ValuExecBlog

"Shut up! You had me at hello."

There is a wonderful scene in the movie Jerry Maguire where Jerry, played by Tom Cruise, is standing before his estranged wife, played by Renee Zellweger and he is rambling on about his undying love for her and the fact that she 'completes him.' She stands there in total silence listening to him and then not able to take it any more she blurts out, 'Shut up, just shut up! You had me at hello.' Call me soft, but I love that moment and the comment, 'Shut up! You had me at hello.' For me it was the defining moment of the movie and Cruise's character for that matter because it was at that moment that he actually really connected with her for the first time. The rest was superfluous. And so it is when we connect with others. There is a defining moment when the other party can say 'Shut up! You had me at hello,' and the rest will be superfluous.

'Connecting' as defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary is 'uniting with others in relationship' and must not be confused with the notion of 'touching' which is simply the means of 'coming into contact' with a person and does not imply the formation of a deep relationship. In alignment surveys that we have undertaken with our clients, we have found that one of the biggest barriers to strategy execution and individual performance is a lack of connection that people have with the strategy they are meant to execute as well as the lack of connection they have with their managers. In such instances the employees become disengaged and just go through the motions although their hearts and minds are elsewhere. As a result, strategy execution suffers.

The power of 'connecting' with people became evident to me when a company I was managing a while ago divested of one of its core businesses which as you would expect, created a lot of uncertainty and angst amongst the employees who were afraid of losing their jobs. (As a side bar: The uncertainty was fueled further by the fact that we had heard of the divestiture via the internet and not through company channels.) However despite their underlying fear, we were able to have on of our best years ever. The reason: we were connected with our employees. Their pain was our pain and they knew it.

Managers have opportunities to 'connect' with their employees and customers daily. However, there is one time when the need to connect is of paramount importance and that is on the first day of an individual's employ. Most people that I have spoken to remember the first day that they walked into their company. They remember how they were treated by the receptionist, the HR manager, their manager's PA and their boss. They also remember the actions of their peers throughout the day and whether they were made to feel welcome or unwelcome;  whether they were made to feel included or excluded. Managers that I have spoken to admit however, that they do not spend enough time on that first day trying to connect with their new employee. 

In a nutshell, if your employees or customers aren't able to say, "Shut up! You had me at hello,"  then you are probably not connected.

ian  

Why we need to Topgrade

There is a mistaken belief out there that you can not fill every position in a company with an 'A' player; that to do so would be expensive and border on the insane. Humbug. You can and some companies are close to doing just that through Topgrading.

Last week I was told by a senior manager of a global company that they had a personnel strategy of 'not employing the best people (or 'A' players) in certain roles.' Their definition of whether a person was an 'A' player or not was driven by the role rather than the competence of the person in the role. The trouble with this definition is that it can lead to a mind-set (as evidenced by the senior manager) that non-strategic personnel are by default 'B' players, and accompanied with this mind-set is the added risk that they are treated as such.

That is why companies so desperately need to Topgrade. The fundamental premise of Topgrading is that all roles can and should be filled with 'A' players and research has shown that those companies that have embraced Topgrading have outperformed similar companies in their industry. It's not rocket science - think about it; if you had the best people available at all levels working in your organization, think how well strategy would be executed. In a survey conducted by the Hay Group (UK) amongst 200 Senior and Middle managers in companies with more than 250 employees, '38% of senior managers were 'paralysed' by the ineffectiveness of the people lower down the management line.' Topgrading eliminates that from occuring.

In closing, let me leave you with this thought - GE began Topgrading when Jack Welch was its CEO. If your company is not thinking Topgrading, then it is way behind the ball game and has probably lost the 'war on talent.'

ian

If you are serious about talent

Some time ago I was interviewed for a senior role in a large pharmaceutical company. Why I was there in the first place is of no consequence, but I was. Sitting across the table from me was the HR Director (soon to be promoted into a regional role) and the Finance Director and in front of them both was a list of competencies and questions that had been drawn up for the role and which they were going to ask me. They informed me that they would be playing tag. One would ask a question followed by the other and this would continue until the end of the interview.

The interview was a complete dud and in no way would have provided the interviewers with any indication of how well I could have done the job. In fact, it soon became apparent that their primary goal was to get through the questions rather than see if I could do the job or whether I was a fit for the Company. They did not listen to my responses; they wrote few notes; they did not try and dig underneath the surface. So frustrating was the interview in fact, that I eventually stepped in and coached them as to the questions to ask. Were they going through the motions - yes? Would I have wanted to work there - probably not?

That interview and subsequent 'reference' interviews that I have been exposed to from recruitment companies, have lead me to believe that despite leaders knowing that there is a war for talent going on - companies have been either very slow to embrace methods that will help them win that war or that the message is not getting through to the lower levels within the company or for that matter to the recruitment companies that recruit for them.