Explore the limits

James Altucher's insight into how to push the limits.



How do you explore your limits? I don’t know. I tried to figure out an easy formula for that for this article. But I only know what it’s like for me to explore my limits. I do it by:

-          Questioning everything. Writing if the answers come up different than I thought. (college, home, voting, Europe, war, religion, etc)

-          Writing about everything that made me feel a certain way. Or things I was ashamed of but I learned from. (failure at business, relationships, etc).

-          Not being afraid to contact people “out of my league”.

-          Exploring. Whether its spiritual. Or through reading. Or visiting a new place. Or going further in exercise. Or even trying to do nothing when expectations are to do something.

-          Considering myself an expert in anything until proven otherwise. Often I’m proven not an expert – right where my limits are.

Training, training and more training

Celeste Edman highlights the continual need for training

Recently, I ate at a casual Italian restaurant. I was looking forward to the experience as the owners excelled at their fine-dining Italian establishment so I was interested in their take on casual. When I arrived, I was greeted by a welcoming host. We were seated, given menus, and told our server would be right with us. So far, so good. We waited. And we waited. And, we waited. Finally, the server arrived and asked us if we were ready to order. We asked about specials. There were none. Any recommendations on a starter, we asked? "There's some bread on there that's supposed to be good", he said to us.

It was in fact, very good. All the food was outstanding, but the service got progressively worse. When asked what his favorite pizza was, he informed us that he tried not to eat it because it made him fat! 

The owners had obviously taken great care to ensure quality products were used in their food, the décor was deliberate and specific to their brand, and the overall ambiance was good, however the server was so untrained and so incompetent that we won't be back.

Every person in your restaurant plays a role in your customer's experience. With thoughtful attention to your process and in turn your customer, you'll ensure consistency over all.

Inhouse staff newsletters

A newsletter, daily or weekly keeping the staff apprised on menu changes, staff changes, new services, even some limited financial's keeps them engaged. The technology is ubiquitous so there no valid reason for not implementing it.

Acknowledge your staff

Rhonda Abrams shares insights of how to appreciate your team

•Acknowledge: The least productive sentence an employer can use is "I don't need to thank employees; they get paid." We all need to be thanked and recognized. Find opportunities to get the staff together to acknowledge jobs well done. Give small acknowledgments: plaques, certificates, T-shirts to recognize even small achievements.

•Reward: Pay people decently, reward them when you're successful, and give them as much sense of security as you can. Employees don't work well when they're worried about how they'll pay the rent or whether they'll have a job next month. Job security, good pay, and decent benefits help make a much more productive staff.

In a small company, every day is Labor Day. It's important to make every employee feel valued, included, and respected. If you help your employees grow, they'll help your business grow.

Tranquility in the workplace.

Kimberly Wilson shares her insight with Mary Ellen Slayter on how to bring tranquility to a workplace.

What words of wisdom can you share specifically for human resource professionals in terms of their ability to use Tranquilista as well as any other yoga philosophies to make their companies better places to work?

• Practice compassion first and foremost. People need to feel appreciated and a part of what is going on within the organization — not like cogs on a wheel.

• Practice satya (truthfulness). Say what you mean and mean what you say.

• Practice svadyaya (self-study). What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What is working? What isn’t? Constantly assess and improve.

• Pursue your passion. This helps ensure that what you are doing for a living fuels you well beyond a paycheck.

• Make a difference. Be fully present with your team, clients, vendors, board, etc. Leave the world a better place due to your role in it.

Toxic Leadership

Yea, you're the owner, your name is on the door. If however you manage your business like a fiefdom than the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

Joe Nocera reports on H.P.'s toxic leader,

As Mr. House saw it — indeed, as many H.P. old-timers saw it — Mr. Hurd was systematically destroying what had always made H.P. great. The way H.P. made its numbers, Mr. House said, was not just cutting any old costs, but by “chopping R.&D.,” which had always been sacred at H.P. The research and development budget used to be 9 percent of revenue, Mr. House told me; now it was closer to 2 percent. “In the personal computer group, it is seven-tenths of 1 percent,” he added. “That’s why H.P. had no response to the iPad.”

Mr. House was also offended by Mr. Hurd’s dictum that H.P. executives had to resign from all civic boards, as well as his decision to cut off many of H.P.’s philanthropic activities. “H.P. has always been a model corporate citizen,” Mr. House said.

Plus, he said, Mr. Hurd was “incredibly rude and demeaning, and relied on the fear factor.” Mr. House summed up the Hurd era this way, “He was wrecking our image, personally demeaning us, and chopping our future.”

Remember you need individuals that work for you to work for you.

Letting go with flair

The recent JetBlue flight attendant's slide into notoriety underscores how a job becomes overwhelming. The actions of either the customer or your co workers can create an environment in which it makes perfect sense to just say "screw it." The pain of continuing far outweighs some future discomfort of not having a job. There has been incredible support for the individual's action because all of us can relate to a workplace situation that became intolerable.

Entrepreneur's need to understand that their business is reliant on individuals who have feelings and not some inanimate object. They need to convey as much as possible that they fully support their employees and will not allow rude or inconsiderate behavior from fellow employees or customers to go unanswered. Only when employees feel they have support will incidents such as the slide down the chute become rare.

The handshake test works

Arte Nathan explains the mechanics of,

“handshake” test — that’s where you just walk up, smile and introduce yourself to someone and watch how they respond: If they react to the unexpected greeting with an enthusiastic smile and greeting back then it’s fair to assume that’s their natural style.

In the service industry, most employees spend the majority of their time responding and reacting to things said, done and requested unexpectedly by people they don’t know. Thus, responding enthusiastically, affirmatively and with a smile to an interviewer that an applicant doesn’t know is a key indication of how they’ll most likely act as an employee when faced with a similar experience with a guest. This simple test, which is hard to fake (not unlike a blush), screens for the things that we can’t teach — that smile and attitude has to come with someone to the interview and the job.

Rapid, clear, frequent feedback

Jessica Stillman relates Tom Chatfield recommendations about the use of gaming ideas in talent management.

• Rapid, clear, frequent feedback. This is absolutely central to all forms of learning and engagement. With many of the most intractable problems in the world today, like global warming and pollution, it can be almost impossible to learn or understand something when consequences and feedback are distant from causes. Showing a clear link between things, and allowing people to experience this experimentally, allows learning to take place: you need to be shown and to experience exactly how an action plays out, what it caused, whether your attempt worked or not.
• Uncertainty. This is the real neurological gold mine so far as gaming is concerned. Dopamine elevates when you get a little prize for doing something, but what really lights up the brain is the unexpected reward: the one that couldn’t be predicted. The right amount of well-calibrated uncertainty can create intense engagement.

Hiring questions

Robin Van Tan shares 40 hiring questions here is a sample,

What’s the most important qualification I should be looking for when hiring?

Attitude. If you get a weird feeling about someone’s attitude during the interview—when they should be on their best behavior—you don’t want to find out how that person might come off to your customers.

What’s the one interview question I should be asking?

“ Why did you leave your last job?” It gives a clear indication of what is important to them in an employer and in a job. It will also help you see if they’ll be a good fit for your concept.

How can I be a better boss to my employees?

Practice servant leadership. Get to know each employee and do what you can to help them maximize their potential and reach their goals. That involves asking for their opinions, which can lead to a lot of great ideas.

Timeless lessons about talent acquisition.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter describes what happens when leaders neglect continuity. Any business is people management. It begins, middles and ends with the individuals in your organization.

The lessons for leaders: Your job is to provide resources and support that build the confidence of players in themselves, each other, the team, and the excellence of the surrounding system. Ethics, fair play, mentoring, smooth transitions, continuity, and collaboration should not be luxuries or lip service; they create the margin of victory.

Hire the runner

Seth questions whom you should hire?

If you choose to run a project, on the other hand, you're on the hook. It's an active engagement, bending the status quo to your will, ensuring that you ship.

Running a project requires a level of commitment that's absent from someone who is managing one.

Talent aquisition window

Are you getting a lot of resignations lately? Staff that has stayed with you during the really bleak times are moving on. The window of keeping good talent at bargain basement prices is closing. The amount of knowledge that walks out the door when there are wholesale staff changes is frightening.
This year has shown a marked increase in available positions and a willing pool of under appreciated workers looking to change.

Employee bullying

Employee bullying has been handled with a wink and a nod for far too long. Individual states and possibly the federal government will step in to rectify what employers should have been doing all along. The financial consequences for a small business is extinction.

Sarah Needlemann writes about a law in New York state that will most certainly spread to many other jurisdictions.

A significant number of U.S. workers say they are— and soon those in New York may be able to sue their employers, including small businesses, for any suffering they experience at the hands of a toxic boss or other workplace bully.

Business owners should also consider the possibility that they might actually be bullies. One telltale sign: A high turnover rate, says Gary Namie, co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, an employee-rights group in Bellingham, Wash. "You're creating a place that reasonable people don't want to stay in," he says. "You've probably focused on whatever it is you make or sell and don't have an incentive to get management skills."

Another indicator of a bully business owner is if he or she takes all the credit for their company's success, says Vicky Oliver, author of "Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers & Other Office Idiots." "If everything is your idea," she says, "it's probably because you're bullying the people who work for you into submission.

Employee Onboarding

The hiring process is difficult to generalize because different behavior results in different successes at different locations. The best predictor of success in a particular position is the behavior that has been successful in the past. Hire behavior and ignore the rest of the noise.

Palm reading.

Jeff Imm shared this tidbit during his presentation in the Technology Pavilion on Tuesday 5/25.
"The next biometric identifier will be reading the veins in your hand." Average employees will have their hands scanned to sign in for work.

Talented or not

Seth talks about the Gardner's multiple intelligence theory,

(1 Bodily-kinesthetic, 2 Interpersonal, 3 Verbal-linguistic, 4 Logical-mathematical, 5 Intrapersonal, 6 Visual-spatial, 7 Musical, 8 Naturalistic). This makes perfect sense—people are good at different things.

The reality is that all your employees or vendors are better at some things than others. A lot of your personal success comes from recognizing what people are good at and letting them do it. The problem of course is that your myopic because you have a relationship, be it with a vendor or employee based on them performing a specific function. Before you discard them entirely perhaps it would be beneficial to give them other duties.

Civility in Talent Acquisition

Suzanne Lucas rightfully admonishes anyone involved in the hiring process.

if you’ve actually had an interview (on the phone or in person) then the recruiter should get back to you to tell you that the position has been filled, or canceled, or whatever. I’m going to say it now and let the recruiters come attack me: There is no reason short of death (of the recruiter) that justifies not getting back to a candidate. It’s just plain rude and unprofessional. Plus, you may not need that particular candidate now, but you might need him later.

Hiring for growth

Mark Jaffe has a simple rule of thumb do identify future leaders

I was taught the Cardinal Rule of Search: “A” players hire “A” players - and “B” players hire “C” players. It made sense in theory. Until you watch it in action, though, the implications are murky at best.

Then I saw it happen once, twice, a dozen times. The hiring managers that my firm worked with would pass on the candidate who showed superstar potential and go with the predictable, boring choice. Low voltage, low risk, low return. Only a special breed of manager had the vision and the self-confidence to hire people potentially smarter and more talented than him or herself, and while those hires sometimes failed (like humans sometimes do), the dividends on the ones who succeeded were often spectacular.

Remember “Ozymandias” from high school, the poem by Shelley? If you’ve been in the corporate world more than 15 minutes, you know exactly how those “vast and trunkless legs of stone” block the road to progress. Enlightened, high-octane leaders capitalize on the innate talents and passions of individuals — including their own — rather than endlessly guarding “the lone and level sands.”

on-boarding

When did hiring, training and assimilating new employee's become on-boarding. Did I miss the memo or something?