What really matters

The Millennial Generation is not willing to wait for their number to be called.

Overheard in line at a coffee shop -

“My boss just tried to assure me that I have a place there in their 5 year plan.  Humph.   I want a 5 month plan, then another 5 month plan, and so on.  I want to hit reset when the game gets boring…”  Ah.  They see work as a computer game with medical benefits and an occasional performance review.

Just got an interview request from the business press about how the economy is changing the career plans of our youngest employees.   The reporter was startled when I said there was no change in direction, only speed.  The churn might be happening slower, but long term planning is not an issue.

The quote from the coffee shop clarified why.  The rule of engagement with many of them were defined by computer games.  They immersed themselves in complex, artificial worlds, solved all of the problems, defeated the aliens or dragons or whatever, and then never played that particular game again.  They want work to be the same – intense, rewarding - and when it gets repetitious, hit reset and try a new game or job. 

What really matters?  Benefits that align with their lives, and managers that listen.  Simply put, that is how to up the productivity and slow the churn rate…

My list for the end of the decade – Jack Welch out, Peter Drucker back in

Out	In
Topgrading, Jack Welch	One Minute Manager, Peter Drucker
“Intervention”	“Hoarders”
“Flip this house”	“Househunters International”
Trick hiring questions	Real job fit questions
Foosball tables in the break room	Managers who really listen
Meaningless perks	Direct pay for performance
Email listservs	Social networks as operational tools
Fraud	Adultery
D-list in society	De-friend on Facebook
Celebrating conspicuous consumption	Celebrating self awareness
Tiger	Peyton
MySpace	FaceBook
Voice Mail	Text Messaging
Classifieds	Craigslist
Film Camera Stills	Flip video movies
Playing Solitare at your desk	Actually doing productive work

Fondly remembered – Life without Wireless, Handmade salads without bagged lettuce, Kodachrome

 Good riddance – Paris Hilton, Octomom

Postcards From the Keys

I wish you could be here.  I am channeling Hemingway, sitting on a small island in the Keys with my laptop and an adult beverage working on my book (a business tome on the coming workforce crisis) and taking an occasional break.  When I prowl the island with my camera, some of the photos work out.  Click here to see the photos - I will keep updating.

A metaphor for management

A New Job Search Model – Apply LeanThinking

That this time, the job market is different.  Normal job search methods are not working well, yet nobody seems to be offering new ideas that might respond to the modern marketplaces.  In our session at New York SHRM, we emerged with some clever new ideas…

If you want a list of the problems, read my original post here.  While they are targeted to some specifics in the HR profession, they fit anywhere.

Let’s apply some fresh ideas.  I have made the following recommendation to several people – and most of them just edge away from me with a scared look in their eyes.  Whatever.  As Ashleigh Brilliant, the English cartoonist said – “Good ideas are common – what is uncommon are people willing to work hard enough to bring them about.”

First, use LinkedIn in a proper way – research and introductions.  Simply put, posting a resume and sending a vague posting does not work.  Ever.  If you know of an organization of interest, use the search and research functions in LinkedIn to find people inside the firm, then use the power of LinkedIn to see which of your friends in your network knows someone inside the firm.  Ask them for an introduction, and you are knocking at the door with a warm call, not a cold call.  Warm is better.

Second, and this is the big one  –  use benchmarking and research instead of what people call networking.  What most people are currently doing is just plain wrong.  You ask for a brief meeting to get advice on the market and job opportunities, promising to only need 20 minutes.  When you show up, it is a show all about you.  You review your background, then bug them for job leads, then ask if you can bug their friends.  What benefit is in this for the person who is opening up their calendar and rolodex?  A warm feeling from being altruistic, perhaps.  You will probably not be welcome for a second meeting, as there was nothing in it for them.

Let’s agree that people in leadership roles are under time pressure, and they are feeling out of touch with the world because of business pressures.  They have a hunger for current information from the front lines of business.  Use this in your job search.  Offer them fresh information.  Offer something they value, and do it in a meeting that is worth their time.

How? First, select a hot topic of interest to you and to the type of person you are approaching.  Something current.   If the audience is COO, make it operational.  If CFO, make it financial.  If CEO, make it an issue focused on strategic advantage.  If HR, look at workforce planning or performance management.  Want ideas?  Read CFO Magazine, or Fortune, or Forbes, or The Economist.   Then, select 20 or so organizations that are of interest to you as possible employers.  Do a direct approach to the leadership team of those organizations, offering them the chance to participate in a benchmarking of this topic, and all who participate will get to share in the results.

If the goal of networking is to build high quality business relationships in a non-threatening environment, this will give you just that.  You have to be a good communicator, interviewing them about how their organization handles your topic.  You will then write a white paper from all of the information gathered from all of the organizations, and share it with your participants.  This will elevate you in their minds as an expert in your field, will give them fresh, local insight on a current topic.  Best of all, they now know you and they will help you on your next steps, or perhaps they may need you in their organization to fix a problem or two…

For extra credit, have your white paper published in the business press to elevate your brand or status in the community. 

In all of this, you, the job seeker, are acting as a high quality consultant and professional, not a time-wasting job seeker.  Best of all, you are making the job search process more of a “LEAN” process, and advancing your own knowledge as you do it.  A win-win-win.

Best of luck as you implement this.  Don’t hesitate to ask for my guidance on making it work.  Happy to help.

Happy new decade!

Simply put, Health Insurance is not simple

I’m a simple guy.  My biggest addiction is graham crackers dunked in milk. 

We are in a world that is awash in complexity, and we all wish for simpler times.  I give a presentation on the Donner Party of 1846, a wagon train that did not go well.  I often have people from the audience pull me aside after the talk and wish that they could live in such a simple time.  I smile and ask if they would be willing to live by the health care standards of 1846?  No  antibiotics?  Let’s just say that the dental care was primitive, and leave it at that.  They stop wishing for a simpler time and give thanks for our modern advances.

That said, we still want things simple.  The iPod is successful partly because of the simple brilliance of the buttons and menus.  That’s why the current health insurance reform is so fundamentally irritating to the public.  It’s so complex, that any discussion quickly collapses under its own logic.   As I work in human resources and help CFOs and employees speak the same language, I have found a simple explanation for health insurance reform.

Simply put, it all comes down to the basic principles of insurance.  Sharing the risk. We need to set up a system that has all of us sharing the risk in a system that is reasonably fair to all of us.  That said, we have so many different stakeholders in the current system, we have to figure out a way to adjust and patch the current way we do things and remain fair to all of our disparate groups.

We’re working on it.  Sometimes the attempts at a fix are simple.  Did you see the story on medical systems that are selling gift cards?  Read the story here.  For example, as the story says “Complete Compassionate Care in Michigan, a home health care provider, sells gift cards to cover its services, especially during the holidays. But some are “raffled or given out to those who actually need it,” spokeswoman Bonnie Williams said. One woman who won a $100 gift card at a recent Alzheimer’s Association event was able to hire a caregiver for four hours to help with her husband, who suffers from the disease.”

We need to make it simple to make it work.  That’s why I’m glad I work in human resources and benefits.

Thanks, but what do you mean?

Health Insurance Reform, Hiring, and Hemingway.

I was writing on my laptop and my thoughts were interrupted.  The drifter with a backwards ball cap studied the sign on the wall above my head and slowly read the words aloud. “All you need in this world is good drive and a big ego. Brains don’t mean crap. – Captain Tony Tarracino”. Tony was owner of Cap’n Tonys Bar in Key West, and the good captain’s wisdom was clearly lost on the drifter who was three beers into a lazy afternoon.

View from the bathroom window in the tropics

The world separates quickly into haves and have nots – the haves with self-determination and a mentality of abundance, the have nots with a feeling that others control their decisions, resigned to their unlucky fates. They’re both probably right.

In the 1930’s Cap’n Tonys was Sloppy Joe’s, the room that Hemingway came to for a cool spot with gin. The name moved around the corner to Duvall for the turistas, but the room stayed behind and remained the same. I’m at a back table of the old place with a view of the street parade and a lime wedge floating in an adult beverage that Papa Hemingway would have approved of. The bar is home to a mix of locals that would make a plausible reality show cast. I’m tempted to roll a quarter across the floor for entertainment – there would be a shoving match and a punch thrown before the new owner would be decided.

It’s about the same with how people are hired around here – a contest for something of low value that isn’t contested fairly. I’m here to finish the writing of my book.  I have been talking with the hiring managers of the local hotels and can report that they feel the work ethic around here is lousy. That’s the clean word. They are constantly hiring and firing, and the level of quality keeps circling a little closer to the drain. My main point of raising the bar is interesting to them, but they are caught in the employment death spiral and are not willing to make the first move. Too bad – the first one to move to “Next steps” will take the high ground and have a big – and I do mean big – competitive advantage.

I am here at the Cap’ns because of my reverence for Hemingway. He remains bigger than life, and I like the clarity with which he lived his life. Clearly, he would not have succeeded as an employee. Artists seldom do. Maslow got it right – artists are fully self-actualized and do not respond to the motivators of the “normal world”. Case in point – Bruce Springsteen would never make the final cut in American Idol. This is clearly a cultural disconnect that must be fixed.

Late night scooter action on Duvall Street

Back to work on the book.  The TV in the background has another pundit talking about the health insurance reform that is close to passage in the Senate.  It appears headed for passage, and nobody is talking about some of the impact the new insurance rules will have on organizational culture.  I’m working my thoughts into Chapter 3…

Back to channeling Hemingway.  Happy Holidays, and to all a good night.

News Flash – CFOs are angry about health benefits

I wish you could have been there.  The monthly meeting of the CFO Roundtable started and ended on Health Insurance Reform.  The meeting had not been convened, and the anger boiled over and took off.   Everyone vented their frustration over how medical benefits are handled, and how the reform process is going.  Or not going.

Wellness plans?  They were suspicious.  Hospitals?  They were hostile.   Prescription drug plans?  I’m running out of bad words.  Once the venting was over, everyone looked at each other and agreed on two key points.  First, the principles of insurance are based on the concept of sharing a risk.  Second, insurance works best when everyone is in the pool.

My prediction?  The real health insurance reform will happen in a few years, when the anger and fiduciary control of CFOs intersect, and they stop buying group health plans.  The challenge is to head off that anger and resolve the issue first.  Right now, that is being done (poorly) in Washington.  We need to do better….

This is important. The Feds are testing Facebook.

Ten red balloons from the Pentagon are evidence of the next  step for Facebook.  This news is either very scary or very exciting.  You pick.

We are starting to get a picture of where will social networks be used, when they mature.  Watch the government, and how they start to use new channels and ideas.   Above the constant noise of being reminded that we must participate in social networks is the harsh reality of short attention spans and crushing work loads.  Many are taking a wait and see approach.   Not me.   I am in the social networking gene pool with both feet, and am paying attention to where it is going.

It isn’t mature yet.  Baby steps.  I have been encouraging everyone to stick a toe in the water.  Some are reporting problems.  One friend reports that after building a good set of followers in Twitter, his account was hacked and everyone started getting spam on the channel.  Not just spam, but offensive spam.  He is a senior communications manager at a national firm.  Not good.  I assure him these are teething problems.

Now, for the balloons.

There are 10 of these - find 'em all and win!

You may know of DARPA.  It’s the Department of Defense.  The full name is Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and it was created as a reaction to the Russkies launching Sputnik.  DARPA started what would become the Internet.  When DARPA gets interested in Facebook, we should pay attention.  Well, they just did.

In their project, which just ended a few hours ago, they did something clever.  They recently announced the Network Challenge to mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet. They said that the  competition was meant to explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.

What DARPA did a few days ago was tether 10 red weather balloons marked with numbers in random sites scattered all over the US. The first person or group who could use social networking tools to identify the latitudes and longitudes of the 10 balloons across the continental U.S. was promised$40,000.

How long did it take for ad hoc groups to form?  Minutes.  How long till all 10 balloons were identified?  About 9 hours.  Wow.  Read the press release here.  The winning group’s page that explains how they did it is here. A news story with a good summary is here.

What does this all mean?  The important lesson is that social networking is important enough to be taken seriously by the Pentagon.  On the good side, it clearly indicates that those of us who study and advance the use of these new tools are clearly not wasting our time.  On the bad side, the Pentagon is getting involved.

Scary.

Simple pleasures

I may be speaking next week on “Work/Life Balance” to a room of business types.

If so, I will be quoting Jack Welch at the SHRM conference…”There is no such thing as work/life balance.  Only Work/Life Choices”  His point was that they are mutually exclusive – either you are working or you have a personal life.  Not both.

I disagree.  Strongly.

I am reminded by my life to be fully present in the moment, and to find moments of balance while I work.  Right now is a good example.  I am changing planes at Midway, and am flanked on either side by grim faced suits with irritated looks and well-worn Crackberries.

I am looking out the window at a morning scene with jets, and in the foreground is one of my favorite foods in the world, a real Chicago dog.  With everything.

The suits?  They are focused on shipping 30 metric tons of bauxite to somewhere before Christmas.  Or whatever.  I think I am more in balance.  I choose to focus on the here, the now, and the hot dog.  “Make me one with everything”

Still life with Hot Dog

High Performers Are Starting to Move

The migration begins.  Get ready to pick up some talent.

High performing employees have been hunkered down since last October (October 8th, 2008 to be exact.  4:00 pm EST to be even more exact.  That is when Lehman Brothers declared bankrupcy)

I offer as proof the current “leading edge” job listings at Amazon HQ for top talent in recruiting.  If you work in Lean, you watch Toyota.  If you work in staffing, you watch Amazon and Google.

To quote Amazon themselves – “We currently have the following positions open in our Seattle Corporate offices:

• Manager, Talent Acquisition (Digital/Kindle team)
• Recruiting Manager, University Programs
• Sr. Recruiter – University Recruiting
• Sr. Recruiter – Human Resources
• MBA Recruiter
• Technical Sourcing Recruiter, Seller Services
• Sales Sourcing Recruiter, Seller Services
• Sourcing Recruiter – Digital
• Recruiting Coordinator – Digital
• Compliance Leader, OFCCP

You can review any of the positions at: www.amazon.com/careers”

This is big. I interpret that this significant recruiting hire is the first sign of spring – that Amazon wants their team in place to harvest the best of the flood of high performers that will be coming out of the woodwork in the Spring.

As I’m writing my book about the coming talent shortage (and what to do about it) I am pleased to see the first signs of the thaw.

I have my opinions – what other signs do you see?