Leadership: ‘Dilbert’ Creator Scott Adams Illustrates Why ‘Goals are For Losers & Passion is Overrated’… Adams has a Chapter in His Book “How to Fail at Almost Everything & Still Win Big” Titled “Passion is Bullshit.”

Dilbert” creator Scott Adams has a chapter in his book “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big” titled “Passion is Bullshit.”

“When a successful person is interviewed, and you say, ‘What was the secret to your success?’ what they can’t say, because society won’t let them, is: ‘I was smarter, I worked harder, I had better connections, and I got really lucky,'” Adams tells Business Insider. “Instead, they go with a democratic trait: passion.”

Adams falls into the camp, which notably includes author Cal Newport, that believes pursuing something you love is not enough. Drawing from his own career, in which he became a successful cartoonist in 1995 after a string of failures, Adams says that finding a “system” is what’s necessary to get ahead.

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He makes his point in a colorful presentation, which we’ve published here with his permission.

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Businessinsider.com | February 13, 2015  | Richard Feloni 

http://www.businessinsider.com/scott-adams-on-goals-and-passion-2015-2?op=1#ixzz3RevcmEfg

Strategy: Gartner Predicts 3 Big Data Trends for Business Intelligence…By 2020, Information Will be Used to Reinvent, Digitalize or Eliminate 80% of Business Processes

Big data has given businesses a window into valuable streams of information from customer purchasing habits to inventory status. However, internal data streams give only a limited picture, especially with the growth of digital business.

FutureView

Three trends Gartner has identified describe information’s ability to transform business processes over the next few years.

Our predictions include:

No. 1: By 2020, information will be used to reinvent, digitalize or eliminate 80% of business processes and products from a decade earlier.

As the presence of the Internet of Things (IoT) — such as connected devices, sensors and smart machines — grows, the ability of things to generate new types of real-time information and to actively participate in an industry’s value stream will also grow.

Customers, employees and citizens will become engaged principally through digital means. With operational processes quickly becoming digitalized, traditional analog and manual processes will be automated, including both physical and human elements. Many, if not most, decisions will be algorithmic, based on automated judgment.

Essentially, things become agents for themselves, for people and for businesses. Think of the car that alerts emergency services and an insurance company or the smart thermostat that schedules service. The added connectivity, communications and intelligence of things will make many of them agents for services that are currently requested and delivered via human intervention.

 

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No. 2: By 2017, more than 30% of enterprise access to broadly based big data will be via intermediary data broker services, serving context to business decisions.

Digital business demands real-time situation-awareness. This includes insights into what goes on both inside and outside the organization. How do weather patterns impact inventory? More so, how do this season’s customer preferences as expressed in social media suggest greater or lesser inventory?

The enterprise data available in organizations’ vaults is increasingly insufficient to provide the kind of context awareness able to support competitive digital business in marketing, transportation, financial, manufacturing, healthcare and other business decisions. However, the broad scope of externally accessible data is highly fragmented, voluminous, “noisy” and distributed. It is found in hundreds of thousands of Web and social sites, open government data, and premium data prepared by increasingly powerful data brokers.

Enter a new category of business-centric cloud services that delivers data to be used as context in business decisions, human or automated. These information services (or data/decision brokers) will become an essential part of intelligent business operations and smart business decisions.

Your company’s biggest database isn’t your transaction, CRM, ERP or other internal database. Rather it’s the Web itself and the world of exogenous data now available from syndicated and open data sources.

No. 3 By 2017, more than 20% of customer-facing analytic deployments will provide product tracking information leveraging the IoT.

Fueled by the Nexus of Forces (mobile, social, cloud and information), customers now demand a lot more information from their vendors. The rapid dissemination of the IoT will create a new style of customer-facing analytics — product tracking — where increasingly less expensive sensors will be embedded into all types of products.

These sensors not only provide geospatial information (where the product is right now) but also performance information (how well the product is functioning). My new SUV is en route and currently in Arizona, or my new SUV is ready for its first oil change. This creates an opportunity to improve transparency and strengthen customer and partner relationships. It can become a key differentiator and a key part of your business model.

Access the Global Pool of Information

The ability to transform the business to compete in an emerging digital economy will be contingent on the organization’s ability to curate, manage and leverage big data, IoT content, social media, local and federal government data, data from partners, suppliers and customers, and other exogenous data sources that are materializing.

In 2015, business and IT leaders, especially information executives such as chief data officers, must make concerted efforts to transform from an inward focus on information management and value generation to participating in the growing global pool of information assets.

Doug Laney is a research vice president at Gartner where he covers business analytics solutions and projects, big data use cases, infonomics and other data-governance –related issues. Mr. Laney will be speaking at the Gartner Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit March 30-April 1 in Las Vegas.

Forbes.com | February 12, 2015 | Doug Laney 

Strategy: 6 Ways To Take Advantage Of Negative Reviews… You Can’t Be What Everyone Wants You to Be, & as You Go on Serving the Public, You are Bound to Disappoint a Few

With sites like Yelp and Google Reviews a single customer can share his or her poor experience with your company with millions of people by a few clicks of the mouse.  From there, your reputation can be dragged in the mud by any crackpot or veiled competitor.

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4 Fears That Can Sabotage Your Earning Power

4 Fears That Can Sabotage Your Earning Power

Richard Li is the CEO of 4k.com, and he confirms that “One complaint can go viral in a matter of hours, and make your company look shoddy and ridiculous.”

Of course, prevention is better than cure, which is why you must step up your customer service and focus on providing the best possible experience for each prospective customer, as well as established customer.

But you can’t be what everyone wants you to be, and as you go on serving the public, you are bound to disappoint a few.

Here are six ways to protect your company’s image and customer base:

1. Automate the process.

The first step to taking in negative feedback is to actually invest in a service to notify you when feedback about your company appears online. Yext does a good job, as it allows you to monitor feedback across multiple platforms, making it easier to track feedback about your services.

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2. Stay calm.

When you see unfair and negative feedback from a customer you may want to hit back.  Wrong!  That anger may slip into your post, making the customer more angry, and this back-and-forth between you and your customer wastes time and can never resolve a negative situation.

Don’t respond immediately, and take some time to collect your thoughts and don’t be too defensive with your response. Instead, let the customer know that you heard them, and that you are going to keep their feedback in mind. Your response’s purpose is to be helpful, not to defend your services.

3. View criticism as an opportunity.

Most see negative feedback as simply an attempt to damage the reputation of their company, but you must be willing to learn from negative feedback and actually improve services. You must see what went wrong with that customer, and focus on improving your services in those areas.

4. Turn it into an advantage.

Don’t always assume that negative reviews can only be a disadvantage to your business.  Be open to customer input and you might learn something about how your competitors do things right that you’re doing wrong.  The customer is always going to compare you with your competitors, so you might as well take advantage of it.

5. Reply to everything.

You must make it a rule to reply to each and every review. It’s also smart, if you’re a small company that can’t staff a full-time trouble-shooter, to outsource your responses.  James John, the CEO of The Reputation Firm, is adamant about taking each complaint seriously: “The public loves a David vs Goliath story, so you’ve got to be careful to manage your response so you don’t come out looking like the bad guy.”

6. Make customer satisfaction company policy.

Almost every successful company makes it company policy to satisfy every customer. Tony Hsieh, for example, has asked his employees to focus on satisfying Zappos’ customers by offering refunds, upgrading shipping for free, or by the simple act of sending flowers. And they don’t stop there; their marketing department makes sure their going the extra mile with customers gets the maximum amount of exposure.

Forbes.com | February 11, 2015  |  Steve Olenski

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Leadership:Manage Executive Onboarding Risk With Three Key Questions…Want to Avoid Being Part of the 40% of Executives That Fail in Their First 18 Months In a New Job?

Want to avoid being part of the 40% of executives that fail in their first 18 months* in a new job? Answer three key questions before you accept the job to mitigate organization, role and personal risks:

  1. What is the organization’s sustainable competitive advantage?
  2. Did anyone have concerns about this role and, if so, what was done to mitigate them?
  3. What, specifically, about me led the organization to offer me the job?

Directions Man

Answer these questions during your due diligence. The most opportune time to complete this is between the offer and acceptance phases. Waiting until later or ignoring this step hurts your potential for success. Make sure you’re going to fit with the organization, that you can deliver what needs to get done and that you will be able to see and adjust to changes down the road.

Sometimes we fall into the trap of feeling that we should take a role because it’s what others expect us do to. Don’t do that. Make your own choices or you will fail, burnout, or worse, be generally unhappy eventually. Answer these questions honestly, before you move on.

In assessing onboarding risks, three steps can help:

  1. Leverage and supplement these questions about the company, the team, your new boss(es), and the major challenges and objectives you and the organization will face.
  2. Identify potential sources of information: scouts, seconds, and spies across customers, collaborators, capabilities, competitors, and conditions.
  3. Gather and analyze the information.

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Following are key questions to answer during due diligence to help mitigate risk.

Mitigate organizational risk.

1- What is the organization’s sustainable competitive advantage?

2- Are there any risks with the current customer base?

3- Are there any risks with relationships with significant collaborators of the organization?

4- Does the organization have the capabilities required for long-term success?

5- Do competitors pose significant risks to the viability of the organization?

6- Are there any outside conditions that will impact the viability of the organization?

7- If the organization is doomed to fail, you’re going to fail with it.

 

Mitigate Role risk.

  1. Did anyone have concerns about this role and, if so, what was done to mitigate them?
  1. Why does the position exist? Why did they need to create it in the first place?
  1. What are the objectives and outcomes? What are you supposed to get done?
  1. What will the impact be on the rest of the organization? What kind of interactions can you expect with key stakeholders?
  1. What are your specific responsibilities, including decision-making authority and direct reports?

If the role is set up for failure, you need to know that in advance.

Mitigate Personal risk.

  1. What, specifically, about me led the organization to offer me the job?
  1. Is this the company and role that can best capitalize on my strengths over time?
  1. Will I look forward to coming to work three weeks, months, or years from now?
  1. Will I fit with the culture?

If you don’t fit with the organization, you can’t converge well and you can’t lead.

Overall Risk Assessment

Figure out if you are facing a low, manageable, mission-crippling or insurmountable risk. If you are facing

A low level of risk – Do nothing out of the ordinary. (But keep your eyes open for inevitable changes.) This is as good as it gets. You’ll have a high likelihood of success.

Manageable risk – Manage it in the normal course of your job. This is the most normal case. There are always risks. Identifying the main risks in advance makes it that much easier to manage them.

Mission-crippling risks – Resolve them before accepting the job, or mitigate before doing anything else if you are already in the job. This is a tough situation. Not resolving or mitigating these risks means failure. You can’t ignore them. Face them and deal with them.

Insurmountable barriers – Walk away. Sometimes the situation is beyond your ability to control. When this happens, accept it and either don’t take the job or get out. Going down with the ship is a lovely, romantic idea – for others to fulfill. Not you.

 

Note this is adapted from The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan. Request an executive summary.

Click here for an overall executive summary of theNew Leader’s Playbook and links to each of its 250+ individual articles on Forbes organized by category.

Forbes.com | February 12, 2015  | George Bradt 

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Leadership: How To Recover From Failure…”First of all, You Should Have the Confidence Yourself. But if You Can’t Transfer That to Your Teammates, You’re in Trouble”- Roger Staubach

Great leaders have a profound relationship with failure. Where others might stop, shrink back, or give up, those who achieve great success move forward, undaunted in the face of failure.

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, left, talks to quarterback Russell Wilson. (Credit: AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Last week, an avalanche of criticism fell on the Seattle Seahawks for failing to punch the ball in the end zone in the final seconds of Super Bowl XLIX. Critics of professional and amateur ilk took umbrage with the Seattle play call to pass the ball on second and goal from the one-yard-line as time ticked down to below half a minute in the game. Instead, the second-guessers called for the Seahawks to hand the ball to running back Marshawn Lynch. By now you know, quarterback Russell Wilson threw an interception and the New England Patriots won the game.

 

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How does a team come back from that failure? The thought of being unstoppable and just moving on is great conceptually, but what specific actions are needed from head coach Pete Carroll and, the de facto leader in any locker room, the quarterback?

Carroll took to Twitter, quickly looking to reshape the loss into the foundation for the team to grow. As the criticism continued, he sat down for an interview with Matt Lauer of the Today Show.

“One thing Pete Carroll did is he owned this,” said Paul Baard, a professor of communication and management at Fordham University. “It was a judgement call. You’ve got to make those and you’ve got to feel free to make those and go with your gut and he explained his rationale and it made sense.”

Baard, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology with a specialty in motivation, has worked with a professional league, athletes and coaches. He said in order to recover from failure leaders have to be at forefront in taking responsibility.

“And not with the silly talk where it doesn’t seem sincere, where there’s a comma, but. ‘We had a great game plan. It could’ve been better, but.’ You hear that all the time,” Baard said.

In 11 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach won two Super Bowls and 75 percent of the games he started. Whenever he lost, he said he couldn’t wait to get back on the field to make up for it in the next game. In a phone conversation from his successful post-football job, Staubach focused on two elements in talking about a quarterback’s role in a team recovering from failure – confidence and work habits.
“First of all, you should have the confidence yourself. But if you can’t transfer that to your teammates, you’re in trouble,” he said. “If they don’t believe in you, you’re toast as a quarterback.”

Staying after practice to put in extra reps and working out alongside teammates is key, Staubach said. He constantly showed teammates his competitive side, challenging them during the mundane routine of running laps. In his off seasons, Staubach worked as a real estate broker, but he also made sure to head to the practice field at night.

“They can see your work ethic,” Staubach said of any quarterback’s teammates.

Sports Leadership Notebook

Remembering Dean Smith
I spoke to former North Carolina players about what leadership lessons they learned from Dean Smith. This John Feinstein piece from the Washington Post details the difference Smith made for people in the way he lived his life.

A Zen Master Opens Up
The man with 11 NBA championship rings as a coach, Phil Jackson, is having a tough time building success with the New York Knicks. “So far, my experiment has fallen flat on its face,” he told Harvey Araton of the New York Times.

National Champion Runner with Autism

In the words and video on Mikey Brannigan, Sports Illustrated’s High School Athlete of the Month for February, Ali Fenwick captured the inspiring story of an autistic young man whose parents were told he would need to live in a group home. Instead Brannigan found running and became a national champion, who will now train for the 2016 Paralympics. If you’re looking for more than inspiration, take note of those around Brannigan, his parents, his coach – the people who never gave up on him.

What Not to Do Dept.

1a. Your word is supposed to matter. South Carolina’s Mr. Football Matt Colburn gave his word to the University of Louisville, committing to play for the Cardinals last June. Two days before national signing day, Louisville informed Colburn his scholarship offer had been pulled. Colburn will play college ball elsewhere, but Louisville strung him along for seven months, toying with the future of an 18-year-old.

1b. When an angry fan sends an angry email because the team he has supported for decades is the worst team in the NBA, don’t berate them in your response. New York Knicks owner James Dolan did that.

Jerry Barca is the author of Unbeatableand the host of The Jerry Barca Podcast. He can be reached at jerry@jerrybarca.com.

Leadership: Replace Your Bad Leadership Habits In 2015..Leaders Become Micromanagers & Bottlenecks Abound When This Habit Goes Totally Unchecked

Contrary to popular belief, leadership isn’t always a natural born trait. It’s possible to learn leadership and to become increasingly skilled at leading others in both personal and professional capacities. The flip side of this is that if one is a natural born leader (i.e., they have the traits that are commonly associated with leaders inherent in their personalities), it’s very easy to fall into poor leadership habits.

Change

This can be counterproductive and dangerous. Since the beginning of the year is so often about creating new resolutions, let’s focus some of that energy on quitting the really harmful leadership habits that often arise as the result of using tactics that worked in the past, a general ignorance of how to lead or being placed in a leadership role without proper training.

1- Bad Leadership Habit 1: Poor Communication

You know the type. One minute, they’re dashing off an email that makes virtually no sense and the next they’re requesting a three-hour phone call to go over a relatively minute project that you’re not even working on. Or they ask you to make something the very highest priority and then tell you to scrap the plan next week, just as you’re finishing your project plan.

Seventy percent of small- to mid-size businesses claim that ineffective communication is their primary problem. Poor communication usually stems from poor organization; it can lead to inter-office frustrations, dropped deadlines and missed opportunities. Leaders become micromanagers and bottlenecks abound when this habit goes totally unchecked. According to 360 Solutions, a business with 100 employees spends an average downtime of 17 hours a week clarifying communication, which translates to a cost of $528,443 dollars per year. Plainly put, this isn’t a habit you can afford to keep.

 

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Prone to affect: Managers/ Startup founders, skilled contributors moved into management

Replace with: Better organization. You don’t have to be a naturally organized person to organize your work life so that it works for you AND your employees. There’s no shortage of productivity hacks and note-taking or recording platforms that can help clarify your intentions. The examples listed above stem from poor time management and the erroneous assumption that employees can read minds. Practice by taking great meetings notes and having staff repeat instructions back to you.

Reduce communication by email if possible and allow employees with organizational skills to create processes that make it easier for them to do their jobs (even if that’s not the way you’ve always done it).

 

2- Bad Leadership Habit 2: Hoarding Knowledge

Do you have a star player on the team? Is she constantly coming up with new and innovative ways of doing things? Does she take initiative instead of waiting around for you to tell her twice? Congratulations, you’ve hired and trained this valuable employee well. So why are you so threatened? Some leaders fall into the trap of thinking like a line worker who doesn’t want to get passed over for a raise.

You’re not in competition with your employees. Yet you feel that if they become better than you at a given task, somehow you won’t be “king of the hill” — so you hoard knowledge in order to keep that star employee in her place. A study from the Academy of Management Journal discovered employees have nothing to gain from hiding their insights from co-workers, and just end up hurting themselves by doing so. Leaders have even more to lose by hoarding knowledge, as this can cause direct reports to become discouraged and disengaged when they find their efforts unappreciated or worse, criticized.

Prone to affect: Middle managers promoted over coworkers, those in performance-based cultures

Replace with: Knowledge sharing. We’ve all heard the platitudes that you should never be the smartest one in the room. What if leaders really began living it? Instead of trying to keep all the interesting knowledge to yourself, leaders should start giving away as much as possible to their employees while seeking out new information. Inexpensive internal tools like Evernote and Yammer are incredible ways to get over your perceived place at the top of the mountain.

 

3- Bad Leadership Habit 3: Doing It All

If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself. Right? This bad leadership habit can make your employees completely dependent on YOUR expertise, crippling their potential for growth. Do you find yourself correcting every social update, writing every job description, personally handling every slightly thorny case that comes across your desk because “they simply don’t do it properly”?

Trust me: If your organization, department or company could run with just one person, it would. And your employees will never be able to step in and assist in any meaningful way if you keep pushing them down. In fact, putting the smartest guy in the room in the middle of every important decision can result in entire teams, departments and even companies grinding to a halt.
Prone to affect: Change management alums, those managing entry-level staff, entrepreneurs

Replace with: Delegation the right way. Micromanaging is a bad habit, but sometimes it’s important to know how to tell a team how to do things specifically and exactly. Those times include: training and onboarding, during a merger or acquisition, serious complaints or quality control issues and new product or service lines. If none of these are the case, learn the fine art of delegation and in turn, actual leadership. When leaders focus their time on leadership-worthy tasks, a team usually rises to the occasion. You can help by allowing your team to have meetings without you, giving them guidance around the goal of a project rather than specific execution advice and by setting clear expectations.

 

Bad Leadership Habit 4: Equating Activity With Progress

This is one of the worst habits of all. Creating an environment where one must “roll the silverware” (former server-speak for looking busy) can create a lack of focus in your staff and take their eyes off the real goals. Look, not everyone can be “heads down” all the time. Humans need breaks in order for creativity to flourish. If you insist on a nose-to-the-grindstone mentality, you may burn out your employees before the afternoon slump.

Prone to affect: Everyone over 30 years old

Replace with: A better understanding of time management. “Turns out, the secret to retaining the highest level of productivity over the span of a workday is not working longer — but working smarter with frequent breaks,” wrote Julia Gifford about a study done by The Draugiem Group. By understanding how time management works and the importance of non-work-related breaks, leaders can allow their employees to be more productive and perhaps pick up a habit for how to be more creative and refreshed.

Are you ready to drop your bad leadership habits and become the very best leader you can be?

Maren Hogan is a seasoned marketer and community builder in the HR and Recruiting industry who leads Red Branch Media, an agency offering marketing strategy and content development.

Leadership: My Picks For The Top 10 CHROs & Why It Matters…Today’s CHROs Don’t Gate Progress; Rather They are Often the Change Agent Fueling Growth & Development

Before I get to my picks for the Top 10 CHROs, I want to give some background on why this list is important, and how you should use it to shape your enterprise moving forward. While every member of the executive team plays a critical role in successful organizations, aside from the CEO, a strong case can be made that the chief human resources officer (CHRO) is the real game changer.

playmobil-lego-handshake-hand-shake

“HR” has evolved, and so to have the people leading human development and performance. Long gone are they days when power hungry administrators place a death grip on all things necessary and rational. Today’s CHROs don’t gate progress; rather they are often the change agent fueling growth and development.

The modern CHRO is a sophisticated, yet eclectic mix of experience and skills, which often span many core functional areas such as strategy, brand, operations, IT, and finance. In fact, in my work with CEOs it is not at all uncommon to find successful organizations where the CHRO is the closest and most trusted thought partner to the chief executive – this was not the case even a few years ago.

CEOs have grown to understand that regardless of the business they are in, they are always in the people business. Understanding they cannot afford to get that wrong, they have sought out a new and different type of HR leader. Whether you are a CEO trying to build a world-class company, or someone trying to decide where they want to work, my message is a simple one – don’t gloss over HR. Whether you like it or not, people, culture and community matter.

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So how do you judge the success of a chief human resources officer? The simple answer is you look at how badly people want to work for their company. I’ve often said that culture is that ethereal “X” factor that all “It” companies possess that other organizations so desperately desire and so rarely achieve. The CHRO is often one of the chief architects of culture, and they are most certainly its main steward, curator and guardian.

So the longer answer to the question of how you judge the success of a CHRO is as follows:

Examine the talent they’ve helped to attract and retain

Observe the culture they’ve had a hand in shaping

Take stock of the progressive development plans and programs they’ve made available to the workforce

Evaluate the creativity, reasonability and effectiveness of the compensation programs in existence

Look for (and find) great workforce dynamics, engagement and satisfaction

Find a strong and well positioned employer brand

Find HR’s hand (in a good way) in everything as an enabler and contributor to operations flowing all the way through to customer satisfaction.

While the above list is certainly not all-inclusive, it does start to paint a picture of the critical roles CHROs play in the success of any business enterprise. For a chief human resource officer, leadership, team, succession, purpose, culture, governance, and diversity are not just buzzwords – they represent who a CHRO is, what they believe, and where they work everyday. The depth and breadth of the skills and talents possessed by this next generation of CHROs have taken them from not having a “seat at the table” to often making them a logical choice as a successor candidate to CEOs.

So, who are my picks for the Top 10 CHROs?

  1. Tim Huval, CHRO at Humana (NYSE: HUM): #1 because the results speak for themselves. Huval was the first key C-level hire made by CEO Bruce Broussard when he took over the helm at Humana. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him in the two years since he assumed the CHRO role. During his short tenure, Humana has completed a cultural transformation, which should serve as a case study in change leadership, succession, organizational design, team building, talent acquisition, and stock performance. He is the total package – a team player people love to work with and for. With a diverse background in human resources, information technology, and operations, his business and leadership acumen are only exceeded by his commitment to make others better. Huval refuses to take credit for any of the many successes Humana has achieved over the last two years, quickly giving the credit to his colleagues and teammates. But those who know him will quickly point to the critical nature of his role in Humana’s transformation into the enterprise Broussard envisioned.
  1. Laszlo Bock, CHRO at Google (NASDAQ: GOOG): A true innovator in human performance, Bock has taken his MBA from Yale, and stints with McKinsey and GE to help create what is arguably the strongest employer brand in the market. Many of the latest trends in talent management have been incubated, implemented and validated under Bock’s 9-year tenure at Google. Bock’s relentless pursuit of cracking the code on what makes people tick, makes people fit, makes people contribute, and makes people happy will likely keep him breaking new ground at Google for year to come.
  1. Russ Hagey, Partner and Worldwide Talent Officer at BAIN & Company: BAIN is what I like to refer to as the culture company. I’ve never met someone from BAIN who wasn’t smart, talented, and truly likeable – that’s saying a lot when you’re talking about a consulting firm. Whether you look at employee engagement, Glassdoor reviews, or the fact that Consulting Magazine has ranked BAIN as the “#1 Best Place to Work” for 11 years in a row, it’s hard to deny Hagey’s impact on the firm, its culture and its brand.
  1. Lisa Buckingham, CHRO at Lincoln Financial Group (NYSE: LNC): Ask anyone who knows Buckingham and you’ll find out why Lincoln CEO Dennis Glass is thankful she’s on the LFG team. Tough, creative, smart, insightful, compassionate and very accomplished, Buckingham is a walking human omni-channel brand. In addition to serving as Lincoln’s CHRO, she is also the company’s Chief Brand and Communications Officer. LFG has established itself as a powerful employer brand, and a company with a strong and stable culture. A solid strategic mind, and innovative thinking around talent and leadership will likely carry Buckingham all the way to the CEO chair assuming she could be pried away from Lincoln – she is fiercely loyal.
  1. Tony Galbato, CHRO at Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN): The Amazon brand is synonymous with innovation, which means it must maintain a robust talent pipeline and a rich culture. Talent and culture are not things Jeff Bezos takes lightly, and the person he entrusts with leading Amazon’s global HR organization is Tony Galbato – not a bad endorsement. Like Laszlo Bock, Galbato has driven many forward thinking HR practices that have set the chinning bar for the CHROs of the future. Galbato has helped Amazon to be widely regarded as one of the best places to work, with one of the strongest employer brands on the planet.
  1. M. Susan Chambers, EVP, Global People Division at Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT): Given Chambers is in charge of the nation’s largest private workforce of more than 2 million associates, it’s no wonder she has been named to Fortune magazines “50 Most Powerful Women In Business” 5 years in a row. Keeping a motivated, high performance workforce spread across more than 26 countries is no small challenge, and Chambers has proved more than worthy of the task at hand.
  1. Ellyn J. Shook, CHRO at Accenture (NYSE: ACN): It’s a rare CHRO who oversees more than 319,000 employees in 200 cities in 56 countries responsible for generating more than $30 Billion in net revenues. That said, it’s one thing to be responsible for supporting the global HR needs of a sizeable enterprise, it’s quite another to do it well. Shook has created the engine known for attracting, developing and retaining great talent who enjoy Accenture’s collaborative, innovative culture.
  1. Anne P. Byerlein, Chief People Officer at Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM): Yum! Brands has had its fair share of success over the past few years, and Anne Byerlein is the talent genius behind David Novak’s fast food juggernaut. More than 41,000 restaurants in more than 120 countries create levels of people/talent complexity that few can imagine. Byerlein has a well-deserved reputation for being a true triple threat (strategic thinking, tactical precision, and a nose for talent) HR leader.
  1. Diane Gherson, SVP of Human Resources at IBM (NYSE: IBM): What do you get when your CHRO holds a patent in predictive analytics, has a Master’s of Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell, and is working toward a PhD in Management at the M.I.T. Sloan? You guessed it – Diane Gherson, a CHRO capable of overseeing all HR related functions for more than 400,000 employees worldwide. IBM is not the old Big Blue of days gone by, but rather one of the most sophisticated and innovative people businesses on the planet.
  2. Susan P. Peters, SVP Human Resources at GE (NYSE: GE): Few organizations understand internal development and succession like GE, and Peters now leads the culture she is a product of. Joining GE in 1979 in a divisional HR role, later being tapped to serve as IBM’s chief learning officer responsible for all training and development, and now having responsibly over HR globally for GE – Jack Welch would be proud. With Peters at the helm of HR, the legacy of leadership at GE will remain intact.

    So, there are my picks for the best HR minds on the planet – who did I miss?

    Follow me on Twitter @mikemyatt

 

Forbes.com | February 11, 2015  |  Mike Myatt

Strategy: 3 Things Anyone can Learn about Damage Control From the Brian Williams Debacle…I Rarely see Advice that Will Help People Who have Been Caught in a Temporary/Permanent Reputation Failure, Indiscretion, or Outright Lie

I travel a lot, and that means I spend time in airport bookstores.  At these shops, a big percentage of the selling floor is occupied by racks of self-improvement books with clever, compelling titles and handsome book jackets.

Brian Williams

It’s a lucrative phenomenon in the publishing industry — a universe unto itself.

We’re actually drowning in what has become a new industry of its own — from the iconic Ann Landers advice columns of the last midcentury to the writers, speakers, and thinkers trying to gain credibility and an audience by telling you how to live your life and develop your career.

These books are selling, so they must be inspiring people. I think to myself: The world must be getting better and better with all these human beings who have become residents of the improvement zone.

Do you think if you read all these books you could make yourself into the perfect human being? The perfect leader? Could you outpace your peers?

The real question is … Will these books help you immunize yourself against the pitfalls of reputational catastrophes and personal indiscretions?

I rarely see advice that will help people who have been caught in a temporary or permanent reputation failure, indiscretion, or outright lie.

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These may be people who have been highly successful, or at least on a hard-earned upward trajectory. They could do no wrong in the eyes of their employees, industries, communities, or the general public. A sudden nose dive and loss of oxygen in a career can be unnerving, unsettling. Sometimes it’s even fatal to a career.

But reputational management companies can engineer solutions and PR firms are at the ready. And for those who hire them, rehabilitation begins the minute the indiscretion finds an audience. Damage control begins, media assessments are conducted, review committees are formed, life-lines are extended, and the salvage operation is underway.

Newscaster Brian Williams landed in his current situation with a reservoir of good will and has been generally well-liked. That is more than can be said about some people who find their integrity challenged.

But now the noise about his mistake is deafening. Everyone has an opinion about what should happen as a result of his admission that he did not really fly on a combat mission helicopter in Iraq that took enemy fire. Here’s what he should do now — and what you should do if you ever find yourself in need of damage control.

1. Be honest with yourself.

This is the first and most critical step. This is fundamental to everything that happens next. There is nothing that will ever be more important.

Get quiet. Spend some time alone. Be wary of advice — it may be mercenary. Remember everything about the episode and write it all down.

So much is riding on your clarity about what happened and your willingness to accept the truth for yourself. Explain to yourself why you did it — and be brutally candid.

Self-deception often haunts the famous and can cause irrational decisions. There could be tremendous fear of loss — loss of stature, standing, money, and future. It is that very fear that could either ennoble the person charged or conquer him.

2. Thank the people who revealed the truth.

Show an attitude of genuine appreciation that these facts have come to light. Express relief, not anger or irritation, for the airing of the correct information.

Do so completely authentically, because that is the position you have come to on your own. Then you could say, “I am glad that these folks have come forth with the plain facts. Anything incorrect has gone on too long and it’s time to put a stop to that.”

People are more apt to be exonerated in the light than in the dark. So position a floodlight over the situation. The fact that your reputation has been tarnished by revealing wrongdoing is actually going to improve you — though it might not appear so at the time. Face into the head winds and they will carry you if you embrace them.

3. Take responsibility.

People do not react well to someone placing blame on another individual, group, or system. But they tend to respect strength that comes from shouldering responsibility for one’s actions.

Man up. This is not the end of life. You will go other rounds and regain your respectability if you do not try to make excuses or cover anything up. Don’t hide, but moderate your appearances.

For example, Brian Williams must regain enough credibility to as to be taken seriously as a journalist — and especially as a newscaster who is telling his listeners what is supposedly the truth every day. This is the breach that must be mended.

Situations like this — and very often they are vastly more severe — happen to leaders at every level.

Keep this column tucked in your mental pocket and take it out and follow it if you ever find yourself in a situation where your veracity is being challenged. It will start you off with a leadership strategy that just might lead you to a positive solution.

James Rosebush was a Reagan White House official and is now the CEO and founder of GrowthStrategy.us. His leadership column appears on Business Insider every Tuesday.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-regain-trust-after-a-failure-2015-2#ixzz3RMbVVKTi

Leadership: Cubicles Are the Root of So Many Problems at Your Company…That’s Why it’s Important for Leadership to Have ‘Big Ears’ & Be in a Constant Listening Mode to Keep a Pulse on Our Workforce

Employees remain extremely unsatisfied with their careers, which impacts their performance and productivity.

office space cubicle milton

A January Gallup poll reported that only 31.5% of workers in the U.S. were engaged in their jobs in 2014, a slight increase from 29.6% in 2013. A majority of employees (51%) were still “not engaged,” and 17.5% were “actively disengaged” in 2014. The current level of 31.5% is the highest level of employee engagement since Gallup began the measurement in 2000.

Engaged employees as ones who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace, Gallup said. The group with the highest proportion of engaged employees is managers and executives at 38.4% while employees who work in manufacturing or production jobs recorded the lowest levels of engagement (23%).

Millennials reported they are the least engaged group at 28.9% and the dissatisfaction might be the result of not working at the jobs they had expected after graduation from college, the report said.

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Employees might be more engaged now than compared to 2000 because of improvements to the economy, unemployment and job market, the Gallup report said. The levels of engagement started to decline in 2008 during the financial demise, continued to fall in 2009 and did not improve until 2011.

Many employees are not engaged at work, because they feel a lack of a connection while their bosses continue to ask them to spend more time and energy at the office, said Gretchen Spreitzer, a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

It’s not about pay and benefits, but to thrive, a connection is critical,” she said.

Connection occurs when employees feel connected to the work and to colleagues, clients or customers, Spreitzer said.

Employees who are thriving believe their work has a purpose. They not only care about it, but the work has meaning in some way, she said.

“People matter and are often the source of meaning at work,” Spreitzer said. “If employees believe that they have strong relationships with at least some colleagues at work, colleagues who they care about and who care about them, then they are more likely to thrive. Caring colleagues create a safe space for employees to take risks, have courage and grow.”

Once employees stop feeling engaged in the work they do, a “negative domino effect starts,” said Phillip Wilson, president of Labor Relations Institute, a Broken Arrow, Okla. employee relations consulting firm. If you are not satisfied at work, you don’t make as much effort and your work quality may start to slide. Your manager notices, and you start receiving negative feedback; in turn, your engagement starts to decline even more.

Effective bosses can stop this domino effect from going too far by creating an environment where employees feel comfortable bringing up concerns because the leaders are approachable, he said.

As employees are growing increasingly unfulfilled at their jobs, many bosses are taking notice to prevent additional turnover and headaches.

Managers should focus on developing the strengths of their employees and watch as their internal motivation grows, Wilson said.

Employees remain unhappy, because too many of them remain tethered to constant work email, are forced to work more because of a leaner workforce and possess an inability to focus on what one does best, said Cheryl Palmer, a career coach based in Silver Springs, Md.

Bosses can find solutions to these issues easily by giving employees an opportunity to recharge at work and create boundaries for when they are expected to respond to email, she said.

“Doing something as simple as allowing employees to take a break every so often without fear of reprisal can help employees stay engaged,” Palmer said. “Employees also will not feel as though they are always at work, because their personal boundaries are respected.”

Even though employers may not be able to always give people a position that aligns with their talents, “they can make an effort to find out what those talents are and try to assign them as much of that work as possible,” which will boost their productivity and engagement, she said.

What it often boils down to is what type of leadership exists at the company since there is no indication that the current level of employee dissatisfaction will improve, said Kevin Berchelmann, president of Triangle Performance, a Houston-based management consultancy.

“Engagement can’t be bought,” he said. “There is hope, and it’s not paying more money for benefits or compensation.”

Employees who receive genuine recognition for their work tend to thrive.

“I don’t mean a pat on the back with the perfunctory ‘good job,’” Berchelmann said. “I mean a face-to-face or phone call, explaining what they did in detail and how it improved the business. Be specific.”

Giving feedback is paramount. Many managers neglect to provide feedback often, and employees don’t know where they stand.

“Feedback is sorely missed by employees today, so find a way to make it happen,” he said. “Give frequent, relevant feedback to everyone you come across, even the high performers. They know they do a good job; they just don’t know if you know it.”

Employees want to know where the status of their performance, and a review of their work should occur more than once a year.

“They want to know where they stand, how they are doing, and they want to know what they can do to improve,” Berchelmann said.

Even something that appears insignificant such as knowing the employees’ first names can make a difference, said Wayne Bolio, a senior vice president, law and human resources for Nautilus, the Vancouver, Wash. exercise equipment manufacturer.

“Even with a company of over 300 employees, everyone is on a first-name basis as a result of our internal communications programs that keep us connected,” he said. We know that in order to be successful, it’s critical to create a company culture where people are motivated and where collaboration is fostered and healthy lifestyles are encouraged.”

Nautilus has a low turnover rate, which is an indicator that regular meetings and two-way communication encourage employees to bring up issues or problems and or provide input for solutions, Bolio said.

“While voluntary turnover can be a by-product of disengaged employees, we also see an equal or greater risk in disengaged employees remaining employed,” he said. “Nothing can be more harmful than having a significant portion of your workforce actively disengaged and not fully committed. That’s why it’s important for leadership to have ‘big ears’ and be in a constant listening mode to keep a pulse on our workforce listen and solicit feedback in a non-threatening way.”

This article originally appeared at MainStreet. Copyright 2015. Follow MainStreet on Twitter.

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/why-working-in-a-cubicle-is-so-demoralizing-and-workers-are-demanding-more#ixzz3RLU0WwRU

 

#BestofFSCBlog : #JobSearch -Five Things Your Recruiter Won’t Tell You. When You’re Working with a Recruiter, you Have to Ask a Lot of Questions.

If you work in business or the professional world, it will be helpful to you to have a relationship with a third-party recruiter, sometimes called a search professional or recruiter. Not every job-seeker has a recruiter-friendly resume, but many job-seekers do.

Some bosses inspire to be your best self, both professionally and in your everyday life. Others make every day seem tense, dreary and frustrating. Learning how to deal with a bad boss is an important step to career happiness. (image credit: William (Tactum Macula) Walsh on Flickr)

What’s a recruiter-friendly resume? It’s a resume that looks like what the hiring manager expects to see, or as we say at Human Workplace, ‘a resume that makes you look like you were born and raised in a petri dish to do this job.’

Recruiters are paid by employers to find them candidates they can’t find on their own, so if your resume is less conventional, or if it’s off-beat or quirky, you might not be a recruiter-friendly candidate. If not, that’s okay! There are plenty of other job search channels still available to you. 

 

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What Skill Sets Do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

Article continued …

A well-established, credible and human recruiter in your corner is an incredible asset. That’s not only true for job-seekers. It’s true for hiring managers and HR leaders, too! When I was an HR leader, I relied on my search partners to fill jobs we couldn’t have filled on our own. They were an extension of our team.

In every field you’ll find solid and upright folks and people who have no business handing out business cards. We hear from job-seekers way too often who have horror stories to tell about unscrupulous or not-ready-for-prime-time recruiters who wasted their time, steered them wrong and crushed their mojo — but only temporarily!

When you’re working with a recruiter, you have to ask a lot of questions. You can’t blindly follow your recruiter’s advice. You have to determine whether your recruiter is a credible advocate for you, first.Here are questions to ask a recruiter when you’re contemplating allowing him or her to represent you in your job search.

Here are five things your recruiter may not tell you unless you ask, ask, and ask again. Don’t take ‘no answer’ for an answer!

1- They Won’t Tell You Their Client Has a Toxic Workplace 

One Monday morning I saw a new job opening posted in my news feed. “This is a great company!” said the recruiter who posted the ad. I had heard his name before. I wrote back to him right away. “I might have the perfect candidate for this job,” I said in my message. “What is it that makes this a great company, in your opinion?” The recruiter wrote back. “Are you kidding or serious?” he asked in his message. “It’s a job opening. It pays you money that you use to buy things.”

I wrote back. “I’m serious,” I said. “Do you just put ‘It’s a great company?’ in all your job ads, automatically?” The recruiter wrote back again. “Grow up,” he said. “Everyone knows that is filler.”

Imagine being so cynical that you’d add “Great company!” to every job ad, call it ‘filler’ and expect everyone to know that it’s not true? You deserve to work with people who deserve your talents.

Ask your recruiter to tell you why you should consider taking any job s/he’s proposing to you. What makes the company great? Ask for specifics! As my friend Marla says, “Whenever a company’s recruiting literature drones on about trust, that means there’s no trust. When they have it, they don’t need to talk about it.”

Let’s remember how recruiters get paid. They get paid to fill job openings. They get paid when you accept the job offer. You only have to stay for ninety days. If you bail within ninety days, the recruiter has to find someone else. Are they going to tell you it’s a toxic work environment? Not if they want you to take the job, they won’t!

The recruiter will not have to sit in your chair and do your job. That will be your burden, if you walk into the wrong place. Ask a lot of questions about culture. Ask about turnover. Ask the recruiter why the job is open, and don’t get all your research from your recruiter! Check out the organization’s Glassdoor reviews as well.

2- They Won’t Tell You If The Company’s In Trouble

We had a client years ago who went on a job interview and was surprised to walk through row after row of empty cubicles when she got there. The cubicles weren’t the sort of empty cubicles that scream “We’re trying to find people to fill these cubicles!” They were the kind of cubicles that say “Don’t work here! Three-quarters of the staff has already been laid off, and no one has taken the time to get rid of all these empty cubicles!”

Our client asked some pointed questions about the company’s future. The in-house recruiter was huffy. When our client got home, she called the third-party recruiter who had sent her to the interview. “Well, they’re going through a restructuring, and you’ll help them turn the corner,” her recruiter said.

Our client got suspicious. She started digging around and found the employer on every analyst’s list of companies most likely to declare bankruptcy. She cut her interview process short. The last thing the headhunter said to her was “You’re making a big mistake.”

The company went out of business a few months later. You can’t blindly go on a job interview assuming that because someone is hiring, they must be doing well. Organizations hire for a lot of different reasons. They sometimes hire new people to wind up the business and turn out the lights. That’s fine if it’s a consulting job at a healthy hourly rate.

Nobody wants a full-time job that’s not only going to end in a few months but also that’s going to elicit the question from every interviewer you ever meet in your life going forward, “Why did you go to work for those guys just as they were tanking?” Good question!

3- They Won’t Tell You It’s a Dead-End Job

When my youngest was a baby, I had a regular babysitter, Emily, who was a student at our local university. She moved to Chicago and got a job right away when she graduated. One day Emily got a call at work from a headhunter. She called me to tell me. “So exciting!” she said. “He told me about a better job at a company in downtown Chicago.”

“What makes it a better job than the one you have?” I asked her.

“He asked me some questions about my current job and said this new opportunity is a better job,” Emily said.

“Oh dear!” I said. “He will say that to get you to go to the interview. That’s how he gets paid. It may be a better job, or it may not. Most jobs don’t have six weeks vacation and free grad-school tuition at a top university the way your current job does.”

“I didn’t think of that,” said Emily. “The headhunter said one thing that was odd, I thought.”

“What was that?” I asked, my maternal instincts going on full alert.

“He told me not to mention the words ‘career path’ at the interview,” said Emily. “Evidently at this company they don’t like to have their job applicants ask about the career path.”

“What!?” I snorted. “That means there is no career path. That means it’s a dead-end job. They want you to take the job and come to work at the same desk for the next fifty years. Maybe you should go on the interview just for the learning experience. If you do, I have one suggestion. Make sure and use the term ‘career path’ at least once in every sentence, just to see what happens.”

Emily did just that. She said the interviewer nearly fell out of her chair. Emily never heard from the company or the headhunter again, but she got a tremendous job with a consulting firm soon after.

4- They Won’t Tell You When The Employer’s Requests Become Unreasonable 

Remember how third-party recruiters get paid. They don’t get a dime unless you accept the employer’s offer. An unscrupulous recruiter will encourage you (or even browbeat you) to stay in a broken and mojo-crushing recruiting pipeline. If you drop out, they lose.

They’ll tell you to do whatever the employer asks you to, down to creating free work for the employer and interviewing four, five or six times with different people. They’ll tell you to take endless online tests and putting up with delays and weeks of radio silence. They’ll tell you ignore red flags that scream “Believe me, you don’t want to work here!”

Know before you get into any recruiting pipeline how many interviews are reasonable (three visits to one employer is the limit we suggest — if they can’t make a decision in three visits, they’re too wimpy to be mentors who can help you) and what you will and won’t do before you see an offer letter.

I don’t want you to perform work for free. A good rule of thumb is this: one request for one one-hour project to see how you operate is reasonable during a hiring process. That could be the creation of a writing sample or some lines of code. After that, you can meet any additional requests for free work with the soft reply “I’d be happy to complete that project on a consulting basis. Shall I fill you in on my hourly rates?”

5- They Won’t Tell You To Refuse A Lowball Offer

Last on our list, a skeevy recruiter who’s trying to shove you into a new sardine can won’t tell you when a job offer is below market. They’ll tell you just the opposite. They want you to accept the job, so they’ll tell you the offer looks great. Way back in 1979 when I first hit Chicago as a nineteen-year-old punk rocker, I went looking for an office job.

I didn’t realize when I moved to Chicago that the drinking age there was 21. In New York the drinking age was 18, so I could work in good restaurants that served alcohol. I made great money waiting tables. I did the same thing when I got to Chicago, but when the outdoor cafe where I worked closed up for the winter, I needed a new job.

That’s when I got the bad news: I couldn’t work in any restaurant with a liquor license. I had to go indoors to type and answer the phone.

I walked into an employment agency and filled out some forms. Right away they sent me to interviews — one miserable environment after another. They said “It will be wonderful if you can get four dollars an hour” even though I saw tons of jobs in the Chicago Tribune advertised for five dollars an hour or more.

“Why are you diminishing my experience?” I asked my employment counselor. “Is it to prepare me to take the first offer I get, whatever that offer is?”

She nearly fainted in front of me.

Remember how recruiters get paid. If you don’t take the offer, they don’t get a penny. There are recruiters who will tell you that you have nothing of value to offer and that they’ll have a hard time placing you. Walk away from anybody who insults you or denigrates your background.

They will tell you that your skills are a dime a dozen. Don’t believe them! The first person who has to believe in you, is you.

Whether we’re talking about employers or recruiters, you have to remember that only the people who get you, deserve you. Take a huge grain of salt with everything you hear from a person whose financial interests lie in getting you hired into a new job, and keep your B.S. meter close at hand!

 

 Forbes.com | February 6, 2015  |  Liz Ryan