What is the True Role of Social Media in Recruitment?

While social media makes it easy to find a thousand, dare I say it, mediocre candidates in one day, locating the perfect match for your unique business needs is still a job best left to a professional, specialist recruitment agency.

Besides the size and quality of the applicant pool, what has changed in recent years is the way people advertise their skills and the way they network with potential employers and other industry professionals. Building a career and job hunting are now a lot more complex than sending the same resume to prospective employers via snail mail, or even via email. For example, LinkedIn, the social media channel developed specifically for professional networking, now has over 200 million members from all over the globe.

While LinkedIn is leading the way in professional communication and business development, other social media giants like Facebook and Twitter are not far behind. In fact, back in November of 2012 Facebook launched a new US based job board feature that gives recruiters the ability to connect to users who are looking for work in their local area. While Twitter is less conducive to professional networking since it restricts posts to a limiting 140 characters, it can still be tremendously useful for locating local talent. By advertising open positions to followers and searching the user database with keywords that are related to your business, Twitter can be the perfect tool for supplementing other social media channels.

RELATED: How Many Companies Use Social Media to Recruit?

In the practical sense, that means any recruiter can use a searchable database to pull hundreds of candidates with resumes and skills that seem ideal for any open position within your company. But, what reads perfectly on paper doesn’t always translate the same way when you meet and interview the candidate. The difference between recruiters who use social media to locate active candidates, and independent professional recruiters, is that the latter are trained to find passive candidates who not only have the background you are looking for, but who also have the most potential to grow within your company and fit in with your employee culture and team dynamic.

While it seems like a no-brainer in today’s economic climate, there is an inherent problem with relying on social media and the Internet in general to find your perfect candidates quickly. It’s simply not a sustainable strategy in terms of future growth as the pool of highly-skilled, professional and specialist candidates will inevitably shrink as domestic and international economies rebound further, jobless rates will fall meaning more vacant roles become available, making finding the best possible employee be a lot tougher than throwing a few keywords into a social media search engine.

To secure and retain the quality of your employee team in the future, it’s important to maintain a good relationship with a truly specialist recruitment business who is well networked across your sector. This recruitment partner will have the capability to utilise a variety of traditional recruitment methodologies, combined with all available social media channels to help you handpick the perfect candidates for your business in any economy.

Author: Paul Simms is an executive recruiter with 15 years of experience across the Australian and UK markets. He is the founder of Wright Executive, a specialist business within the Accounting and Professional Services sector.

Original Article can be located: http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/social-media-role-hiring/

How I Hire: 80+ Perspectives on the Ideal Candidate

For those seeking a job, the rigorous application and interview process can be harrowing. But spare some sympathy for the hiring managers. Sifting through resumes and coaxing out revealing insights in interviews is its own exhausting grind. And what’s at stake is a company’s most important asset: its talent.

More than 80 of LinkedIn’s Influencers -- thought leaders and experts across industries who write original content for LinkedIn -- had lots to say about this topic in “How I Hire,” a feature series that launches today. We also teamed up with the New York Times to pull together the best hiring advice out there, including Q&As with career experts.

Through these blog posts, we get a firsthand look at the hiring philosophies of industry giants like Richard Branson, Deepak Chopra, Sallie Krawcheck and dozens more.

The series confirms that building a great team is arguably the most important thing to get right when running a company or department, and also one of the toughest. The interview process can also be painful: We quizzed 43 Influencers on their hiring habits, and a full quarter of those we surveyed have gone so far as to fake some type of emergency to end a bad interview.

Most Influencers have achieved extraordinary success not only on the strength of their own skills, but their talent at evaluating and attracting the best people to fill open roles. As a result, the “How I Hire” series is a goldmine of hiring tips and tricks. Read closely and you might even learn the key to getting a job with an Influencer. Below are a few key takeaways:

Go with your gut -- or ignore it

A strong majority of the Influencers we surveyed say that instinct is more important than data for hiring decisions. But there’s a vocal minority that disagrees, arguing that following your gut can lead you astray.

• Tom Bedecarre, chairman of AKQA, collects hundreds of data points on potential hires, saying his most successful hires were the ones he had the most information about.
• On the other hand, AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes takes just 10 seconds to make his decision. He looks for a glint in the eyes that signals passion, hunger and heart.
• Expert recruiter Lou Adler tells a cautionary tale that illustrates the dangers of relying on intuition or first impressions to make hiring decisions.

Level the playing field

As attractive as trusting your instincts might seem, many managers instead rest their hiring decisions on diagnostics that compare different candidates according to the same criteria. Depending on the role, those criteria vary widely.

• Steve Blank, co-author of the Startup Owner’s Manual, outlines an ingenious way ofvisually comparing candidates using a pie chart.
• Nicholas Thompson, editor of the New Yorker online, advocates a thorough approach including grilling candidates and giving them all the same test, whether it’s a story to edit or a coding challenge.
• Kabam CEO Kevin Chou devised a case study interview as a screening exercise that breaks through the noise of the application process.

It’s not about getting the answer right

Good interviewers ask lots of smart questions. But again and again, we heard Influencers say that specific responses were less important than other factors like the quality of the conversation and the way candidates thought about questions. In other words, don’t fret if you don’t have the perfect response to an interview query. Your questioner might be testing you for something else entirely.

• DJ Patil, VP of product at RelateIQ, asks two deceptively similar questions and makes a judgment not just on the answer, but the speed of the response and its tone.
• Eric Ries, author of the Lean Startup, conducts technical interviews with an in-depth programming and problem-solving exercise to closely mimic a workplace interaction. He has found that people with the "right" answer to the problem off the bat end up performing worse than those who are open to creative solutions.
• Steve Stoute, co-founder of celebrity ad agency Translation, says he talks about things besides the position he’s filling, including what an applicant’s parents do for a living. He’s trying to get a feel for the candidate, not just the dates and locations on their resume.

Hire teams, not individuals

Many Influencers made the point, in different ways, that it’s as important, if not more, to hire a team that works well together than it is to hire a bunch of great individuals.

• Sallie Krawcheck of 85 Broads and formerly the president of Merril Lynch, notes that you can't have a basketball team with all point guards. Diversity of roles and backgrounds has been proven to make teams better.
• GE CMO Beth Comstock reminds us there are no “lone geniuses,” and it’s teams that do the real work. To create diverse teams she looks to fill roles including the well-balanced employee and the fish out of water.
• James Caan, CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw, auditions shortlisted employees by having them sit in with his team and seeing what kind of fit they are.
• Jen Dulski, president and COO of Change.org, cites six must-haves when she’s bringing new people on board, including a diverse team.

Know what you’re looking for -- and name it

For many, the hiring process is built around identifying very specific traits. Influencers don’t just hire for broadly defined character traits like cooperation or persistence. Many have been building teams for so long that they’ve given names to the unique skill sets or combinations of traits that the perfect hire must posses.

• Diego Rodriguez, partner at IDEO, looks for what he calls “informed intuition,” a highly developed sense of what is awesome and what is not, what will work and what won’t.
• Chopra Foundation Founder Deepak Chopra goes so far as to create a "soul profile,” a portrait of each candidate that includes questions about their life’s purpose and what they look for in a friend. Chopra argues that technical skills can be outsourced, but “what makes an organization or business successful are core values, qualities of character, vision, purpose, camaraderie, and joy. And these cannot be outsourced.”
• Management guru and former GE CEO Jack Welch also looks for something singular in addition to qualities like energy and edge. He defines it as the “generosity gene,” a trait belonging to people who get joy out of seeing those around them do well.

Keep in mind what you don’t want

How do Influencers get so good at hiring? By learning from their mistakes. Nearly all of the Influencers we surveyed said at some point they’ve regretted a hiring decision they made. From that, many have taken lessons about how to screen out candidates who won’t work out.

• Neil Weinberg, editor-in-chief of American Banker magazine, has a list of pet peevesthat get applicants struck from consideration, from spelling errors in a cover letter to unprofessional clothes or attitude. (Incidentally, wardrobe gripes aren’t as common than they once might have been: Only six out of 43 Influencers we surveyed say wearing a suit to an interview is an absolute must.)
• Lesley Seymour, editor-in-chief of More magazine, resists the idea that hiring from a pool of younger candidates means bringing spoiled brats on board. She says you just have to know how to weed out the entitled millennials.
• Bruce Kasanoff, CEO of Now Possible, sifts what he calls “givers” from “takers” and keeps "takers" -- people who are mostly self-interested -- away from customer-facing roles.

To peek into the minds of dozens more who have mastered staffing (and to learn from their mistakes), check out the full series here. For more strengths to look for and flubs to avoid when hiring, log on to LinkedIn at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Sept. 26, when I’ll be moderating alive chat on hiring with New York Times columnist Adam Bryant and human resources expert Josh Bersin. Finally, tell us in the comments or on Twitter using the hashtag #HowIHire: What do you think is the most important thing to think about when hiring?

Photo: Bill Strain/Flickr

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Don't Waste Your Life... Test Your Career Goals

Don't Waste Your Life... Test Your Career Goals

(Article written by Bruce Kasanoff originally for Linkedin.com - can be found here)

If I told you that the first person to discover a pink manatee would become an instant millionaire, you probably wouldn't drop everything and start searching. You are smart enough not to believe in pink manatees, and you realize there are much more sensible ways for you to succeed.

In other words, you did a quick reality check and avoided running off on a ridiculous quest for success.
Are you being as logical with your own career? There's one way to find out.

Test your goals.

The way to separate possible goals from impossible ones is to test them, in a modest way, and see what happens.

If you want to be a standup comedian, write a routine and test it in front of your friends. If that works, perform at an open mic night. If you want to write songs, write songs... then see if you can get people to stay in the room when you sing them.

If you want to go to grad school, take a graduate level course and see how well you like it.
You may be an extraordinarily gifted designer, but if you have no business sense whatsoever you will likely fail without a business partner. If this description fits you, your first test should be to see if you can convince a smart business person to collaborate with you.

If you think you can handle a much bigger job, privately test your ability to handle the job's biggest challenges. For example, write a strategic plan - masking any confidential details - and show it to a few people (outside the company) whose opinion you trust.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, build a prototype and see if anyone wants to buy it. Even better, get feedback from potential customers, then use that feedback to refine your product. When customers actually buy your product, then - and only then - will you know you are on the right track.

Slow down!

It can be easy to move too fast. You may hate your current job, or be incredibly excited by the potential of your dream. You could be tempted to quit your job before designing a product or selling it to anyone. You might want to raise money before talking to potential customers. Maybe you want to act first, and think later.
In other words, you'd like to skip the boring stuff like thinking, planning, and testing.

If you pursue your dreams without testing them, you risk wasting years of your life. Don't chase pink manatees; always test the waters before jumping in.

_____________________________________________________

More from Bruce Kasanoff: Bruce has three free ebooks available for download at Kasanoff.com. He is the author with Michael Hinshaw of Smart Customers, Stupid Companies; you can read the Introduction and first chapter for free.

 

To see more of Bruce's articles on LinkedIn, click the "follow" button below, or follow@NowPossible on Twitter.

Image credit: Manatee sketch by Tamara Fuchinsky.



The Eight Splendid Truths of Happiness

The Eight Splendid Truths of Happiness

(Article written by Gretchen Rubin / Original article can be found here)

In my study of happiness, I’ve labored to identify its fundamental principles. Because I get a tremendous kick out of the numbered lists that pop up throughout Buddhism (the Triple Refuge, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths, the eight auspicious symbols), I decided to dub these fundamental principles as my Eight Splendid Truths.

Each one of these truths sounds fairly obvious and straightforward, but each was the product of tremendous thought. Take the Second Splendid Truth—it’s hard to exaggerate the clarity I gained when I finally managed to put it into words. Here they are:

First Splendid Truth
To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

Second Splendid Truth
One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy;
One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.

Third Splendid Truth
The days are long, but the years are short. (Click here to see my one-minute movie; of everything I’ve written about happiness, I think this video resonates most with people.)

Fourth Splendid Truth
You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.
(Many argue the opposite case. John Stuart Mill, for example, wrote, “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” I disagree.)

Fifth Splendid Truth
I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature.

Sixth Splendid Truth
The only person I can change is myself.

Seventh Splendid Truth
Happy people make people happy, but
I can’t make someone be happy, and
No one else can make me happy.

Eighth Splendid Truth
Now is now. (For more on this truth, read the last chapter of Happier at Home. I love writing endings, and if I may say so, endings are my forte, and this is the best ending I've ever written.)
What did I miss? What Splendid Truth is missing from that list?

Now I’m trying to come up with my personal eight auspicious symbols for happiness. Let’s see—bluebird, ruby slippers, dice, blood, bird house, treasure box, roses…hmmm. I will have to keep thinking about that.

• Are you reading Happier at Home or The Happiness Project in a book group? Email me if you'd like the one-page discussion guide. Or if you're reading it in a spirituality book club, a Bible study group, or the like, email me for the spirituality one-page discussion guide. And if you'd like to join my book club (each month, I pick one book about happiness, one work of children's literature, one eccentric pick), sign up here.

(Photo: groundswell, Flickr)



What's in a Name? Letters. Each Additional One Costing You $3,700 Annually!

On a First-name Basis with Success? Your Mom Chose Your Name Wisely.

(Click the above link to view the original article written by Daniel Cronyn is the director of consumer marketing)

Happy Mother’s Day! (Sorta). In celebration of all the hard-working mothers out there, we recently conducted a study to see if the names they choose for their children could have possibly dictated their future success in the workplace. First, we analyzed data around first names from TheLadders’ nearly 6 million members against variables such as industry, salary level, and location. We wanted to prove the null hypothesis that what your mother names you makes a difference.

Second, we populated a few lists, hoping they would generate some additional questions. We started by aggregating and sorting names that were at the top of each list:

Top five C-level names, by gender, in ratio to their overall frequency:

Top five highest-paid names:

Both lists are normalized for frequency (not just absolute counts) giving a ratio of [C-level first names]/[all first names]. Here are a few quick takeaways:

• Christine was the only name that showed up on both the top five C-level and highest paid lists
• The top 10, highest-paid, C-level executive names earn, on average, 10% more than other names
• The top 25 most-popular names make about $7,000 more, on average, than the rest of the list
• Females make, on average, 22% less than their male counterparts in all comparisons

One point we noticed was that shorter names seemed to be higher ranked across all categories and metrics, so we investigated further. It turns out we were right, and there is a correlation between the number of letters in your name and the average salary:

Doing a simple linear regression, it looks like every additional letter added to your name accounts for a $3,600 drop in annual salary. One exception is names with seven letters, like Stephen, but closer inspection showed that seven-letter names lend themselves to males over females, so it’s higher paid males over-indexing and inflating the seven-letter bucket.

This surprising trend of shorter names led us to look at nicknames, and test whether Williams truly make less money than Bills. We looked at every abbreviation and nickname we could identify; here is a summary of results in the “Nickname versus Proper Name” head-to-head death match (gold stars for the winners):

All the shorter names earn more. Our test included 24 pairings, and in only one case (Lawrence vs. Larry) did the longer name win. Still not convinced? The definitive proof for this theory can be seen in Sara vs. Sarah, Michele vs. Michelle, or Philip vs. Phillip –  one letter less positively correlates with increased salary.

In conclusion, it DOES make a difference what your mother named you. So, to all prospective mothers, our advice is to keep Baby’s name short and sweet – your child will thank you when they’re raking in the money one day.

The Strongest Careers Are Non-Linear

The Strongest Careers Are Non-Linear

(Article written by Penelope Trunk, Brazen Careerist for and originally posted on Linkedin.com and can be read in it's original format here.) 

　(Note by Will: I wasn't raised this way (Hence my doctorate),　having been　taught that getting as much education as you can stand　was the correct path to go. So, I cannot fully agree with this article. However, she has a very strong point and her logic is sound. I personally now owe $546,000 in interest on $120,000 in Federally subsidized loans... $100,000 of which I did not need for degrees I really could have done without.　Moreover, these loans, which were and are my only form of debt,　went into default for a year as I couldn't get employed out of school to make the money that I needed to pay them off. With all that being said, I made no wrong moves or bad choices. Such was simply the path that had to occur, which, is inadequate.)

For years we have been talking about the education bubble and the problem that colleges charge tons of money and then graduates are unemployable and in debt. Colleges are responding by becoming job preparation centers. And Frank Bruni, opinion editor for the New York Times, says this is a waste of time and resources. Here’s what’s better:

1. Skipping college.
The real issue we have with admitting that college is not a path to the work world is then we have to ask ourselves why we send our kids to high school. There is plenty of data to show that teens are able to manage their lives without the constraints of school. The book Escaping the Endless Adolescence is chock full of data, and a recent article by my favorite journalist, Jennifer Senior, shows that high school is not just unnecessary, but actually damaging to teens who need much more freedom to grow than high school affords.

2. Focus on internships instead of school.
Kids should be working in internships in high school. Because the best path to a good job is a bunch of great internships. But great internships don’t go to people who need money. They are mostly for young people. Yes, this is probably illegal and classist and bad for a fluid society. But we will not debate that here. Instead we will debate why kids need to go to college if the internships are what make them employable? Kids should do internships in high school and by their college years, they are capable of real jobs where they are doing work that people value, with cash.

You cannot take this route if you’re saddled with huge student loans. You can’t take this route if you’re inundated by homework in required subjects you don’t care about. You can’t take this route if you have no work experience when you graduate college. It’s too late. (Don’t tell me you need to go to school to learn, okay? People just do not believe this anymore.)

I was reading the Fortune list of 40 under 40 and I was struck by the career history of Kevin Feige (number 11 on the list). He’s president of Marvel Studios at age 39. He wrote that he interned with the Superman movie director as a film student and that was the last job application he filled out. That’s because if you get an internship with someone great, and your performance is great, your network will cover your employment needs for a very long time.

3. Start a company instead of writing a resume.

I’m struck by Marissa Mayer (number 3 on Fortune’s list) whose announced acquisition strategy is buying small, cheap companies. Which is, in effect, buying the team. Silicon Valley calls these acqui-hires. She is looking at young people who start companies that are not necessarily successful in terms of product or sales but successfully market the founders as visionaries, self-starters, and hard workers. You can’t show those traits in school, so if you have those traits, you slow yourself down by going to school where you cannot exhibit your best, marketable traits.

4. Refuse to present yourself in a linear way.

Do any workaround that lets you forgo the linear obsession the standard resume format. Because linear presentations favor people who have long, rule-following careers – which don’t necessarily make you look good anyway. I could write a post ten thousand paragraphs long of all the new things people with nonlinear work histories are doing to get jobs.

People use twitter as a resume, according to the Wall Street Journal, which requires only that you publish ideas, not any sort of academic experience.

Young people are selling stock in themselves - paying out dividends for decades at a time.
Agents represent workers who pick and choose projects that match them rather than signing on for indefinite amounts of time. The Harvard Business Review calls this supertemping. Business Week calls it going Hollywood.

But here’s the big takeaway. A fundamental shift is taking place, where the path to getting a job is massively circumventing college credentials. And, at the same time, the American public is fed up with the insane debt that college are expecting new grads to take on in order to graduate. (Good essay: How College Ruined My Life.)

If you are not going to school in order to “fit” into the adult world, then why are you going to school? The love of learning, presumably. But school reform pundits are 100% sure that kids will choose to learn if you put no constraints on them. They will just learn what they want. Best example: The MIT program that gave iPads to illiterate kids in Ethiopia, and they taught themselves to use it, program it, and read it in English. No teacher. No curriculum.

The biggest barrier to accepting the radical new nature of the job hunt is the reverberations throughout the rest of life. If you don’t need school for work, and you don’t need school for learning, then all you need school for is so parents can go to work and not worry about taking care of their kids.

It takes bravery to go against the grain. It’s difficult to say that the great learning and the great jobs come from leaning out, doing things in a nonlinear, non standard way, and playing only by the rules that fit your own style for personal learning and growth.

The 2 A.M. Email: A Public Display Of Ambition

The 2 A.M. Email: A Public Display Of Ambition

(Article Written by Randi Zuckerberg (Zuckerberg Media) for Linkedin. Original article can be found here.)

In today’s working world, there is a lot of pressure to always be “on.” If a colleague is consistently sending emails late into the night, we may feel pressured to do so as well. Whenever I wake up and see an email sent to me at 2 a.m., I feel guilty – what am I doing sleeping when somebody else is up working? Am I not being productive or available enough?

Sending emails late into the night sends a flashing message to coworkers, “I’m ambitious!,” but email doesn't have to be a competition of who can respond faster or who can function on less sleep. Maybe that colleague emailing you at 11 p.m. isn't doing it to one-up you or be seen as Employee of the Month. Some of us send emails at odd hours because that’s when email best fits into our lives. As a mom, I’m most productive and able to catch up on my messages late at night when my 2-year-old son is sleeping and the house is finally quiet. I’m often in meetings all day, and want to spend quality time with my family when I get home - so it’s hard to find a solid chunk of time to give my full attention to my inbox. Around 11 p.m. is my time to plug in again – but this doesn’t mean I expect my colleagues to respond right away or even read my emails before they go to bed. We all have our own routines, including specific times when we are able to focus best. For some, this time may be early in the morning. For others, it’s during the work day in between meetings, on weekends or during a daily commute.

Many managers send emails late at night and seem to be connected around the clock. While some do expect their colleagues to read and respond 24/7 (talk about stressful!), many do not. The problem is, most managers don’t communicate these expectations to their colleagues. It's becoming increasingly popular for stressed employees to request "overtime" pay for the extra hours they spend on their devices. Whenever a new employee begins working with me, I go out of my way to let them know that I work best late at night – but just because they receive late night emails from me, does not mean I expect them to immediately respond. It’s important to clearly let your colleagues (especially direct reports) know when you expect them to be available. They should not have to break into a cold sweat every time their phone buzzes with a new email late at night, or sleep with one eye open and their phone beside their pillow. Tell your colleagues if it’s an urgent matter requiring immediate response, you will call them (and only do this if it’s an emergency!).
In an ideal world, I wish businesses would shut off inter-office email delivery after 9 p.m., so people could send as many late-night emails as they want, without being delivered until the following morning. That way people would never know the difference between someone that efficiently got all their work done by early evening, or someone who stayed up all night working on a project.

Need a Good-Looking, UNIQUE Resume Revamp? Only have 15 Minutes? Don't Pay for It; Click This Here Button.

Need a Good-Looking, UNIQUE Resume Revamp? Only have 15 Minutes? Don't Pay for It; Check Out Linkedin Labs!



If, by chance, you were about to pay one of those random companies $500 to redo/revamp your resume (And let's be honest here: What were you thinking? That's 500 Wendy's　Double-Bacon Cheeseburgers you're losing on some format changes)　THEN DON'T DO IT. Here is your solution. (But feel free to send me a donation of $100 for the assistance!)

　

Stumbled across this the other day... I must say, one heck of a find. Highly suggested for those passive candidates who want to keep in touch with recruiters but don't have the time to stop working/attending to the family　long enough to spend 10 hours on updating and redoing their resume (FYI: If a recruiter asks for your resume, it means they know you will fit a role that tends to come across their desk in just a matter of time so send it to them.)

　

Anyhow, this was actually featured on Linkedin.com's professional blog for a day, but then disappeared into the night for some reason... It's an additional app add on that complies you a resume from your current Linkedin Profile that looks great, can be altered as needed, and comes with unique and varying templates.

　

Basically, it's awesome. (Link below)

Linkedin Labs: Resume Builder

Radioactive conversations: how to avoid them by Joel Peterson

Radioactive conversations: how to avoid them

(Original Article Authored by Joel Peterson, Chairman, JetBlue Airways. Stanford Business Professor and posted on Linkedin.com page here.)

If there’s a ticking bomb in your personal or professional life, you already know it’s better to defuse it than to let it explode. If you don't face it head on, you risk fallout that can last months, years—or even a lifetime.

Is it a conversation with your partner about where you should live, or with your child about how she’s doing in school, or who his friends are? Perhaps at work you’ve locked horns with your boss over your own vision and priorities – and you sense it's beginning to affect your career trajectory. In any of these cases, the odds are that you don’t want to deal with it; and they don’t either.

But the longer you put it off, the fewer ticks are left before the bomb goes off. When it does, a lot heat gets released, and things get said that can’t be unsaid. Bad goes to worse. And sometimes, worse goes to radioactive.

Why hazard that kind of damage when some thoughtful preparation, and cool-headed discussion, can disarm many confrontations before they happen? Here are a few strategies that can turn tension into progress:

1. Atmospherics matter. Pick a good moment, and a good place. Make things as easy as possible on the other party. Try to catch them in an even mood. People don’t respond well when they’re hungry or exhausted, or in a location where they feel vulnerable. And have the talk in private, without eavesdroppers or referees.

2. Don’t bury the lede. Resist the temptation to start the conversation by asking how the other person is feeling. Vague overtures may seem like a good way to “test of the waters,” but may only make you seem hesitant or ill at ease. If it’s a colleague, launch the conversation with a straightforward, “I’ve been wanting to talk with you for a while about something that’s getting in the way of our working well together. I want to discuss how we might fix what’s causing it.”

3. Listen (first), listen (well), listen (generously). After opening the conversation with a clear statement of your intentions, offer to let the other party share his or her perspective before you do. It’s a gesture of goodwill and respect – and getting off to a good, unselfish start means a better chance of a good, unselfish outcome.

Then, listen like it’s your job. Have the discipline to repeat what you’ve heard (“What I hear you saying is…”). Your work isn’t done until the other person feels that you’ve understood her perspective. Beware: You may feel the explosion coming on before you get to this point. That’s normal, and in fact it’s likely why the conflict exists in the first place. But stay cool, and don’t interrupt except for clarification, or to gently ask your counterpart not to wander too far into ancient history. Good listening alone can go a long way toward solving a conflict.

4. Your turn: Be clear. Be calm. When it comes time to give critical feedback, express it in the form of concern. If you want to talk to your teenager about his behavior, try something like, “You know how much I care about you. My own experience with how the world works makes me feel that I owe you some guardrails. I’m going to ask you to trust me on this.” Granted, teens aren’t likely to jump into your corner, even with this approach. But it sets the tone for your longer-term goal -- to nourish a trust relationship where you still have some influence over an increasingly free agent.
The same goes for charged conversations with a supervisor or employee. If you’re giving negative feedback, do it in a spirit of growth and forward movement, discuss a fair plan for addressing the issue, and set up a time to reconnect and check in.

5. Don’t be the on to pull the pin. If things get heated, you may hear things like “I’ll see you in court,” “You’re such a jerk,” or “That’s it! I’m outta here!” But don’t let it be you who goes there.

The jujitsu of high-stress conversations means you want to move toward the other party if the rhetoric turns hostile. The louder, more aggressive, more threatening he becomes, the lower your volume must be, and the more you must absorb. This doesn't mean capitulating or accepting abuse; it means being the bigger person. Instead of answering a legal threat with, “I hope you’ve got a good lawyer, then,” try something like, “I’m sad you feel that way. I’d hate for that to be where we end up. Let’s explore a less destructive course of action.”

Stressful conversations are worth having sooner than later. Conducted with care, they can release pressure before it builds to the breaking point, and even make relationships stronger. Don’t put off what’s difficult now in favor of what will be impossible down the road.
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Joel's recent posts:

To-do #1: Kill your to-do list

The 10 most common firing mistakes

Be the Michelangelo of Goal-Setting

Follow Joel at @JoelCPeterson

Gordon Ramsay's ultimate recipe for business

Gordon Ramsay's ultimate recipe for business

Written by Chris Seper for Linkedin.com

I'd never watched Gordon Ramsay's shows until three weeks ago. But I'm suddenly addicted to early-run, British versions of his infamous "Kitchen Nightmares" series. All these episodes essentially feature entrepreneurs in peril. Amid the bad food, slow service and angry customers, there's a universal lesson Ramsay is sharing. Entrepreneurs, business leaders and ambitious employees need to heed the underlying advice.

The nightmarish restaurants all have their own unique problems. But one thing typically vexes them all: things are just way too complicated. Often it's a menu with too many entrees. Other times, it's recipes with too many ingredients. The complexity of these restaurants keep owners and employees from fulfilling their core mission: to create great food efficiently enough to feed a lot of people which, in turn, lets them feed themselves with the with money they make.

In one episode, Ramsay challenges a stubborn chef to a competition to make broccoli soup (6:44). The chef pours 16 ingredients into his version, it takes forever to make, has a sewage color and, worst of all, you can barely taste the broccoli.

Ramsay's version? Broccoli, water and salt. It was a lush forest green. The other chef admitted it tasted much better. Best of all, it was quick and inexpensive. It is a dish that can be done better, faster and cheaper.

So much of what we do in business is broccoli soup. Once the company has identified the need and built its plan, it's time to make the soup. But so many of us are well educated, ambitious, academically curious and eager to show it. So we wind up tossing all of our mental ingredients into every broccoli soup we make. It's the ultimate trap. We recreate the wheel instead of relying on our systems. We wind up feeding fewer customers and, as a result, struggle to feed ourselves.

There's another downside, too. When it does come time to make your company's version of a soufflé, you can't pull it off because you've spent so much energy complicating the simpler products.
Some are turned off at the simplicity. But there is also a magnificence in executing a plan with such focus and efficiency and "feeding" so many people.


Call it the KISS principle. Call it good systems. But in the end, we're making broccoli soup. Find the need, create a recipe, and keep serving.



To-do #1: Kill your to-do list!

To-do #1: Kill your to-do list

(By Joel Peterson for Linkedin.com)

Most executives sit atop a mountain of to-do’s that never seems to get any smaller, no matter how furiously they work to cross things off. One young entrepreneur I work with was struggling with a list that contained 25 “pressing issues.” She wanted to improve her web site, craft a workable budget, reorganize the sales force, update pricing, replace the head of IT, prepare board documents, start employee reviews and a dozen other vital tasks.

That many giant projects stacked on top of one another can be a fearsome thing to behold. So I suggested she put the list aside for a minute, take a deep breath, and pull out a clean sheet of paper. Next I told her to try this exercise:

• Fit every item on the Big List into one of three columns -- tasks that benefit Employees, Shareholders, or Customers.
• If any of the tasks doesn't fit in one of the columns -- cross it off. Be ruthless.
• Rank the remaining tasks by order of importance, and assign all but the top one in each column to your team members.
• The three remaining tasks -- one in each group – are your new priorities.

As hard as this can be to do, the idea is a simple one: To-do’s aren’t goals – they’re tasks. If you’re a CEO (or a team leader), your job is to figure out what winning looks like. In the above example, balancing the needs, wants and expectations of all three core constituencies became the guiding principle for this young leader as she found her bearings. Not ticking off to-do's.

Your most important job as a leader is to keep your team focused on a clear, compelling and limited set of big goals – no more than three. Yesterday I shared a few ways to make your goals exciting, unselfish, and memorable. You’re the guardian and evangelist of your organization’s priorities – it’s up to you to keep them high up and in neon letters so all employees can see, from C-level to the street level.

At Microsoft, that meant putting “a computer on every desk and in every home.” At Amazon.com, their Kindle seeks to offer "every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.” Pepsi famously wanted to “Beat Coke.” At jetBlue, we strive to be “America's favorite airline by bringing humanity back to air travel.”

If you’re splaying 25 to-do’s across 10 columns like my young friend did, no one will know your priorities – because you won’t have any! You’ll end each week exhausted, wondering if you made any progress. And your team will lose steam.

It's clarity and boldness you want: when employees can actually believe in what they’re spending so much of their lives doing, they’ll feel energized and excited, because they know what they’re doing matters. If you can give them a “line of sight” from their jobs to the big goal, you’ll find invigorated employees accomplishing remarkable things.

Clear, inspiring goals to empower your people and connect them to your business -- that should be #1 on a your (very short) list.

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Joel's recent posts:
"The 10 most common firing mistakes"
"Be the Michelangelo of Goal-Setting"
Follow Joel at @JoelCPeterson
(Photo: romanlily / Flickr)