Welcome
Welcome to the Foresight Newsletter, a free monthly publication of Prevoyance Group Inc. This newsletter shares tips for high performance IT organizations and observations that we hope will prove informative and enjoyable.
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Contents
CONTENTS
Foresight is published by the Prevoyance Group, and this month contains four sections:
Work
Life
Heard in the Hallways
Travels with Patrick
Work
Most companies have some HR-derived policy about employee referrals. Current employees can send a referral to an impersonal email address or submit a referral through a convoluted website, and if everything goes precisely according to plan, several weeks later their referral candidate may hear some utterance from a faceless voice in the HR department. At best, that person will prove to be an excellent candidate, and will be hired as a long term contributor to the organization. At worst, the person, presumably highly qualified if the referral came from a high performer, has since found another opportunity and regards your organization with an element of contempt.
At the same time, many companies struggle with finding and retaining good people. An annual ritual of employee surveys is the norm at most corporations, and a small army of consultants, statisticians, survey designers and folks from Human Resources lock themselves away for weeks to develop an “anonymous” survey to gauge everything from employee engagement to how the cafeteria can be improved.
Just as a current customer referring your products or services to a potential customer is the “gold standard” in sales and marketing, employee referrals should be treated similarly as the gold standard in potential candidates for employment, as well as a true gauge of employee satisfaction with your company.
From a hiring perspective, referrals from a trusted or high performing employee should be considered as valuable as a “hot lead” generated by a current customer referring a peer to your company. Inconceivably, many companies allow these “leads” to flail and drown in an HR-driven process. When a referral appears, a manger familiar with the employee who entered the referral should immediately talk with that person about the potential candidate. Peers can often render a far more accurate picture of a candidate’s skills than a glance at a resume can, especially if the manager and the referrer have a good relationship. The manager can also personally talk with the candidate, or refer them to an appropriate person within the organization that might need someone with that skill set. This task is simply too vital to be left to HR. Once the candidate makes it through this initial screening, HR can be invoked, and manage the standard hiring process of arranging interviews, checking references and managing documentation.
Even if there are no new positions available, a simple call to the potential candidate if nothing else can create a world of goodwill. The candidate will gain a favorable impression of the company, which may prove helpful if a demand for new employees does finally materialize, or if that person ends up in a position where he or she might buy goods or services from your company. Furthermore, the existing employee who entered the referral will feel that his or her input was highly valued, and that the company truly cares about finding and retaining the right people rather than having their input lost in a nebulous HR process.
In addition to using the referral as a source of new talent, referrals indicate what current employees think of the company far more than any survey ever will. Like anything designed by a large committee, annual surveys are often convoluted and carefully worded, or poorly deigned and biased towards a particular output. The promise of anonymity may also skew the results of the participants, who either feel “big brother” will surely track the results back to them anyway, or look at the survey as a chance to lash out without repercussion.
The employee referral on the other hand is the ultimate vote of confidence in the company. Do current employees feel so good about where they work that they are willing to try and recruit people from their network to join the company?
Life
Giving up is a fine art. Perseverance, fortitude and “staying the course” are often celebrated and encouraged, yet history is laced with those whose bullheadedness cost them careers, loved ones, or in the extreme, their lives. In our professional lives, there will always be times when a struggling project or initiative seems permanently on the cusp of shifting in a positive direction. Thoughts that just a bit more money, time or resources will shift the balance, and perhaps an element of pride or stubbornness cloud our decision making.
In the personal sphere, continuing investment in a hobby or activity that no longer brings joy, or maintaining a particular friendship or relationship since “it’s always been that way” provide ongoing discomfort and sorrow rather than the momentary pain of cutting ones losses and moving forward.
With a few colorful exceptions, history rarely remembers those who valiantly struggled to maintain the status quo, or marched blindly into certain failure. The business environment is littered with once great companies, who by “staying the course” watched their competitors cut their losses and move into new markets, or quietly adapt to changing market conditions. Falling on your sword makes for great dramatics, but life is too short not to wholeheartedly “give up” on the untenable, and apply your energies elsewhere.
Heard in the Hallways
Some people seem to enjoy nothing more than a good email battle. We have all been there: what starts as a relatively benign inquiry or statement to one or two recipients quickly escalates, until brash statements are made behind the safety of Outlook or Lotus Notes, and the CC: list reads like a “Who’s Who” of executives, managers, lawyers and cheerleaders.
The secret weapon against the email battle is a one-two punch of those relics from the past: the phone and face to face meeting. It is amazing how generally mild-mannered people are so quick to escalate even the simplest matters behind the impersonal shield of email. A quick phone call can disarm these people, assuming you actually get the person and avoid moving the “front line” from email to voicemail. The “nuclear option” is simply walking over to the offender’s office with a big smile and a few minutes to clear up any misunderstandings. Nothing thwarts an email battle better than responding to the first salvo of “small arms” fire of CC’s and posturing with the big guns of the telephone and face time.
Travels with Patrick
Rental cars say a lot about a particular country. The tiny and somewhat basic Fiats in Italy have doors that feel little stronger than cardboard, yet the tiny engines and small tires nonetheless maintain speeds that are well above US limits on the autostrada and handle narrow roads and small parking spaces with aplomb. The excitement of driving on the “wrong” side of the road, combined with quirky diesel cars contrasts with the staid yet athletic looks of Aston Martins that prowl the streets of London, and of course the ubiquitous Ford Taurus rental is a uniquely American vehicle. With the heaviness of a tank, the Ford seems to use everything excessively. From an abundance of plastic trim to expanses of sheet metal that could probably build three small Fiats, it is simultaneously excessive, comfortable, lumbering and counter to what the rest of the world looks for in everyday transportation.
In Germany, long regarded as the land of automotive perfection, the ranks of rentals swell with marques usually considered a luxury in other countries. Audis, Mercedes and BMWs deign to rental duty, yet seem less ill-treated than the rentals of other countries. With a feel of precise engineering, the cars also contain confusing knobs and switch gear, which while precise and solid, smack of engineering haughtiness rather than the mundane yet simple switchgear found in other brands. A single control stalk next to the wheel might contort in twelve directions, controlling everything from wipers, to music, to opening the trunk.
My favorite experience with German engineering was as a young consultant for a major firm, on my first international trip. I was told to rent a large sedan, since several of us were sharing a car, and I had volunteered to drive. I chose a large and fast Mercedes sedan, and with some jerky shifting of the manual transmission made it out of the airport and onto the high-speed autobahns around Frankfurt. All was well until the next morning, when I needed to back out of my parking space at the hotel. The drive from the airport had been completely in a forward direction, and although there was a clearly marked “R” on the gearshift, my best machinations could not get the lever to the desired position. Suffering through the mocking of my managers as I pulled, pushed and turned the gearshift, I was humiliated until they too tried the mysterious shifter. We even delved into the manual, although it offered no aid as our knowledge of the German language faded quickly after an ability to ask for a beer and sausage.
Finally in sheer frustration I began pulling, pushing and flailing any and all controls on or near the gearshift. Wondrously, the leather “boot” below the shift knob moved slightly upward. Hidden in the fine aluminum and leather trim was a lever below the shift knob, appropriately camouflaged, that when raised slightly allowed the gearshift past a mechanical gate into the reverse gear. As I backed from the parking space, I swear I could hear a German engineer laughing manically. I envisioned him as he designed that shifter, thinking of all the Americans that would be befuddled, and perhaps never move in anything other than a forward direction.