Just Say You’re Sorry

While Meg was basking in Thanks last week, I was contemplating another personal phrase “sorry.”

I say sorry a lot.  I imagine that people who know me well find it both endearing and irritating.  I say it out of habit, but also because I appreciate it when others think enough of me to take notice of how their actions have affected me.  I suspect that others feel the same.

Experts tell me I should stop apologizing … that it is a form of weakness and victimization of women.

Imagine how relieved and vindicated I was when I picked up “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.  It is a brilliant book and, amongst other things, it highlights the importance of admitting error, sympathizing, and apologizing. 

Fully confident in my original position that saying sorry is good and effective, I walked into a contentious meeting with a group of men.  It didn’t work and in fact, afterwards things continued to deteriorate. 

As an over-analytical human, I decided to think about it non-stop for several days.  I realized a few things:

1. “How to win friends” was written in 1936 and every story in it is about men.  It was written for men and about men.
2. In order to be effective leaders and team members, men need to start admitting error, sympathizing and apologizing more.  At the risk of sounding overly mars & venus, women already have a leg-up here and should dial it back.  
3. “How to win friends” is still a very useful book for women.  I’m going to focus on some of the other areas.

To show my commitment to my analysis, I have put my 2 year old son on a strict “10 sorries and 3 sympathetic head nods a day” regiment.  As for me, I’m practicing Thanks. 

A Tribute to Our Customers

You know me, I love my job.

One of the primary reasons I love my job is because of the amazing people I get to talk to at our customer sites.  These are busy people at industry-leading organizations and they make time for me to answer questions and brainstorm about strategic talent management.

Though our revenue recognition policies prevent us from speaking publicly about our next release, we are able to engage and learn from our customers.  They challenge us to do more and do better.  And, they are rooting for our success!

Thank you!

TalentedApps in five words

I was inspired by this idea  (have seen several Twitter versions as well) that maybe using tag clouds can give us some insight.  Maybe not, you be the judge. 

I decided to use a 5 word limit so as to not suggest we think we compare with the likes of Scoble or anything.  Special thanks to tagcrowd for making this easy.

Mark

• Talent
• Measurements
• Investment
• Value
• Decision  

 

 Meg

• Managers
• People
• Learning
• Goals
• Team

Amy

• Organizations
• Engagement
• Mindset
• Potential
• Tools

 

Kathi

• Candidate
• Social
• Tip
• Recruiter
• Software

Ken

• Management
• Applications
• Employee
• Job
• Potential

Justin

• Employee
• Management
• Development
• Turnover
• Factors

Building Applications That Help Grow Strong Leaders

Last week I had the opportunity to attend The Business of Talent conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. (Kudos to the team at Bersin & Associates for putting together a great conference.) One theme consistently discussed throughout the conference was the need to make leadership development a core part of your talent management strategy. Leadership development goes beyond just training and is equal in importance to recruiting, succession planning and performance management. Most talent management solutions provide applications that help companies to recruit, train, measure, and compensate their workforce. But few have incorporated leadership development as a core business process within the talent management suite; which is interesting since leadership development is generally considered a mission critical part of most business strategies. So the question is how can our talent management solutions help us achieve this critical objective?

First I think it’s important to understand that no software application by itself will ever find the leaders in your organization, let alone develop them (unless of course you have access to Deep Thought or Professor Farnsworth). This is a task for your managers, directors, and senior executives. I also subscribe to the idea that leadership is not tied to a specific role in the company, like manager, vice president or CEO. I think every employee is a potential leader and in my opinion the hallmark of a truly great company is having more leaders than managers, or better yet, just leaders and no managers! With that said, there are some tools your talent management applications ought to provide to assist your organization in identifying and growing your leadership pipeline.

• First is a configurable profile management application. Profiles tell us everything we need to know about the person and the position. They help us assess whether we have the right people in the right job. Person profiles should include things like risk of loss, impact of loss, personal, professional and developmental goals as well as the skills (competencies) the employee has today. Job profiles include the key competencies, certifications, licenses, education requirements, etc. needed to succeed in the position. A good talent management solution will help you match each employee with the right position.

• Second are integrated performance, learning and compensation management applications. Having performance management without learning management is like constructing a house with a yardstick and no hammer; why measure if you can’t build. Likewise, having a learning management application without performance management means you can train your employees but can’t measure their growth or level of accomplishment. Compensation helps you recognize and reward good performance; without it you have a stick (performance management) but no carrot and good employees won’t hang around for very long under those conditions.

• Finally, the talent management suite should include robust analytic tools that aggregate and integrate your data across applications. These tools should help you calibrate performance and potential across the organization; identify risk of loss candidates; craft talent pools and succession plans; and create customized development objectives tied to the key business drivers for your organization.

Most companies believe the best leaders are grown rather than recruited. Individuals who grow up in the organization have already embraced the company’s culture and core values. They understand the business, the market place and most importantly the customer. All they really need is experience and an opportunity to lead. Mark Sanborn writes in You Don’t Need A Title To Be A Leader, “It doesn’t matter what your position is, or how long you’ve worked at your job, whether you help to run your family, a PTA committee, or a Fortune 1000 company. Anyone at any level can learn to be a leader and help to shape or influence the world around them.” Our job as talent management specialists is to provide every employee with the opportunity to become the leaders who will help our organizations succeed and our companies thrive.

50th Post Milestone Reached – Author Wins Olive Garden Gift Certificate

We’ve just had our 50th post, by Kathi, our resident Social Connections Product Manager (of course). She can pick up her gift certificate the next time she’s out here. Since our start last November, we’ve built our team of bloggers to six, we’ve had many comments, we’ve developed a great presence for Oracle HCM in the blogosphere, and we’ve made many connections as a result of this blog.

So, what do the numbers tell us? Which of the posts have been most popular, or at least (in this day of RSS readers), had the most pagegviews? Here are the top five (as of today):

1. Starbucks: Growth, Trust, and Risk
2. If you love someone set them free
3. About
4. Ode to Fusion Middleware
5. Encourage Job Hopping

Clearly this shows folks aren’t paying any attention and they think we know a lot about Starbucks as it relates to their investment strategy ;-). In addition, it appears we’ve been taken for an advice column on relationships. After finding out neither was the case, people are then reading who we are and what we do, and that appears to have naturally resulted in curiosity about our Fusion Middleware Platform. Finally, it all makes sense when people read that this seemingly eclectic blog is due to our support of a rich, diverse set of experiences.

Thank you to our readers for giving us your time and attention. We will continue to strive to be interesting, entertaining, and informative.

The TalentedApps Crew

Recruiting Process: Candidate Sourcing and Selection for building a deck

Now that we’ve had one 70 degree day, my husband and I are interviewing contractors to build us a deck. We started off by searching for a pool of candidates. We had no idea how to approach this.

My husband asked all his buddies what to do and they had no ideas. Most forgot which contractor they used themselves. Finally one friend said to go to the local home improvement store and ask for recommendations.

So, he got a list of three names and called the first one. That would be Candidate #1, Harry who agreed to come to our house the next business day at 5pm. He arrived on time. He showed us a book of sample decks. He gave us a rundown of his experience. He measured; he talked to us about what we wanted. He drew a rough sketch and promised that he’d hand-deliver an estimate the day after tomorrow. He did so, and he phoned to let us know he’d left it in our mailbox. His estimate and design were professional except that we kept saying we wanted either cedar or composite and his estimate was for pine. (Candidate Tip: Listen to your interviewers –don’t just talk)

Meanwhile, we decided we needed some more candidates.

My husband searched online (that’s how he found me…which worked out pretty well). Nothing ‘local’ came up. Hard to believe all these business don’t have websites in this day and age, but we are in Indiana, not exactly the leading edge of technology. Anyway, a few were listed within about 50 miles, across the Illinois state line, and seemed kind of far. Still, one of them had a map showing their service area. The map wasn’t the greatest but some of those blue dots looked like they were in or near our town so I called them and set up an appointment. (Candidate tip: make sure you know where the recruiters are looking for you. Be there.)

None of the other Illinois websites gave any indication of their service area so we skipped them. I imagine Recruiters may sometimes pass over a candidate for a job if they think the candidate lives ‘too far’ away. (Recruiter tip: Don’t eliminate someone because you assume they aren’t interested. Let them tell you.)

So I called this far-away-in-Illinois contractor, candidate #2, Lenny. He came out a few days later, at lunch time. Lenny listened to what we wanted, took some measurements, showed us his book, showed us sample materials. Lenny has a PASSION for deck building. He told us the story of how he got into the business, his love of architecture. He talked us out of some goofy ideas we had about the deck and gave us some better ideas. (Candidate tip: Sometimes it pays not to blindly nod and agree with everything the interviewer says). He talked to us about cedar versus composite and told us about how cellular vinyl is actually the latest ‘fake’ material used in deck building. He helped us decide on material. He didn’t try to sell us; it truly felt like a conversation. He left us with a drawing, an estimate and a business card. He promised my husband he’d get real professional drawings with bill of materials if we select him. This caused my engineer husband to salivate.

The next day we decided we needed more names. Meanwhile I had pulled out the phone book to find the location of health food store to buy a remedy that was recommended to make my cat stop her nocturnal meowing (long story) when it hit me. Hmmmm…I bet there is a Deck section in here! Yes, there was! How old-fashioned is that? My husband kept marveling that “all the people I asked how to find a contractor and no one told me to use the phone book” (Recruiter tip: Don’t overlook ‘old-fashioned’ methods of sourcing candidates). Sure enough we saw ads for Harry and Lenny. And we also found two different Dwaynes. Were it my own choice, I probably wouldn’t have picked a second Dwayne but the same-name thing didn’t seem to bother my husband like it did me. (Recruiter tip: It’s OK to have two Dwaynes).

Candidate #3, Dwayne-the-first, came out another day at lunch time. One of the first things he said “Oh….I probably should have brought my book” (Candidate Tip/ Boy Scout moto: Be prepared). Dwayne did a quick sketch of what I now realize is a weird deck but at the time I liked it. I think because he and I realized we went to the same high school and grew up a few blocks from each other. (Candidate tip: If you aren’t good at your job you might get away with it by schmoozing. For awhile.) Anyway he made a drawing of ‘weird-deck’ but then took it with him so he could remember it (and we couldn’t). He left us with an immediate estimate which was an exact round number, yet no details with that number. (Candidate tip: Give your salary preference in non-round numbers. It appears to have some logic and thought behind it. )

Which brings me to Candidate #4, Dwayne-the-second. He was supposed to come yesterday at 5pm. He called that morning. “I just was informed that I have to attend a function at my daughter’s school” (translation: my wife just reminded me about my daughter’s thing and even though she told me about it weeks ago, I totally forgot and there’s NO WAY I can get out of it).

Dwayne-the-second asked to reschedule for a week out. I said sure. I informed him he is our last guy, so he should come sooner or not at all. (Candidate tip: If you must reschedule, you maintain the appearance that the interview is a priority for you) Dwayne-the-second hasn’t even given me an estimate or drawn a deck (weird or otherwise) yet I already have a negative impression of him. Not good.

Those are all our candidates.

I’ve drawn some conclusions on this process and how it relates to candidate selection. The candidate you select should meet the basic requirements, which of course should be stated in your job posting. We didn’t have a job posting. We didn’t sit down and agree on any criteria ahead of time. We didn’t really have any screening questions. Well, we had a few but we kept forgetting them and didn’t always ask all of them consistently. Our interview usually started with us flailing our arms in the backyard giving our vision of the deck (which probably varied from candidate to candidate depending on whether it was cold outside that day).

We didn’t even have a well thought out plan about how to find our candidates, we just searched willy nilly. Because of our poor Deck-Builder Recruiting Practices we are in danger of making a decision based on subjective versus objective job-related criteria. Namely:

1) We like Harry because he was punctual, polite and professional (how is this related to building a deck?) OK this one is marginal – sometimes those soft skills matter. It feels like it could correlate to getting the job done on time.

2) I spent too much time in the ‘interview’ talking to Dwayne-the-first about people we knew in high school. I like him because he’s ‘like me’. I should have kept the interview more focused.

3) We don’t like Dwayne-the-second because he seems like a flake. He did not make a good first impression.

For these reasons, we chose…….Lenny.

Top Chef Potential

 This Tuesday marked the 12th anniversary of getting fooled by my husband.  Since we consider it a sort of anniversary, Paul surprised me with a gourmet dinner of Filet Mignon, Lobster, asparagus and home-made twice baked potatoes.  No fooling!  Hmm, yummy. 

Since I’ve been thinking a lot about potential lately, it got me remembering old chef Paul.  When we first met, I would never have picked him as a future chef.  Sure, he cooked a lot.  He made ramen noodles, he burnt chicken stir fry, he made these really weird tacos.  But 95% of it was terrible!  In fact, at one point I declared that we would only eat cereal for dinner. 

Then something interesting happened.  Paul’s aspirations joined together with opportunity (stay-at-home dad), tools (good pots and pans, gadgets, and cooking shows), and constructive feedback (me!) and he’s really fabulous!  Now those weird tacos have transformed into a unique delicacy that could be served at the finest mexican-asian fusion restaurant.  His signature dishes blend hearty favorites with innovative ingredients. 

I never thought I’d say it, but the kid’s got potential!  

Sharing Ideas = Value

How do you view Talent? How do you see it contribute value through ideas? 

A recent post described how the Clinton campaign claimed Obama copied her “second stimulus” package, calling for a $30 billion package after she did. Obvious political maneuvering aside, this strikes as having a very “fixed mindset” perspective on the value of ideas. Is the idea itself really the thing of value, and just how much does it reflect the ability of a staff that decides to propose it? What we can do is look at this and reflect on how we view (and treat) ideas inside our organization, and what impact that has on how well we create value through Talent. 

Do you see Talent as largely a “fixed and invariant” quality in people? Or do you see that while people can have different strengths (and weaknesses), Talent is not completely fixed or determined and can be influenced by factors such as motivation, experience, management, and leadership? Check out Chapter 4 of Pfeffer and Sutton’s “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, & Total Nonsense” if you aren’t sure. Viewing Talent as a fixed quality originates from, and perpetuates, a “fixed mindset” in the organization vs. a “growth mindset.” One result is that people in that kind of organization have no incentive to contribute in the open sharing and collaboration of ideas; the downside is simply too great. A fixed mindset organization sees only the ideas as the unit of value, which in turn originate but are separate from the minds that brought them forth, and that the goal is to extract as many of them as possible that can be successfully transformed into profitable pursuits. Most measurements in that environment are around how much knowledge a person has, how many ideas they’ve come with, etc. People quickly learn to not share knowledge or ideas with others (i.e. the competition that copies your ideas), but instead fight for as many resources as possible to turn their ideas and knowledge into value before someone else does. This kind of culture breeds fear; fear of failure because that means less likelihood of obtaining future resources. 

A growth mindset organization recognizes that through everyone’s contribution, not hoarding, of knowledge and ideas does the maximum value get created. This doesn’t mean all ideas are equal in value and it doesn’t mean all ideas get the resources to move forward. Instead, the incentives are such that all contribution is recognized and performance is measured more on how a person collaborates with others to find and promote the ideas that hold the most promise for creating value. The notion of “copying ideas” just doesn’t factor in. Instead, it’s about turning knowledge and ideas into action. True, there will still be disagreements and competition for resources, but the open exchange and development of ideas are rewarded. In many cases, ideas will start from anywhere, possibly change the way people look at things, and trigger input from a diverse and informed set of supportive coworkers. Then, through discussion, experimentation, and testing, they will get developed and transformed into a sustainable competitive advantage for the company. In addition, a growth mindset organization sees there is value even in failure because something is learned that results in increased understanding. Since the failure is not hidden, everyone benefits from the greater understanding. 

Are you recognizing your Talent, wherever it is, for sharing ideas, contributing to their development, and assisting in their successful transformation into action? 

Are you providing the collaborative tools (like wikis, blogs, forums, and networks) to let them share their ideas, comment on other ideas, synthesize ideas, and be recognized for it?

Ode to Fusion Middleware

If you have read any of my prior posts I think it is clear that my praise of Fusion Middleware is not exactly in line with what I might normally be writing about. 

 In fact, I personally define hardware as something I can physically jump on and/or throw at someone vs. software which is usually the reason for why I want to throw the hardware.  So, other then the clue from the name  (I’m guessing it’s in the middle), I’ve not been really clear what “Middleware” has to do with anything I care about.  In fact, when I used the word in conversation with some non-tech friends, they had that pre-school reaction that comes with learning new words that sound funny; namely they laughed and tried to fit the word ”Middleware” into every sentence for the next few hours.  Not far off the review from this WSJ article commenting on how no one outside of tech really understands what we are talking about. 

In the last few weeks I’ve been having a bit of epiphany as to why Fusion Middleware is really cool and why I care.   Of course, as the name implies, Fusion middleware is part of the core techstack we are using to build our Fusion Applications.   In recent weeks, we have been collaborating with the WebCenter team to bring forward their functionality to the best leverage for our customers and I was instantly reminded why I decided to join PSFT and then ORCL. 

1. First, I love working with smart people.  I find a lot of energy and enthusiasm working with other excited, committed, smart people.
2. Second, I love the B-school concept of an unfair competitive advantage.  The power of the extended development team here at ORCL is staggering. 

Working with the WebCenter teams has reinforced my belief that working with internal teams, that build products for sale in their own right, provides an environment that I find personally engaging and rewarding.   I wonder if that qualifies me as a Happy Cow? 

 If you are using Fusion Middleware products in your environments today, I strongly recommend you give the WebCenter products a look.  They really are the bomb.

Is “High Potential” a label or a mindset?

I just finished reading an excellent book, Mindset by Carol Dweck.  This is one of those crossover books that combines social science with stuff you actually care about.  Similar to The Tipping Point (Sociology) and Freakonomics (Economics), Mindset considers psychology in sports, business, raising kids and more. 

Mindset’s main premise is that some people have a fixed mindset and some have a growth mindset.  In a fixed mindset, people believe that their traits and capabilities are set in stone and cannot be substantially changed (I am smart, I am bad at math, I cannot draw, I am a naturally gifted tennis player).  Meanwhile, those with a growth mindset believe that, by applying effort, they are able to develop abilities over time.  

The consequences of these mindsets are far-reaching.  With the fixed mindset, “talented” individuals must prove themselves over and over and are deathly afraid of failure.  Thus, they tend to stick with things they are already good at and avoid challenges.  However, those with the growth mindset are able to take mistakes and learn from them, believing that they are becoming better, smarter, tougher as a result.   

What struck me most was how easily others (parents, teachers, coaches, business leaders) could instill one mindset or the other merely by the use of labels and the phrasing of praise (”you’re smart” rather than “your effort really paid off.”)

I couldn’t help but draw parallels with the dilemmas of measuring and taking action based on potential.  Let’s consider these common questions:

1.  How do you really measure potential?  Organizations struggle to separate potential from past performance.  It is, of course, impossible to completely separate the two.  But often organizations get stuck in the fixed mindset and performance and potential end up being nearly equivalent.  On the other hand, I have started to see organizations include factors like “change agility” and “capability to grow.”  They are essentially measuring whether the individual has a growth mindset.  Exxcellent.  But, what if, as the book suggests, the business leaders have the ability to teach a growth mindset to all high performing individuals?  Is it really necessary to measure potential at all or do we just need to focus on teaching the mindset?       

2. How transparent do you make potential?  Most organizations do not tell people their potential rating, though they admit that high potentials “sort of know.”  They are given unique opportunites, are assigned to a pool, are offered a mentor, etc.  As a result, many organizations are starting to address the label head on.  The key here is in the communication.  Extrapolating from the book, a label of “high potential” could suddenly thrust a talented individual into a fixed mindset.  This causes the opposite of the desired effect.  Suddenly, all of those chosen for success are fearful of failure and stop growing.  As a result, these organizations are communicating high potential as a temporary indicator of hard work and ongoing development. 

Here’s a message that might work: 

“We’re recognizing your effort to grow and learn.  We will reward that effort by providing you more resources to grow and learn.   If you keep growing and learning, we’ll keep rewarding you.”