Lesson #4: Tailor Fit the Job to the Candidate Who Can Help Your Team Win

When a team has a vacancy, does a good coach look only for a player who will fit the jersey he already has?  Does the coach only look for players wearing the same shoe size as the last player wore?   Of course not!  Great coaches will find the player the team needs to become better and then fit the uniform of their team to that player. 

Similarly, if the coach is focused only on finding a certain set of skills for a new player (such as a good passer if a football team needs a quarterback), he remains open to the fact that he may come across such a good running quarterback that it opens up entirely new opportunities for the team to win.  Instead of remaining blindly committed to what he thought he was looking for, a great coach will be open to adapt the position (and perhaps even his entire offense) to make best use of the skills he finds in the new player

Job descriptions are like this in many ways.  You may think you know exactly what you are looking for in a new worker, and there is a outside chance you might even find an exact match to the job description you have.  But more likely, you will find someone who has most of the skills your job description requires but is deficient in some other areas that may or may not be critical.  The best strategy when facing this is to alter the job description slightly to match the abilities of your new hire, emphasizing some areas and de-emphasizing others.   

Remember, job descriptions are not sacred.  Even if you cannot alter your company’s standard job description for a specific position, you should clearly understand that some “required skills” are more important than others.  Your “team” can benefit most when you remain open to minor alterations of the job description to person you actually hire.   A good rule of thumb is to find a candidate that has at least 75% of the skills you are looking for (and adapting to the non-critical weaknesses the person has), and be open to modifying the job description to capture the additional skills the candidate demonstrates as a “windfall”.   If the “total package” still looks good, you are well on your way to building a winning team!

Lesson #3: Great players welcome a tough tryout.

To a great athlete, a brutally tough tryout is a welcome sight because it quickly and effectively weeds out mediocre players. The best players are anxious to show off their superior skills.

The very best utility workers, likewise, will not be afraid of a tough interview. In fact, they welcome it because it makes it easier for them to distinguish themselves from “average” applicants. Train your interviewers to ask the right kinds of questions, allow the candidate to answer fully and to shut up long enough to hear everything they say.  (Hint: Train your interviewers to look the candidate in the eye and count to five after each answer before continuing.  This will often make a marginal job candidate nervous and cause them to add more information… which is usually more honest than their initial “I read this is a good answer to give” memorized response.)

If you want to improve the interviewing skills of your staff almost instantly teach them this technique.  It involves them learning just one question that they can ask over and over. 

Part One - ASK THE FOLLOWING QUESTION

“At our company, we often deal with ___________________________________.

Tell me about a time when you dealt with __________________________________

and describe how you handled it.”

Part Two - SHUT UP AND LISTEN

The blank could be anything that your company encounters regularly but needs to be extremely brief, such as:

Angry customers

Long and rotating shift hours

Massive overtime requirements

Hazardous working conditions

Highly confidential information

Critical decisions you must make with little input

The reason for the short question is to make the answer as open-ended as possible.  You’re trying to learn more about the candidate in this first interview than anything else.  If you lead the candidate to only one obvious answer by your question, you don’t learn anything at all.

The reason to shut up and listen is so you will actually hear the information the job candidate is giving you.  Many people ask great questions, but only the best interviewers actually listen for the answers and press for clarification if they feel like they are getting clichéd answers from some book on interviewing. 

What kind of interviewer will YOU be?  What kind of interviewers will be hiring YOUR staff?

Lesson #2: Teach Your Supervisors “How To Drive”

My daughter just turned 15 years old and will soon go get her driver’s permit.  I think this is silly…they should just give her a driver’s license now because she has watch her mother and me drive for 15 years to date.  Surely she knows how to drive by now, right?

Does this sound strange to you? Well, sadly, this is the way most companies view training for their supervisors on how to properly interview new job candidates.  Most businesses just figure that, by the time you are promoted to supervisor, you have been interviewed for jobs so many times that you must know how to interview others fairly well by now.  It just does not work this way.

Think of it as “teaching them to drive”.  

·         New drivers have to learn something about the rules of the road before they can even sit behind the wheel.  Provide instruction to your supervisors on some of the key points first …what they can and cannot ask for instance.   Insure they understand the “why” as much as the “how”.

·         New drivers need an experienced person in the car with them at first.  Pair your new supervisors with experienced and effective interviewers on your staff so that they can see how it is done properly.

·         New drivers must pass a test before they get their license to drive alone.  Supervisors should pass a similar test with HR reps and experienced interviewers observing them but otherwise allowing them to conduct the entire interview “solo”.

·         Even good drivers get into accidents.  Hiring mistakes are not something to cover up.  Even the great Jack Welch claimed to only have a track record of about 60% on his hiring!  If a poor employee slips through with a great interview, the supervisor must be willing to do his job and get rid of the “bad apple”.  If he or she does so properly, they can still be considered great “drivers” of your company’s hiring efforts!

·         Poor drivers can get people hurt.  Poor interviewers can cause a lot of pain in your company ranks.  Both hurt and can be deadly!

Follow these simple steps to get your people driving down the road to success!

How to Find and Keep Good People in a Bad Economy – Lesson 1: Quit Hiring and Start Recruiting

As a manager in business today, you may never get a tickertape parade for our efforts or have statues erected in our honor. But you absolutely can build a winning team by taking the same approach used by top sports coaches like the University of Alabama's legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant.  Coach Bryant recruited only the very best people to work for him, in good times and bad, and played to win with them over the long haul. Applying his lessons to your utility can yield huge wins for your team as well.  Let’s look at some of them and how we can apply these to our businesses today. 

Lesson #1: Quit Hiring and Start Recruiting.

You’ll never see a “Help Wanted” sign posted for a winning sports team. These teams have recruiters out scouting for new talent constantly. They understand that, at any time, a key player could be recruited to another team, get injured, or just retire. Smart coaches don’t wait until they have an opening to start looking, either.  They go looking for great players, even when there are no open positions on the team. It's called “developing your bench.”

Business managers should do the same thing so that we constantly have a list of good people we could recruit in short order, should openings become available. To develop the bench of your business’ staff:

·         Always be looking. Keep your eyes open, and keep notes on great workers you run across day to day no matter where they may be now.

·         Advertise even when you don’t have an opening. Let your community know you are always looking to identify great people for that “call back” file. Accept applications even when you don’t have an opening.

·         Talk to your employees. Your employees can be some of the best recruiters. Let them know the importance of attracting great workers in good times and bad.

·         Have a great reputation. Recruiting means getting someone to quit what they’re doing to come work for you instead. Does your company have such a great reputation that people would be willing to leave their current employer to work for you? If not, you need to be working to make this a reality.

A good coach never rushes the wrong person onto the team just to fill a gap.  The only thing worse than an unfilled job opening is filling it with just a warm body to get through a short-term workload crunch. Don’t allow your supervisors to hire any old Bozo who lacks the necessary skills to be successful for you in the long term. To guard against this happening, management must meet with supervisors and managers regularly and remind them to hire only the best workers, even if it takes longer than hiring the next not-so-objectionable person who walks in off the street. Insist on holding out for only the very best.

Build Momentum

Running a great company is a lot like paddling a canoe upstream: when you stop paddling, you don’t just stay right where you are.  You are quickly washed back downstream where you were.  The best way to keep from losing ground is to constantly paddle hard and fast against the currents of mediocrity.

Remarkable companies never stop improving. They never stop pushing forward. Regardless of what achievement or milestone they just obtained, they never consider themselves “there” or rest on their laurels.  Keep the momentum going by constantly raising standards. As you achieve your goals, set new, even higher ones.

Remember that the challenge only means something if it is a tough one.  No one would be impressed if the top NFL football team beat a high school junior varsity squad.  When you are lining up challenges for your people, look for ones that you are not sure you can attain.  The best challenges seem to be just out of reach of our fingertips.  You want ones that make you stretch and reach and strive.  This stretching is where your staff gains strength and confidence. 

As you gain victories, take the time to celebrate them with your people.  This is an important step because winning is extremely fun and will motivate your people to work even harder at the next challenge set before them.  Winning against tough odds is rewarding even in the most difficult of times.   It’s hard to get tired of winning.  That is, it’s hard to get tired of winning as long as the challenge was tough!  Finding the challenge that will keep people motivated is the key challenge for managers today. 

Row, row, row your company to a GREAT future!   

Eliminate the Competition

One of the hardest problems to tackle in business is what to do when you sell products you can’t change in any way. It’s a difficult problem, yes…but it has a simple, highly effective and low cost solution.

You see this all the time.  You prefer eating at one certain Burger King over others even though the Whopper must be served identically at every franchise.  There are two different pharmacies across the street from one another yet you find you shop only at one of them…even though your insurance coverage makes the price the same at either one.  You stop at the same gas station every week even though the other three stations on the corner sell gas at the same price.

Why?   Most likely, it’s because the managers of these stores have changed the one part of their product that they absolutely can affect:  the customer’s service.

We all have competition, even in public sector agencies such as city  government or utility companies. Rising prices in typical household expenses (insurance, food, fuel, etc.) compete with us for each dollar we charge our customers for our services.  To maintain your fiscal health, every company must eventually raise their prices in response to various pressures such as inflation, regulatory requirements, etc.   We must constantly communicate our value to the customer to prove that we have earned this additional funding.   

Regardless of your business, you can “eliminate the competition” by making every interaction with your customer a remarkable one!  In this light, outstanding customer service is the best investment you can possibly make.  Think about it this way, a water utility company could spend a million dollars improving water quality and there is a very good chance that not a single customer would even notice.  Teaching your employees to smile at customers and treat them with personal care and concern doesn’t have to cost you a dime! 

Remember:  The product you sell is more than just the product.  It’s also interaction between your staff and the customer.  Create bright lines of distinction between yourselves and your competition by delivering superior customer service every day!  It’s highly effective and the price (free) is right for the times!

Compete In Order To Win

If any team, even the reigning NFL champs New Orleans Saints, practiced seven days a week but played no real games against opponents, they would inevitably grow weak and slow.  Without regular games against tough opponents, they would have no way to improve and sharpen their individual and team skills.  They could not identify if their game plan was effective, which specific plays worked or which players were truly great.   Even constant practicing in the absence of regular competition would lead a great team to a failure. 

In business, we see the same thing happen.  Showing up every day and doing the same old thing day in / day out will not help us improve.  We must regularly put our company up against tough competition in order for us to learn where we are strong and where we need to improve.  The opponent we select cannot be “internal standards” either since we may likely set a goal that is too low.  (If the Saints played the staff at St. Mary’s Nursing Home, it might technically be called “competition” and the Saints would surely win, but setting themselves up for an easy win would in no way help them improve as a team.) We must look for other great companies to compete against or a set of outrageously high business standards to reach for the competition to show us where we are both strong and weak.   

Competition is vital for any team (or business) trying to get faster, leaner, more efficient, more agile and in this economy, we cannot afford to be anything less than the great in these areas.  Winning motivates people to stretch a little more each time and trophies are important reminders of this feeling.  Find ways for your people to compete and win.  Look especially for hard-to-get awards and trophies. Never underestimate the ability for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results when challenged effectively.  What this competition will do for you is incredible!  It will show you and everyone on your staff the path to success and greatness.  You can afford to be no less!