled that I think I can’t do anything. If it starts undermining your confidence, then you have to leave, because then that seeps into everything you do.
Q. Who else influenced your leadership style?
A. When I became the C.I.O. at Schwab, I had the benefit of being able to interact with a lot of technology C.E.O.’s, because they would come to sell to me. So I got to meet with Scott McNealy, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, John Chambers and others. And I would always say to them, let’s talk about your product, but I’d really love to hear more about your company, your culture, your leadership. So I really picked their brains.
I learned something from every single one of them. And I’ve served on a bunch of different boards, and I’ve had an opportunity to just learn from the C.E.O. of the company as well as all the other board members.
Q. Let’s talk about hiring.
A. I’m a very intuitive interviewer, so I want to get to know people. I always ask them to tell me their background. I can read it on the résumé, but I always want them to describe their background to me, because it’s interesting to see what people choose to tell you about themselves, how they describe the moves they’ve made, the changes they’ve made.
I’m looking for intellect, I’m looking for experience level, I’m looking for cultural fit, which is hard to describe. It’s more of a soft thing. And then I am looking for this whole commitment thing. Are they willing to stick it out during hard things? How have they handled setbacks? How have they handled tough times? If you ask them about things they’re most proud of, are they things they’ve done themselves or are they things where they’ve helped a team do more than they ever thought they could?
Q. Anything unusual about the way you run meetings?
A. We have a little joke where I’ll tell people, a light bulb or a gun. A light bulb means this is just an idea I had, so think about it, see if you think it’s a good one. Either follow up or don’t, but it’s just an idea. A gun is, I want you to do this. People don’t always know if you mean something as just as an idea, or you want them to go do it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/business/18corner.html?pagewanted=2&ref=business
"Q. Do you remember the first time you were somebody’s boss?
A. I was hired at Schwab in 1983 to be the manager of the information center. The person who wanted the job was way more technical than me, and that was the reason he didn’t get the job. He was in love with the technology — I wasn’t. He was not happy about having me come in over him. And he said, O.K., you’re so smart — let’s see you do it.
Those were the days when the computers were shipped in, and they were not all put together. So you’d get these little chips, and you have to put them in the motherboard. And so he said, “Well, there’s a shipment here for you.”
So I go to the dock and there are all these boxes with computers in them. I put together 30 computers. After the guy saw me do that, at least I had a little bit of his respect, and we went on to have an O.K. relationship.
Q. What was the lesson for you?
A. Every time you take on a new role, building credibility is incredibly important. I don’t think you do it by being smarter than everybody else or knowing more necessarily than everybody else. I think you do it by rolling up your sleeves, by showing commitment, by proving that you’re willing to learn, by asking for help.
All those things earn you credibility, especially if the people who work for you feel like you’re not going to sit back and take credit for what they do, and if they get a sense that you’re going to support them, help them grow.
Q. Other key moments like that?
A. My biggest promotion was moving into the head technology role at Schwab. It’s an important job at Schwab; it reports to the C.E.O. I was 39, and it was very unusual to be a woman running technology. I remember the person who promoted me said that he had several board members call him and say: “Why did you do that? That was a really dumb decision, putting a woman in charge of technology.”
Q. Just because you were a woman?
A. There were no women C.I.O.’s back then. And I don’t have an M.B.A.; I didn’t have a computer science degree. I have a music major. It’s a very unusual profile to be in that position. The reason I got the job was that I took on really tough assignments, things nobody wanted, things that people thought were kind of impossible or thankless tasks. So I proved that I could take on things I didn’t know, and learn. I was willing to take risks, and I’ve always been a good synthesizer. And I was good at building relationships across the company.
Q. So how did the transition go?
A. The first year or 18 months were rough. I found out later that people were calling me the Ice Queen. And I was devastated. But it’s because I felt like I had to be perfect — I couldn’t show any vulnerability.
I had a boss at the time who called me and said: “You know, I really believe in you. I gave you this job, I want you in this job, I really believe in you. You have to get better, though. You have to hire a coach, you have to improve, here are the things you have to do.”
But just having him tell me, I really believe in you, I want you in this job, it made me relax. It was like, O.K., I’m not going to get fired. He’s going to give me a chance to learn on the job and so now I’m going to be a little bit more open and be willing to ask for help.
Q. What other feedback did you get?
A. So, I’m incredibly intuitive. As the technology was evolving and the business was evolving, it was very intuitive to me what we needed to do. But I was not very good about putting that into words. And so people wanted to know, where are we going? And I was absolutely convinced that it was going to be fine and we were going to figure it out.
I’m very comfortable with ambiguity. But when you’re leading a large organization, people are not as comfortable with ambiguity and they want you to be clearer about what’s happening, where you’re taking them. So I had to get better at communicating what I was thinking.
We went through a big organizational change, too. We had to lay some people off, we changed the skills, we did a whole skills review because this was moving from old technology to new technology. And so the morale got pretty low. And I would have employee meetings, and they could give me questions anonymously, and I promised them I would read them and answer any question. And there were some pretty ugly questions, like, “Who do you think you are to lead?”
I read every one, and I answered every one, and I stood up in front of the whole group and I did it. So I think over time, they saw I wasn’t going away, I was going to stick, and then we started to get big wins. Getting some wins always helps you as a leader.
Q. That was a risky step to answer those anonymous questions.
A. I’ve always felt that you have to be transparent as a leader and that you have to be willing to take criticism openly. The worst thing you can do is have people with stuff on their minds that they won’t tell you. I think that’s the kiss of death as a leader. And if you’re leading an organization, you want people’s energy going into the competition, solving big problems; you don’t want it going to what’s bothering them inside.
And people make assumptions — they see little pieces of data and they put something together and they come up with one and one equals six. They don’t have the context. And nine times out of 10, if somebody asks you the question and you give them the context they say, “Oh, now I understand why you did what you did.”
Q. What were the most important leadership lessons for you?
A. My strong beliefs are about commitment, loyalty and taking on hard things. And I’m not quite sure where that came from. When I majored in music in college, I still remember people telling me I wasn’t really talented enough to major in music. But there was a piece of me that just felt like, if you tell me I can’t do something, that’s what I want to go do. And I had to work three times as hard as anybody else, and practice three times as long, just to be able to give the same recital that somebody else was able to give. It’s really important to me to take on things that I thought I couldn’t do and prove to myself and to others that I could do them.
Q. Any bosses you had who were big influences?
A. I had a very bad boss early in my career. She was older than I was. She’d started in the financial services industry and she’d had a very hard time, so I think that probably shaped her as a leader. She was very smart but had terrible communication skills. She did not make people feel valued or comfortable or like they were supported at all. And I remember what that felt like. And I thought, I’m never going to do that to people.
Q. How long did you work for her?
A. Many years. I almost left twice.
Q. What’s your advice to people stuck working for a bad boss?
A. Life is about trade-offs. And you have to be conscious of the trade-off you’re making. I felt there were enough other positives in the environment and enough opportunity that I stuck it out. But, you know, I was unhappy. I had to kind of just take a deep breath and say, O.K., I know this is going to end and I’m willing to put up with this.
But you can’t be a victim. If you let yourself become a victim, that’s the kiss of death. So you’ve got to feel, O.K., I am choosing to do this, and when I decide I can no longer do it, then I will take action. So I will not let myself be so belittled that I think I can’t do anything. If it starts undermining your confidence, then you have to leave, because then that seeps into everything you do.
Q. Who else influenced your leadership style?
A. When I became the C.I.O. at Schwab, I had the benefit of being able to interact with a lot of technology C.E.O.’s, because they would come to sell to me. So I got to meet with Scott McNealy, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, John Chambers and others. And I would always say to them, let’s talk about your product, but I’d really love to hear more about your company, your culture, your leadership. So I really picked their brains.
I learned something from every single one of them. And I’ve served on a bunch of different boards, and I’ve had an opportunity to just learn from the C.E.O. of the company as well as all the other board members.
Q. Let’s talk about hiring.
A. I’m a very intuitive interviewer, so I want to get to know people. I always ask them to tell me their background. I can read it on the résumé, but I always want them to describe their background to me, because it’s interesting to see what people choose to tell you about themselves, how they describe the moves they’ve made, the changes they’ve made.
I’m looking for intellect, I’m looking for experience level, I’m looking for cultural fit, which is hard to describe. It’s more of a soft thing. And then I am looking for this whole commitment thing. Are they willing to stick it out during hard things? How have they handled setbacks? How have they handled tough times? If you ask them about things they’re most proud of, are they things they’ve done themselves or are they things where they’ve helped a team do more than they ever thought they could?
Q. Anything unusual about the way you run meetings?
A. We have a little joke where I’ll tell people, a light bulb or a gun. A light bulb means this is just an idea I had, so think about it, see if you think it’s a good one. Either follow up or don’t, but it’s just an idea. A gun is, I want you to do this. People don’t always know if you mean something as just as an idea, or you want them to go do it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/business/18corner.html?pagewanted=2&ref=business
Corner Office, Interview with Dan Rosensweig, president and chief executive of Chegg; New York Times, 7/11/10
Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Dan Rosensweig, president and chief executive of Chegg: [Chegg rents textbooks online and by mail.]: Remember to Thank Your Star Players:
"Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What do you look for? What questions do you ask?
A. By the time they get to me, they’ve been vetted in enough ways that I know functionally they should be able to do the job. So I spend a lot of my time doing two things. I ask them very few questions, mostly around, how do they approach a situation? How do they personally define success for themselves? What do they want for this company? What attracts them here? What do they need to be successful? How do they want to be managed? And then a lot of the conversation stems from there.
And then I really turn it over to them and say: What questions do you have? What do you think you need to know to decide whether this is the right environment for you? Whether we can utilize the talents you bring to bear? Whether we are the right place at this moment in your career? And that dialogue generally leads to a really great outcome.
Q. What are the most important qualities you’re looking for?
A. One is attitude. Some people spend a lot of time focusing on how difficult things are. You don’t get jobs like these unless the situations are difficult. So I like to hear people talk about how they love to approach a challenge, and that’s the thing that gets them excited.
I’m also looking for people who appreciate the fact that the definition of success is the company and not an individual. I’m looking for people who can communicate. I mean, quite frankly, most of the things that break down when you are running a business are transparency and communication. If you have people who are reluctant to share information with their peers, particularly in a very small company, it’s not a healthy dynamic.
And I look for people who generally, as I said earlier, think big, want to achieve big, aren’t afraid. They have that level of humility to know it’s entirely possible we may not succeed, but, man, it’s worth trying.
Q. And if you could ask somebody only one or two questions in a job interview, what would you ask?
A. What matters to you in your professional career in the next five years? And the second would be, what do you think you need to be successful in that goal?
Q. What about feedback? What’s your approach to difficult conversations?
A. I have found in my career that once you know that someone isn’t doing the things that they need to do or they are not going to be successful, then every day you wait it’s really your fault rather than theirs. And the first thing I ask is, did I ask somebody to do something that they weren’t capable of doing?
There’s nothing worse than somebody you like and respect doing something you know they can’t be successful in and knowing that you were the one that did that to them. I try very hard to understand, before I approach the person, why they may not be successful in that particular role. Because, normally, the people I work with have been extremely successful in their careers, so the expectation is that they are going to be successful.
But the longer you wait, the worse it gets. Very few problems correct themselves. And the philosophy of sticking your head in the sand and hoping it goes away has never been that effective for me. So you sit down and have an honest conversation. I think people respect honesty without attitude.
Q. And what about getting feedback?
A. I ask employees, “If you had my job, other than giving yourself more vacation and a raise, what’s the first thing that you would do that you don’t think we’re doing yet?” I try to make it comfortable when you do the review process by asking people: What do you need more of from me? What do you need less of from me? What is it that I’m doing that you would like me to stop doing completely? And what is it that I’m not doing enough of that you’d like some more of? From there, it becomes a much more comfortable conversation."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/business/11corner.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
"Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What do you look for? What questions do you ask?
A. By the time they get to me, they’ve been vetted in enough ways that I know functionally they should be able to do the job. So I spend a lot of my time doing two things. I ask them very few questions, mostly around, how do they approach a situation? How do they personally define success for themselves? What do they want for this company? What attracts them here? What do they need to be successful? How do they want to be managed? And then a lot of the conversation stems from there.
And then I really turn it over to them and say: What questions do you have? What do you think you need to know to decide whether this is the right environment for you? Whether we can utilize the talents you bring to bear? Whether we are the right place at this moment in your career? And that dialogue generally leads to a really great outcome.
Q. What are the most important qualities you’re looking for?
A. One is attitude. Some people spend a lot of time focusing on how difficult things are. You don’t get jobs like these unless the situations are difficult. So I like to hear people talk about how they love to approach a challenge, and that’s the thing that gets them excited.
I’m also looking for people who appreciate the fact that the definition of success is the company and not an individual. I’m looking for people who can communicate. I mean, quite frankly, most of the things that break down when you are running a business are transparency and communication. If you have people who are reluctant to share information with their peers, particularly in a very small company, it’s not a healthy dynamic.
And I look for people who generally, as I said earlier, think big, want to achieve big, aren’t afraid. They have that level of humility to know it’s entirely possible we may not succeed, but, man, it’s worth trying.
Q. And if you could ask somebody only one or two questions in a job interview, what would you ask?
A. What matters to you in your professional career in the next five years? And the second would be, what do you think you need to be successful in that goal?
Q. What about feedback? What’s your approach to difficult conversations?
A. I have found in my career that once you know that someone isn’t doing the things that they need to do or they are not going to be successful, then every day you wait it’s really your fault rather than theirs. And the first thing I ask is, did I ask somebody to do something that they weren’t capable of doing?
There’s nothing worse than somebody you like and respect doing something you know they can’t be successful in and knowing that you were the one that did that to them. I try very hard to understand, before I approach the person, why they may not be successful in that particular role. Because, normally, the people I work with have been extremely successful in their careers, so the expectation is that they are going to be successful.
But the longer you wait, the worse it gets. Very few problems correct themselves. And the philosophy of sticking your head in the sand and hoping it goes away has never been that effective for me. So you sit down and have an honest conversation. I think people respect honesty without attitude.
Q. And what about getting feedback?
A. I ask employees, “If you had my job, other than giving yourself more vacation and a raise, what’s the first thing that you would do that you don’t think we’re doing yet?” I try to make it comfortable when you do the review process by asking people: What do you need more of from me? What do you need less of from me? What is it that I’m doing that you would like me to stop doing completely? And what is it that I’m not doing enough of that you’d like some more of? From there, it becomes a much more comfortable conversation."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/business/11corner.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Friday, July 9, 2010
Podcast, Annual Job Review Is 'Total Baloney,' Expert Says"; NPR, 7/8/10
Podcast [4 min. 2 sec.], NPR; "Annual Job Review Is 'Total Baloney,' Expert Says":
"Employee performance reviews should be eliminated, according to UCLA business professor Samuel Culbert. "First, they're dishonest and fraudulent. And second, they're just plain bad management," he says.
The problem with the practice, Culbert tells NPR's Renee Montagne, is that periodic reviews create circumstances that help neither the employee nor the company to improve. As Culbert and his co-author, Larry Rout, write in their book, Get Rid of the Performance Review! annual reviews do not promote candid discussions about problems in the workplace — and their potential solutions.
Instead, Culbert says, when workers undergo a review, "They're going to talk about all their successes — it becomes total baloney."
And management participates in the charade, as well, he says: "The boss already has heard [from] his boss what they want to pay the guy, or the woman. So they come up with a review that's all backwards."
The process can frustrate employees, who may have a lot at stake — from a raise or promotion to the general arc of their career. And at the least, they want their contributions and talents to be recognized. Rather than using performance reviews, Culbert suggests that management "just tell the employee what he or she needs to do to become more effective."
Culbert's book sprang from an article he wrote for The Wall Street Journal in 2008, which sparked a large response from readers.
Asked if performance reviews might be tweaked instead of eliminated outright — for instance, a manager might use statistics to measure an employee's effectiveness — Culbert says that one-dimensional measurements can bring a new set of problems.
"Once you set up the metrics, that's the only focus for the employee," Culbert says. "The problem with performance reviews is that the metric that counts most for the employee is the boss's opinion. So the employee starts doing what he or she thinks is going to score in the boss's mind, and not even talk about what he or she believes is necessary for the company to get the results that really matter."
For anyone who would like to gauge where they stand on the annual review issue, Culbert and Rout have posted a test on their site, with the slightly biased title of How Much Do You Hate Performance Reviews?"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128362511&ps=cprs
"Employee performance reviews should be eliminated, according to UCLA business professor Samuel Culbert. "First, they're dishonest and fraudulent. And second, they're just plain bad management," he says.
The problem with the practice, Culbert tells NPR's Renee Montagne, is that periodic reviews create circumstances that help neither the employee nor the company to improve. As Culbert and his co-author, Larry Rout, write in their book, Get Rid of the Performance Review! annual reviews do not promote candid discussions about problems in the workplace — and their potential solutions.
Instead, Culbert says, when workers undergo a review, "They're going to talk about all their successes — it becomes total baloney."
And management participates in the charade, as well, he says: "The boss already has heard [from] his boss what they want to pay the guy, or the woman. So they come up with a review that's all backwards."
The process can frustrate employees, who may have a lot at stake — from a raise or promotion to the general arc of their career. And at the least, they want their contributions and talents to be recognized. Rather than using performance reviews, Culbert suggests that management "just tell the employee what he or she needs to do to become more effective."
Culbert's book sprang from an article he wrote for The Wall Street Journal in 2008, which sparked a large response from readers.
Asked if performance reviews might be tweaked instead of eliminated outright — for instance, a manager might use statistics to measure an employee's effectiveness — Culbert says that one-dimensional measurements can bring a new set of problems.
"Once you set up the metrics, that's the only focus for the employee," Culbert says. "The problem with performance reviews is that the metric that counts most for the employee is the boss's opinion. So the employee starts doing what he or she thinks is going to score in the boss's mind, and not even talk about what he or she believes is necessary for the company to get the results that really matter."
For anyone who would like to gauge where they stand on the annual review issue, Culbert and Rout have posted a test on their site, with the slightly biased title of How Much Do You Hate Performance Reviews?"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128362511&ps=cprs
Podcast: "Coach: Good Managers Appreciate Others' Genius"; NPR, 7/9/10
Podcast [3 min. 22 sec.], NPR; "Coach: Good Managers Appreciate Others' Genius":
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=128401148&m=128401114
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=128401148&m=128401114
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Linda Heasley, president and chief executive of The Limited; New York Times, 7/4/10
Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times, Interview with Linda Heasley, president and chief executive of The Limited: Re-Recruit Your Team Every Day:
"Q. What were some big leadership lessons for you?
A. When I was in college, I took a leave of absence from school and worked as a community educator in Arizona, and I learned a lot from a man who was in this tiny community who was trying to get plumbing and streets for his town. He was a simple man, but he had incredible dynamism, and a lot of that was from the vision and the selflessness that he put forward. So I learned from that experience that it’s not about you, it’s about the bigger picture.
Q. How has your leadership style evolved?
A. I didn’t start out thinking I’d be in retail. I worked with analytical teams, and what I have come to love about retail is the link between art and management science. It’s a very creative environment, and it’s been great for me to bring the rigors that I learned in that analytical world and apply it to retail.
What I have come to understand in managing creative types is intuition and appreciation for the art, and I’m always willing to back the intuition of my best merchant. There’s something that you can’t pin down. So it is balancing the art and the science of it all.
We’re still a fact-based organization. We still have to drive to the bottom line. At the same time, I have come to realize there are some things you cannot explain with a hypothetical model, that you just do have to go with your gut sometimes. You trust and you believe.
Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What qualities are you looking for?
A. Passion. I like curiosity. I like energy level. They have to have a sense of humor. They have to be willing to take a risk. I will ask questions around each of those to try to flesh that out, like, “Give me an example of a situation where you think you took a risk or took a controversial point of view.” It’s as much about seeing how they addressed issues and difficult situations as it is what they decided to do. I do want to see how they think. They have to be smart.
I like people who have demonstrated performance in a number of different places. They don’t have to have stayed at the same place, but I like to see that they were at a place long enough to annualize things that they started and had time to build relationships. But I like the fact that people have moved and have had different experiences. Each of the places I went, I learned a tremendous amount and then was able to build on that.
Q. And what are your best interview questions?
A. I always like to hear what books they read. What keeps them up at night? I like an example of a challenging situation in a business environment where they took a controversial position. As I said, it doesn’t matter to me what they decided to do, but I like to see how they handled it. I like hearing what they do when they’re not in the office. I like to hear how a direct report would describe you and your management style. I like to hear their philosophy of leadership.
Q. Any memorable answers, good or bad, about philosophy of leadership?
A. What I don’t like to hear, and I think it’s something we’re probably all guilty of, is a focus on business results. It’s an important thing. You wouldn’t be interviewing with me if I didn’t know you had a track record. But leadership style, and how to describe it, is something we’re not as comfortable talking about as leaders. It’s interesting for me how undeveloped those responses can be.
What I do like to hear is, even when a bad situation occurs, is the willingness to take a risk and try to do something to turn it into an opportunity and lead a group to do that. I look for a little bit of thinking out of the box, but I think many executives have a hard time talking about that.
Q. And what’s your philosophy of leadership?
A. I believe that it’s not about me. I believe it’s very much about the team. I believe that my associates can work anywhere they want, and my job is to re-recruit them every day and give them a reason to choose to work for us and for me as opposed to anybody else.
So it’s about making it fun. It’s about making it exciting. It’s about keeping them marketable. I encourage people: “Go out and find out what the market bears. You should do that and then come back and help me figure out what you need in your development that you’re not getting, because we owe you that.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04corner.html?scp=2&sq=corner%20office&st=Search
"Q. What were some big leadership lessons for you?
A. When I was in college, I took a leave of absence from school and worked as a community educator in Arizona, and I learned a lot from a man who was in this tiny community who was trying to get plumbing and streets for his town. He was a simple man, but he had incredible dynamism, and a lot of that was from the vision and the selflessness that he put forward. So I learned from that experience that it’s not about you, it’s about the bigger picture.
Q. How has your leadership style evolved?
A. I didn’t start out thinking I’d be in retail. I worked with analytical teams, and what I have come to love about retail is the link between art and management science. It’s a very creative environment, and it’s been great for me to bring the rigors that I learned in that analytical world and apply it to retail.
What I have come to understand in managing creative types is intuition and appreciation for the art, and I’m always willing to back the intuition of my best merchant. There’s something that you can’t pin down. So it is balancing the art and the science of it all.
We’re still a fact-based organization. We still have to drive to the bottom line. At the same time, I have come to realize there are some things you cannot explain with a hypothetical model, that you just do have to go with your gut sometimes. You trust and you believe.
Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What qualities are you looking for?
A. Passion. I like curiosity. I like energy level. They have to have a sense of humor. They have to be willing to take a risk. I will ask questions around each of those to try to flesh that out, like, “Give me an example of a situation where you think you took a risk or took a controversial point of view.” It’s as much about seeing how they addressed issues and difficult situations as it is what they decided to do. I do want to see how they think. They have to be smart.
I like people who have demonstrated performance in a number of different places. They don’t have to have stayed at the same place, but I like to see that they were at a place long enough to annualize things that they started and had time to build relationships. But I like the fact that people have moved and have had different experiences. Each of the places I went, I learned a tremendous amount and then was able to build on that.
Q. And what are your best interview questions?
A. I always like to hear what books they read. What keeps them up at night? I like an example of a challenging situation in a business environment where they took a controversial position. As I said, it doesn’t matter to me what they decided to do, but I like to see how they handled it. I like hearing what they do when they’re not in the office. I like to hear how a direct report would describe you and your management style. I like to hear their philosophy of leadership.
Q. Any memorable answers, good or bad, about philosophy of leadership?
A. What I don’t like to hear, and I think it’s something we’re probably all guilty of, is a focus on business results. It’s an important thing. You wouldn’t be interviewing with me if I didn’t know you had a track record. But leadership style, and how to describe it, is something we’re not as comfortable talking about as leaders. It’s interesting for me how undeveloped those responses can be.
What I do like to hear is, even when a bad situation occurs, is the willingness to take a risk and try to do something to turn it into an opportunity and lead a group to do that. I look for a little bit of thinking out of the box, but I think many executives have a hard time talking about that.
Q. And what’s your philosophy of leadership?
A. I believe that it’s not about me. I believe it’s very much about the team. I believe that my associates can work anywhere they want, and my job is to re-recruit them every day and give them a reason to choose to work for us and for me as opposed to anybody else.
So it’s about making it fun. It’s about making it exciting. It’s about keeping them marketable. I encourage people: “Go out and find out what the market bears. You should do that and then come back and help me figure out what you need in your development that you’re not getting, because we owe you that.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04corner.html?scp=2&sq=corner%20office&st=Search
Corner Office, Interview with Robert W. Selander, chief executive of MasterCard; New York Times, 6/27/10
Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times, Interview with Robert W. Selander, chief executive of MasterCard: The X Factor When Hiring? Call It ‘Presence’:
"Q. What are the most important leadership lessons you have learned?
A. I spent a reasonable amount of time living overseas. So relatively early in my career I moved first to San Juan, then to Rio, then to London, then to Belgium, running businesses in those markets.
Pretty early on, I recognized that more is the same than is different — fundamental values, wanting to give your children more opportunity or at least as much as you had in life, etc. It’s present all around the world, and that happens to be true in a lot of aspects of business as well. More is the same than is different, but we tend to focus on differences, and perhaps exaggerate or accentuate those beyond the reality of what we have to worry about.
I can remember when I moved to Brazil and I had spent two years learning Spanish. I was out visiting branches. I was working for Citibank at the time and had responsibility for consumer businesses there.
Brazil is a big country. I was living in Rio and it’s like living in Miami. I was out visiting a branch in the equivalent of Denver. Not everybody spoke great English and I hadn’t gotten very far in Portuguese. As I was sitting there trying to discern and understand what this branch manager was saying to me, and he was struggling with his English, the coin sort of dropped that this guy really knows what he’s talking about. He’s having a hard time getting it out.
As I thought about the places I’d been on that trip, I realized this was probably the best branch manager I’d seen, but it would have been very easy for me to think he wasn’t, because he couldn’t communicate as well as some of the others who were fluent in English.
I think that was an important lesson. It is too easy to let the person with great presentation or language skills buffalo you into thinking that they are better or more knowledgeable than someone else who might not necessarily have that particular set of skills.
So that was something that sounds obvious in hindsight, but as I was sitting there, boy, for me this was a thunderbolt. I think that’s another thing that sort of served me well, not letting the veneer distract you from the substance.
Q. Let’s say you’re interviewing me for a job reporting directly to you. How does that conversation go?
A. Beyond the discussion of what you’re going to do for us, I want to know two or three of your strengths and weaknesses. And then I’m going to ask you about those two or three things that you’ve acknowledged are flat sides, and how you think we should work on those, how you think we should ensure those don’t become barriers to success.
I think probably the final thing is that I’m going to try to ensure — and I’m going to ask you if you feel good in your gut about it — that there is going to be some chemistry here, that you’re not out in left field and I’m out in right field from our respective positions, that we’re in fact sort of more or less in the center of the infield together.
Q. What qualities are you looking for in hires?
A. What I’m looking for is always the same. The more senior a person, the richer I expect them to be in these attributes.
The top two are leadership and results. From a leadership standpoint, I would expect you, as a more senior executive, to be able to talk about where you’ve provided strategic leadership. It doesn’t mean you’re a brilliant strategist, but you’ve been able to get a team together to agree on who the target customer is, what products and services you’re going to offer them, and the value and competitive advantage you’re going to create.
Tell me about what you’ve done in bringing along talent. Tell me about difficult things you had to do in terms of reconfiguring a team, or whatever. Talk to me about successes and all the net talent you provided to other parts of the companies you worked in.
The second would be results. At the end of the day, I want to have people who have been able to, and will continue to be able to, deliver results. That can mean starting with a clean sheet of paper and having a very credible business three or four years later. It can mean going in and taking over something that’s already very big and making it better, whether that’s revenues, expense management, bottom-line profitability.
Underpinning those would be multifunctional, multinational and presence. I’m looking for multifunctional people who have been in different activities — marketing, sales, operations, finance, human resources — who bring a richer perspective and texture to problems and opportunities than someone who’s just had a straight shot in one function.
I’m looking for somebody who’s had multinational experience. We do business everywhere in the world. I’m looking for people who have lived and worked in different markets and recognize that there are nuances that have to be considered.
And the final one is presence. You deal with different folks at different levels of the company. It depends on the exact role, but you should ensure that there is an ability to interact with and effectively represent the company.
Q. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by presence?
A. At varying levels in the company, you interact with different stakeholders. Having somebody spend time with a member of Congress is very different than having somebody go downstairs and see that they were appropriately replacing a torn carpet. You need a different capability to deal with those circumstances, not only from a knowledge standpoint but from a presence standpoint.
As I’ve gone through my career, I’ve been challenged to deal with different stakeholders. Internally, when I was younger and more junior, I probably did pretty well with peers. But then how do you credibly communicate with more senior people, who are not as concerned about some things perhaps in the details, but they want a bigger picture?
So it’s a combination of not only how you convey things, but what you convey to these various stakeholders. Presence is learning to deal with different audiences in a way that allows them to get what they need out of this interaction and ensures that the well-being of the company is looked after.
Q. Isn’t that what some people describe as just good communication skills?
A. I think you can be a good communicator and you still may not have presence. There may be someone who is very articulate on a subject and they know levels of detail. When you get with a particular audience, it may not be appropriate to go into those levels of detail, or you may create doubt by even going into the subject matter. There’s inside information in a company, for example. You never cross that bright line, but you can get varying degrees of proximity to that line, depending on your audience.
Some people are not very good communicators, but boy, when you get them into their subject matter they know exactly where to go and how far to go. Others are brilliant communicators, but because of the connection between their thoughts and the synapses firing and the words coming out, there isn’t enough time and introspection. Therefore they will brilliantly communicate something that they shouldn’t be talking about. Presence is knowing what to communicate, and how.
Q. If you were interviewing somebody and could ask them only one or two questions, what would they be?
A. More important probably than the questions is the texture of the answers, but I think that I would probably try to set the stage in terms of a double-barrel question, and it would be, “Share with me two situations, work-related, that you’re proud of — one where there was something achieved as a result of your personal initiative, and the other where the achievement was a result of the team getting something done, which you don’t think they would otherwise have gotten done without your leadership.” So I’m looking for the feedback on the personal initiative and the leadership.
Q. How has your leadership style evolved?
A. I’ve been working hard on listening skills for a few years. I can still get excited about things, so I have to be careful about not conveying where I’m coming from too early on in the process, because I’m looking to get feedback from others.
Q. What’s your best career advice for new college grads?
A. I think when you come out of undergraduate school, going out and getting some work experience is really very helpful. I found that I learned more about what I didn’t want to do in some of my early jobs. Getting experience in bigger, broader companies where there are more things that you can learn and do is a good idea, because the likelihood of exactly picking out your career from the get-go is very low. So I would encourage, for a first job, that you try to find generally a larger company where there are more things that you can get involved with, where there may be more comprehensive planned training activities to help you with certain skills that you’re going to need."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/business/27corner.html
"Q. What are the most important leadership lessons you have learned?
A. I spent a reasonable amount of time living overseas. So relatively early in my career I moved first to San Juan, then to Rio, then to London, then to Belgium, running businesses in those markets.
Pretty early on, I recognized that more is the same than is different — fundamental values, wanting to give your children more opportunity or at least as much as you had in life, etc. It’s present all around the world, and that happens to be true in a lot of aspects of business as well. More is the same than is different, but we tend to focus on differences, and perhaps exaggerate or accentuate those beyond the reality of what we have to worry about.
I can remember when I moved to Brazil and I had spent two years learning Spanish. I was out visiting branches. I was working for Citibank at the time and had responsibility for consumer businesses there.
Brazil is a big country. I was living in Rio and it’s like living in Miami. I was out visiting a branch in the equivalent of Denver. Not everybody spoke great English and I hadn’t gotten very far in Portuguese. As I was sitting there trying to discern and understand what this branch manager was saying to me, and he was struggling with his English, the coin sort of dropped that this guy really knows what he’s talking about. He’s having a hard time getting it out.
As I thought about the places I’d been on that trip, I realized this was probably the best branch manager I’d seen, but it would have been very easy for me to think he wasn’t, because he couldn’t communicate as well as some of the others who were fluent in English.
I think that was an important lesson. It is too easy to let the person with great presentation or language skills buffalo you into thinking that they are better or more knowledgeable than someone else who might not necessarily have that particular set of skills.
So that was something that sounds obvious in hindsight, but as I was sitting there, boy, for me this was a thunderbolt. I think that’s another thing that sort of served me well, not letting the veneer distract you from the substance.
Q. Let’s say you’re interviewing me for a job reporting directly to you. How does that conversation go?
A. Beyond the discussion of what you’re going to do for us, I want to know two or three of your strengths and weaknesses. And then I’m going to ask you about those two or three things that you’ve acknowledged are flat sides, and how you think we should work on those, how you think we should ensure those don’t become barriers to success.
I think probably the final thing is that I’m going to try to ensure — and I’m going to ask you if you feel good in your gut about it — that there is going to be some chemistry here, that you’re not out in left field and I’m out in right field from our respective positions, that we’re in fact sort of more or less in the center of the infield together.
Q. What qualities are you looking for in hires?
A. What I’m looking for is always the same. The more senior a person, the richer I expect them to be in these attributes.
The top two are leadership and results. From a leadership standpoint, I would expect you, as a more senior executive, to be able to talk about where you’ve provided strategic leadership. It doesn’t mean you’re a brilliant strategist, but you’ve been able to get a team together to agree on who the target customer is, what products and services you’re going to offer them, and the value and competitive advantage you’re going to create.
Tell me about what you’ve done in bringing along talent. Tell me about difficult things you had to do in terms of reconfiguring a team, or whatever. Talk to me about successes and all the net talent you provided to other parts of the companies you worked in.
The second would be results. At the end of the day, I want to have people who have been able to, and will continue to be able to, deliver results. That can mean starting with a clean sheet of paper and having a very credible business three or four years later. It can mean going in and taking over something that’s already very big and making it better, whether that’s revenues, expense management, bottom-line profitability.
Underpinning those would be multifunctional, multinational and presence. I’m looking for multifunctional people who have been in different activities — marketing, sales, operations, finance, human resources — who bring a richer perspective and texture to problems and opportunities than someone who’s just had a straight shot in one function.
I’m looking for somebody who’s had multinational experience. We do business everywhere in the world. I’m looking for people who have lived and worked in different markets and recognize that there are nuances that have to be considered.
And the final one is presence. You deal with different folks at different levels of the company. It depends on the exact role, but you should ensure that there is an ability to interact with and effectively represent the company.
Q. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by presence?
A. At varying levels in the company, you interact with different stakeholders. Having somebody spend time with a member of Congress is very different than having somebody go downstairs and see that they were appropriately replacing a torn carpet. You need a different capability to deal with those circumstances, not only from a knowledge standpoint but from a presence standpoint.
As I’ve gone through my career, I’ve been challenged to deal with different stakeholders. Internally, when I was younger and more junior, I probably did pretty well with peers. But then how do you credibly communicate with more senior people, who are not as concerned about some things perhaps in the details, but they want a bigger picture?
So it’s a combination of not only how you convey things, but what you convey to these various stakeholders. Presence is learning to deal with different audiences in a way that allows them to get what they need out of this interaction and ensures that the well-being of the company is looked after.
Q. Isn’t that what some people describe as just good communication skills?
A. I think you can be a good communicator and you still may not have presence. There may be someone who is very articulate on a subject and they know levels of detail. When you get with a particular audience, it may not be appropriate to go into those levels of detail, or you may create doubt by even going into the subject matter. There’s inside information in a company, for example. You never cross that bright line, but you can get varying degrees of proximity to that line, depending on your audience.
Some people are not very good communicators, but boy, when you get them into their subject matter they know exactly where to go and how far to go. Others are brilliant communicators, but because of the connection between their thoughts and the synapses firing and the words coming out, there isn’t enough time and introspection. Therefore they will brilliantly communicate something that they shouldn’t be talking about. Presence is knowing what to communicate, and how.
Q. If you were interviewing somebody and could ask them only one or two questions, what would they be?
A. More important probably than the questions is the texture of the answers, but I think that I would probably try to set the stage in terms of a double-barrel question, and it would be, “Share with me two situations, work-related, that you’re proud of — one where there was something achieved as a result of your personal initiative, and the other where the achievement was a result of the team getting something done, which you don’t think they would otherwise have gotten done without your leadership.” So I’m looking for the feedback on the personal initiative and the leadership.
Q. How has your leadership style evolved?
A. I’ve been working hard on listening skills for a few years. I can still get excited about things, so I have to be careful about not conveying where I’m coming from too early on in the process, because I’m looking to get feedback from others.
Q. What’s your best career advice for new college grads?
A. I think when you come out of undergraduate school, going out and getting some work experience is really very helpful. I found that I learned more about what I didn’t want to do in some of my early jobs. Getting experience in bigger, broader companies where there are more things that you can learn and do is a good idea, because the likelihood of exactly picking out your career from the get-go is very low. So I would encourage, for a first job, that you try to find generally a larger company where there are more things that you can get involved with, where there may be more comprehensive planned training activities to help you with certain skills that you’re going to need."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/business/27corner.html
Corner Office, Interview of Michael Mathieu, C.E.O. of YuMe, an online video advertising firm in Redwood City, Calif.; New York Times, 6/20/10
Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times, Interview of Michael Mathieu, C.E.O. of YuMe, an online video advertising firm in Redwood City, Calif.: Want the Job? Tell Him the Meaning of Life:
"Q. What about leadership lessons from particularly good or bad bosses?
A. You’re a collection of all your experiences, good, bad, indifferent, and great leaders you’ve worked with. Actually, you learn a lot from the worst managers you’ve had. You learn probably more than from the great managers.
Q. Did you?
A. Absolutely. I think my worst bosses were hyper-controlling. I’ve learned that leaders actually do the opposite, which is to give their best people complete freedom to do the job. The worst managers come in and believe, “O.K., I’m going to control this.” They’re very structured. And what I’ve learned is that actually stifles high performers.
People who are really good at what they do want freedom. They want to be able to be innovative. So I try to hire the best people and give them the freedom and flexibility to do the job they were hired to do. But they have to sign up for things to get that freedom.
Q. What are those things?
A. One is, make people feel like they’re part of the team. To do that, you’ve got to make people feel like they can come in and talk about anything with absolutely no fear of, “O.K., this could be stupid.” They need to feel like their voice is heard, and feel completely fearless to have those conversations with me.
Two, they have to be clear on what our goals and vision are. This is the mountain we’re trying to go after, and let’s be clear on what we have to do. And if you do sign up for that, you’re going to be accountable. If you give good people clear goals, you can let them be accountable and go after it in their own way. And then reward and recognize...
Q. How do you hire?
A. By the time people come to me I know they can do the job, whether they’re engineers or salespeople. So when I interview people, I look for their leadership characteristics and their ability to thrive in ambiguity. So I try to ask questions about how they handle adversity. I want to get people’s thought processes on how they deal with something that’s not black or white, but gray.
I ask questions about their leadership, like, are they selfless mentors? Do they try to make people around them better? Are they proactive? Do they take initiative, so they don’t wait to be asked to do something? I try to get examples of that.
I try to really form a picture of this person outside the job. On a scale of 1 to 10, are they naturally curious people? Do they read? Do they want to learn? Do they have this thirst for knowledge that leaders have? Do they have the ability to find clarity among chaos, to have this calmness to be able to get stuff done? Does this person have a history of just being proactive in their life and not being told what to do?
I try to find people who are a 10 in tactical ability. And if they’re naturally curious people and they handle adversity with grace and they understand what they bring to the table, I’ll hire them tomorrow.
Q. What are your best questions to get at those qualities?
A. What I try to do now is find examples of how they’ve worked. One thing is, depending on the job they’re in, I ask about a situation where something didn’t go your way. How did you handle it? Explain that to me. And I love asking people what the meaning of life is. It’s a fun question because no one’s expecting it.
Q. What kind of answers have you heard through the years?
A. Some people automatically say happiness. For a lot of people it’s family, the people in their life, the quality of their relationships. I also say, "On your death bed, what do you want to be remembered for?" I love asking those questions because the folks who are completely prepared are not prepared for those questions.
Q. Have you heard some odd answers?
A. I have. My favorite is, "Are you talking about my business life or my personal life?"
Q. What does that tell you?
A. It tells me somebody is really disconnected from being passionate about what they do. They’re going to come in and say, “How can I position myself to be really successful?” versus just be who they are. Those are the people that will always be angling for something. The minute they say that, I’m like, “O.K., next.” We don’t need anglers in the company who are just trying to position themselves and managing up. We try to stay away from those kinds of folks.
Q. What other questions do you ask?
A. I try to ask: “When things don’t work your way, how do you deal with it? What’s life about? What’s the most important thing that’s happened to you over the last three years, something that’s really changed your life?” I try to ask questions that give me a sense of the person’s character and how they process information.
Q. So, what’s the meaning of life for you?
A. Two things: happiness and the quality of the relationships you’ve had in life. The impact you can have on people is why you’re here. Hopefully, you do that with enough people, and you have fun doing it.
From a business perspective, you try to generate a ton of revenue, keep the investors happy, and above all make customers happy. I try not to spend too much time talking about this stuff, because they think Michael’s going to be coming in here in his Buddhist outfit soon. But it’s about, am I present and here?
When you have a conversation with somebody, you’re not going to get the nuances of the conversation if you’re doing too many things. I try telling people, if somebody picks up the phone, stop your e-mail, stop what you’re doing, listen and have that conversation with the person and then move on. With most people in business, they’re on the phone and they’re on e-mail, and you know when they’re on e-mail.
Q. You can hear it in their voice.
A. Yes. So, I try to wake up in the morning, be connected, and have conversations with people. Don’t be distracted, and the little nuances of life will show up, and you will hear things. I’m not immune. I have to do a lot of things, and I try to slow down sometimes. I try to be present so I can enjoy the richness and quality of interactions with people. Most people can’t multitask without losing something in each of those tasks."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20corner.html?_r=1
"Q. What about leadership lessons from particularly good or bad bosses?
A. You’re a collection of all your experiences, good, bad, indifferent, and great leaders you’ve worked with. Actually, you learn a lot from the worst managers you’ve had. You learn probably more than from the great managers.
Q. Did you?
A. Absolutely. I think my worst bosses were hyper-controlling. I’ve learned that leaders actually do the opposite, which is to give their best people complete freedom to do the job. The worst managers come in and believe, “O.K., I’m going to control this.” They’re very structured. And what I’ve learned is that actually stifles high performers.
People who are really good at what they do want freedom. They want to be able to be innovative. So I try to hire the best people and give them the freedom and flexibility to do the job they were hired to do. But they have to sign up for things to get that freedom.
Q. What are those things?
A. One is, make people feel like they’re part of the team. To do that, you’ve got to make people feel like they can come in and talk about anything with absolutely no fear of, “O.K., this could be stupid.” They need to feel like their voice is heard, and feel completely fearless to have those conversations with me.
Two, they have to be clear on what our goals and vision are. This is the mountain we’re trying to go after, and let’s be clear on what we have to do. And if you do sign up for that, you’re going to be accountable. If you give good people clear goals, you can let them be accountable and go after it in their own way. And then reward and recognize...
Q. How do you hire?
A. By the time people come to me I know they can do the job, whether they’re engineers or salespeople. So when I interview people, I look for their leadership characteristics and their ability to thrive in ambiguity. So I try to ask questions about how they handle adversity. I want to get people’s thought processes on how they deal with something that’s not black or white, but gray.
I ask questions about their leadership, like, are they selfless mentors? Do they try to make people around them better? Are they proactive? Do they take initiative, so they don’t wait to be asked to do something? I try to get examples of that.
I try to really form a picture of this person outside the job. On a scale of 1 to 10, are they naturally curious people? Do they read? Do they want to learn? Do they have this thirst for knowledge that leaders have? Do they have the ability to find clarity among chaos, to have this calmness to be able to get stuff done? Does this person have a history of just being proactive in their life and not being told what to do?
I try to find people who are a 10 in tactical ability. And if they’re naturally curious people and they handle adversity with grace and they understand what they bring to the table, I’ll hire them tomorrow.
Q. What are your best questions to get at those qualities?
A. What I try to do now is find examples of how they’ve worked. One thing is, depending on the job they’re in, I ask about a situation where something didn’t go your way. How did you handle it? Explain that to me. And I love asking people what the meaning of life is. It’s a fun question because no one’s expecting it.
Q. What kind of answers have you heard through the years?
A. Some people automatically say happiness. For a lot of people it’s family, the people in their life, the quality of their relationships. I also say, "On your death bed, what do you want to be remembered for?" I love asking those questions because the folks who are completely prepared are not prepared for those questions.
Q. Have you heard some odd answers?
A. I have. My favorite is, "Are you talking about my business life or my personal life?"
Q. What does that tell you?
A. It tells me somebody is really disconnected from being passionate about what they do. They’re going to come in and say, “How can I position myself to be really successful?” versus just be who they are. Those are the people that will always be angling for something. The minute they say that, I’m like, “O.K., next.” We don’t need anglers in the company who are just trying to position themselves and managing up. We try to stay away from those kinds of folks.
Q. What other questions do you ask?
A. I try to ask: “When things don’t work your way, how do you deal with it? What’s life about? What’s the most important thing that’s happened to you over the last three years, something that’s really changed your life?” I try to ask questions that give me a sense of the person’s character and how they process information.
Q. So, what’s the meaning of life for you?
A. Two things: happiness and the quality of the relationships you’ve had in life. The impact you can have on people is why you’re here. Hopefully, you do that with enough people, and you have fun doing it.
From a business perspective, you try to generate a ton of revenue, keep the investors happy, and above all make customers happy. I try not to spend too much time talking about this stuff, because they think Michael’s going to be coming in here in his Buddhist outfit soon. But it’s about, am I present and here?
When you have a conversation with somebody, you’re not going to get the nuances of the conversation if you’re doing too many things. I try telling people, if somebody picks up the phone, stop your e-mail, stop what you’re doing, listen and have that conversation with the person and then move on. With most people in business, they’re on the phone and they’re on e-mail, and you know when they’re on e-mail.
Q. You can hear it in their voice.
A. Yes. So, I try to wake up in the morning, be connected, and have conversations with people. Don’t be distracted, and the little nuances of life will show up, and you will hear things. I’m not immune. I have to do a lot of things, and I try to slow down sometimes. I try to be present so I can enjoy the richness and quality of interactions with people. Most people can’t multitask without losing something in each of those tasks."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20corner.html?_r=1
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