Light Summer Reading!  I just ordered this brand new book called The Executive Guide to Integrated Talent Management (got it on Amazon for less than list), which includes chapters from 20+ authorities, including: David Ulrich, Marshall Goldsmith, Peter Cappelli, Noel Tichy, Edward E. Lawler, Jon Ingham, Beverly Kaye, and Sharon Jordan-Evans.  It includes sections on recruiting, compensation, performance management, succession, retention and leadership.

This looks like a comprehensive approach, with up to date ideas from today’s leading talent management gurus, so I am looking forward to digging in.

The book apparently sold out at the recent ASTD conference, so it looks like it will be popular.

I’ll let you know what I think later on.

Tags: Beverly Kaye, book, compensation, David Ulrich, Edward E. Lawler, integrated talent management, Jon Ingham, Marshall Goldsmith, Noel Tichy, peter cappelli, recruiting, retention, Sharon Jordan-Evans, succession

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.  - Abraham Lincoln

One of our local business newspapers, OC Metro, partnered with an advertising firm DGWB to create a nonprofit Values Institute that then surveyed consumers in the area about brands they trust the most.  The institute then held “The OC Trust Summit” to celebrate the 16 companies considered the most trusted.  These include American Red Cross, Apple, Disneyland Resort, Nordstrom (see full list here), so there are no huge surprises – these organizations are routinely regarded with favor.

What I really enjoyed in the article about the survey was the reasons WHY consumers trust these brands.  Here are what the institute established as The 5 Factors of Trust:

• Ability: A brand’s quality and capacity to provide what people want and need.
• Concern: Customer perception of a brand’s respect and care for its customers and employees.
• Connection:  The personal relationship a customer feels with the brand, including depth, and anticipated longevity of the bond.
• Consistency: Reliability, dependability and stability (including follow through and standing behind commitments).
• Sincerity:  Is the company candid, open and honest?  A measure of genuineness and transparency.

It is not just what we sell, or getting a high quality product or service to the customer on time, at a fair price.  It is also the manner in which we conduct business.

Tags: customers, integrity, trust

I just happened to be surfing business news on the Washington Post when I spotted a headline about tax rates and job creation in one graph.  That led to two articles: The Myth of the Lower Marginal Tax Rates, and Rich People’s Taxes Have Little to Do with Job Creation, both by Michael Linden of the admittedly progressive Center for American Progress.  Linden has several charts that illustrate how overall economic growth and job growth have kept pace with the marginal tax rate.  Assuming that the sources are accurate, both of these charts show that in fact more jobs have been created, and more growth has occurred, when the top tax rates have been higher than they are right now.

Another interesting article on their site is Ten Charts that Prove the United States Is a Low-Tax Country.  I’m not an economist, and I’m not necessarily advocating higher taxes, I just found it interesting that we seem to do fine economically with higher taxes, and we aren’t really a high tax country, despite the inflamed political rhetoric out there these days.

Tags: economy, growth, jobs, marginal tax rate, taxes

There was a question posted in the LinkedIn Q&A Staffing and Recruiting section that I’ve been wanting to comment on.  The question is:  What is your least favorite interview question to ask or answer?  The question gathered 54 answers, from both recruiters and job seekers.  I’m fascinated by the answers.  I find that both sides, recruiters and job seekers, are exhibiting discomfort, fear, anger and maybe even a lack of professionalism in what they say are bad interview questions. 

In the 54 answers cited as “least favorites” are standard and useful interview questions.  These include:

• Why are you looking for a change?
• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• Why do you want to work for our company?
• Why do you want to leave your current organization?
• What kind of a manager do you prefer?
• How have you handled a difficult situation with a supervisor?
• What is your greatest failure?
• What questions do you have for us?

I have said for many years that recruiters and hiring managers are often bad at interviewing, so a recruiter who might cite one of the above as a least favorite just doesn’t know how to ask better questions, and/or, doesn’t know how to assess an answer to one of these.  I’ve also said many times that job seekers need to be prepared to show value to the employer in every answer they give, no matter the question.  You can’t have a least favorite interview question when you are out looking for a job.  There is no room for fear, a chip on the shoulder, or any other form of putting obstacles in your own way.  The stakes are too high.  For the job seeker, if you are having a live interview, that has tremendous value.  You can’t afford to “cop an attitude” because you don’t like a question.  And, as long as  I’m being critical, for the interviewer, how can you be so sure this person won’t do a good job, unless you do your job first.   Interviewers need to prepare meaningful questions that really get at whether the candidate can do the job, not mess around with “cute” questions, like “If you were an animal, what kind would you be?” (another least favorite).

With all the technological advances in business, sometimes I think hiring is still in the stone age.  People, be prepared.  Ask good questions, give good answers.

Tags: interview questions

In our newsletter last month, we published “Poison Control” – an article on how to deal with toxic individuals in the workplace (e-mail me for a copy).  This week, Peter Cappelli published an article called Managing the Difficult Employee, in which he points out that there are a lot of personality-disordered people in the workplace, possibly as many as16-18% of the workforce, according to another article “Does Having a Dysfunctional Personality Hurt Your Career?,” from Social Science Research Network, and mentioned in Industrial Relations. 

In case you don’t know what a personality disorder is, Psychologists describe personality disorders as “a form of mental illness defined as “pervasive patterns of enduring cognition and behavior” (i.e., how you think and act) that deviate from expectations in society and that cause difficulty and distress when dealing with others.” [Cappelli].

Pervasive and enduring are the operative words.  Make no mistake, these people cause big problems.  Personality-disordered people are mostly unchanging – some people respond a bit to treatment, but most don’t ever become fully functional.  However, personality disorders ARE covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, so people hired and identified with these conditions are entitled to protection and accommodation in the workplace.  I am a big supporter of mental illness being treated as a medical condition, so I certainly won’t say anything against having to deal fairly and compassionately with any disabled employees.

But, the business outcomes of this phenomenon are important, and what this means to you as an employer is that you are likely stuck with having to deal with difficult people.  You must find ways to work around them, and assign them to things they can accomplish without harming your firm or other people.  They will never be “A” players, so it is hard to endure the difficulties, which may make it even more important to have “stars” – true “A” players in leadership and other key roles.

Tags: difficult people, dysfunctional personality, management challenges, personality disorder, peter cappelli, toxic individuals