YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT. WORK HARD.BE HONEST. BE ON TIME.
CONTRIBUTE. LISTEN. AND CARE.
THINK ABOUT WHO YOU WORK WITH. AND FOR. AND HOW YOU FEEL AT THE END OF THE DAY.
IT’S YOUR COMPANY. IT’S YOUR JOB SECURITY.
IF WE DO THE JOB THIS TIME,WE’RE BACK ON THE JOB THE NEXT TIME.
IT’S ALL ABOUT HAVING THE RIGHT ATTITUDE.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Topgrading
Recruit, Hire and Retain "A" Players - This is the system Jack Welch made famous at GE
http://www.smartandassoc.com/?gclid=CJW-6LysiIsCFQGPWAodLRKlKA
http://www.smartandassoc.com/?gclid=CJW-6LysiIsCFQGPWAodLRKlKA
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Recruiting
This is one of the best examples of high end recruiting I have seen.
So imagine you are sitting at your desk one day and a FedEx parcel arrives for you. Depending on what you do, just this fact might already have you excited, but regardless of your position, if you aren't expecting any deliveries the scene from The Matrix when Neo receives the cell phone from Morpheus has to spring to mind. "What life-altering adventure awaits me when I open this up?".So you open the box and find inside a series of 'Russian Doll' type nested boxes, each more beautiful then the last. Written on each box a section of what appears to be a riddle.Of course, as you open each subsequent box the attention to detail in this package is sure to start to attract attention. Some of your coworkers would certainly be drawn to the affair and hover around to know more.So finally you reach the fifth and last box, open it up, and find an iPod shuffle. But not just any iPod - this one is custom engraved with your name! There is also a small note informing you that a message is waiting for you on the iPod. Red Pill or Blue Pill?So, turning the iPod on reveals a single track -- a personalized message that starts out: "(insert your name here), this is Mark Kern, President of Red 5 Studios and former team lead for World of Warcraft..".Mark Kern is talking to you personally telling you why he thinks you would be the perfect fit for his new company, Red 5, and asking you to get in touch to discuss a potential job offer. And he is doing so in a way that has made you feel like the most valuable developer on the planet, worthy of significant investment in terms of time and energy to do nothing more then get your attention. Finally he has done it in such a way that makes no attempt at hiding his interest to your colleagues and bosses at your current place of employment.So, what would you do? Would you contact him back to discuss further, even if you were extremely happy at your current job?If you answered yes, you aren't alone. A recruitment campaign like this is undeniably flattering and powerful and is likely to have a near 100% response rate (at least in as far as getting in touch, if not necessarily accepting the position). The people at Red 5 who developed this campaign took everything they knew about developers in the game industry (likely to get and appreciate matrix reference. Check. Likely to be impressed by WoW credentials. Check. Likely to be intrigued by the enigma of the whole package and try to unravel the meaning of the riddle thus getting more absorbed in the total package. Check) and wrapped it all into a package that would be impossible to ignore. I am floored by the ingenuity and creativity of it all.
So imagine you are sitting at your desk one day and a FedEx parcel arrives for you. Depending on what you do, just this fact might already have you excited, but regardless of your position, if you aren't expecting any deliveries the scene from The Matrix when Neo receives the cell phone from Morpheus has to spring to mind. "What life-altering adventure awaits me when I open this up?".So you open the box and find inside a series of 'Russian Doll' type nested boxes, each more beautiful then the last. Written on each box a section of what appears to be a riddle.Of course, as you open each subsequent box the attention to detail in this package is sure to start to attract attention. Some of your coworkers would certainly be drawn to the affair and hover around to know more.So finally you reach the fifth and last box, open it up, and find an iPod shuffle. But not just any iPod - this one is custom engraved with your name! There is also a small note informing you that a message is waiting for you on the iPod. Red Pill or Blue Pill?So, turning the iPod on reveals a single track -- a personalized message that starts out: "(insert your name here), this is Mark Kern, President of Red 5 Studios and former team lead for World of Warcraft..".Mark Kern is talking to you personally telling you why he thinks you would be the perfect fit for his new company, Red 5, and asking you to get in touch to discuss a potential job offer. And he is doing so in a way that has made you feel like the most valuable developer on the planet, worthy of significant investment in terms of time and energy to do nothing more then get your attention. Finally he has done it in such a way that makes no attempt at hiding his interest to your colleagues and bosses at your current place of employment.So, what would you do? Would you contact him back to discuss further, even if you were extremely happy at your current job?If you answered yes, you aren't alone. A recruitment campaign like this is undeniably flattering and powerful and is likely to have a near 100% response rate (at least in as far as getting in touch, if not necessarily accepting the position). The people at Red 5 who developed this campaign took everything they knew about developers in the game industry (likely to get and appreciate matrix reference. Check. Likely to be impressed by WoW credentials. Check. Likely to be intrigued by the enigma of the whole package and try to unravel the meaning of the riddle thus getting more absorbed in the total package. Check) and wrapped it all into a package that would be impossible to ignore. I am floored by the ingenuity and creativity of it all.
Seth Godin
With this being my first post,I must give credit to Seth Godin who inspires me in many ways. This is a recent post from his blog regrading 2 types of people at work:
I now firmly believe that there are two polar opposites at work:Thrill seekers andFear avoiders
Notice that I don't use the word 'risk' to describe either category. More on that soon.
How do we explain the fact that Forbes finds more than 700 billionaires and virtually none are both young and retired? Why keep working?
How do explain why so many organizations get big and then just stop? Stop innovating, stop pushing, stop inventing...
Why are seminars sometimes exciting, bubbling pots of innovation and energy while others are just sort of dronefests?
I think people come to work with one of two attitudes (though there are plenty of people with a blend that's somewhere in between):
Thrill seekers love growth. They most enjoy a day where they try something that was difficult, or--even better--said to be impossible, and then pull it off. Thrill seekers are great salespeople because they view every encounter as a chance to break some sort of record or have an interaction that is memorable.
Fear avoiders hate change. They want the world to stay just the way it is. They're happy being mediocre, because being mediocre means less threat/fear/change. They resent being pushed into the unknown, because the unknown is a scary place.
An interesting side discussion: one of the biggest factors in the success of the US isn't our natural resources or location. It's that so many people in this country came here seeking a thrill.
So why not call them risk seekers and risk avoiders? Well, it used to be true. Seeking thrills was risky. But no longer. Now, of course, safe is risky. The horrible irony is that the fear avoiders are setting themselves up for big changes because they're confused. The safest thing they can do now, it turns out, is become a thrill seeker.
Who do you work with?
I now firmly believe that there are two polar opposites at work:Thrill seekers andFear avoiders
Notice that I don't use the word 'risk' to describe either category. More on that soon.
How do we explain the fact that Forbes finds more than 700 billionaires and virtually none are both young and retired? Why keep working?
How do explain why so many organizations get big and then just stop? Stop innovating, stop pushing, stop inventing...
Why are seminars sometimes exciting, bubbling pots of innovation and energy while others are just sort of dronefests?
I think people come to work with one of two attitudes (though there are plenty of people with a blend that's somewhere in between):
Thrill seekers love growth. They most enjoy a day where they try something that was difficult, or--even better--said to be impossible, and then pull it off. Thrill seekers are great salespeople because they view every encounter as a chance to break some sort of record or have an interaction that is memorable.
Fear avoiders hate change. They want the world to stay just the way it is. They're happy being mediocre, because being mediocre means less threat/fear/change. They resent being pushed into the unknown, because the unknown is a scary place.
An interesting side discussion: one of the biggest factors in the success of the US isn't our natural resources or location. It's that so many people in this country came here seeking a thrill.
So why not call them risk seekers and risk avoiders? Well, it used to be true. Seeking thrills was risky. But no longer. Now, of course, safe is risky. The horrible irony is that the fear avoiders are setting themselves up for big changes because they're confused. The safest thing they can do now, it turns out, is become a thrill seeker.
Who do you work with?
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