Brain Vs. No Brain

Several things come to mind when someone says “I’m looking for someone with brains” to the question “What are you looking for?”:

• Presuming the person is speaking about intelligence, and if one would engage them in a conversation about “the definition of intelligence”, what would they say? (“thinking out of the box” doesn’t qualify)
• That they immediately presume they are the most intelligent person in the room – which is dangerous and incredibly arrogant, especially when you are the only other person in the room
• That their perception of the world is “People are generally stupid” (which then might necessitate a philosophical discussion of what “stupid” means, if you have sufficient patience at this point)

Most importantly, whenever someone says “I’m looking for someone with brains” the thought of “lazy”, “unimaginative” and “condescending” come to mind.

And these are usually poor indicators for a future partner in any respect.

The Leadersh*t Position

Who’s your driver today?

Boy, it has been a helluva year AND we’re still not done yet.

I have no statistics but observation alone tells me that the last quarter of the year is usually chock-full of articles related to leadership, management and strategy issues. And aptly so, when it is also the most reflective (good and bad) time of the year, before people mentally shut down for the holidays.

An associate wrote recently:

“If your team dreads coming to work because of you that’s call leadershit. If they love what they do and do it because they believe in what they do that’s call leadership. You just need to stay the heck outta their way.”

Very introspective for this time of year.

It also prompted me to think:

“If I hired a co-ordinator who didn’t book my hotels, organise the transportation, confirm the meetings, prepare the documentation and ready the pen for signing – just so as it should be – then the failure is not on the co-ordinator, but on me.

Even if the co-ordinator was incompetent, I am dumber for investing in incompetence.”

(in which I hope never, ever happens.)

This came when I thought of a metaphor recently presented about a crashing plane in relation to a failing team. To me, there is always only room for one pilot, one captain, one driver and one chieftain.

Not two, not three, not five and three quarters.

ONE.

Coincidentally, most vehicles and systems operate that way and for good reason too. You can always have a co-pilot, co-driver, co-GPS programmer or Assistant to Chief on Dinghy but you never have two wheels going at the same time – because that will inevitably, lead to a real crash.

Or clash, whichever comes first.

One driver in the cockpit, everyone else is a passenger with a function (or not). In the end, the decision lies in the driver’s hands and that includes taking the wrong turn, not re-fuelling the vehicle and not engaging the brakes on time.

Everyone else can sleep, but the driver should never sleep or take their hands off the wheel. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what gets people ‘killed’.

So who is your driver today?

Resistance is Futile…

or “Stick that Integration Brou-ha-ha up…”

Have you ever had a colleague that wasn’t happy – no matter what happened at work? I mean NO.MATTER.WHAT. You know, even when they got free food there would be something snarky said about it, or if the company invested in a new set of uniforms there’d be some nasty comments made about the colour?

It’s like they have RESIST AT ALL COSTS written on their foreheads?

Look, I can relate.

Unofficial statistics will tell you that in any firm, up to 50% of the herd will go along with the rigmarole. The other 50% is the “problem”: because the numbers here vary intensely based on how a company is run. Let’s pick a highly bureaucratic and personal centralised management style for sport. We know of the suggested disadvantages from peer studies (lack of innovation, strangulation of creativity and endoscopic management policies) but what do we know about its effect on staff morale? More importantly, how does it damage morale to the point of resentment? 

The internet’s most popular meme baby, who is the posterboy(girl) for a bad day.

The last part should be of particular concern for those in HR and leadership positions because these individuals (or daisies forbid, cluster of peoples) can greatly influence and demoralise the greatly misled other happy 50% of people. One would presume that in a regressed bureaucratic and personal centralised (BPC) management framework, these corporate revolutionists would be largely ignored or dealt with coldly.

Because, a small percent of loss resources doesn’t matter.

Or “we’re too busy making money to care about those who disagree with us”.

Which by and large is probably not very damaging if this marginal percentage of staff are not talented or PR savvy (think Greg Smith), because regressed BPC firms are probably so far up the stratosphere they have forgotten what it means to cut coupons to save 50p on dishwashing liquid or skipping lunch so your kid can have his day at a field trip. I’m not debating corporate greed (get your fix on other blogs) but am more interested in organisational engagement.

It’s about what say we intend to do – and then go in the complete opposite direction.

It’s about how we impart, through actions (and not necessarily words), how unimportant and insignificant our employees and subordinates are in the big picture.

It’s about the painful and irrelevant “penny wise, pound foolish” approach we have to operating our businesses, and making work a miserable experience for those who have to bear the load and innovate on ‘nothing’.

It’s about the self-serving satisfaction we derive from giving out a free meal, a pointless gift or a measly reward as ‘tokens of appreciation’ on fixed occasions in an attempt to make up for poor leadership the rest of the time.

It’s the nepotistic and blinkered evaluations and remunerative tactics used.

It’s the juvenile and obsolescent ‘scare’ tactics used to ‘discipline’ people, when this is not an army not a hostel and no one is a child.

It’s about the broken promises and irreparable loss of trust that has piled itself into a colossal waste fill that has gone to rot.

And it creates a deep, deep sense of discontent – even repugnance – for having to have anything to do with organisations like these. Whilst we may continue to insist that unhappy people can “just leave”, they sometimes don’t. Or they can move to “happier” places and encourage the other 50% to join them in their new utopia.

The point is either way, the organisation loses in the long run.

Competitive advantage is not necessarily gained from having the biggest, fastest, strongest, highest whatever. That may have worked in the good ole days of racing to the bottom, but that’s not where everyone wants to head to and not especially now. As markets become increasingly open and business operations (and knowledge transfer) transition, there is a global race to hack off the crema and hoard it to oneself. This is only achieved by firms that understand the sensitivities of developing, nurturing and managing a valuable work culture that supports varied theories such as transvergence and organic growth. Those who are still grappling with the concepts will, and are, finding it increasingly difficult to fill key positions and make up for the talent they once lost. Rationally, taking more than six months to fill a middle management integral role speaks volumes about a firm’s integrity in this highly connected environment. There is a great possibility that the market is already highly aware of its organisation’s culture, and honestly all that lip service about “we have trouble finding great talent” is just not believeable at the rate that Google and Microsoft get resumes thrown at them.

Great talent is out there – organisations just need to give them a compelling reason to join them.

The Illusion of Monetary Incentives in Driving Productivity and Performance

Dan Pink on Motivation and Rewards in Organisations

A friend who recently resigned was being counter offered by her company. Given her unpalatable working experience, I thought she was collecting more rope by demanding a higher salary lest renegotiating her terms with the organisation. Their management and HRM policies are archaic and the response would be predictable: a power play would ensue on how much they would pay her, and once a number was settled upon she would be headed straight to the abyss of corporate hell.

I’ve recently been in discussions with Liverpudlian colleagues on what drives knowledge workers, and I thought Dan Pink has put out an excellent argument: we are way past post-war, industrial age employment. We need to stop thinking – and managing – like factory managers especially when we are leading sophisticated, services-oriented businesses. And even if we are running factories, the majority of employees (between the ages of 25-40) are vastly more informed and emotionally self-actualised than the employee of 40 years past. Blame it on the internet but we’re alot more aware of what is out there, you and I.

There needs to be a review of and a balance struck in the acquisition, management, rewards and growth of the knowledge workers. This is evident in the growing discontention of employees worldwide, that people are increasingly demoralised and demotivated at work. They may not understand the science behind the real reasons and put it down to insufficient pay, but if you listen carefully to their feedback probably more than half of their dissatisfaction stems from poor management and disoriented approach to motivation and rewards.

This does not imply that we do away with monetary rewards, but it calls for an encompassed approach. Anyone can pay for talent; but you can’t retain or leverage on talents and abilities purely through the use of money. There are so many contributing factors to developing a competitive advantage through resources. Examples can be seen in striving for homogeneous work environments versus heterogeneous environments, where a team or organisation thrives on a resource that is highly-diverse and as a result creates dynamic capability. Yet, we still have bigoted HRM practices that limit potential for real innovation or protectionism that only serves to harbour ego-serving individuals with limited talent whilst marginalising the truly brilliant.

The boom and bust of certain organisations whilst others in the same industry continue to thrive is a valid example of the result of antediluvian business practices that hamper progress or are only limited to one function within its ranks. Yet there will always be employees that continue to subject themselves to these cultures, probably out of fear that meaningful work cannot be truly found. It is therefore imperative that knowledge workers are aware of new organisational practices and apply them where possible in an effort to accelerate the shift into a more positive, and applicable state of corporate governance.

A Covert 360° Assessment Opportunity

Or what not to do at a job interview

We often read articles about “What Not to Do at a Job Interview: 7 Things You Need to Know!”Articles like these are everywhere; and they serve as excellent reminders for those hunting for the next best offer out in this wild working West (or East). Strangely, nobody really writes about what an interviewer should not do at interviews. During a recent animated conversation with a friend (who sadly had to sit through a badly managed interview) I was prompted to write this in the hopes that it will may help one navigate through the interview process better (regardless of which side of the desk you are on).

Let’s start with the basics, shall we?

Location and punctuality

Most interviews are conducted in the office premises of the potential employer. This allows for the incumbent to assess his/her future working environment and put that into consideration during the interview process. Part of this assessment includes feasibility of the location (as you spend 80% of your traveling time to and fro work) and impressions of facilities and general environment. Like a potential tenant, any interviewee worth their salt will attempt to conduct a reconnaissance of his/her future work environment. This means that if you are the potential employer you should ensure that the office is presentable and attractive to not only your clients, but to your intended new tenants – that is your future staff. If this is not possible, a suitable location – usually a quiet restaurant or coffee house – is appointed.

The location is preferably well lit and allows for some privacy so the interview can be conducted in relative peace. I would recommend gems like EspressoLab and Ishin which are located in quiet corners of a busy district, which allow for easy access yet are sufficiently drama-free for those special exchanges.

It goes without saying that punctuality is important, especially for the incumbent. The last thing you want is to be late for your own job interview, which only insinuates that you will be late for work or business appointments. I find however, that a number of interviewers find it acceptable to be late themselves – some up to half an hour. Why is this? Did you think that making your interviewee wait for you enforces a sense of superiority or glamour? Get a clue. Being late for anything smacks of poor time management and selfishness. Unless you intend to hire a person with very low self-esteem, reserve your mind games for your pets.

Introductions and the noisy things

Limp handshakes, wet hands, rushed entrances – I’ve seen it all. Why did you, my didn’t-quite-make-it-future-boss, think it was ok to lightly moisten my hand? Never mind that, those of you who enter the room in a heap of sweat and smelling like a gym – what impression were you hoping to give your potential new staff? That you are incapable of getting a shower or buying decent deodorant? Forget about people coming to interviews looking like trailer trash – I have seen those interviewing looking like they fell off the back of a poultry transporter. If you’re not making an entrance to an interview like you were meeting a client, you have no business being there.

And I know you have the latest iPhone or Android but I’m not here to compare telecommunication gadgets so turn it off, please, and pay me some attention.

Conversation contexts – all you have are words (or is that all?)

This is where it gets tricky – especially when an introvert meets another introvert or vice versa. Ever been at an interview and whilst the interviewer is yabbering away you think “Why am I here, again?” or you’re sitting across a candidate and the silence is so deafening you think “Ok, so what next…”? Anyone can interview a monkey – if you have a banana and a drum, you’ve got a party. But you’re not about to interview a monkey anytime soon (unless you’re a zoologist) so ask yourself:

• Have I sufficiently perused, and absorbed, the candidates resume?

• Do I know what this candidate wants from their career, and from this job? And if I don’t what are the questions that I should ask?

• What are the requirements and expectations of this job that I should prepare the candidate for, and how can I formulate a conversation that allows for him/her to understand them and ask pertinent questions?

• What are the necessary quantifying and qualifying skills and abilities I will need to assess the candidate for?

Suffice to say, you don’t need to be in HR to understand this but if you’re serious about hiring someone to get a job done efficiently this should be at the top of your list and the process should be timed – each topic should be given 10 minutes to discuss so that the conversation is managed.

This ensures that the process does not become incredibly lengthy yet provides sufficient flexibility for there to be conversation, an exchange of thoughts, and not an interrogation. It appears that this area is largely unexplored or well understood, and as a result employers often find themselves frustrated that the new employee takes too long to grasp the essential business needs or fit in, and employees are quick to be disenchanted by what they initially understood to be the culture or job requirements.

I can’t say how many times I had observed HR Managers fail at asking questions necessary to the performance of the job (because well, HR can sometimes be disinterested by roles outside their realm) and direct reports are so busy nattering on about how “challenging”, “exciting” and “fabulous” this job is they fail to identify the pulse of the interview.

Some of the interview boo-boos I have experienced and heard of:

• Not having understood the candidate’s resume, the interviewer asks them questions which are already answered on the resume

• Telling the candidate what you want to hear (really?)

• Gleaning over job descriptions, or telling candidates that the job description is only a formality and “there is more, you should be prepared”. Unless you’re in the business of assassination, arms smuggling or prostitution I don’t think it is acceptable to be vague about job descriptions, expectation or remuneration packages. This is not Rambo, kids.

• Talking about your own achievements, what you have done, your world domination plans (another really?)

• Swearing, being negative (or overly optimistic), putting down competitors, being harsh about the candidate’s weaknesses, play down the candidate’s strengths or insult their expectations. This is an interview – you ought to be on your best behaviour if you are going to convince someone that they should choose to work with you. You’re not here to chastise a complete stranger!

In closing, close with a smile

Ultimately, you are on stage – everyone is. Just because you are interviewing a candidate it does not make you God. Everything that you do, say, insinuate, the twitch of your nostrils – these are all being assessed by your candidate. Up to 80% of communications is non verbal, anyway. If your candidate comes away from the interview feeling positively energized, excited and in awe of you and your organization you would have achieved what most companies fail to understand, that which is interviews allow for the outside world to assess your insides.

Not only would the candidate hope to land a job in your great office and to be learning from a brilliant boss like you, they would tell everyone they know how awesome this place/you are. But if you candidate walked away thinking the interview was a total waste of time and effort, you can be assured that they will let their network know of who not to work for, and with. Part of the WOM process involves interviews and unless your HR and HODs are hermits, they need to be aware that treating candidates with respect, integrity and transparency is necessary. Just as you would manage customers, you should treat candidates in the same manner regardless of the position they are being interviewed for.

You may never know – they may turn you down and get hired by your competitor.

Then what, Sparky?

Time to get your…act together

So I’m back.

And since I’ve been back, it has been a flurry of activity in all areas. You’d think getting in touch, being in touch and staying in touch would be relatively easy in this new fangled age. We’re light years ahead now from the days when one would have to write letters, lick stamps and find time to pop down to the post office to see Ms Daisy and spend at least five minutes chatting to her about her herb garden so she gets your post sorted.

That whole process took at least an hour of your day, and who knows when your letter will arrive (especially if you lived in a small village which relied on trains to get your mail out)? You had to cross your fingers and wait for a reply, which would take the other person possibly an hour to repeat the process.

Then there’s that tricky thing about how long it takes to write responses.

So you’d think with the advent of high speed processors, fibre optic communication lines, automated software upgrades, soft QWERTY keypads, reflection-less screens, a phone named after a fruit and technology that sounds like a mass of rain droplets would improve things considerably?

I mean, did you?

Because I thought so too.

Until I tried to send an email to someone and got an error for email address (despite the person having repeat the email address to me several times to be darn sure), another telling me they get so many emails they cannot keep up and as such ‘emails to me don’t work, because I don’t read them’ and a few more who don’t read their emails until it’s too late and upon being asked for feedback return a blank stare.

Is it me? Or are we choosing by some retarded default of character, to just ignore communications? I should think so. Because these people could have some rocket science, new fangled, jazzed up tech which plugs emails directly into their eyeballs and they would still have the same problem.

An attitude that needs fixing.

This is not a rant; I have a point and I am getting to it.

It was just in time on that fateful morning whilst I was chewing on cereal that Entrepreneur.com posted an article “Richard Branson on Time Management”. One of the things that I like about Mr Branson is his honesty about how hard it is to run a business, and how he still takes a humble and holistic approach to how it is run. There’s no-nonsense with this guy when it comes to the real down-and-dirty of business management; he tells you to run or ruin it. For a man who is associated with radical marketing and PR stints, he’s dead serious about making his business personal.

I remember once sitting across one operations manager who was giving her team the riot act on punctuality: you have to be punctual, it’s the company policy, you will be penalized if you are not, be on time or else…

You should have seen the looks on the faces. (Contrary to popular assumption, not one of fear or anger – it was just deadpan.) I won’t drone about tardiness because that’s just the tip of the iceberg; I get the majority of readers are possibly not interested in that topic. We’re specifically discussing time management here: tardiness, being present, organization skills, self leadership and discipline, delegation, prioritization. For far too long, managers and a segment of HR run people like stickmen with clocks as heads.

Clock in early? Arse kisser.

Clock in on time? OK.

Clock in late? You’re inefficient.

Clock out late? We might like you if you clock in early and kiss arse, too.

Well sorry, it’s no wonder why some companies just keep having people clock in early, start work on time, clock out on time, never offer to do any extra tasks, maximize all off days and resign at the next available opportunity. You wanted to hire clock heads, not high performers – remember? All the other important aspects of time management are either ignored, or not measured or both.  It’s no wonder managers in these companies find it hard leading subordinates: if you get them to come on time, you can’t get them to perform; if you get them to perform, you won’t get more than following simple instructions. And then they bail on you once you have just managed to balance the proverbial orange on a toothpick. Essentially, these companies end up having disassociated, regressed circus clowns for managers and cameo appearances for sandwich filling – what gives?

“I can tell the time, but that’s all I know”

“I will commit the time, but not the crime”

“I only work for the money; if you want performance, hire a battery”

If I had a dollar for every time someone said ‘delegation is an art’ I could play A Minute to Win It for fun because I’d be sponsoring my own prize money. An art is generally unquantifiable; it is soup pot of skills, talent, knowledge, divine intervention – which makes it more qualifiable than quantifiable. Time management is not qualifiable; you don’t need to be a manager to develop excellent time management. It is a skill – quantifiable, and learnable with the right examples and parameters set into place. The problem lies with people who regard it as some qualifiable quack-art, which is often the same view extended to effective leadership skills. Yes, skills. The reason why it is so tricky for certain people to accept this is because time management is essentially behavioural management (cymbal clash, please). One could run their life like clockwork and never get anything meaningful done – many of us go through days and weeks like those. The difference is some people stop, take a look at the big picture, identify the gaps and start re-routing the plugs. Others just keep, well, plugging.

This is a natural challenge for anyone assuming a new post, or new promotion: how best to maximize time while capitalizing on existing people and opportunities. Ah, capitalization. We’ll get to that in a minute…

The defiance (or denial, pick your verb of preference) to perceive time management as a skill stems for a deep fear or stubbornness to change behaviour. This includes unhealthy perceptions of time, respect for others’ time, prioritization of duties and tasks, disjointed views of delegation and autonomy, micro-management, inability to work in a cohesive team, refusal to improve on weaknesses, fear of ownership and responsibility. And if one is planning on being an effective leader, they are going to have to pluck their heads out from the sand and have a real hard look at behavioral changes that are required to get the job done. Be it transitioning from one position to another, or one company to another, accountability to self and to one’s team is imperative in ensuring there is a semblance of leadership – and it starts with time management driven by positive behavioural management.

One of the most important (alternatively, ingratiating) aspect of time management is prioritisation skills. This is possibly most easily recognised in how people communicate: specifically, email communications. There are some of us who live on our fruity smartphones; flitting from emails to conference calls to BBMMs and WhatsApp or whatever they call it now (SMSing still?). That noisy thing has the potential to take over our lives – and as so aptly pointed out by Branson, we should to be in control of it. Being in control also means being present and responsive – what’s the point of having a toy that allows connectivity in so many ways but yet others are getting a dial tone or goodness forbid, silence? It is infuriating to hear excuses such as “I get so many emails I can’t keep up” or “I don’t like reading emails” or worse “I prefer face to face discussions”. In an ideal world, people would be in their toilets reading Sports Illustrated while telekinetically getting work done.

That’s ideal, not real.

In the real world, many people are orchestrating regional operations from Sydney to Tokyo to London with only their Blackberrys, a notepad and a pen (yes, I do know people like these – there are many and they will put these whiners to shame!). This is how the current real world communicates and gets things done; people don’t need face to face discussions (although ideal) to get instructions and project ideas. If you want to see a face, download Skype – it’s free! All those excuses above are merely excuses; nobody cares that you don’t like reading emails of can’t get on top of it. Unless you work with a company full of gremlins that CC and BCC every email, that smacks of a refusal to focus, prioritise and action on things.

If a leader or manager cannot ‘get on top of my emails’, you are basically telling your people two things:

1. You may give me the same excuse when I send you emails (uh oh, Law of Holes applying here)
2. You may also apply this to customers and other important stakeholders

Simply put if you can’t even get your emails sorted, what else can you do? And what are you here for?

Back to capitalization of people and opportunities:

I once took a 360° assessment online which involved a number of business associates and subordinates who had the opportunity to ‘anonymously’ rate me and provide feedback on strengths and weaknesses. Now, I assure you this was truly anonymous – I just have a sickening knack of telling who’s who based on their responses (that’s some qualifiable ‘skill’ for you there). Suffice to say I weeded out a comment by my then Managing Director who listed my sole weakness as ‘delegation’. Was I surprised? Yes and No. I was a not-so-new manager but I didn’t have the luxury of suitably qualified staff, lacking in learnable examples, literally no parameters and was doing a lot of things on my own of which half were unproductive for a manager. It has then been a self-imposed sharp learning curve on developing my delegation skills and I have many mentors to thank for this, including Mr Branson, although my learning process is nowhere near its end. What mattered to me then was that delegation is a skill (not something vague like ‘creativity’, which is an expression of thoughts not some weird, fluid concept involving spit and water colours) – which I could learn given the right information, examples and practice. I understood that it required self-leadership; I had to exorcise what I understood to be ‘being a good worker’ and review what I aspired for myself as a developing leader.

I had to determine what sort of leadership style I wanted for myself and for others. And I have to work really hard at it, everyday. How you delegate is only 20% of what makes up for your leadership qualities and style, but it is one of the defining reasons why people follow – and stick – with you.

Not enough managers and executives understand the true nature of effective delegation and accept that time management is really behavioral management. This misunderstanding trickles throughout companies creating a culture that is too busy ‘looking busy’ whilst totally missing out on high performance, growth opportunities and market relevance.

You may not be able to overturn a whole company of clock heads in a day or a lifetime, but you are entirely in control of your choice in being the clock head who runs a bunch of clock heads at the end of the day. For those fighting against CHC (Clock Head Culture), keep fighting the good fight: you are a minority, and a the beacon of hope, for the masses seeking real leaders and not mere time keepers.

The Checklist of Front Liner Hiring (hint: teeth do matter)

I remember the days in the call centre.

This is why I put my phone on silent and hate the sound of a ringing phone. Even worse, people with annoying ring and message tones that are set on ‘Loud as a m***”. What is up with that? Unless you’re deaf in one ear, nobody wants to listen to your kid calling out to you. It’s CREEPY.

But I digress.

I remember the days in the call centre business.

Phones ringing incessantly, 20-30 lines blinking in sequence like simulated dance floor lights in a JLO music video, half-awake call centre ‘executives’ answering semi-coherently whilst firing information to the system. Once the call is disconnected, more calls are made to organize the necessary paperwork and orders. Sometimes, there is a little barking going on between people. Once, someone slammed their desks so hard in frustration the computer monitor jumped. More often than once, the fax machine was throttled for jamming up incoming documents.

Back then we juggled between a paperful and paperless system: it was the days of semi-transitioning. We’d receive on average 300 calls a day, of which half were pending cases solved within the day and the other half were channeled to the secondary department for further investigations and monitoring. If you were new, you’d probably be struggling with a dozen or so files and the more experienced were churning out twice to thrice those numbers. Long hours, lots of paperwork, phone calls, reminders, negotiations, lateral thinking and people management. A lot of times the job called for working till the wee hours of the morning (especially for international cases) and some people got regularly ill or were diagnosed with exhaustion.

Once, a department supervisor was told she was going home ‘too early’ even though she clocked out on average 20-30 mins after her stipulated working hours. Apparently, she had to exemplify that working late was positive. I would learn years later from consultant and trainer Daniel Liew, that this was the extreme opposite of ‘absenteeism’ known as ‘presenteeism’.

This culture of ‘presenteeism demand’ created a small army of space wasters: people just staying back to …well, take up space. No one was really getting a life, motivating others or feeling motivated. It didn’t create a healthier working environment but developed greater resentment for what was seen as a blatant waste of time to appear productive. New people were often confused and found out the hard way that being productive didn’t mean delivering on quality in a timely manner; it just meant looking busy and churning out something.

I won’t go into sustainable systems for call and consumer management centres – we’re not here to discuss that. But I will say based on my own experience and in consulting with a variety of other organizations, there is no one cookie cutter system out there. It is complicated and requires people, systems and needs analysis before we can begin to identify core issues in order to implement any solutions whatsoever.

Ten years ago, the call and consumer management industry exploded in the market because most businesses didn’t know how to run one effectively. Consumer services especially banks and insurance firms were too focused on multiplying revenues, opening new outlets, creating new products and sucking up market share to set up and run call centres. Outsourcing became the simplest option until they could make space and hire the right people to run an internal division.

Not cheaper, just easier.

Many of these set ups were relatively, and surprisingly small. Easily duplicative, the competition began to get interesting within the first two years of the market boom. Within 24 months, the top three call and consumer centres were competing with about a dozen others – and it didn’t stop expanding. Some did shut down eventually (mostly owing to poor service quality, something the owners overlooked which is highly odd to me) whilst others continued to thrive. The employee market overflowed with people experienced in handling call-in customer services and with the advent of greater systems solutions, banks and other consumer services could finally set up seamless in-house CS ministries.

The challenges call and consumer management centres face today include:

• Closing the gap between new employee market expectations and business aspirations, culture and operations
• Meeting day to day operations requirements whilst keeping resources motivated, loyal and excited
• Improving brand awareness and presence
• Developing greater product(s) value
• Diversification of the business infrastructure to acquire greater market share or presence

Recently I was in a conversation regarding over-the-phone customer service quality. As I highlighted in my previous articles, a lot of intangibles go into having quality front-line services. The topic of the hiring process was brought up – I wanted to know what was ‘wrong’ with the hiring process. For some reason unknown to me, there are a minority (I just hope not majority, this was a small group) who put down front-liner service incompetency to a ‘lack of education’. By this they mean ‘institutionalised education’ aka a degree. I find this amusing: have we moved so far into the business world to put it all down to some half-baked qualification to determine service competency? Should we be hiring PhDs to answer calls? Is there a Customer Services Degree out there which we haven’t heard of? I find this myopic outlook defensive and passé – it appears to me this minority does not want to address the true problem but puts the blame back on the employees which is a no-win situation for everyone involved.

HR and general management sometimes forget that exceptional customer service competency is a skill that is developed over time hence, the term ‘competency’. This is why companies serious about service delivery have scoring and measurement systems for their centres, internal or outsourced. A highly competent front-liner gets better and is a head above the rest because they innately care about customers.

When hiring a team of front-liners, the following needs to be taken into consideration:

1. Appearance: I did say the teeth mattered. Depending on your business needs and HR policies, targeted discrimination is necessary. Your business may require front-liners to be reasonably attractive (which to me, beauty is in the eye of the beholder). Living and working in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious environment has helped me greatly in cutting through the clutter when it comes to assessing potential: those who are serious know that the first impression is the last impression.

Hygiene is important, because it reflects basic habits.

This is one key point overlooked by so many HR people (probably too busy scanning the CV to notice the candidate) it makes me a little sick. I have had the joy of interviewing people with a clear lack of hygiene and basic etiquette it makes me wonder if HR has got cabin fever.

Looking good can be done on a budget; it only takes a little effort. The interest in one’s appearance shows pride and meticulousness. This is necessary if you want someone who cares for the small details with customers, and we know a lot of the time it is the little things that delight customers most.

Yahoo! and a host of other sites write great tips on what not to do at interviews: dressing too casually, smelling of cigarettes or BO, grotty nails, scuffed shoes, being late. If your candidate doesn’t take the time to read up or refresh before an interview I’d say there’s little hope they’ll go the extra mile for your customers.

2. Attitude: A firm handshake, a smiley disposition, friendly tone and inflection of voice, positive body language. All these should be music to your ears – but you’re really watching with your eyes. Over 70% of communication is through body language and if you’re reading less than ‘great’ on the body language meter you might have bigger problems over the phone. Unless you’re running a help or counseling line, introverts or the extremely shy should be placed in the back office. This is not discriminatory; it is knowing how to leverage on strength. You will be doing yourself a huge disfavor by forcing an introverted person to be ‘more bubbly’ and ‘friendly’. It will only result in them quietly resenting their work (and possibly you) which can be deadly. What was it they said about the quiet ones?

3. Wit and sass: I am talking street smarts here, folks. I would be greatly impressed with your honor’s degree because you worked hard for it but I’d like to see you perform when the heat is on, as they say. Given a sticky situation, say a screaming customer or systems down time, how would this individual handle the issues? Will they snap? Will they become an inert sack of potatoes? Preferably, hire someone who can think on their feet (but also has the right sense in mind to seek clarification and guidance where necessary) and has potential at fire-fighting (figuratively, although literally is also helpful).

4. Personality and creativity: The best front-liners I know are flamboyant personalities. In an interview, they will crack you up more than once, and not with lame ‘knock-knock’ jokes. You will enjoy their company, although at times they may test your patience with wanting to have too much fun instead of paying attention to mundane details like having a clean desk and filing away stuff. Exuberance often hints at a creative person, which is great because they are capable of thinking laterally and out of the box. This is a useful calling card in the retail business especially in fashion, automotive, sports and beauty lines.  Customers become attracted and attached to them, and as long as they enjoy doing what they do at in your organization you can be assured of a steady stream of return sales. It also keeps the work place light and exciting which is important especially with the new employee market that prefers a more relaxed working environment. Word of warning: you will have the occasional emotional drama that will need to be addressed with ground rules and regular counseling or gentle reminders. But you know this already – you’re the boss!

5. Tardiness and fastidiousness: I have put this last not because it is the least important but if your candidate qualifies for all of the above, you may find that they will struggle with this last one. Characteristically, extroverts are guilty of being too ‘spread out’ – doing everything and being everywhere – to care about the small things like being punctual and neat. But these qualities are important if we are to serve customers well. Nobody wants a sales person who is always 30 minutes late for appointments or keeps losing your credit card information when trying to make repeat sales. This last criterion will not be apparent when you first interview the individual although you can spot the signs: state of their diaries, bags or briefcases, hairdo (it takes time to get great hair, although if you’re Ted Mosby you’d end up confusing most people), how well pressed their clothes are and if you have a cup of coffee or tea how they drink it. Very small signs indeed but your best bet in determining this is when they start work (you have a probationary period to check this out). Word of warning: Employers need to strike a balance between being firm about punctuality to being downright anally retentive. Punctuality is probably one of the most discussed management topics of all time (next to motivating employees, which works hand in hand in most cases) so your policies may have to be re-structured or relaxed in some cases.

Don’t become the employer or manager who rates people based on punctuality, presenteeism and amount of derriere kissing whilst missing the big(ger) picture that is real productivity.

Knowing that your customers don’t care about your internal struggles is the first commandment in Efficient Customer Service – the second is ‘Serve your customers promptly’. Everything begins at the hiring stage: your most valuable asset is your resources. How you hire, who you hire, why you hire them and what you do with them will determine where your business will go.

Consider every potential employee as a new business partner and your outlook on hiring, management and leadership will change considerably.

Who Wants To Be A Front Liner? Part 2: Hiring

First off, I’m not a HR analyst. I don’t proclaim or aspire to be. But as a marketer with great interest in customer relationship and people management, I am regularly tuned into psyches of working environments. One key area of interest of late, is the hiring stage.

As more and more companies begin to adopt lean management styles, employees are presented with a challenge: stay upbeat, stay relevant, stay productive. Unemployment rates around the world are rising at an uncomfortable pace creating a nervous if not depressing air around fresh graduates looking to penetrate the market.

With the flood of Generation Y employees comes a growing disconnect between employees versus employers expectations. The customer and consumer services industry began its ascent somewhere in the early 90s in Malaysia, riding on the back of a booming economy that was enjoying healthy FDI rates and manufactured exports. This continued right through the early millennia. By then, the demand reached a plateau as businesses sought to maintain healthy operations costs and invested more into technology to cope with service optimization. IVR systems replaced perky receptionists. Automated call disbursements, integrated CRMS and the Internet began closing the gap of communications, requiring less resources between customers and key business decision makers. Business began to depend less on the traditional call centre to address its customer-related issues.

Back then, people were happy to sit behind a desk getting yelled at all day because the pay wasn’t bad and it was one of the most sought after jobs. As the demand was there, one could easily get hired. Technology has allowed companies to cut down on call centre resources, and in effect, keep salaries low whilst investing into IT. This eventually led to slower growth and resulted in less job satisfaction for the industry and its workers.

And that’s just call centres.

What about retail businesses?

The same effect can be seen in retail, where customers can now buy almost anything online. E-commerce is the cash cow of the new millennia (not so new now). In 2008 alone, over USD$106 million was spent online with electronic appliances, clothing and computer accessories topping the spending list. Online purchases accounted for 47% of total consumer spending. It would not be presumptuous to deduce that half, if not more, of those sales processes did not involve people save for packing and delivery activities. This means compared to pre e-commerce, a lot less people are being hired to manage retail sales as technology and systems automate and simplify processes. This is simply how internet businesses have proliferated and flourished like wild mushrooms in a rainforest – selling and buying has become automated.

The financial sector, primarily consumer banking and insurance, is almost fully automated and Internet-tialised now. People can purchase insurance policies online, redeem points online, transact online or at 24 hour kiosks – all without the apparent hassle of dealing with a sourpuss bank teller who grimaces more than smiles. Utility management companies now only need to occupy small business spaces for the odd customer who needs clarification on paperwork or for new applications, but in general all bills can be paid online. E-billing is the way to go for sustainability so goodbye Mr Envelope Stuffer. Taxes can be filed online, passports can be renewed at kiosks and even lunch is just a click away these days.

We don’t need people anymore.

Or do we?

The business environment has changed globally. If in the past marketing, sales and customer services were run as totally separate entities this cannot be the case now. As buyouts and acquisitions become the new corporate survival game any company worth its salt knows full well that inter-department communications and cohesiveness must be in order to maintain well-oiled operations whilst taking care of fragile bottom lines. Managers cannot afford or tolerate malaise and must prepare for the onslaught of the death of full-time employment. As the world economy becomes highly turbulent, job security is now an issue that cannot be ignored. I foresee companies going in this direction (and those with great foresight have been practicing this for years):

• Encouraging on-site working and project management to reduce operational costs
• Contractual employment to better manage delivery on projects and revenues
• The imminent death of retail and entertainment space as more businesses take presence online

It will be uncomfortable for those used to being chained to their desks but as they say, change is imminent. Mobility and connectivity is no more how far you can drive or fly, it is how virally present you are where the eyeballs go.

We will go deeper into hiring for front liners later next week. I’d love to hear from you if you have any thoughts so feel free to share them with me and we can expand on them.

That dirty old virtue

Sorry folks, it has been a wind-up-Mel’s-Hells-Bells week.

But I did say before I couldn’t commit to blogging daily so you can’t complain.

I did however, write bits and pieces when I could, so this has really been a week’s worth of work that was bubbling in the pot. I hope you enjoy it, and look forward to hearing from you.

A Least Discussed Leadership Attribute

Ask anyone what they would consider to be ‘leadership attributes’ and you’ll likely hear a chorus chiming:

Visionary, decisive, resourceful, powerful, knowledgeable.

All very admirable and necessary attributes – but not immediately noticeable in new, emerging leaders nor are these attributes normally  acquired overnight. Some are acquired via ‘leadership at birth’; a baby is born with a personality primed for leadership development, into a family of leaders. The role of leader, or expectations of behaving and thinking like a leader, is passed onto the child. This is the order for those born into royalty, family-owned business dynasties or those in power of corporations, governments and societies.

For others, it is a life-long journey into the Misled Wilderness in search of mentors equipped enough to provide examples and coaching on leadership development. A lot of times, mentors are discovered by chance (I don’t believe that mentors are discovered by accident) and depending on the his or her leadership style, a ‘student’ stands to gain a cornucopia of priceless life-and-leadership experiences.

Why I don’t think leaders are discovered by accident

If there could be one leadership attribute that I could pin on every respectable leader I knew, it would be ‘confidence’. More often than not, leaders are not afraid to be the first to speak. This does not necessarily mean the lot of them are smart-arses; they are just not afraid to be heard and seen. They don’t shoot their mouths off; they speak with poise, enthusiasm and certainty. They are not afraid to be corrected; they only see opportunities to learn and share in every question posed.

I enjoy people watching at networking events or conferences. It gives me an opportunity to play ‘Spot the Leader’ and ‘Follow the Leader’.  You can’t always tell them by appearances, although some of them have a developed aura or charisma about them (and I also see this in emerging leaders).

But let me stop myself there by saying that I’d like to reserve that for another day.

Today’s lesson, boys and girls, is far more interesting that an overrated rant on building confidence as an emerging leader.

I want to talk about impatience.

• Whoever who came up with ‘patience is a virtue’ probably never had to make many decisions; especially ones where he was put on the spot between two unpopular choices.
• He probably never got to enjoy the luxuries of mobile phones, DSL lines, digital cameras, Dropbox and chocolate sauce in squirt bottles
• He probably didn’t have to make any decisions relating to marketing strategies, sales tactics, project management or crisis management

This is an old proverb, and it is so old that I can bet it was from some guy sitting at the top of the mountain waiting for something that was never going to happen – because he then came up with ‘good things come to those who wait.’ And let’s be frank – it’s only as good as you think it is, especially when you’re up on a mountain with no PS3 or Starbucks.

Impatience is a leadership virtue.

It does not wait for acknowledgement, approval or acceptance. It takes a lot of courage to have it; where most people caught between a rock and a hard place can only think of fleeing, the impatient leader has the ability to think his or her way laterally out of the situation because they are programmed to be quick-thinkers.

It abhors glacial, languid people. They know in order to succeed, stopping and smelling the roses is only doable when you actually have roses to smell – and those roses sure don’t just plant and bloom all by themselves. Take a scene out of The Devil Wears Prada where Miranda Priestly (who presumably is portraying Anna Wintour* of Vogue) she exclaims sarcastically ‘By all means move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.’ They walk, talk and do things at an almost frenetic pace and they are going to expect that people keep up with them, or fall off the horse.

It knows that business waits for no man. If you sat on your laurels, or hid in your shop, waiting for business to ‘happen’ to you the only thing that will happen is the bank foreclosing on you. This is the realities of life as market trends shift at an accelerated pace with globalization, glocalisation and the ever evolving technologies that pop up every few months. The blog of Heidrick & Struggles wrote an article a year ago ‘A tale of two impatient leaders’ and I quote an excerpt ‘Private equity is a special space. When we look for leaders in PE we want impatient people, executives who will respond to the challenge to deliver results without excuse, while carefully measuring the risk… We look for a series of qualities and competencies which are drawn out in our interview process. We want impatience, but not attention deficit disorder personalities. In other words, top guns rather than loose cannons!’

Which brings us to…Impatient leaders do not suffer from CHFMD** (Corporate Hand Foot Mouth Disease). They are not loose cannons firing at will and at all and sundry. They don’t make fast decisions because there’s a ‘thrill’ in it they want to move on to the 172^nd item on their plate. They know that the speed and accuracy of their decisions determine how quickly their businesses can assimilate, adapt and progress. World leaders also know this – for the lives of people and the governance of countries are reliant on their decisions. No determined leader who had a solution every uttered ‘we’ll wait and see’, in fact that is rare if not unheard of in high ranking official decision makers. By saying that, a leader is insinuating that he or she does not have the answers!

Its brain may be functioning at lightning speed in comparison to others, but that does not mean it is functioning at a ‘sound before thought’ mechanism (every heard the joke about ‘the speed of sound moving faster than light’?). They are still strategists and tactical masters, often times the ‘big plan’ is in their head but they don’t have a habit of ‘let’s sit around and draw up a map’. They conceptualize, make a rough calculation, ask pointed questions, get feedback and then hit the road running. They will be surrounded by a team frenetically taking down notes and tasks, and in between he or she is firing out emails to external stakeholders, the press and the other directors.

It knows no fear, for they know fear is because you are unequipped (or just that ‘you’ve got no balls, mate’). Impatient leaders are trend-setting go-getters. They are normally high-risk takers who will play to win with courage to match in the event they lose. They have an almost unmatchable gumption driven by tireless ambition and passion, which in turn leads them to be furious information vacuum-cleaners wanting to know anything and everything useful to their latest project or investments. They are equipped in knowledge, connections and resources and can make for a ferocious competitor even though they appear friendly, flaky or downright goofy.

Look around you and before you: the really successful are leaders with tempered impatience. Society frowns upon impatience, only because when exercised negatively it can lead to some dire consequences but the truth is – every successful leader, who is or was on the cornerstone of change and revolutionary discoveries and breakthroughs – were quite impatient in their own way.

Examples based on observation are Karl Lagerfeld, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Winston Churchill.

In Marcus Buckingham’s book Live Your Strongest Life, he explains how one can become better by understanding the nine personality types of which most people will score a primary and secondary personality type. One of the things I found surprising and liberating was his assertion on a certain personality type that was impatient, to embrace it. He further explained that by repressing it, one would regress and that they should leverage on the impatience to do great things. Clearly, it spoke to me loud and clear (and for those of you who are sighing in relief: welcome to the club).

Do you know of any impatient leaders that inspire you?

*They don’t call her ‘Nuclear Wintour’ for nothing.

**CHFMD is really a term I coined myself – it’s really my way of humouring ‘non-thought leaders’

This article is inspired by one of the greatest leaders I know – my old man. Patience was never part of his vocabulary, and he was known (and feared!) for his high intolerance of laziness, aloofness and lack of industriousness. As much as it rubbed a few people the wrong way, he took the business places and made a lot of emerging leaders into successful leaders in their own right today. I count myself lucky to be under his watchful tutelage and guidance.