Rileybiz

By Andrea Herran

Imagine you are hiring for a position in your company – pick a position it doesn’t matter which one. You have done interviews and have two candidates you are considering. One is experienced and brings a wealth of knowledge however the attitude they possess is not what you would consider acceptable. The other one is “green” in their experience and would require additional training however they have the “go get ‘em” attitude and is very pleasant – would fit right into the company.

Which one do you choose? Why?

While you may think the answer is obvious – skills first – many people select on personality. This is especially common with first time interviewers or those lacking confidence in their interviewing skills. I have to tell you that it may not be that straight forward. Honestly the answer is usually somewhere in between.

What can happen if you hire strictly on skills?

A poor attitude that infects everyone else at the office.
You have to constantly “put out fires” because of what this person says or does.
If they talk to your clients – look out! You may have client issues.
It will eventually get to the point where you don’t care what skills they have and you will have to get rid of them.

What happens if you hire strictly on attitude?
You later find out they can’t handle the stress of the position.
You spend all your time training them.
They give their best effort but still can’t pick up the job.
Each task takes longer so they are not completing all the requirements of the job.

Of course these are extreme examples as more likely you won’t ignore skill or attitude altogether. What does become difficult is finding that fine line between the two.

Things to think about…

So in my usual manner, I won’t answer but give you some things to think about.

Can the job be trained or are the skills learned at a school?
How much time does the position spend with a client (in person or over the phone)?
Do you have someone to train the person or would it be you?
How long would it take to train someone with less than ideal skills?
How much can the person’s attitude affect those around them?
How tolerant are you of various kinds of attitudes? (this is a big one)
Does the candidate have skills from another type of job that translate easily into your position? (don’t toss someone aside just because they had a different job title than the one you are looking for)

Answer these questions either before you start interviewing so you know what concessions you are willing to make or after you have the final candidates to put the answers in perspective. Either way it will make you more comfortable with your choice.

Hiring new people for your organization can be one of the most stressful things you do because these are the people who will be the face of your company. These are the people who will help you grow, give ideas, provide customer service and let you go on vacation. Take a thoughtful approach, understand your needs, what you consider acceptable and don’t compromise. It may take a little longer to find the right person thats ok since it is about quality.

Create your plan and determine your needs

To ensure you have the best hire – create your plan and determine your needs before you even write an ad or interview candidates. This will help reduce the stress of hiring your next team member.

Andrea Herran is the principal of Focus HR Consulting ( http://www.FocusHR.biz ), which provides full human resources support to small business, provides a membership service through My HR Helpline for those who want expertise just a phone call away, and provides webinars and public speaking on HR topics. Subscribe to her bi-weekly newsletter http://conta.cc/a98j1n

© 2010 Andrea Herran All Rights Reserved

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrea_Herran

Stepping into a management role isn’t just a change of task — it’s a fundamental shift of identity.

“To be successful, first-time managers must make the transition from a person who gets the work done themselves to a person who gets work done through others,” says Kim Leahy, global portfolio manager of Center for Creative Leadership’s Maximizing Your Leadership Potential (MLP) program for managers of individual contributors. “It requires a different definition of success, a new level of self-awareness and an additional range of skills.”

Your definition of success must now include the success of others. Rather than focusing on your own performance, you need to be asking, “How does the group or team accomplish its work?” “Are they effective as individuals?” “Do they collaborate?” “Are team members committed and engaged?” “How are individual motivations and needs connected to the work and the organization?”

At the same time, you should take stock of your own strengths, weaknesses and patterns. “Who you are drives how you lead,” Leahy explains. “Even though the emphasis is no longer on your individual performance, you need to understand your behaviors, preferences and tendencies — and consider that the most effective way to lead others may not always be your default approach.”

For example, you might be a person who thrives on the pressure of a tight deadline and, as an individual contributor, earned a reputation as someone who will roll up your sleeves and get the job done. As a manager of others, these same practices and preferences could lead to poor planning, micromanaging or inadequate use of resources. If you assume everyone operates the same way you did as an individual contributor, you won’t see or leverage the array of talent on your team.

Build a foundation of four leader competencies

To make the transition from an individual performer to leading a team, you’ll want to build a foundation of what CCL calls the “Fundamental Four” leader competencies: self-awareness, learning agility, influence and communication.

Other key competencies for leading others at this stage of your career are:

•Delegating.
•Building and maintaining relationships.
•Resolving conflict.
•Leading team achievement.
•Coaching and developing others.
•Confronting problem employees.
•Embracing change.
•Innovative problem-solving.
•Adapting to cultural differences.

“In today’s flattened and downsized organizations, many skilled people are put into team leadership or management roles with little preparation and support,” says Leahy. “But these emerging leaders are crucial for the implementation of the organization’s day-to-day work. When they understand what is required to manage others and learn — in a practical way — how to be effective leaders, they can be powerful agents for organizational success.”

From Leading Effectively Newletter, Center for Creative Leadership

This article is adapted from “Learning from Experience” in The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development.

Career setbacks can be demoralizing but they don’t need to be debilitating.
In fact, CCL research shows that many executives look at setbacks and mistakes as turning points or important lessons in making them effective or successful leaders.

“Early setbacks represent a key developmental event that successful executives cite when they look back over their careers,” said CCL’s Ellen Van Velsor in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. Van Velsor, a CCL Senior Fellow, has been involved in the Center’s “Lessons of Experience” research for more than two decades.

In the May 4, 2010 article, Three Who Thrived After Early Gaffes, columnist Joanne Lublin described setbacks of Jeffery Hollender, co-founder of Seventh Generation Inc.; Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire co-founder of Blackstone Group LP; and Myron E. Ullman III, chief executive of J.C. Penney Co. Each of these executives used their stumbles as learning experiences. They reflected on their missteps and mistakes and, as a result, made important personal and career decisions.

CCL’s Lessons of Experience studies show that the ability to reflect on and learn from hardships is important to the growth and success of leaders around the globe. The research, initiated in the United States in the early 1980s, looked at the key developmental events in male executives’ lives and the lessons learned from those events. Over the years, CCL conducted similar studies with women, African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, as well as with international executives, including senior leaders from China, Singapore and India.

Adversity can be a powerful opportunity to learn
Adverse situations — such as crises, mistakes, career setbacks and ethical dilemmas — are important developmental moments. Tangible business losses, loss of confidence or loss of control are all powerful experiences. And, while adversity is not something to seek out, it can be a powerful opportunity to learn.

Many leaders — across cultures — believe that the experience of hardship prepared them to thrive in better times. As one Chinese saying puts it, ”First bitter, then sweet.”

By Laura Smith Proulx

So you’ve written and re-written your executive resume, but it still doesn’t feel right to you? Maybe you’ve added metrics and detailed your career promotions, all to no avail. If so, it might be time to up your game; especially if you want to generate interviews.

You can find relief with S-T-A-R

To create a powerful and effective leadership resume, you can find relief from using a concept called the S-T-A-R (Situation-Task-Action-Result) strategy.

This method (aptly named for a reason) helps you to capture and sharpen the information you'll need for a masterpiece resume, starting with descriptions of leadership tasks and situational challenges, and ending with the results of your work.

“Leadership is like a muscle. The more intelligently you train, the stronger you get.”

From Center for Creative Leadership, Leading Effectively e-newsletter

John Ryan, CCL’s president and CEO, is a big believer in giving leaders a serious workout. Based on CCL’s research and practical experience and Ryan’s 40 years of leadership in the military, higher education and nonprofits, he advises leaders to step up their leadership training in five areas:

1. Teamwork and collaboration are critical for organizations in two ways. Internally, you won’t get much done without it. Externally, you need partnerships with like-minded firms that advance your strategy, whether it’s developing new products or breaking into emerging markets. But fostering teamwork is not easy. In a recent CCL study, 97 percent of senior executives told us collaboration is a key factor in organizational success. But just 47 percent believed the leaders in their organizations are skilled collaborators.

2. Managing change. In our work at CCL, we have found a few key principles for tackling change. First, view it positively and, of course, with a sense of urgency. There’s no point in fearing change since it’s inevitable and we can’t control it. Second, focus on adapting plans as necessary to external pressures. We all had our strategic plans before the recent recession hit. Some organizations stubbornly stuck with them, believing things would return to normal quickly. Others saw a sea change in the marketplace and adjusted their plans accordingly. Third, it’s important to manage the resistance to change you are bound to see in your colleagues. It’s your role and responsibility to help them understand what’s going on externally and why your organization needs to adapt. Be sure to involve others in the design and implementation of major change initiatives, whether it’s a workforce restructuring or a new product development process.

3. Communication. As an executive with a demanding schedule, it’s easy to be cut off from the rest of the organization. We can all learn a lesson from A.G. Lafley, the retired CEO of Procter & Gamble. He was a great listener, often visiting consumers in their homes or joining them for trips to the store. In addition to being P&G’s CEO, Lafley also established himself as the company’s Chief Listening Officer. He knew that getting good ideas required asking people for input and listening to it very carefully. We should all be Chief Listening Officers in our own organizations.

4. .Learning agility. To succeed in a world where our work is always changing, where challenges are unpredictable and competition abounds, we need to be agile learners. We need to apply our new knowledge. Perhaps most of all, we need to believe we can rise to the challenge. There’s a growing body of neuroscience research that says we can learn new behaviors and modify deep-set behaviors at any age. It takes hard work and real focus, but all of us really can learn new and effective behaviors — and help take our organizations to new levels of performance.

5. .Judgment is at the core of leadership. Fundamentally, it’s about getting the most important calls right — when it comes to both people and strategy. Without good people judgment, you won’t have a strong team. Without a strong team, your strategy will not be executed effectively. Look first of all for men and women who have demonstrated strong performance, integrity and the desire to assume higher levels of responsibility. Watch out for candidates who treat others insensitively and abrasively and put their self-interests above the company good.

Strategy judgment calls require leaders to find new paths. Success depends on asking the right questions, experimenting and constantly adjusting your approach. It hinges even more on your level of humility. Are you too confident in your own judgment? Do you believe too strongly in your old ways of doing business? Do you think that because something has worked many times before, it will work again now? Do you have the humility to understand that even with great collaboration you will not get everything right, and that you can’t know everything yourself?

From World Advertising Research Center

Brands managers must become “generalists” who are able to deal with the wide range of challenges that characterise the digital and global age, McKinsey has argued.

The consultancy said brand and category managers have long been the “star players” in consumer packaged goods companies, responsible for ”pulling the levers at the center of complicated businesses.”

Such was their success that the top ten corporations in the sector saw their average annual revenues climb from $13bn  in 1990 to $47bn in 2009.

However, the trading climate has become much more complex, partly because these firms increased the size of their product portfolios from a norm of 46 brands to 153 brands over the last two decades.

These organisations also currently have a presence in around 160 countries compared with just 112 in 1990, accessing new target audiences and demographics as a consequence.

Marketers control of communications has been undermined

More broadly, the “explosion” of digital and social media has undermined marketers’ control of communications at a time when retailers are demanding customised campaigns.

A global poll of senior executives by McKinsey revealed that 55% of corporations were seeking to improve their brand management at present, but many have failed to effectively realise this goal.

One reason for this is that attempts to cut costs and standardise procedures mean brand managers often have to “cede advertising authority to a global campaign” and surrender control of the supply chain.

Moreover, many companies have added layers of management, divided up their operations into units focused on specific categories and countries, and built departments focusing on digital media.

Brand managers now report to a number of different superiors

As such, 81% of CPG firms now employ “matrix” structures which involve brand managers reporting to a number of different superiors, a figure that falls to 59% in other sectors.

Many brand managers are thus required to spend 80% of their time in meetings in a bid to coordinate and direct the variety of activities in which they are engaged.

According to McKinsey, this total can be reduced to 54% when more efficient processes are put in place, such as the clear identification of overall objectives and who has ultimate power to make decisions.

Reckitt Benckiser, the household goods firm, has achieved this aim by prioritising the 17 “power brands” that deliver 60% of its sales.

It also charges staff with global marketing duties to plan worldwide initiatives covering three year periods, while their local counterparts are made responsible for implementing these schemes.

“[Reckitt's] structure is kept flat, streamlined, and nonbureaucratic, all of which foster speed in making decisions and responding to changing consumer and market conditions,” McKinsey added.

Generalist organizations deliver 2-3% higher organic growth

Elsewhere, it suggested that companies which favour “generalist marketing functions” typically enjoy between 2% and 3% higher organic growth rates than those promoting “specialist groups”.

Procter & Gamble was named as having equipped its employees with the necessary skills in this area, not least because 95% of its brand managers have worked their way up the ranks.

“To reinforce this apprenticeship model, P&G has developed a common marketing language, established an internal marketing ‘university’,” McKinsey said.

“It has also created centers of expertise through global networks of experts with shared competencies, and redefined brand management as a career, extending the time horizons of people in these roles.”

 By John Riley

 Sales managers don’t get much sleep these days. Scouring the landscape for orders is a character building experience. Meanwhile, the economy continues to limp along as sales managers and their master’s search for solutions that will keep their companies afloat.

 Of course, management recognizes many companies have drastically cut back their inventories, but they also know some companies are still buying and they want a piece of that action. If that isn’t happening, executives usually make a change in sales managers or restructure the sales force. It’s a predictable course of action, especially if they are not familiar with, or have forgotten, how sales people fight for Team One in the trenches. The real problem may be management itself.

Expectations can be a problem

 For example, management expectations can exceed the sales force’s capabilities. This can easily happen if there has not been a dialogue between management and the sales manager to set mutually agreed sales goals at the outset of each year. Motivation is normally built into the process through a sales incentive program that handsomely rewards the high achievers. While the goals must be realistic, they need to be ‘stretch’ goals, which usually call for a stellar performance’. With both management and the sales manager on the same page, unrealistic expectations can be minimized or eliminated.

 Since sales people are in a high risk/high reward function, executives who do not have sales backgrounds may sometimes find the rewards earned by their sales staff to be unjustified and an unnecessary burden on the company’s budget. As a result, they may be prone to reduce the size of a sales person’s territory or the number of accounts he handles as a not so subtle way of reducing the commissions the salesperson can earn. Additionally, a salesperson faces aggressive and skilled competitors who are equally determined to earn their commissions so producing results is by no means assured. Establishing and maintaining a well structured incentive system is absolutely essential to attract and keep high achievers.

 Things aren’t always what they seem

 Reliable organizational support is necessary to provide service continuity to customers when a salesperson is off calling on other customers or prospects. Support personnel occasionally see their sales people entertaining customers, flying to exciting locales to meet with prospects, accompanying the company President to call on an account, or being invited to a customer golf outing. This sometimes leads to members of the office staff becoming envious of their sales people undermining their commitment to sales support. What the office staff doesn’t see is their sales person being called at home at 9:30 pm to hear an irate customer report the salesman’s product had failed resulting in a production line shut down. After rushing to the customer’s plant to help resolve the problem, the salesperson finally gets home at 2:00 am. Or office staff doesn’t see the salesperson’s face when she learns, after four intense months of working on specifications and production issues for her customer that the promised order was going to a competitor who did none of the work, but offered a slightly lower price. Management needs to insure the support staff  recognizes and understands the multifaceted and essential role of the sales staff.

 In the final analysis, the sales force is accountable

 So when sales tank, don’t be too quick to blame the sales force. Ask if sales goals have been mutually agreed, a realistic incentive system is in place and the organization is providing the necessary support.  Make adjustments if necessary, however, in the final analysis, the sales force is accountable.

By Jeffrey Yipp

Nothing teaches leadership like experience, but often those powerful lessons don’t have a place on a resume or performance review. In fact, they can easily be overlooked.

In a new book, Return on Experience: Learning Leadership at Work, Jeffrey Yip pulls together key themes of CCL’s leadership development expertise to introduce a new framework for learning from and leveraging work experience.

By acquiring what Yip calls “a Return-On-Experience mindset,” you are able to understand and clarify accomplishments that may not be measured easily, but are essential for leadership success. The ROE approach allows you to evaluate and communicate important lessons from previous experiences. Just as important, it can drive your on-the-job learning from today forward.

Think of your experience as having value in three ways: mastery, versatility and impact.

Mastery is about sharpening existing skills, building greater depth of skill or knowledge. To increase leadership mastery, the first step is to identify what needs to be learned or improved. You’ll want to look at this from two perspectives: the needs of the organization and your own needs. Then ask yourself, through your work, what skills are you building? How can you sharpen your existing skills and ability to lead? To heighten your skills, seek experiences that offer challenges that will stretch your capabilities and deepen your expertise, such as job rotations or strategic assignments.

Whereas mastery represents a move toward more expertise, versatility represents a move toward breadth of capacity. It is about the expansion of your capacity through learning. If your experience is too narrow, you can begin to expand your repertoire of skills and abilities by working across different organizational boundaries:

• Go vertical. What assignments require you to work across organizational boundaries of level and hierarchy? Examples include supervisory responsibility, mentoring roles, managerial responsibilities with hierarchical-reporting relationships and special assignments with senior executives.
• Reach across. Horizontal assignments require managers to work across organizational boundaries of function and expertise. Examples include job rotations, working on a cross-functional team and action-learning projects involving different subject matter experts.
• Engage with outsiders. Stakeholder assignments require managers to work across the boundaries of the firm, to interface with stakeholders. Examples include managing joint ventures, working with vendors and being responsible for public affairs or corporate citizenship functions.
• Cross geographic boundaries. Assignments that require managers to work across geographically-defined boundaries of regions and nations also enhance versatility. Examples include international assignments, regional or global management responsibilities and management of geographically-dispersed teams.
• Discover new demographics. Some assignments require managers to lead or work with members from different demographic groups: age, ethnicity, gender, nationality. Where geographic crossings involve cultural boundaries by location, demographic crossings often occur in the same location, with members of different cultures. Examples include working in or managing a culturally diverse team, being responsible for organizational diversity initiatives and mentoring employees of a different culture.

Finally, the true measure of learning is impact — your ability to apply it. To have value, learning must be transferable to different situations and to other people. Consider how your lessons learned have (or can be) applied in other ways. Pursue strategies for transmitting your knowledge to others in the organization. Look beyond your current scope and seek out relationships or processes to help you capture and disseminate lessons learned.

Printed with permission of Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership.

By John Riley

 While today’s political environment is cause for frustration and uncertainty for companies, a new jobs idea being advanced by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Orrin Hatch

(R-UT) could recharge their business strategies while creating new job opportunities.  In one of those rare bipartisan efforts, the two senators have come up with a proposal so simple and easy to understand, you wonder why no one came up with it sooner.

  If a public-sector employer hires an employee that has been unemployed for more than 60 days, the employer would not have to pay the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax for the balance of 2010. The benefit is immediate and the longer an employer waits to hire, the less dollars he or she would receive. It is unbiased in that the 6.2 percent remains constant. A company would save money on an employee who earns $30,000 as well as someone who earns $60,000. There is no cap.

 Whatever losses the Social Security trust fund would incur would be made up from spending cuts in other programs between now and 2015.

 Business Strategies Boosted by Immediate Hiring

 While many companies are understaffed due to severe personnel cutbacks over the past couple of years, this idea provides the opportunity to minimize the cost of staffing up as the economy starts to strengthen. This is more appealing than adding an employee now and then having to wait until 2011 to get a tax credit. Furthermore, the payroll tax stays in the employer’s pocket since the tax is never collected.

 But there’s more. For any worker hired in 2010 and who was retained on the company’s payroll for 52 weeks or longer, the company would receive an additional $1,000 credit on its 2011 tax return. According to the Senators, “Imagine that three million unemployed workers were to be hired this year under the plan. If they all worked an average of six months in 2010 at a salary of $50,000 and every single one of them stayed on payroll for 52 consecutive weeks into 2011, the gross cost of the Social Security tax cut and the additional credit would be only $7.6 billion.”

That would be before the payroll taxes and offsets paid by these workers.

 Additional Rules Needed

 To help ensure long term business growth, additional rules will be necessary:

 1)     Family members of the employer would not be eligible to participate.

2)     Workers would need to work a minimum of 30 hours a week.

3)     The payroll tax plan is limited to the  private-sector

4)     New jobs created by tax dollars cannot be included

5)     Employers with a lower total payroll in 2010 than it had in 2009

cannot participate…businesses cannot cut jobs and still be eligible Unfortunately, there are no rules prohibiting senators and house members from adding amendments or earmarks thereby ensuring what is now a simple and easy to understand idea will eventually become incomprehensible. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see a promising new idea that can benefit business when it needs it most.