Author: admin

Have you ever had a bad job interview?

Perhaps you had one, like me, where the Managing Director told me that although there were 20 days of holiday available, I wasn’t expected to take any. His view was that:

A. Staff were expected to work, and…

B. Business trips counted as mini holidays anyway.

Naturally, I wisely declined the job. I also had no experience and wasn’t much interested in his business. He did like me though as I answered all of his questions with a cheery smile and an apparent willingness to do anything. I was of course, lying.

I was young then and treated job interviews as a sort of game, to see how far I could get. Luckily even I could see that his attitude was not conducive to a happy working life and I played along until I’d had enough.

I wouldn’t do that now and when I’ve been offered a job by a client I smile and ask them if they really want me in their business 5 days a week, making changes and challenging their thinking? They don’t, and we agree that hiring me for a day of intense coaching once a month is plenty for the both of us.

This is one of the basic problems when hiring people. Managers tend to hire people they like, or who are similar to them. They resist putting in the hard yards, hiring someone they need and then celebrating differences and providing solid leadership.

They take the easy option and despair when their new hire doesn’t work out.

People need to be nurtured and not left alone to work it out for themselves.

They need a proper induction period, clear objectives and the opportunity to learn their role.

They also need to have the right attitude. So many people get hired for their skills and then don’t fit in with the organisational culture.

We need to hire for attitude and train for skills. The right person, with the right mindset, can be a real asset. They can grow with the business, take on new challenges and constantly add value.

I’ve coached many people who are struggling in their role and often it’s because of a failure of leadership, not because of their abilities.

So then, I have a suggestion. When we are hiring a new person we can think in terms of money.

How much is the hiring process costing us?

How much will the new employee actually cost us for 3 years of labour?

Salary, taxes, pension, holidays, equipment, corporate overhead costs and management time all need to be factored in.

Once we have the number, and a rough guide would be that actual cost is 1.5 times the basic salary, then we can set up a spreadsheet to track our financial investment on a daily basis.

If we can see the cost ticking up every day then we will remain in awareness. We will be able to ensure that we are providing leadership and support, to ensure we maximise the return on our investment.

If we all had a money-cost counter on our desks then the senior leaders could see how much they are wasting, by knee-jerk hiring decisions, or simple neglect of new employees.

New hires fail because they are set up to fail.

They’ve either survived a lacklustre recruitment process (not their fault), or been treated without due care by their leaders (still not their fault).

If we track the money we spend then we can make sure we are spending the money wisely.

I’ll bet that most people know a manager who puts more effort into a new dog than into a new person.

The next time we are tempted to grumble about a new employee that we’ve hired we must stop and ask ourselves:

What’s my part in this problem?

Where have I fallen down?

What do I need to change, in order to stop wasting money?

Setting people up for success is really very simple. We need to care about them, care about our investment and care about our business.

What could you do differently this week, to care for someone new in your organisation?

Next week: Counselling For Free

Helpful is an interesting word. It can mean something positive and we often ask for ‘some help’ when we’re stuck and need a boost. However, helpful has a dark side too.

How can helpful be at all dark?! It’s such a friendly word, a giving sort of word!

Ah well. Helpful can imply smothering, instead of supporting. Shoe laces are needed here.

Shoe laces are the bane of a small child’s life. Us adults know how useful they are, a simple fastening that dates back to the dawn of time. Early humans discovered fire, invented the wheel and then opted for shoe laces as their third developmental trick.

I have no evidence for this blatant shoe horning of shoe laces into history, but when you think about it, try removing your laces and then going for a walk in your brogues. Not so easy is it?

Early man, and early woman, would have faced the same problem. Laces, despite being fiddly, are an excellent shoe slippage solution.

Being helpful can mean tying the shoe laces of our darling children. It’s so much quicker to do this, as we hasten out of the door on the school run, than to wait for 20 minutes, whilst little fingers struggle to tie a bow. We dive in and say ‘let me help you’ and this is undoubtedly sometimes a kindness.

The dark side is when our being helpful prevents someone else from learning. We have to learn to tie our own laces and that requires a patient parent and the space and time to make a hash of it, learn, practice and eventually get it right.

Too much ‘being helpful’ stifles learning. If we smother someone with help they may well develop learned helplessness. There’s no need for them to learn because mummy will always fix it for them.

It’s the same in organisations. Being helpful often means doing it for someone else and depriving them of the responsibility to do it themselves.

There’s a social stigma against criticising helpful people, who can pull a puppy dog expression when you call them out. I say it’s okay to invite people to stop helping and to make it clear that when they help the following things tend to happen:

1. They do other people’s work instead of their own. Task completion is delayed as they neglect what they’re actually being paid to do.

2. Problems are not resolved. Helping people can mask issues. The person being helped doesn’t get the training they need, or the extra capacity required to adequately fulfil their goals and objectives.

3. Other people can feel controlled. Instead of having the freedom to learn, they are constrained by the helpful person always butting in and, in essence, infantilising them. Not nice.

So, being helpful may be well intentioned and yet it often becomes a trap. Helpful people need to know the difference between help and support.

Helpers give. Supporters offer.

Helpers do it. Supporters create space for others to do it.

Helpers are motivated by their own desire to be liked. Supporters are motivated by their desire for others to learn.

When we support our children to tie their own laces we show them how do it, encourage them and give them space to solve the problem for themselves.

The next time someone offers you help that you haven’t asked for, maybe say a polite ‘no thanks’ and then let them know what support you might need from them (if any).

And when someone cries ‘but I was only trying to help’ we can know this is them showing us their stuff. We can be kind to them and support them to be less helpful. They will learn and get their work done and, by leaving the problem, alone create space for the organisation to sort it out.

Being helpful can be a trap. Being supportive is the way to go.

This week have fun not being helpful. We can offer support in any number of ways, and in doing so allow the other person to feel like the adult they are, and not a small child having mummy or daddy fussing over them!

Next week: Why Lots Of New Hires Fail