Category Archives: Team

How Do You Identify Good Job Candidates? Four Views

Situation: A company needs to hire several upper level managers to support growth objectives In the past they have selected candidates based on referrals from existing employees or management’s “gut feel” of candidates. The results have been inconsistent. What have you done to identify good job candidates?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The answer depends upon the success of your hiring in the past, both for areas where you are comfortable with the skill sets and those areas you are less comfortable. For example, you may be good at identifying candidates for technical positions, but not for sales and marketing.
  • One CEO’s “gut feel” hires have been consistently wrong. The solution has been to have recruiters screen and evaluate candidates. Once candidates are prequalified, only the best are presented to the CEO for final selection.
  • Another CEO uses a two-step process:
    • A recruiter selects and ranks their final two or three candidates.
    • Then the CEO gets a second opinion from another recruiter on the recommended choices of the first recruiter.
    • If both recruiters agree on the best candidate, the CEO meets the person and offers a job provided that they are compatible. If the recruiters disagree, the CEO probes the differences between the evaluations and decides whether to meet with one of the candidates.
  • Another CEO involves staff and uses a ranking system to evaluate candidates in areas of competence and fit. This produces composite scores that assist them in identifying the best candidate.

Key Words: Hiring, Manager, Selection, Referral, Gut Feel, Process, Skills, Head Hunter, Recruiter, Ranking

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How Do You Fire a Founder? Three Suggestions

Situation: A founder of a company also heads business development. This person had no prior experience in business development, and no other skills to offer the business. Over the last two years he has generated only a fraction of his salary in new or additional business. The CEO has concluded that it is time to hire a business development professional; however, the Board is reluctant to act. What are the steps that you would take to let a founder go?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Because the individual in question is an owner, the situation is delicate. Staff relationships are involved as well as morale. Therefore, it is essential that you create a convincing case for replacing the individual and show that this is the best for the business. Don’t rush the process. However, once you’ve built a solid case for what needs to be done, act expeditiously.
  • Start by evaluating and documenting what the individual is doing to develop new business.
    • Count customer connects per day. Set a baseline expectation and measure against this.
    • Look at the pipeline. Historically what does your new business funnel look like – contacts, presentations, evaluations, closes. How does this individual’s pipeline stack up?
    • What are his business advancement and close ratios? How do these compare with industry standards?
  • For the individual: Demonstrate that his performance is penalizing his own return as an owner. Create a spreadsheet that shows:
    • The current situation, and his return as a shareholder from current results, versus
    • Hiring two effective business development people, and how this could change his return.
    • Show the individual a graceful way out – one that works for him.
  • For the Board: if the current direction is negative, create a model that shows your current direction and the break even implications. Present this analysis to the Board to show that the company needs a change.

Key Words: Business Development, Founder, Principal, Experience, Performance, Replace, Document, Pipeline, Return, Model, Trend

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What are the Challenges Facing Distributed Organizations? Part 1

Interview with David Van Wie, CEO, and Paul Brody, President, Sococo, Inc.

Situation: Research shows that 65% of teams within companies are now geographically distributed. This is driven by both telecommuting and the desire to access the best talent, and is enabled by technology. What are the implications of distributed teams for company and project success, and how can these be addressed?

Advice from David Van Wie and Paul Brody:

  • Broadly, the most important challenge is that of team “presence” – the feeling of people collaborating and working together. As social beings, we are used to establishing trust and mutuality face-to-face. Trust and mutuality are more challenging when we are limited to audible communications.
  • Working at a distance becomes a challenge when different members of a team are on the same stage of a workflow issue and there may or may not be shared understanding of technical requirements or timelines.
    • Team members need to understand requirements to a “T” – across functions, technical requirements, and needed skills.
    • Consider the challenge of keeping team members in synch when project requirements are continually shifting, as frequently happens when new technical breakthroughs are involved and there is no preplanned predictability to the project. This challenge is exacerbated when the team is designing at light speed.
    • The agile design model focuses on people and talent over process and dictates a continuous ongoing meeting. In a distributed setting, the whole team is never stronger than the most remote and linked-up member.
    • These are the challenges that we seek to address at Sococo through our Team Space application.
  • Let’s look at an example of resolving a conflict based on miscommunication of information.
    • In this case, a young employee was tasked with drafting an email campaign around a product. Other team members were time zones away and on their own schedules. The night before campaign launch a misunderstanding developed around one of the core features of the product.
    • Because of the Always-On nature of Team Space, all of the team members working on the project were right there and on call to ensure a smooth product launch. When the problem arose, they were able to have a quick online meeting to share spreadsheets and analysis, understand the issue and resolve the misunderstanding on the fly.  The campaign launched the following morning.
    • When people are in the space, you know they’re part of the team and they’re at work, ready to solve problems. They haven’t given up. Having to bring someone back into a conversation (to resolve a problem) takes more time, effort, and energy and is draining for a distributed team.

For more information on Team Space, visit www.sococo.com

Key Words: Distributed, Teams, Presence, Collaboration, Workflow, Project, Agile, Conflict, Crisis, Silo  [like]

What are the Challenges Facing Distributed Organizations? Part 2

Interview with David Van Wie, CEO, and Paul Brody, President, Sococo, Inc.

Situation: Research shows that 65% of teams within companies are now geographically distributed. This is driven by both telecommuting and the desire to access the best talent, and is enabled by technology. What are the implications of distributed teams for company and project success, and how can these be addressed?

Advice from David Van Wie and Paul Brody:

  • A second example of a critical challenge occurs in crisis mode – for example when a major system is down and service is impaired.
    • You need the right people with the right information talking real time. Those without complete information are at a loss. If they respond from emotion rather than fact, it hinders crisis resolution.
    • Having an avatar in Team Space yields a positive emotional response, primarily in that you then interact with other avatars instead of just names on a list. It gives you an increased feeling of presence.
    • This emotional investment positively correlates to increased trust, as you feel more connected to your peers.
    • You want an environment in which you can bring distributed people together on the fly, provide them with complete information, raise and candidly discuss issues and alternatives, and come up with a solution with all parties involved, all while reducing the emotionality of the situation.
    • Emotionality of tense situations is reduced because of the trust built amongst team members through our unique spatial UI.
  • Third, organizations beyond a certain size tend to form silos by function. This can help to build strong functional organizations, but has drawbacks when different functions have conflicting priorities.
    • In a distributed organization, a visual layout becomes important. You want to be able to include and intertwine all functions in a visual space, and provide access between and across functions.
    • This entails a philosophical shift to an open culture where teams don’t feel defensive or protective. It is facilitated by a visual space where it is easy to bring in the right expertise to resolve issues based on information.
    • Likewise, the underlying open structure of Team Space and its ability to promote quick conversations as well as hefty meetings helps solidify trust in a distributed group.

For more information on Team Space, visit www.sococo.com

Key Words: Distributed, Teams, Presence, Collaboration, Workflow, Project, Agile, Conflict, Crisis, Silo  [like]

What are the Challenges Facing Distributed Organizations? Part 3

Interview with David Van Wie, CEO, and Paul Brody, President, Sococo, Inc.

Situation: Research shows that 65% of teams within companies are now geographically distributed. This is driven by both telecommuting and the desire to access the best talent, and is enabled by technology. What are the implications of distributed teams for company and project success, and how can these be addressed?

Advice from David Van Wie and Paul Brody:

  • A fourth question which arises with distributed organizations is whether you have to have different processes to manage a distributed organization.
    • We don’t think so. Each company has developed their own set of process to address the challenges of distributed personnel. Rather, we focus on communication tools that adapt to clients’ existing processes by humanizing communication – enabling people to easily find each other and share information.
  • Fifth, some of the most challenging environments occur in organizations which span extreme time zone differences. How is this addressed?
    • You want an audio and visual system that lets you know who is available at a given point in time or could be made available easily. This facilitates bringing the right expertise into a conversation.
    • When different parts of the team are widely separated by time zone, it is important to create a more social and effective environment during the times when all team members are available. We believe that Team Space helps to create this environment.
    • In one company, Indian team members stay at the office until 7:00pm – thereby avoiding the worst traffic – and can be available online at home after dinner. This increases the time that they can interact with their American counterparts.
    • It is also important to be able to record meetings and presentations so that members who are absent can play back the meeting to stay up to date.
    • Our experience is that visual presentation is superior for communicating visual information, and we accommodate this.

For more information on Team Space, visit www.sococo.com

Key Words: Distributed, Teams, Presence, Collaboration, Workflow, Project, Agile, Conflict, Crisis, Silo  [like]

How Do You Communicate Benefits Changes After Being Acquired? Seven Suggestions

Situation: A company was recently acquired. The acquirer wants to merge benefit structures between the two entities. While company contributions are similar, distribution of benefits between retirement plans, health plans, and other benefits between the entities varies considerably. How do you approach the staff about the changes in a positive manner?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Ideally, you want to survey employees on what is and is not important to them about their benefits before the package is finalized. This will help you negotiate on your employees’ behalf.
  • Ask the acquirer whether a “cafeteria” benefit program is feasible. This would allow your employees to make choices among benefit options, and to fund these choices either at a company-paid base level or to supplement their choices through payroll deductions.
  • Inform the acquiring company of your state’s regulatory policies on state-specific benefits.
  • Once the new benefit package is finalized, ask for assistance communicating the new package to your staff. Create a simple and concise grid for the program:
    • Amount of company contribution,
    • Old program and benefits,
    • New program and benefits,
    • Use the grid to demonstrate that while the allocation may be different, the company contribution remains the same and the total value of benefits offered is unchanged.
  • If you know that a highly valued benefit is being reduced, consider a short-term subsidy to ease the shift.
  • Be clear about decisions that your employees must make in the new program.
  • If you have access to industry or regional comparisons for like-sized companies, you may wish to share these.

Key Words: Acquisition, Benefit Structure, Change, Employee Input, Cafeteria Plan, Options, State Requirements, Short-term Subsidy, Comparison

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How do you Manage a Multi-generational Staff? Nine Suggestions

Situation:  Employee pools are now multi-generational, with Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y and Echo-Boomers. Each group may have different expectations for work environments and careers. How do you connect with different generations? How have you set up mentoring programs?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • People may be of different generations, but they are still individuals. Ask what drives or motivates them, and what they would consider an ideal reward for hard work.
  • Some companies offer a sabbatical after several years of employment – the opportunity to work on hobbies, go on an adventure or use the time as they wish. This attracts employees and encourages retention.
  • Some employees don’t seek promotion but are good contributors. They may prefer an extra week of vacation over a promotion.
  • One company gives employees budgets to spruce up their work space – allowing them some control over their work environment.
  • What are good tips on working with younger employees?
    • Coach them to communicate thoughtfully and carefully – instead of shooting from the hip without considering impact or consequences. Younger managers may find that they need more patience communicating expectations to older staff.
    • Establish individualized performance metrics and enable them to monitor progress on their computers.
    • Bring them into the process; don’t tell them to wait. Let them start as an observer. Listen when they have questions or suggestions. Ask their opinion.
    • Break down job tiers into additional levels with more achievement incentives. Allow them to reset expectations frequently.

Key Words: Multi-generational, Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, Echo-Boomer, Expectations, Environment, Career, Mentor, Motivation, Reward, Sabbatical, Incentive, Communication, Performance, Expectations                                   [like]

What are Best Practices for Hiring at Minimal Cost? Eight Thought Starters

Interview with Stephane Dubois, CEO, Xignite

Situation: The company has been running very lean for the last few years, with very good people. New opportunities are opening up, and we need to staff up to execute. How do we get the best talent while minimize hiring costs?

Advice:

  • Job Posting Boards: You can often find specialized talent on industry specific job boards such as Dice.com, SimplyHired.com, Cybercoders.com, TheLadders.com or similar non-traditional job boards.
  • Online Interest Groups: There are a wide range of industry and product specific user groups through Google Groups, LinkedIn Groups, and so on. Connecting with relevant groups will not only position your company as a key firm within the segment, but also make you THE place for career progression.
  • Go Social: Leverage the power or social media to publicize your available positions.  Facebook advertisements, LinkedIn job postings and similar sites can build targeted interest in your company, and available positions.
  • Go Viral: Even if you don’t personally like Twitter or Facebook, these sites can create viral awareness of your company and technology. Tweeting that you are hiring now, with a 140 character job profile.
  • Be Cool: Create exciting new ways to add in the cool factor.  Skilled talent likes to work with fun, exciting, successful companies. Capture photos of company events and add them to a Picasa or Flickr gallery. Positive blog posts build good vibes around your company, your technology and your products.
  • Ground & Pound: There are many groups that meet on a regular basis to discuss skills, functional interest, best practices, business opportunities or to just mix and mingle. Sites like Meetup.com to find local groups that match the talent you’re seeking. You will often find candidates, people that can pass the opportunity along, or even someone willing to provide an awesome referral.
  • Attack: Be pre-emptive in your focus. Select a few top-notch recruiters who specialize in your technology, market and/or geography. These professionals already know the talent pool, may accelerate the process, and ultimately provide higher quality candidates.
  • These are a few thought-starters. What has worked for you to find good candidates at minimal cost?

You can contact Stephane Dubois at sdubois@xignite.com

Key Words: Hiring, Social Network, LinkedIn, LinkSV, Twitter, Facebook, Job Boards, Viral, Recruiter  [like]

Can do You Change Culture Without Losing Key People? Five Ideas

Interview with Cameron Tuck, CEO, ImperfectCEO

Situation: A mid-sized Company is more than three decades old. The challenges are modernizing operations and updating company culture to keep pace with customer expectations. They also need to diversify into new growth markets. Can they change the culture of the company without losing key people?

Advice:

  • Let people know that you value them. Consistently express your appreciation for what they do for the company, and don’t blame them for not being perfect. For them to be willing to grow as company culture changes, they need to feel safe – to understand that a change in culture does not mean the loss of their job.
  • Give employees consistent face time. Ask questions and seek their solutions instead of proposing your own. Involve them through collaboration. Tolerate the fact that their solutions won’t be exactly like yours.
  • Pick your battles. Select what you want to change and conserve your emotional capital. Think about what’s important and what’s not before you intervene. Let minor issues slide as long as they don’t impair schedules or performance.
  • Maintain an open door to all levels of the company. However, when an employee comes in with an issue or complaint, defer judgment to their manager. Never undercut your managers.
  • Your most important strengths will be patience and understanding. Stay mindful that change can be threatening, particularly if employees find it hard to see the big picture. Keep your themes and messages simple and repeat them as often as necessary to keep everyone focused.

You can contact Cameron Tuck at imperfectceo@gmail.com

Key Words: Culture, Modernize, Change, Collaboration, Delegation, Messaging  [like]

How do You Rebuild Company Morale? Five Suggestions

Situation: The CEO has regular lunches with staff to foster communication and sharing of information. In recent months few employees are attending these lunches. Also, a negative tone is beginning to pervade the office, though the situation seems to improve when the CEO is present. How would you address this situation?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The immediate priority is to correctly diagnose the problem. Is this a question of the CEO’s energy or the team’s awareness of plans for the company? Is there something else going on of which the CEO is unaware?
  • Meet with employees. Have an open and frank discussion with them about the future of the company.
    • Meet with the most valuable employees first. Share hopes and vision for the business. Express appreciation for their contributions and discuss plans for their continued growth. Next, ask open-ended questions about the company and seek their input on how to improve it. Listen to what they have to say.
    • Next are borderline employees. Again, share the vision and appreciate their past and current contributions, but be honest about expectations for performance. Then ask the same open-ended questions that you asked the first group and listen.
    • For underperforming employees, again appreciate past and current contributions, but be clear that unless they substantially improve performance, future employment isn’t guaranteed. Ask the same open-ended questions asked of the other groups and listen.
  • Be patient. Don’t try to develop all the answers immediately. Listen and learn what drives employees – particularly keepers. Involve them in developing programs to drive the future.

Key Words: Communications, Morale, Employees, Diagnosis, Plan, Listen  [like]