Big ideas from the world of business books

Register online for 2012 Media Relations Summer Camp

Register online for the 2012 Media Relations Summer Camp. The camp, being held July 10 and July 12 at the Hamilton Spectator, is offered free of charge to nonprofits and community groups in Greater Hamilton. Application deadline is June 15. Up to 12 organizations will be selected to attend the camp, with up to 2 campers each. Selections will be based on the strength of the story idea proposed in the registration.

Campers need to commit to 3 things:

Attend both days (9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.).

Actively participate.

Promise not to pitch stories about cutting ribbons with giant scissors, accepting giant fake cheques, group photos of people in suits wearing hard hats and holding shiny new shovels or your next gala dinner, garage sale, golf tournament or dance-a-thon / bowl-a-thon.

Media relations summer camp July 10 & 12 for Greater Hamilton nonprofits & community groups

We're looking to start spreading the news about community builders who are making Hamilton an even better place to call home. 

The 2012 media relations summer camp takes place Tuesday, July 10 and Thursday, July 12 at The Hamilton Spectator. It's a free-of-charge, hands-on crash course in media relations for nonprofits, community groups and associations. With help from seasoned PR pros turned counsellors, campers will polish, practice and then pitch story ideas to reporters and editors. Campers will also get primers in social media and writing op-eds and a contact list of local media. Previous summer camps have resulted in front page stories in The Hamilton Spectator.

Up to 12 organizations will be selected for this year's camp. Priority will go to groups and organizations that have yet to receive much, if any, media coverage for innovative solutions that are building a stronger, healthier, more resilient and prosperous Hamilton.

Campers will need to attend both days. Camp will run approximately from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. with lunch provided.

An online application form will be available early next week with a mid-June deadline. The application will be promoted through Twitter at #hamont. 

For more information on the media relations summer camp, contact Jane Allison, Community Relations Manager with The Hamilton Spectator, at jallison@thespec.com or Jay Robb, Director of Communications for Mohawk College, at jay.robb@mohawkcollege.ca.

Book review: The Start-Up of You

This review first ran in the May 22nd edition of The Hamilton Spectator.

The Start-Up of You

By Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha

Crown Business

$31

Showcasing our city’s start-up superheroes was one of the best suggestions to come out of this month’s Hamilton Economic Summit.

Recognizing our hometown innovators and entrepreneurs is a smart move on two fronts.

First, these are the folks who are taking big risks and working long hours to launch businesses, create jobs and build prosperity. They deserve a turn in the spotlight and a show of support.

Showcasing our start-up superheroes will also benefit the rest of us in our own careers. Even if we have no interest in launching a business, everyone needs to start thinking and acting like entrepreneurs. Our careers depend on it.

“To adapt to the challenges of professional life today, we need to rediscover our entrepreneurial instincts and use them to forge new sorts of careers,” say authors Ben Casnocha and Reid Hoffman, the cofounder and chairman of LinkedIn. “You need to think of yourself as an entrepreneur at the helm of at least one living, growing start-up venture: your career.”

Like an entrepreneur, you need to know how to deal with uncertainty, constant change and constraint.  You need to know how to take stock of your assets, aspirations and market realities to find your competitive advantage. You need to create flexible, iterative career plans.  You need to build networks of relationships to help you along the way. You need to aggressively seek out, capitalize on and create break-out opportunities. You need to take, and know how to manage, risks.

These entrepreneurial strategies are valuable no matter your career stage, according to Hoffman and Casnocha. “They are urgent whether you’re just out of college, a decade into the workforce and angling for that next big move, or launching a brand-new career later in life.”

We need to forever be a start-up in permanent beta. “Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more in our lives and careers. Keeping your career in permanent beta forces you to acknowledge that you have bugs, that there’s new development to do on yourself.”

Hoffman and Casnocha recommend you embrace ABZ career planning. Plan A is what you’re doing today. Plan B is the career you pivot to when you need to change either your goal or the route for getting there. Plan B tends to be in the same ballpark and related field as your Plan A. And once you’ve moved to Plan B, that becomes your new Plan A and you need line up another Plan B.

Plan Z is your fallback position and lifeboat.  “What’s your certain, reliable, stable plan if all your career plans go to hell or if you want to do a major life change?”

With any luck, you’ll never need your Plan Z. But expect to move back and forth between Plan A and Plan B because, like any true entrepreneur, you’ll be quick to adjust, change course and capitalize on opportunities.

Gone are the days of guaranteed lifetime employment. The skills you have today will likely be redundant tomorrow. We’re all part of a global economy where technology is driving rapid change, creating, reinventing and killing off entire industries without a whole lot of advance warning.

And if that wasn’t enough to stoke your entrepreneurial spirit, know that there are lots of people who can and want to have your dream job. You need to outsmart and outhustle the competition.

“The gap is growing between those who know the new career rules and have the new skills of a global economy, and those who clutch to old ways of thinking and rely on commoditized skills,” say Hoffman and Casnocha. “The question is, which are you?”

100 media relations rules

Download 100 Media Relations Rules

Lessons learned & words of wisdom from PR pros and journalists       

@jayrobb

1. Always start your pitch with a clear & compelling answer to the question WSIC – why should I care?
2. Anchor and build your pitch around a person with a compelling story that we can relate to
3. Accept that the media have no obligation to promote or cover your latest fundraiser or gala
4. Make it as easy as possible for the media to tell your story
5. Reporters want two things – they want a great quote and they want to go home on time (don’t keep them waiting)
6. Never lie to cover up bad news. Your lie becomes the bigger story while trust and respect take a hit with reporters
7. When serving up a quote, be bold, be brief and then be quiet.
8. Reporters aren’t out to get you. But they generally don’t suffer fools gladly.
9. If a reporter gets it wrong odds are you didn’t get it right in being clear, concise and easily understood.
10. If you pitch a story to the press, make sure you’re around to pick up the phone if they call.
11. When pitching a story, a three-sentence email is always better than a three-page fax.
12. Pitching a reporter who’s on deadline is not a good way to build a good working relationship.
13. Know that good editors and news directors will always side with their reporters when they’re in the right.
14. Never ask to approve a reporter’s story before it’s filed. That’s the editor’s job.
15. Showing up unannounced at a newsroom to pitch a story doesn’t work. And it sets off alarm bells.
16. Never ask the reporter to send you a copy of the story once it’s run. Make the effort to get it yourself.
17. Threatening to pull advertising if a story runs guarantees it will and your relations with the reporter are shot.
18. After talking with a reporter for 30 minutes, never a good idea to say “but don’t quote me on that or use my name”.
19. A giant fake cheque presentation is never news.
20. Know that the reporter at your daily paper didn’t write the headline that went with your story.
21. If you can’t comment, say why (HR matter, investigation underway).
22. Don’t be a fair weather friend – be accessible whether the reporter’s working on a good news or bad news story.
23. Read, watch and listen to the media you’re pitching stories to.
24. Know that your snarky, ALL CAPS rant to a reporter will be forwarded to the entire newsroom (same for late night phone calls)
25. Include the agenda and times with event invites so reporters don’t waste 60 minutes watching you eat a rubber chicken dinner.
26. The ideal op-ed (opposite editorial) is 750 words with one big idea, three supporting facts and a close that has a call to action.
27. Unless you have really big news to announce, don’t waste your time holding a news conference.
28. The best interviews with reporters are like two-way conversations and not Q&A sessions or cross-examinations.
29. When a crisis hits and media call, acknowledge the problem and highlight your solution to fix and avoid a repeat.
30. First three questions to ask a reporter – when’s your deadline, what’s your story angle and who else are you talking to?
31. Cutting ribbons with giant scissors is not news.
32. When pitching a good news story, put a real client / patient / student front and centre to tell your story.
33. Boardrooms are boring. So too are office cubicles. Get out to the frontlines for photos and video. Makes for a far better backdrop.
34. Who in your organization has the most compelling story? That’s the poster child to build your pitch around.
35. Charity golf tournaments are not news, even with big name celebrities teeing off.
36. Before talking with a reporter, nail down a clear, concise and compelling key message.
37. Reporters are not obligated to publicize your fundraiser, no matter how slow ticket sales may be.
38. Never bait and switch. The story you pitch to the media is the story you talk with reporters about if they follow up.
39. It’s never about you. Your pitch is about the people you serve and how you’re making their lives easier and our community better.
40. Don’t pitch a story until you can pitch your big idea in one sentence (and not a run-on sentence).
41. If you don’t like the media, do yourself and your organization a favour. Change jobs.
42. Pitching a story to everyone in a newsroom all but guarantees that no one will run with it.
43. Pitch the right story to the right reporter. The court reporter is not likely to do a story on your new community garden.
44. Anticipate the tough questions reporters could ask. These questions shouldn’t be a mystery.
45. Your job is to pitch what your story is about. The reporter’s job is to decide the best way to tell the story.
46. Every good news story is a deposit in your organization’s trust and forgiveness account. You never want a negative balance.
47. When a reporter asks a negative question, don’t repeat the question in your answer.
48. Before demanding a correction, ask yourself if anyone else cares that you’re a director and not a manger as reported.
49. Read Ryerson Review of Journalism cover to cover. Best magazine on media trends and personalities.
50. Never corner and pitch stories to reporters who are off the clock and spending time with their families.
51. Earn a reputation as a resident expert on a specific topic. Be accessible, knowledgeable and quotable.
52. Package your pitch with one to two folks from your organization, a 3^rd party expert plus some key facts and stats.
53. Always fire off an email thanking reporters for their coverage and highlighting how their stories made a difference.
54. Be as forthright with bad news as you are when news is good.
55. You’re not a reporter’s friend. You’re a resource for the reporter. Don’t confuse the two.
56. Tell the story about how your organization has a proven solution to a big challenge facing your organization.
57. Meeting a reporter’s deadline is good. Beating a reporter’s deadline? Even better.
58. 20-second answers work best for TV and radio. Any shorter or longer and you’ve served up an unworkable soundbite.
59. Steer clear of anyone who asks you to pay for advertising that’s dressed up and disguised as news.
60. It might work for your kids but badgering a reporter over and over again to run your story doesn’t work.
61. Run away from any PR consultant who offers to blast your story idea to 1,000+ reporters. It’s called spam and no one reads it. Although you’ll pay for it.
62. Beware the pregnant pause. Don’t ramble to fill the silence after your answer and the reporter’s next question. This is where many folks stray off message.
63. Taking shots at reporters in speeches might get you cheap laughs but it will definitely make you seem thin-skinned.
64. Use this pre-interview briefing template from Heather Whaling with Geben Communications.
65. Don’t know the answer to a reporter’s question? Say so. Never guess. Get back to the reporter when you have the answer.
66. For good or bad, how you respond to a crisis will become the story.
67. Get in front of bad news as fast as you can. And focus on what your organization is doing to avoid a repeat performance.
68. What if no one shows up? First question to ask if someone helpfully suggests “let’s hold a press conference!”.
69. Make your story pitches hyperbole free. Strip out all adjectives and adverbs. And never use the word “gamechanging”.
70. Read and then reread Damage Control by Eric Dezenhall and John Weber. Best book on crisis management.
71. Avoid doing any interview cold. If a reporter calls out of the blue, buy yourself 30-60 minutes to prepare.
72. Get right to the point with your pitch. Say the most with the least amount of words possible.
73. Do not call reporters three minutes after emailing your story pitch to see if they got your email.
74. For an event or announcement at 10 a.m., don’t send out your media invites at 9:45 a.m.
75. Don’t speculate on the motives, intentions or thoughts of others. Have a reporter talk to that person themselves.
76. When sending out a media release, include contact information for follow-up (you’d be surprised how often this doesn’t happen).
77. Don’t email attachments with your pitches. Include links to web-posted information instead.
78. If you have big news to announce, try an editorial board meeting instead of a news conference.
79. Never promise a reporter what you can’t deliver (interview with a client / patient / senior exec / employee).
80. Know when to shut up.
81. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. is the sweet spot for events and announcement when you’re hoping for media coverage.
82. If your organization only gets bad news, don’t blame the media. Do a better job of pitching good news story ideas.
83. Just because your cause is worthy doesn’t mean it’s automatically newsworthy.
84. Make it easy for the reporter to pitch your story to their editor / producer.
85. TV needs great visuals. Radio needs great sound.
86. Skip the swag. Reporters don’t need trinkets and trash. They want compelling stories.
87. Don’t call the newsroom and ask to talk with a reporter. Do your homework. Know who to talk with.
88. When making your pitch, reference related stories the reporter has filed.
89. Quality trumps quantity. Be known for pitching good story ideas. Reporters will look for what you send. Less likely to automatically hit delete.
90. Be a gracious host when a reporter pays a visit. If you charge for parking, comp it.
91. Is it new, the first ever or unusual? Lots of people affected? Compelling human interest story? That’s news.
92. Best litmus test for clear messaging – will your mom understand what you’re saying? And will she care?
93. Assume everything is on the record. Don’t talk for 20 minutes and then say but don’t quote me on that.
94. A website refresh or launch of a Twitter feed and Facebook page for your organization is not news.
95. A picky point but it’s called a media release and not a press release. Radio and TV don’t use printing presses.
96. Have check against delivery copies of speeches and remarks on hand for reporters (a bonus if you can email the speeches in advance).
97. Don’t put exclamation marks in your email tips and pitches to reporters! Doesn’t make it more newsworthy!
98. Don’t take it personally when a reporter postpones or cancels your interview to cover breaking news.
99. Refusing to talk with a reporter won’t kill a story. Good reporters always find someone else to interview.
100. When you come across a great story that's not about your organization, pass the tip along to a reporter.

Book review: Return on influence by Mark Schaefer

This review first ran in the May 7 edition of The Hamilton Spectator.

Return on Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring and Influence Marketing

By Mark Schaefer

McGraw-Hill

I’m influential when it comes to magic.

So says Klout, a company that measures our online influence by pulling data from social networks like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

I’m not sure where the data is coming from.

I’ve never tweeted about magic. Never followed a magician, fired off a link to a magic video or joined a discussion group for aspiring magicians.

Truth is, I enjoy magicians about as much as mimes.

When watching talent shows, I cheer when the magician bores the judges, blows the trick and makes an early exit. And I feel bad for the wife or girlfriend who, out of desperation or denial, stands by her man in a bedazzled bikini.

While I’ve yet to tweet about magic, I’ve offered up more than 50 rules on how to pitch stories to reporters.

I’ve also shared some reasons to love Hamilton beyond bike lanes, food trucks and James St. North.

I’m not sure any of these tweets make me influential. But I know beyond a doubt that Klout is finding ways to sell this information to a growing roster of 3,000 corporate clients that include Nike, Disney and Virgin America.

Author and business consultant Mark Schaefer says status-ranking companies like Klout are at the forefront of a new marketing gold rush. “For the first time, the world’s biggest brands have a way to cost-effectively and rapidly identify, connect with, and nurture customers who are their megaconnectors in niche markets.”

Citizen influencers with high Klout scores get showered with swag and treated like VIPs. With more than 2,000 followers on Twitter, Valentina Monte is one of those citizen influencers that companies covet. Monte got a $10 gift card from Subway. She tweeted and took pictures when she got her card and ordered her sandwich. She checked in with Foursquare while she was Subway. Friends retweeted and tweeted Monte. Subway got a lot of mileage out of a $10 gift card.

But Klout cuts both ways. There’s the cautionary tale of a marketing exec who got called out on his low Klout score during an job interview. The job went to a candidate with a higher score.

“To many, this whole trend is starting to feel a lot like high school,” says Schaefer. “The people with high Klout scores are the cool kids. But in addition to the very emotional and visceral reactions of being rated in a public way, there are many legitimate concerns about the social scoring trend, privacy, the underlying methodology and its implications.”

Of course, there’s an underground economy of cheating and gaming the algorithm used by Klout to set scores.  On eBay, you can buy false Twitter accounts preloaded with thousands of followers. There’s autoposting, tweet blitzes, spam bots and fake Foursquare mayorships.

If you want to improve your Klout score without cheating, Schaefer recommends three steps. Build a relevant network by choosing wisely who to follow.  Have a strategy to provide compelling, value-added content. And engage influencers with high scores who will distribute your content to their networks.

“We are entering the age of the Citizen Influencer, in which every person has a chance to get behind the velvet rope and be treated like a rock star. You too can discover the power of your own return on influence. And in fact, many companies already have.”

@jayrobb works and lives in Hamilton and has a Klout score just shy of  40.

Book review: Leave No Doubt by Mike Babcock

Leave No Doubt: A Credo For Chasing Your Dreams

By Mike Babcock

Everyone wants to be on a winning team.

Yet some of us are satisfied with being just good enough.

Good enough gets us by. Good enough keeps things comfortable and familiar.  Good enough lets us play it safe.

But settling for just good enough should make you afraid. Very, very afraid.

Somewhere out there is a competitor who’s not settling. Someone who’s relentlessly driven to get better and become the best. Someone who’s constantly learning, testing and pushing their limits and taking risks.

Detroit Red Wings bench boss Mike Babcock is no fan of just good enough.  He says it’s his one fear and motivator. 

“That fear keeps me activated,” says Babcock, the only hockey coach to lead teams to Stanley Cub, World Championship and Olympic Games victories. “It keeps me grinding to get better. It’s a fear that has helped me take every step in my career.”

Babcock says it’s a good kind of fear, one that doesn’t paralyze or wear you out. “It can push you to break through and hit your potential – to make a difference. It can push you to a success that at first seems unreachable. Good enough is where you find average.”

The drive to be better is where you find and realize your potential. It’s where the fun is. It’s where you come up big, be a gamechanger, get to your dreams and find joy.

And it’s a fear that can get you to the podium for an Olympic gold medal.  Not settling for good enough was part of the credo that Babcock and long-time friend and ad exec Rick Larsen came up with for Team Canada in 2010. The credo hung in the dressing room throughout the two weeks of the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Leading off that credo was leave no doubt.

“Doubt is the biggest energy-taker there is. It eats away at our emotional core. It drains us of mental energy and physical energy. It demoralizes, distracts and demotivates. A lot of people say ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’. But they never do.”

Babcock says if you’re feeling doubt, go first. Jump in and give it a go. Putting yourself out there is a great way to learn and grow. And the more you push, the more you grow.

 Babcock faced a world of doubt in 1993. He’d just been fired from the Moose Jaw Warriors of the Western Hockey League. He and his wife had a three-month-old baby, no money in the bank and few job prospects. 

But then Babcock got two offers. One was with a business consulting firm. The other was with the University of Lethbridge, coaching a hockey team that had never made the playoffs and was at risk of being shut down.

The consulting gig offered more money, stability and a clear career path.

Babcock pushed past doubt and took the coaching gig.  In his first season, the Lethbridge Pronghorns won their first national championship. Babcock went on to coach the WHL Spokane Chiefs, the Canadian team at the World Junior Championships, the American Hockey League Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, the National Hockey League Anaheim Mighty Ducks and Detroit Red Wings.

“I’m not sure that anybody would have looked at me in 1993 as I began my stint as the head coach of the University of Lethbridge, and figured me a good bet to be the head coach of Canada’s hockey team at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Then again, if you put yourself out there, if you take a risk and face your doubt, good things can start to happen. I’m living proof of that. Don’t doubt your dreams.”

Anyone who’s leading a team on or off the ice will learn something from one of the best coaches in the business. That said, Babcock should have taken his own advice and hired an editor who wasn’t just good enough. While Babcock sings the praises of Shea Webster, odds are his Red Wings will break the bank to make defenseman Shea Weber their top free-agent acquisition this off-season.

@jayrobb works and lives in Hamilton and is a long-suffering Washington Capitals fan.

Book review: Speaking as a Leader

An edited version of this review ran in the April 9 edition of The Hamilton Spectator.

Speaking as a Leader: How to Lead Every Time You Speak

By Judith Humphrey

John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd.

$27.95

I went to a conference in Washington last month to learn how to write better speeches.

As an added bonus, I got a two-day master class in how to give a great speech. The conference featured keynotes by three seasoned speechwriters who proved they’re as good on the podium as they are with a pen (kudos to Mark Schumann, Justina Chen and Terry Edmonds -- the first African American to serve as a presidential speechwriter).

All three made an immediate and sustained connection with the audience. They were absolutely passionate about the craft of speechwriting. Their speeches were well-rehearsed conversations that didn’t feel scripted or staged. They told stories and shared lessons learned with a healthy mix of self-deprecating humour.

Just as impressive is what these speakers didn’t do.  They didn’t inflict death by PowerPoint. They didn’t bore us and bury us in a data dump. They didn’t limit themselves to telling us what they knew. They told with us what they believed.

And perhaps most important of all, they knew they were on stage as much to inspire as to inform.

In short, these keynote speakers communicated like leaders.

“The most effective leaders use every speaking opportunity to influence and inspire,” says author Judith Humphrey, who’s also the founder and president of an executive communications firm. “They make every formal speech, presentation, phone call, or elevator conversation a leadership opportunity. They realize that their power lies less in any title they hold than in their ability to move others. They realize that the true task of a leader is to create believers.”

Great leaders stick to a script, says Humphrey.  That script leads off with an introduction that includes a grabber, subject, message and structural statement. 

To grab the attention of your audience, share a story, quote or interesting fact or stat. Then state the subject. What do you want to talk about?  The message spells out where you stand on the topic in a single, simple sentence.  The introduction closes with a structural statement that previews how you’ll make your case and prove your point.

The introduction is followed by the body of your script.  Here’s where you set out your arguments. You can run through three key points. Talk about the challenge and then offer your solution. Look at the present and preview what the future could hold.

The leader’s script ends with a two-part conclusion. You restate your message and then issue a call to action. What do you want people to do next?

Humphrey says the script will help transform your audience into followers, and your speaking into an act of leadership.

Along with sticking to a script, great leaders speak with conviction. They’re passionate, authentic, courageous and honest in their communications.  They use small and simple words to sell big ideas.

Great leaders look to the positive, focusing on solutions rather than problems. “Negatives bring people down, rather than lifting them up. If you want to lead when you speak, stay on the high ground.”

Great leaders listen physically, mentally and emotionally to secure a lifeline to their audience. “You must understand precisely what concerns and motivates your listeners or they will never follow you. You must get inside the minds of your audience and shape what you say so that it reaches them.”

Great leaders don’t paste jokes onto the front end of their communications. “Great speeches, presentations and meeting comments are not dull. They are enlivened with wit, quotations and anecdotes. But they do not rely on canned humour or tired jokes.” Count on at least someone in the audience taking offense or not getting your humour. And few of us have the comedic timing to pull off a joke.

Great leaders also recognize that they’re the best visual. They want their audience to watch and listen without distraction. The danger with PowerPoint – even when it’s a handful of slick slides with killer graphics – is that you divide your audience’s attention. Minds can wander and never return.

“When speakers use visuals, they create competition for the audience’s attention. The audience must divide its focus looking at the visual and listening to you. Your visuals get star billing; what you are saying finishes a distant second in the audience’s mind.”

Humphrey’s point was underscored at the speechwriters’ conference. One of the presenters talked about the wonders of using video in speeches. But technical snafus derailed the video-heavy presentation, rattled the speaker and lost the audience. While that’s all I can remember from that session, I have no trouble recalling the big ideas, inspiring words and passion from the trio of keynote speakers who showed how it’s done.

@jayrobb works in Hamilton and dreams of living in Georgetown.

Book review: Hiring for Attitude

Hiring For Attitude

By Mark Murphy

McGraw Hill

$30.95

Beware the Talented Terrors.

On paper and at first blush, these low performers look like all-stars. They have smarts, great skills and loads of talent. 

But they also have horrible attitudes. They’re relentlessly negative. Quick to blame anyone and everyone. Resistant to change. And forever in need of constant praise and recognition.

These folks are the emotional vampires of the workplace, sucking the life out of managers and coworkers.

Chances are you’re already cursed with a coven of Talented Terrors. You definitely don’t need more. So why do you keep hiring them?

Lots of us are quick to hire candidates who can do the job and have the right skills, experience and credentials. They’ve held plum jobs, won awards and graduated from A-list schools.

But when it comes to making their mark or making you crazy, the top predictor of new hire success is attitude and not skills.

“Even the best skills don’t really matter if an employee isn’t open to improving or consistently alienates coworkers, lacks drive, or simply lacks the right personality to succeed in that culture,” says author and CEO of Leadership IQ Mark Murphy.

“Your organization’s culture, and the attitudes required to succeed in that culture, are unique. The right attitudes that define a high performer will vary from culture to culture.”

 Murphy’s company tracked 20,000 new hires over three years. Within the first 18 months, 46 per cent of those hires were fired, received poor performance reviews or were written up. Coachability, emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament accounted for 89 per cent of the failures. Just 11 per cent was attributed to technical incompetence.

“Overwhelmingly, the characteristics that define mishires are attitudinal,” says Murphy. The attitudes of the new hire and the culture of the organization didn’t mesh.

To bring fewer mishires and more high performers on board, ask better questions during job interviews.

 “Most interview questions are useless for assessing attitude and some can even put your company at legal risk,” says Murphy.

Ask a candidate to “tell us about yourself” and “identify your top strengths and weaknesses” and you get nothing but well-rehearsed and canned answers that reveal nothing about attitude.

Even worse are leading questions. You telegraph the answer you’re looking for when you ask a candidate “tell us about a conflict with a coworker and how you resolved it.”

Talented Terrors don’t play well with others and blame everyone but themselves for strained and broken relations. But your leading question prompts them to talk about the one time they kissed and made up with a coworker and sidestep the 499 other unresolved conflicts that have forced them to pursue other opportunities.

Here’s another popular leading question. Tell us about a time when something went wrong and what did you do to help fix the problem?

With their above average smarts, the prompted Talented Terror won’t fall into the trap of dissing her boss and coworkers and saying that messes are for other people to clean up. 

“Leading questions rob you of your chance to find out if someone is a problem bringer or a problem solver,” says Murphy.

Ask high performers about problems they’ve faced and they instinctively talk about how they rolled up their sleeves, stuck with it and came up with a solution. Low performers don’t share that instinct, opting instead to point fingers, duck responsibility and walk away.

The always popular hypothetical question doesn’t reveal what candidates have done in real life and generates only idealized answers. “There’s a big difference between knowing the path and walking the path,” says Murphy.

Low performers love to talk in generalities and abstractions, with a lot of “one should do this” and “one should do that”. High performers will speak in specifics, drawing from personal experience, saying “here’s what I did in a very similar situation.”

And then there are the utterly useless questions that don’t assess attitudes or differentiate high from low performers.

Inane questions like tell us what you do for fun. How are M&Ms made? Why are manhole covers round and how many are there in downtown Hamilton? Which of the seven dwarfs would you be? What kind of animal or tree would you be? What’s the last book you read or movie you watched?

These pseudo-psychological questions aren’t just timewasters.

They throw open the door to potential legal problems, warns Murphy. What if a candidate says the last book she read was Practicing Your Faith as a Litigious Bisexual Wiccan Cancer Patient?  

Murphy recommends a different approach for filtering out your Talented Terrors. Rewrite your interview questions. Start by defining the specific attitudes that define your culture and matter most to your organization. What are the attitudes of your high and low performers, your problem solvers and problem givers?  

Now create real world situations built around the attitudes that predict success and failure in your organization.  Five or six questions are all you’ll need. And make sure you ask only hanging questions.

“The ultimate test of a great interview question is the extent to which it differentiates between high and low performers.

So here’s a question that works if your organization values initiative, risk taking, entrepreneurial thinking and problem solving.

Could you tell me about a time you tried to fix or improve something but your solution just didn’t work?

High performers will tell you about why the solution didn’t work, accept personality responsibility and then recap how they searched for and ultimately found a better solution.

Low performers won’t get past the finger-pointing and casting themselves as victims.

And here’s an actual response from a low performer. “I was going to fix it my way, but then my boss had some supposedly brilliant idea for fixing it. Of course, it failed, just like I knew it would. Although it probably doesn’t really matter, because even if he had used my idea, God knows I wouldn’t have gotten credit for it anyway.”

This is not the sort of person you’d ever want to hire and spend eight hours a day with. But if you don’t ask the right questions, you run the real risk of continuing to hire and getting stuck with the wrong people who have the wrong attitudes.

“Whether you’re hiring your next hourly employee, your next CEO or something in between, attitude will likely be the issue that determines success or failure.”

 

Book review: Succeeding When You're Supposed to Fail by Rom Brafman

This review was originally published in The Hamilton Spectator.

Succeeding When You’re Supposed to Fail: The Six Principles of High Achievement

By Rom Brafman

Crown Archetype

$25.95

One of the most resilient people I know just happens to be my kid sister.

Ellie was only 11 years old when our dad suddenly died. They’d been inseparable. My dad had summers off so most of every July and August was spent at the beach. He was proud of his daughter and no doubt grateful and relieved that she had the smarts and focus that appeared to be missing in his two older yet somewhat less mature sons.

A few years after losing her husband, our mom decided to start over. So Ellie said goodbye to her hometown friends and moved from a big city to a very small town with an even smaller high school. 

Now, my sister could have opted to become a sullen, miserable and rebellious teenager. Had she strayed from the straight and narrow, hid from the world and made some stupid choices, we would have understood and given her a free pass.

Instead, Ellie met the nicest boy from that very small town. Her grades were so good in high school that I wondered if there’d been a mix up in the maternity ward and she’d accidentally wound up with our family. Ellie graduated from high school with top marks and went on to university. She earned scholarships and research grants, served as a student leader and reluctantly became one of the poster children for the university’s nationwide marketing and recruitment campaign.

And when Ellie completes her PhD in a few months time, I’ll get to call my kid sister Dr. Robb.

Author Rom Brafman would also call my sister a tunneler. “Working as a psychologist, I have had the privilege of interacting with a number of clients who are tunnelers. When they relate the difficulties in their lives, which are often filled with unimaginable hardships, I’m constantly intrigued by their ability to fight through their difficulties and surmount the challenges that would keep most people back. What allows them to go on to lead extremely successful lives – to graduate from college, form loving relationships and lead successful careers?

“When I bring this to their attention and ask them how or why they think it is that they were able to overcome their disadvantages, they are puzzled. They don’t realize they are tunnelling or doing anything out of the ordinary. But as we spend more time together, it becomes increasingly evident that they lead their lives differently from most of us.”

And how they lead their lives reveals what Brafman calls the six enduring principles of high achievement. The good news is you’d don’t need to graduate from the school of hard knocks to adopt these principles.

“I believe that by embracing these principles, all of us can learn how to better face and overcome adversity in our lives. Instead of giving in to events – no matter how challenging or difficult they may be – we can find ways to work through that adversity and appreciate life and its endless potential to the fullest.”

High achievers point the limelight at themselves rather than the world around them. “They take full responsibility for the events that unfold in their lives, viewing themselves as central participants,” says Brafman. They don’t point fingers, blame others when things go sideways or cast themselves as helpless victims to forces beyond their control.

High achievers have a desire for generating meaning in all aspects of their lives. “An essential aspect of the drive to persevere and overcome the odds involves the extraction of meaning.” They put a premium on engaging in activities that they find fulfilling.

High achievers have an unwavering commitment to persevere and stay the course.  They’re blessed with an even-tempered disposition and don’t get easily worked up or stressed out. They use humour to counteract adversity.

And they have what Brafman calls a satellite. It’s not all inner drive with high achievers. They have someone in their corner who offers what psychologists call unconditional positive regard.

“Think back to any significant challenge you had to overcome in your life. Chances are you can point to a specific individual who was there to support you, whether a mentor, a good friend or a trusted family member. He or she acts as a satellite – someone who is consistently available when needed, who’s there as a point of strength. Knowing that we have someone on our side, someone to whom we can turn whenever we need help, makes enduring life’s burdens a lot easier.”  

Which brings me back to the resilient and high achieving soon-to-be Dr. Robb.  My mom moved to that small town to live a few streets over from her brother and sister-in-law. My aunt and uncle took my kid sister under their wing. They included my sister and mom in winter vacations, family get-togethers and holidays. They went to every graduation ceremony and celebrated every birthday. And when Ellie married the nicest boy from that very small town, it was my uncle who proudly walked my kid sister down the aisle.

Book review: Quiet -- the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking

This review first ran in Feb. 28th edition of The Hamilton Spectator.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

By Susan Cain

Crown Publishers ($28)

Here are five things I know for certain.

I will never be the life of the party.

I will never solve the mystery that is making small talk with strangers.

I will never be accused of talking too much in a meeting.

I will never lose my intense dislike for ice breakers and team building exercises.

And I would never survive more than a week at the Harvard Business School.

Like an estimated 30 to 50 per cent of the population, I’m an introvert. Our ranks include Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, Steven Spielberg and J.K. Rowling, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. And you could make a case for including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama in the club.

While extroverts thrive on constant stimulation and crave the company of others, introverts need time alone to decompress and recharge. No one temperament is better than the other and each has its own set of strengths and weaknesses.

But at work and school, we’ve bought into a value system that author and introvert Susan Cain calls the Extrovert Ideal. It’s an omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha and comfortable in the spotlight.  If you’re not an extrovert and want to get ahead, the message is clear. Fake it.

“The archetypal extrovert prefers action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt,” says Cain. “He favours quick decisions, even at the risk of being wrong. She works well in teams and socializes in groups.

“We like to think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual – the kind who’s comfortable ‘putting himself out there.’ Sure, we allow technologically gifted loners who launch companies in garages to have any personality they please, but they are the exceptions, not the rule, and our tolerance extends mainly to those who get fabulously wealthy or hold the promise of doing so.”

The Extrovert Ideal explains our continuing love affair with old school brainstorming, cross-functional teams and open concept offices. It’s why we believe innovation is social. Creativity is collaborative. And that none of us is as smart as all of us. Groupthink is how author and introvert Susan Cain describes this contemporary phenomenon.

Groupthink can cause your organization no end of grief. “If we assume that quiet and loud people have roughly the same number of good (and bad) ideas, then we should worry if the louder and more forceful people always carry the day,” says Cain. “This would mean that an awful lot of bad ideas prevail while good ones are squashed.”  If you’ve found yourself trapped in a meeting with a room full of extroverts then you already know what the research shows. There is zero correlation between a gift for gab and an ability to come up with great ideas.

And if you want breakthrough innovations, assembling cross-functional dream teams and forcing extroverts and introverts  to spend every working hour together won’t go well, no matter how funky your open concept workspace.  Here’s the advice Stephen Wozniak, the cofounder of Apple, offered in his memoir. “I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has been invented by committee. Work alone. You’re going to be best able to design revolutionary products and features if you’re working on your own. Not on a committee. Not on a team.”

So stop trying to convert your introverts. Don’t tell them to spend less time in their heads. Don’t ding them on performance reviews because they’re not as outgoing as their extroverted colleagues. Along with open spaces for collaboration, give them places where they can close the door, shut out the world and dream up the next big idea for your organization.

Cain recommends organizations should seek out “symbiotic introvert-extrovert relationships”, with leadership and divide other tasks according to people’s natural strengths and temperaments. “The most effective teams are composed of a healthy mix of introverts and extroverts, studies show, and so are many leadership structures.”

If you’re blessed with proactive employees who take initiative, research shows an introverted leader will get you better results.  Management theorist Jim Collins has found that the highest performing companies have leaders who are consistently described as quiet, humble, modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered, self-effacing and understated.

“Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. We don’t need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.”

Along with recapping a whole lot of research, Cain explores the Extrovert Ideal in all its unnerving glory at a Tony Robbins seminar, the 22,000 congregation strong Saddleback Church and Harvard Business School where students are told to “speak with conviction. Even if you believe something only 55 per cent, say it as if you believe it is a 100 per cent.  Don’t think about the perfect answer. It’s better to get out there and say something than to never get your voice in. If you’re preparing alone for class, then you’re doing it wrong.”

Like I said, I wouldn’t last a week.