Posts Tagged ‘inefficiency’

The Quintessential Leader Perspective on the Hiring Process

Posted: April 15, 2015 in Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art, Team Building & Development
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Modern Hiring ProcessThere are a gazillion fancy catch phrases in the Human Resources world-that-exists-unto-itself that describe the hiring process. Talent Aquisition is my least favorite (as if people are inanimate commodities that are bought from or sold to the lowest bidder – although that can seem like the crux of a modern employment search).

But in the end, the process is still, despite all the automated keyword vetting that allows the cream of the crop to get overlooked because some programmer (who doesn’t know anything but coding) is doing the vetting instead of a live human being, essentially to find a person to fill a position.

But today’s hiring process is a mess. So many extraneous and nonsensical layers have been built into the hiring process that the actual person hiring and the actual person they should be hiring have less of a chance to connect in person with each other than we do of seeing Halley’s Comet again in our lifetime. 

This is unquintessential leadership on steroids. Whatever “genius” thought this was a good idea was clueless about teams, team-building, and quintessential leadership. 

By taking the control of the process out of the hands of the people directly responsible for building teams, the current hiring methodology limits (and eliminates) viable – and, in some cases, the best – choices that would be considered without all the filtering layers now in place.

And, yet, because unquintessential leadership is the norm in most organizations, the very people who have built this Frankenstein of a system complain loudly and frequently about how hard it is to find good candidates and qualified candidates to fill their open positions.

The reality is those candidates exist, but the hiring process in its current iteration makes it next to impossible to find them. 

Why?

Because instead of depending, as quintessential leaders do, on their own eyes, their own ears, their own evaluation skills, and on their own intuition to spot strong soft skills and a good fit for existing teams, these unquintessential leaders have outsourced the most important function of building an organization to programmers, recruiting mills, and generic Human Resources departments, instead of doing this essential work, start to finish, themselves.

They don’t realize, to their detriment, that while you can quantify many aspects of organization-building – and, therefore, relegate it to people who don’t know anything about it, but can follow an if-then-else logic sequence that’s defined for them – you can’t quantify people.

And most organizations have forgotten that their most valuable resources are people: living, breathing, thinking, creating humans with personalities, skills, talents, strengths and potential that can’t be assessed or utilized without a direct human-to-human relationship.

Let’s look at the current hiring process and see why it exemplifies unquintessential leadership.

Major Online Job BoardsThe hiring process usually starts with digital job boards.

Most of the job boards, frankly, are a joke, even if a job-seeker uses keywords and date filters. Monster is the worst at just throwing out the most random and irrelevant search results you can imagine, no matter what parameters it’s given. Careerbuilder isn’t much better. Dice is pretty iffy as well. And LinkedIn ranks in the bottom of the tier as well. 

Indeed is probably the best of the job boards, but their search results aren’t all that great either. And it’s always a bit disconcerting to see job titles that spell “Manager” as “Manger” and other similar typos.

Once a prospective candidate has what has to pass for maybe-related search results, then the online application begins.

Alice Cooper did a song called “Welcome to My Nightmare.” Job applicants should consider playing this on an endless loop while they are applying for jobs, because this part is a nightmare.

It’s important to remember that this process happens with every single job that an applicant applies for. It is enough to make the most sane among us go stark-raving mad.

There is no standard for digital employment applications.

Almost all of them require setting up an account and creating a password just to get into the application. 

While most systems ask the applicant to upload a resume, almost none of the systems automatically populate the application form with the information on the resume. The applicant has to manually fill in everything.

Some systems have twenty or more screens to go through to actually complete an application for submission. Some retain the application information and some require an applicant to re-enter everything all over again for each new job being applied for. 

When the job applicant finally gets through this process and actually submits an application, then they wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. 

Apparently most job applications go to Never Never Land, because applicants don’t hear anything ever on 99% of them.

The 1% that job applicants do hear back on take various forms and are as infinitely frustrating as the 99% that they don’t hear anything back on.

The 1% shakes out like this:

  1. Immediate autobot email that says Human Resources has carefully reviewed the applicant’s qualifications, and while they’re impressive, Human Resources has decided to pursue other more qualified candidates. In other words, our program glanced at your stuff and decided you suck.
  2. For the most part, if a recruiter calls, it is a shiny-happy recruiter (remember, they get paid for every applicant they place) that calls and chats Recruiter Processfor 30 minutes with the applicant and promises to get back to them. Applicants will grow old waiting for that next phone call.
  3. In rare cases, a serious recruiter will call, then Skype, and then tell the applicant they will get their paperwork to the person hiring and will be in touch with the applicant when they hear something back. This ends up, for the most part, being another situation in which the applicant will grow old waiting for the return phone call.
  4. Even more rare, somebody at the hiring company will email the applicant with a one-line question, like “Are you willing to relocate?” or “What are your salary requirements?” Apparently, when the applicant responds their responses go to some sort of email dead zone, because that’s the last the applicant hears about the position.
  5. And in the rarest of cases, after the applicant jumps through a myriad of convoluted hoops, they finally get an interview with the hiring company.

The unquintessential leadership continues into the interview process, in most cases. As I’ve discussed before most people hiring aren’t exactly sure what they are hiring for. These are the same people who end up interviewing for a position they’re nebulous on themselves.

Once in a blue moon, the interviewer is a quintessential leader and the process works. However, blue moons are rare and so are interviewers who are quintessential leaders.

Generally, these unquintessential leaders can’t communicate well or effectively.

Poor Interviewing SkillsInstead of leading the conversation, they expect the applicant to do all the work. Pulling any concrete information out of these interviewers is next to impossible. Questions that the applicant asks are either deflected or answered in such vague terms that the interviewer might as well have not answered.

It may not be uncomfortable for the interviewer, but any job applicant worth their salt will have a high level of discomfort, as they sit there and ask themselves, “Why am I here?”

And the odds are extremely high that the applicant won’t get hired, which is probably for the best, because if somebody can’t even lead an interview, they certainly can’t lead a team. But, again, it’s frustrating.

The whole hiring process is replete with endless frustration. It’s demoralizing. And it seems to be designed to favor the survival of the fittest – only those who don’t quit until something finally breaks seem to be the winners.

Ask anybody who’s been through it and finally found employment, though, if they feel like a winner. The answer, because job applicants are the losers just about all of the time in the hiring process, will be “No.”

Besides all the unquintessential leadership involved in the current hiring process, the biggest problem throughout the process is communication. No communication. Delayed communication. Iffy communication. Vague communication. Wrong communication.

Quintessential leaders put a high premium on excellent communication, clear communication, correct communication, and prompt communication. That is a core component of life, of team-building, and of hiring.

Quintessential leaders also forgo the multilayered, inefficient, and dysfunctional current trend of hiring. They don’t let anyone or anything get between themselves and potential team members.

Because they know what they are looking for and they know that they will know it when they see it, quintessential leaders will do all the legwork, from advertising a position to filling the position, hands-on and by themselves (they will involve their teams in peer interviews when applicants come in, though, because the team’s input is an important part of the decision-making process).

This is the best and most effective way to hire people and, despite the unquintessential leader’s excuse that they don’t have time to do that, it is the most productive, long-term, time that quintessential leaders can spend to build their teams for productivity, for success, and for profitability.

Is your organization a mess when it comes to hiring?

Is the hiring process so convoluted that it takes forever to get a new team member on board and when they finally get there, everybody realizes it was bad hire?

Does the choice come down to making do with somebody who is not the right fit just to have a body or to leave a position open and go through the whole time-intensive, convoluted hiring process again, with no guarantee that the results will be different the next time around?

For those of us striving to be quintessential leaders, this is unacceptable. We need to take back our team-building responsibilities, no matter how much of our own time we have to invest. It’s that important.

What are we going to do about it?

More importantly, what are you personally going to do about it?

 

 

 

 

Quintessential Leadership Analysis of Groupthink and What it Says About Trust

Posted: February 28, 2013 in Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Myths and Misconceptions About Management, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art, Team Building & Development
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Today’s post has been on my mind quite some time, as I’ve spent a lot of time observing, processing, analyzing how prevalent groupthink has become and how the majority of people, it seems, have adapted that as the norm, and, in the process, just checked their brains at the door.

It’s important to remember that the brain is part of the body and it must be exercised just as the rest of the body is exercised to stay sharp, to stay aware, and to be discerning.

It doesn’t mean that every thought we have is right. But how do you know for yourself what right and wrong thinking is, if you’re not thinking at all? It doesn’t mean that every conclusion we draw from thinking is feasible, doable, or practical. But, again, how do you know for yourself whether conclusions – yours or others – are feasible, doable, or practical if you’re not in the habit of thinking in objective terms about costs and benefits, pros and cons, and outcomes?

We are becoming a society that is content to let others do our thinking for us. And there are a lot of individuals and organizations that want to do our thinking for us. It seems that most of us prefer to just go with the flow and agree to whatever all the things we’re attached to in our lives tell us are right, good, and true. And that’s a very, very dangerous place to be.

As quintessential leaders, we must be on constant guard against groupthink and what it conveys about trust and trustworthiness. My book, Building Trust and Being Trustworthy, is an in-depth discussion of the components that make up building trust and being trustworthy. Get your copy today!

There is not a human being on this planet who can afford not to know and understand this subject. Too many people don’t. That is, in part, why we are seeing the dominance of  groupthink – enforced and accepted – and we are seeing a steep and rapid degradation in moral and ethical standards everywhere we turn.

As a refresher for those who may not have read George Orwell’s 1984 – a book that I also believe should be required reading for everyone on the planet – let me briefly define the idea behind groupthink.

Groupthink, generally, refers to a collective of people all thinking the exact same thing, with no deviation. The underlying desire and professed aim is harmony and unity, so to avoid possible disruption of that, individuals are discouraged and sometimes threatened from objective analysis and truth and proof tests of the accepted thinking.

Loyalty to the group is emphasized over everything else, including truth, and any questioning of the group thinking is seen as disloyal. Therefore, all creativity, all objective analysis, and all truth and proof testing is squashed and, if it occurs, the individual is deemed dangerous and untrustworthy.

The problem with groupthink is that when bad ideas, old ideas that didn’t work the first time around, wrong ideas, unworkable ideas, not-very-smart ideas, and untrue ideas come in, since no dissension, no checks and balances, no questioning is allowed, they become part and parcel of the working body of information within the group.

And bad groupthink becomes badthink and the derailing of the entire group has begun.

Individuals in this environment, such as Orwell’s Winston Smith, know that their mental – and these are rarely, if ever verbalized, and when they are, they are verbalized very, very carefully (if you watch The Tudors, think of how Thomas More handled a groupthink he was not a part of – I would definitely take the same road he took until I was left no choice, as he was not, and then I’d lay it out as concisely and concretely as it has been written and rewritten in my thinking ) – reality checks, proving, testing for truths are very dangerous and that elimination – whether literally with their lives or symbolically by being cast out and banned from the group – is inevitable. There is no other outcome at some point. It’s an accepted fact.

Why is groupthink such a powerful card that some people in leadership positions want to play? Why do they play it? What does it say about trust and trustworthiness? What does it say about respect?

Groupthink is imposed because of fear. Fear of losing power, fear of losing stature, and fear of being proven wrong. It is imposed as a means of complete control. It says to those its imposed upon that they are not trusted and they are not trustworthy. It also says they have no value and, therefore, are not worthy of any respect.

However, you’ll never hear those reasons stated out loud. Instead, you’ll hear words like “loyalty,” “unity,” “collaboration,” and statements about “being on the same page.” There is always a certain amount of coercion and guilt that accompanies these words and statements that play on the emotions of a species – that’s us humans – who have a strong desire for connection and attachment to other humans. And the possible deprivation of that is why groupthink is so powerful for a lot of people and why society accepts it, in general, hook, line, and sinker.

There are way too many examples of groupthink and its repercussions in our society that is literally saturated with it now to discuss them all here.

Marissa Mayer - CEO - Yahoo!But the story about Marissa Mayer’s banning of telecommuting at Yahoo! this week encapsulates groupthink in such as way that it put the icing on the cake of my thinking about this subject for me. I’ll give a few examples of why.

One of the banes of groupthink is the reintroduction of archaic and unfeasible ideas from the past repackaged and remarketed as “new and fresh” thinking. It really shows outdated and stale or no thinking, and it shows the absence of quintessential leadership.

I’ve read widely on this decision by Mayers and have been thinking about it a lot with my own professional background in technology. It makes no sense for a lot of reasons.

Yahoo!’s business, as are all high-tech companies, is encompassed by mobile computing – having the technology to do whatever you need to whenever it needs to be done. Its benefit is specifically what she is banning in this memo.

The everybody-has-to-be-in-the-same-physical-location-or-nothing-will-get-done is not only an archaic idea, but it also has been proven untrue.

Telecommuting workers, on the whole – if you’re lazy telecommuting, you’ll be lazy at an office – are more productive and contribute a higher yield of results to companies because they’re not in an office, going to meetings all day, answering inane phone calls and emails all day, listening to their coworkers talk – and much of that talk is not about work – all day.

Meetings can still take place, face-to-face, with current and emerging technology, so nothing’s lost if someone needs that face time. To say otherwise is dishonest. I say that because I’ve heard this as the kingpin argument too many times and it’s simply untrue.

But the meetings tend to be focused and shorter and not the colossal wastes of time that most meetings in the office are when all the disorganized thinkers who also have a penchant and need to talk out every single random thought in their heads take over and kill productivity for hours at a time.

Telecommuting also represents a huge reduction in overhead for companies and for employees. For companies, it means less equipment, less office space, and less office consumables, which represents a significant cost savings and a better bottom line. Employees save money and time – that they can spend working – by not having to drive, often, long distances to an office. Employees are also eligible for tax benefits by having and maintaining a home office. It’s a win-win situation.

Mayer’s contention that Yahoo!’s employees will be more collaborative, more innovative and more productive by all being in the same physical location is badthink.

The reality is that if employees aren’t productive, collaborative when the need arises, and innovative as telecommuters, then they will not be productive, collaborative, or innovative anywhere else. That’s a skill set issue, not a location issue.

But what Mayer misses in this edict is the lack of quintessential leadership that has been in Yahoo! for years. If those in leadership positions don’t communicate vision, don’t develop and communicate strategies and goals, then all the employees basically end up doing their own thing, whether they are working from home or working at the office.

Instead of Mayer taking ownership for her responsibility as CEO – and admitting the lack of quintessential leadership in the past – she is essentially blaming Yahoo!’s problems on the employees. That is badthink and that is unquintessential leadership.

Another aspect of groupthink in the Yahoo! example comes from Mayer’s “one-size-fits-all” perspective. That is not only a foolish perspective, but it is an unquintessential leader perspective. Mayer is clearly an extrovert. She thinks like an extrovert. She acts like an extrovert. And she expects everyone in Yahoo! to think and act like an extrovert.

Mayer gets her energy from interaction with other people. She took only two weeks of maternity leave when her son was born last year and got back into the office, where she was surrounded by a lot of people. And that’s fine, because that’s what extroverts do.

However, with her faulty groupthink – which is believing all her employees will be energized by all the people around them 10-12 hours a day – she doesn’t realize that an inordinately high percentage of people in technology are introverts. Introverts get drained quickly of resources by a steady and continuous stream of people interaction and it reduces their productivity, innovation, and collaboration.

So here’s an example of the result of badthink. The introverts who are forced to come into the office now will not be roaming the halls, sharing lunches with their colleagues, or all the other random “here’s-a-spark” encounters that Mayer envisions happening when everyone’s onsite. Instead, the introverts will hole up in their cubes, earbuds and iPods engaged, and work alone. If they venture out for food, drink, and bathroom breaks, they will choose times when they are least likely to be hung up, and the food and drinks will come back to the cube with them.

And they’ll be somewhat less productive, somewhat less inclined to spend extra time working on projects, and very unhappy. What will most likely happen at Yahoo! because of this new rule is that they will lose some of their best employees, who will go to other high-tech firms who recognize the value of telecommuting.

Mayer will be left, then, with the same telecommuters who didn’t work when they were at home, but now they’re in the office not working, and she’ll also be left with a lot of disgruntled employees, who would normally be good workers, with morale issues because even if they haven’t telecommuted, they always knew it was an option if something unexpected came up, and now they’ve basically been told “come to the office or else.”

Groupthink is something that we as quintessential leaders must be aware of, must resist, and must ensure is not how we lead our teams. It’s a subtle enemy. It’s a dangerous enemy. It’s a destructive enemy.