Here are a few questions I ask to get at the heart of this:

What are you passionate about?

What’s the last book you read?

If money were no object, and failure were not an option, what would you do with your life?

Tell me about the last time you wowed a customer with your customer service.

Sure some of the folks I interview haven’t thought about these questions before so they don’t have answers.

That’s okay.

The ones who are able to share are able to sell themselves. They tell me their stories. They share who they REALLY are.

And these interviews last longer than the 30 minutes I have scheduled for them.

These interviewees get invited back for a second interview, and often, they get hired.

My team ROCKS! We’re not perfect, but we have a LOT of fun, we work together, and we delight our customers with our service.

Our customers know we care about them as people because we have interests other than just IT. We ask great questions, we find the root cause of problems, and sometimes, we make mistakes.

And we have a lot of FUN!

How do you interview for openings on your team?

Does it even matter?

Inspired by Seth Godin’s The You Show.

Strength finder photo credit to koka_sexton

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Today, think of 1 thing you can do to make a difference for 1 person on your team. If you don’t know 1 thing that would make a difference to 1 person on your team, take 10 minutes today to meet with the best person on your team, and ask them what would make a difference for them. then do it.

Next week, do another thing.

Then do another thing…and another thing…and another thing.

One thing can make a difference. YOU can make a difference.

One thing photo credit to  Joe Shlabotnik

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Happy Thanksgiving to all the readers of Slacker Manager. I appreciate your comments, your readership, your e-mails, and the way that you challenge me to think in new ways about management.

I hope you find time to thank all of the people that mean the most to you this Thanksgiving Day, and that you share the abundance of the season with those less fortunate than you.

Blessings to you and yours,
Phil Gerbyshak
Slacker Manager editor

Photo credit to Rich Man.

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Hiring the Right Skill Set and Motivating the Millennials

Guest article by Tony Wagner, Author of The Global Achievement Gap

In an economic downturn, employers need to be even more careful with their hiring decisions.  And recent graduates from some of the best schools may not have the skills that matter most in the new global knowledge economy.   In researching my new book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach The New Survival Skills Our Children Need — and What We Can Do About It, I have come to understand that there are “7 Survival Skills” for the New World of Work, and that employers must look beyond applicants’ “pedigrees” to carefully assess whether they have the skills that matter most.

New Skills

Here are the Seven Survival Skills, as described by some of the people whom I interviewed:

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

“The idea that a company’s senior leaders have all the answers and can solve problems by themselves has gone completely by the wayside . . . The person who’s close to the work has to have strong analytic skills.  You have to be rigorous: test your assumptions, don’t take things at face value, don’t go in with preconceived ideas that you’re trying to prove.”  –Ellen Kumata, consultant to Fortune 200 companies

Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence 

“The biggest problem we have in the company as a whole is finding people capable of exerting leadership across the board . . . Our mantra is that you lead by influence, rather than authority.”  –Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Cisco

Agility and Adaptability

“I’ve been here four years, and we’ve done fundamental reorganization every year because of changes in the business . . . I can guarantee the job I hire someone to do will change or may not exist in the future, so this is why adaptability and learning skills are more important than technical skills.”  –Clay Parker, President of Chemical Management Division of BOC Edwards

Initiative and Entrepreneurship

“For our production and crafts staff, the hourly workers, we need self-directed people . . . who can find creative solutions to some very tough, challenging problems.”  –Mark Maddox, Human Resources Manager at Unilever Foods North America

Effective Oral and Written Communication

“The biggest skill people are missing is the ability to communicate: both written and oral presentations.  It’s a huge problem for us.”  –Annmarie Neal, Vice President for Talent Management at Cisco Systems

Accessing and Analyzing Information 

“There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren’t prepared to process the information effectively, it almost freezes them in their steps.”  –Mike Summers, Vice President for Global Talent Management at Dell

Curiosity and Imagination 

“Our old idea is that work is defined by employers and that employees have to do whatever the employer wants . . . but actually, you would like him to come up with an interpretation that you like — he’s adding something personal — a creative element.”  –Michael Jung, Senior Consultant at McKinsey and Company

Looking Beyond the Degree

The conventional thinking of many who make hiring decisions is that graduates from “name-brand” colleges are likely to be more intelligent and better prepared than students who have gone to second or third tier schools.  But, in reality, what the degree may mean is that these students are better at taking tests and figuring out what the professor wants — skills that won’t get them very far in the workplace today.  A senior associate from a major consulting firm told me that recent hires from Ivy League business schools were constantly asking what the right answer was — in order words, how to get an “A” for the job they were doing — and were not always very adept at asking the right questions, which was the single most important skill senior executives whom I interviewed identified.

So what does this mean for the interview process?

First, listen carefully for the kinds of questions the applicant asks.  Are they probing?  Insightful?  Do they suggest that the applicant has really prepared for the interview by trying to understand your business?  Do you feel as though you or your company are being interviewed?  If so, that’s a very good sign.

How a perspective employee asks these questions matters, as well.  Does he or she listen carefully and engage you in discussions?  Is the potential new hire both interested and interesting?  In addition to the ability to ask good questions, senior execs told me that the ability to “look someone in the eye and engage in a thoughtful discussion” is an essential competency for working with colleagues and understanding customers’ needs.

Finally, perhaps the most important question you might ask is, “what do you want to learn or how do you want to grow in this job?”  This question is essential for two reasons: First, the quality of the answer will tell you how reflective this individual is — and how intentional he or she may about his or her own development.  More than any specific skill, individuals must want to learn, grow, and improve continuously to be successful in today’s workplace.

Motivating the Millennials

The second reason why this question is important goes to the heart of the problem of how to motivate new hires to do their best.  In asking the question, “how do you want to grow,” you are signaling to a prospective employee that you and your company are committed to developing the talents of your workers.  Many employers worry that this generation lacks a work ethic.  But in my research, I have discovered that this generation is not unmotivated but rather differently motivated to learn and to work.  Above all else, they want opportunities to be challenged and to make a difference.

Describing the different work ethic of this generation, Ellen Kumata, who is managing partner at Cambria Associates and consults to senior executives at Fortune 200 companies, told me, “They don’t see coming into a company as being a career experience.  They don’t want to climb the corporate ladder and make more money and please the boss.  And so you can’t manage them the same way — you can’t just put them into a cubicle and expect them to perform.”  Tracy Mitrano, who manages the Office of Information Technologies at Cornell University, agreed: “You have to make the work more interesting and allow them to work in different ways.  They are prepared to work just as much and just as hard — but not at a desk 8 hours a day.”

Andrew Bruck was finishing a law degree at Stanford when I interviewed him last year.  “We want to feel ownership.  We have a craving for an opportunity to do something really important,” he told me.  “People in my generation have been in a constant state of training.  Now they’re excited to go do something.  The more responsibility you give people, the better they produce . . . There are more and more recent law school grads who are willing to take a lower salary in return for an opportunity for more meaningful work.”

Ben McNeely, a journalist, described to me the difference between his former employer and his current one.  “At the paper where I worked previously, the publisher would kill stories if they portrayed an advertiser in a negative light.  At the paper where I work now, I have an opportunity to contribute something in a growing community.  I was brought in to cover the new bio-tech research campus under construction nearby, where the Canon towel factory used to be, and to cover health care issues, as well.  I have support from the editor and publisher who both have strong journalistic ethics.  I like it that the editor pushes Windham, who us to dig deeper.”

Carie Windham, who graduated from college in 2005, told me about the best boss she’s ever had.  “He asked me where I want to be in 10 years.  He talked to me about creating the experience I want to have.  He understood I wouldn’t be there forever . . . Mentoring is a huge motivational tool, someone showing an interest in you and giving you feedback.  We want to feel we have a creative, individual role — that we’re not just working on an assembly line.  We want to feel like we have ownership of an idea.”

Hiring the right talent, then, is only part of the problem employers face today.  Equally important is how businesses create challenges and learning opportunities that motivate the Millennials to do their best.  Google, which had more than one million applications for 5,000 jobs in 2006, is the number one pick of a place to work for many of the Millennials.  Listening to twenty-two year old Matt Kulick talk about his work, one begins to understand how profoundly many companies will have to change in order to attract and retain the best talent: “First, they (Google) share ideals that I believe in — open source software.  And their products are solving important problems for people — doing good in the world.  I believe in what they’re doing — these values are very important to me.  I wanted to help out, to make a contribution.  The second reason I came to Google is because they give me the resources I need to accomplish major things that will really make a difference in world.  The third reason is the responsibility they give you from the day you start.  It is a winning combination.  It makes me happy to go to work every day.”

©2008 Tony Wagner

Author Bio: Tony Wagner is co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  His most recent book is The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills — And What We Can Do About It  (Basic Books, 2008), and he can be reached through his website: www.schoolchange.org

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Because he has reported to me for the past 5 years, we only need to meet once a month to talk about his performance. A typical conversation goes something like this: “Phil, it was just another day/week/month/year.” To me, that means he met expectations, because if he’d exceeded my expectations, every time we met would have another example of how he had exceed expectations. Additionally, the performance review he submitted had no examples of how he’d exceeded expectations, just high ratings.

I was very concerned about the disconnect, so I reached out to him with 3 possible reasons as a cause for the disconnect:

1. You think I have really low expectations for you. If this is true, I apologize. This means I’ve done a very poor job of telling you what my expectations are of you. I expect you will be fantastic in every interaction with your customers and with your teammates.
2. You don’t know what it means to exceed expectations. To me, exceeding expectations means you have numerous examples of “WOW!” customer service, amazing solutions to difficult problems, or you’ve gone far above and beyond what we talked about at last year’s performance and you did things far better or faster than I expected you to.
3. You’re holding back all the ways you’ve exceeded expectations this year, and you’re dropping them in my lap now at review time.

When I was straight with him, he took the opportunity to re-evaluate himself and ranked himself as meeting expectations.

The lesson is quite simple: Be honest with your team, communicate often, and don’t be afraid to ask for clarification of your team. Sometimes they don’t know what they think you know.

Does your team know what you expect from them on a daily basis?

Do they know what it takes to get your highest rating, or why they might be rated as needing improvement?

If not, it is your responsibility as a manager to clarify this for them, and then reinforce it all year long. Don’t be like me and wait until the end of the year. Have an expectation setting meeting early in the year, and talk about performance all year long.

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I’ll try to keep this series full of short, quick hitting articles that can get you thinking and get put into action quickly. Here are a few of the values I’ll be writing about.

• Authenticity
• Collaboration
• Lifelong Learning
• Failure
• Communication
• Succession planning

If you have a value you believe all Slacker Managers should have, please leave a note in the comments, or send me a note at phil.gerbyshak@b5media.com I will be happy to share the best of the best included, and my goal is create a resource that everyone can learn from and refer to for years to come.

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There IS Crying in Management shows how a C-level executive was asked to lay people off, and when he was done with the last one, he put his head down on his desk and he cried.

I left a comment I thought was worth sharing here:

Far too infrequently I expose my human side to my team, and instead I focus on getting things done. Yet when I do, like this year when we lost 4 associates in 5 months including 1 position that turned over twice, my team responds in AMAZING fashion.

I do care, and I do get it, I just don’t always remember to share it. I can only hope this executive let his former associates know just how hard it was for him to do what he had to do.

Here are a few questions for you to think about and share your thoughts in the comments.

• How do you feel about showing your human side?
• Is it a sign of weakness or of strength?
• Does your team know how much you care?
• When is the last time something at work has made you cry or show your emotions to those who report to you?

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One of the most giving people in the whole world has done it again. My buddy Raj Setty is giving away his book Beyond Code FREE in ebook format. If you’re an IT manager or an IT associate wondering how to move “beyond code” and get into something more people focused, this book will help you a lot. If you substitute beyond “code” and think about this about beyond whatever the first-level duties are that you are currently doing, and how to move out of the pile, then download Beyond Code today!

The picture above is a shot of Raj and I at last year’s 800-CEO-Read’s Author Pow-Wow, which I cannot attend this year because of a previous engagement.

If you have 5 minutes, go download Beyond Code today and learn from Raj on moving your life beyond code!

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Sam definitely knew what he was talking about when he said this a lifetime ago. I was talking to one of my non-management friends, and she was wondering why more people don’t share praise more?

GREAT question, so I thought I’d ask you, the smart managers and managers-in-training: Why don’t people share praise more?

BETTER question: Why don’t YOU share praise more, especially if you know the impact?

I have lots of excuses for why I don’t, but this week, I’m going to invest 5 cents in my team and let them know specifically how much I appreciate all they do for me, for our customers, and for our team.

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Be Grateful for the People You Lead by Christian Warren

One of the biggest complaints that workers have is that their managers or leaders see only the negative in what they do – or at the very least, it’s what leaders focus on the most. We leaders walk a fine link between making our people accountable and making them feel guilty and anxious about their shortcomings. Every time we focus on people’s faults and deficiencies, we diminish their contributions and worth, decreasing their efficiency and undermining their morale.

While it’s important to help identify and correct the shortcomings of our team members in appropriate ways, we cannot do it while ignoring what they do right. What about all the times they showed up early and stayed late, when they selflessly took on a job nobody else wanted or supported us when nobody else would? What about all the times they worked when they were sick? Or when they skipped lunch and didn’t complain, helped others when they didn’t have to, or made us laugh when we felt like screaming?

These small unsung moments create the positive energy that makes our workplaces enjoyable and productive. As leaders we must not lose the significance of these moments in our big-picture vision. A pro-active and future-focused manager knows that these small acts create our larger picture and shape our lives.

Every time you choose to acknowledge these moments with gratitude, seeing the small miracles that occur within your organization, you empower people to keep doing what they are doing. This cycle of evolution and development not only makes people feel better; it makes them act better; which in the long run makes the organization better as an enterprise.

I encourage you as a leader and manager to actively look for something to be grateful for each day about your team and your organization. Be innovative and put up a Grateful Box where others can write in what they are most excited about or grateful for at the workplace.

For one quarterly cycle commit to yourself that each time you hold a meeting you start out with the phrase, “I’m grateful for these specific things that our team did …” and list the top three. The more you search for opportunities to be grateful the more you’ll be surprised at how well your team works together and how many things there are to be grateful.

And speaking of grateful, I’m grateful for having had the chance to contribute as a guest blogger to Phil’s amazing and inspiring blog!

This is a guest post from Christian D. Warren, author of the best-selling leadership book, “Running with the Rhinos.” You can find him online at christianwarren.com.

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