Posts

"No Labels" Workforce: Sneak Peek Videos

/ /by

(Editorial Note: Want to read the RECAP of this week’s events? See The Best-of-All-Ages Workplace #TChat Recap)

Age discrimination. Sometimes it’s very subtle. Sometimes it’s painfully obvious. Either way, it still can play a role in workplace culture. How can organizations move beyond the labels that hold back individuals, teams and corporate performance?

That’s our focus this week in the TalentCulture community. Our guests sat down for several minutes in Google+ Hangouts with me to discuss several key issues. Check it out:

One of our very own #TChat Ambassadors, Ashley Lauren Perez, defines key terms and offers advice for professionals who are considered part of “Generation Y”…

Next, Ashley’s boss, John Wilson, Founder and CEO WilsonHCG.com briefly explains why labels don’t make sense in the world of work…

It promises to be a fascinating week! The more voices who join the conversation, the better.

So join us at #TChat events this week, where we’ll take a closer look at labels in the workplace, and how to build cultures that value diversity in all of its forms:

NOTE: If you don’t see the G+ Hangout videos above in this post, you can watch them on YouTube:

“No Labels” Workforce: Sneak Peek Videos

/2 Comments/ /by

(Editorial Note: Want to read the RECAP of this week’s events? See The Best-of-All-Ages Workplace #TChat Recap)

Age discrimination. Sometimes it’s very subtle. Sometimes it’s painfully obvious. Either way, it still can play a role in workplace culture. How can organizations move beyond the labels that hold back individuals, teams and corporate performance?

That’s our focus this week in the TalentCulture community. Our guests sat down for several minutes in Google+ Hangouts with me to discuss several key issues. Check it out:

One of our very own #TChat Ambassadors, Ashley Lauren Perez, defines key terms and offers advice for professionals who are considered part of “Generation Y”…

Next, Ashley’s boss, John Wilson, Founder and CEO WilsonHCG.com briefly explains why labels don’t make sense in the world of work…

It promises to be a fascinating week! The more voices who join the conversation, the better.

So join us at #TChat events this week, where we’ll take a closer look at labels in the workplace, and how to build cultures that value diversity in all of its forms:

NOTE: If you don’t see the G+ Hangout videos above in this post, you can watch them on YouTube:

Helping Other Talented People to Help You

/ /by

Are you (or someone you know) having ongoing career challenges that to go beyond, “It’s a tough business environment these days and everybody feels stressed”?

Do you feel as if you have so much work you can never get even the important things accomplished? Worse yet, does it seem you can’t get those around you – even members of your own team – to cooperate, contribute, and do their part in moving projects and deliverables forward?

Have these types of challenges followed you through multiple positions, even multiple companies?

If you are answering “Yes” to most or all of these questions, it may be you have problems letting other people help you be successful.

Getting in Your Own Way

I can look back through my career and recognize people who constantly made it difficult, if not impossible, for others to provide the assistance they so desperately needed to be more successful. Some of these individuals expressed frustration at the apparent inability to move projects ahead. Most, however, did not recognize how they personally created barriers to their teams making progress.

Working inside a corporation for an extended time, it was much more manageable to work around or avoid these types of people to get things done. Now, working with corporate clients from the outside looking in, we typically have a relatively small group of client contacts with whom we work on projects. When one of these contacts cannot get out of their own way to let a project advance, we generally have very few options to work around them since you cannot just stop interacting with your own client!

As a result, I have been thinking a lot more about ways to help someone realize they have a problem allowing others to help them and proper ways to coach and mentor someone through improving.

Signs There is a Problem

There are several signs indicating someone has a problem in letting those around them provide much needed assistance. These include:

  • Churn in staff and/or team members.
  • A personal feeling of being over-worked.
  • A chronic inability to accomplish goals.
  • A sense of having to juggle too many details across too many projects.
  • Repeated lack of knowledge or awareness in who to involve or how to involve others in moving a project forward.

If you see these signs in yourself or others, you owe it to all those involved to attempt to improve.

What Can Be Done to Improve Performance

Here are 12 behaviors to address, all of which can let others help you, as a boss or leader, be more effective:

  1. Identify your strengths, weaknesses, and where you need help.
  2. Put people in place who are stronger than you are where you are weak.
  3. Don’t hold or delay projects too long and delegate them too late.
  4. Hold yourself accountable for hitting deadlines.
  5. Understand and articulate the objective without specifying how it should be done.
  6. Share your framework for decision making along with sharing other vital information that allows people to act.
  7. Allow people to meaningfully use their talents without your overly close supervision.
  8. Surrender appropriate responsibility and ownership for an effort to the people who have been stepping up to contribute.
  9. Be responsive when your team DOES ask for input.
  10. Be open to and listen to ideas from others.
  11. Speak when your perspective is needed and others still have time to act. After that, forever hold your peace.
  12. Make a decision and stick with it.

None of these behaviors should be that difficult to improve upon in your work style. While getting better at them takes determination, as you improve, you’ll reap tremendous benefits as those around you are freed up to perform better for you.

If Work isn't Fun, You're Doing it Wrong: #TChat Recap

/ /by

Also known by the less fun title of:  The Business Heresy of Uninterrupted Power Supplies….

Are we having fun yet?

On Tuesday of this week at the fourth annual National Clean Energy Summit, Vice President Joe Biden said, “Our country has a choice — what kind of country are we going to be? Are we going to rise to the challenges, like our grandfathers and grandmothers did? Or are we going to be a follower? It’s sad that we’re having this debate [about investing in clean tech initiatives] — in the past America has always led.”

And then a day later, in the heart of innovation-leading Silicon Valley, solar panel manufacturer Solyndra shut its doors and laid off all 1,100 of its employees, without any severance packages. This isn’t a political post either way; fierce global competition continues to knock the wind out of manufacturing in this country, and losing money on every solar panel you sell isn’t the way to stay in business, regardless of how much investment you’ve received.

In the past America has always led…

There are times when it’s hard for me to listen to the passionate Zappos social media hippie lovefest of culture-centric companies that focus on the customer and strive to create an emotional connection between product/service and consumer.

[Chuckle] Hey, if it isn’t fun, you’re doing it wrong. Tell that to the millions of professionals out of work and scrambling to reinvent their relevancy in a world looking more and more like the surface of Mars.

However, there is life on Mars. According to the latest ADP jobs report, 91,000 new private sector jobs were created in August. It won’t move the unemployment needle, but there’s still a heartbeat out there. The ADP report said the majority of the job gains in August came from small business. Employers with under 50 workers added 58,000 jobs.

Thankfully many of us are reinventing our relevancy; sparks of innovation are flying all over the world like lighting bugs at dusk. The new lovefest of business leaders are helping to rebuild a world where culture and human connectivity are queen, and recombined business models of sustainability are being applied to industries new and old.

Of course not everyone’s going to make it. Businesses will fail and the lights will go out. Those that do keep the power on want self-powered and empowered employees who help drive the business from the top down, the bottom up and side to side like power lines stretched from here to…

Mars maybe. Or at least the UK, since Borri UPS Systems starting following me on Twitter today, manufacturer and distributor of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).

We can use more of that business heresy.

A very special thank you to 12 Most for being our special guests last night, including Ted Coine, Chris Westfall, Sean McGinnis, Steve Woodruff, Anthony Iannarino and Daniel Newman. 12 Most is a business and social media blogger collective of amazing credentials and savvy. And thank you to our very own Matt Charney for rounding out the special guest list as well.

You can catch the #TChat precap here as well as relive last night’s 2nd #TChat Radio show, The Realities of Business Heresy.

The #TChat Twitter chat and #TChat Radio are created and hosted by @MeghanMBiro @KevinWGrossman and powered by our friends and partners @TalentCulture @Monster_WORKS @MonsterCareers and of course @Focus.

7 Personal Tune-Ups for Tough Times

/ /by

We had lunch last weekend with friends we had not seen for quite some time. My former co-worker’s spouse looked at me, as I was now more than 20 months away from the corporate world in which she’s still immersed, and said, “You look so calm.”

Her comment was both a surprise (since I do not necessarily feel calm), and exactly what I try to work on all the time.

With lingering economic issues and recent wild stock market swings occupying news daily, it is clear challenging times are not going to be over any time soon. While the economy obviously creates lingering financial concerns for those who find themselves out of work, taking pay cuts, or having their retirement nest eggs gutted, the impact on individual mental outlooks can extend even to those who have not been touched financially, such as my friend.

This makes it imperative for individuals to take care of themselves mentally as they try to take care of their career and financial prospects in tough times.

Having planned and started my personal career transition during the tough times of the past five years, here are 7 personal tune-ups that have been tremendously beneficial to me in helping me stay as “calm” as I have.

1. Understand your Distinctive Talents

Think through your talents, identifying those at which you are best and improve all the time, the ones that that bring you the most energy and that benefit others. After identifying your “distinctive talents,” use them in as many work and personal situations as possible to maximize your positive impact.

2. Tune Out Negative News

I used to wake up to talk radio and listen to it until arriving at work. That was until seeing Ed Foreman, who asked why anyone would fill themselves with downbeat news to start the day. I now awake to upbeat music, avoid the newspaper in favor of uplifting reading, do quick creative tasks, go to Church, and listen to energizing music or helpful presentations in the car. The result is a more positive attitude when arriving at work.

3. Give Yourself a Break

Tough times lead to greater pressure to achieve goals. Compensate by figuring out what mind-taxing tasks you can eliminate to give yourself a break. Get up earlier and start the day so you are not running behind. Stop reading a redundant industry magazine. Set a slightly earlier time to leave work. Consciously live below your means. These and other ideas can help reduce self-induced mental pressure.

4. Stop Thinking so Much about Yourself

Go out of your way to serve others – at work and in personal life. Instead of turning inward, increasingly reach out to others. Apply your talents to help others be more successful as they face their own challenges. This may seem counter-intuitive, but I would rather be known for contributing to many of other peoples’ successes than simply focusing on my own.

5. Be a Joy to Be Around

Smile, laugh, cheer people up. As tempting as going into a cocoon when everything seems crappy may be, don’t do it. Be a source of calm and enjoyment, bringing comfort and lighthearted moments to others. Find whatever works with your personality. For me that’s wearing orange socks (that have become my trademark), even when I don’t feel like bright colors and seeking out humor and fun to share with others.

6. Be Visible

Use your talents to be visible outside your company. If your talent is speaking, develop content and present to local organizations and universities. If it’s writing, submit articles to publications looking for content or start a blog on your expertise. If you’re good at building, cooking, or other essential skills, volunteer in your community. Make sure you’re using talents to help others and expand your network.

7. Work Out

Exercise and I were never good friends until my wife signed us up at a nearby health club and arranged for me to work with a trainer. I’d done cardio before, lost a little weight, but it never had a major impact. Working with a trainer brought new focus, helped relieve stress through exercise, and resulted in losing 25 pounds. All that, plus knowing I can go get away and exercise is both a tremendous motivator and a sure-fire antidote to a bad day of work.

Get Started Now

You don’t have to do all these things, but pick at least one or two as a way to tune-up your attitude and mental perspective if you’re feeling like the economic news or career challenges are dragging you down. It’s always a good time to start taking better care of yourself. Best wishes for successfully incorporating these ideas into your daily routine to stay calm!

IMAGE VIA lululemon athletica

Sharing Accomplishments: Make Self-Promotion Easier

/12 Comments/ /by

I received a career-oriented email recently featuring an article for introverts on overcoming challenges in  job seeking and career advancement. Two days later, I attended a regional conference on innovation where a presenter remarked that Midwestern entrepreneurs are generally uncomfortable touting their business ideas to potential investors. The same week, someone I know was asked to write an article for an upcoming  magazine. The publisher said it would be great for the person to be able to say he wrote a cover story for an emerging print magazine. The potential author responded it would be cool, but he’d never put it that way since it sounded boastful.

Sharing Personal Accomplishments Can Be Challenging

We’re routinely subjected to over-the-top self promotion, especially via social media channels. Yet these three instances in quick succession suggest there are still many people (maybe all introverts) who find it difficult, even distasteful, to call attention to themselves. This discomfort can be present even when the self-promotion is completely appropriate given one’s personal accomplishments and distinctive talents. I’ve even run across this phenomenon during very open conversations with people who could in no way ever be considered introverts.

While I’m reluctant to contribute to any increase in the self-promotion din, it’s worth sharing a few ideas to help those of you who wrestle with beneficial and appropriate self-promotion. These five ideas can improve your performance in this important skill for career advancement.

Five Ways to Make Sharing Personal Accomplishments Easier

1. Ask others for the words and examples which appropriately describe you.

If you struggle to find the words to talk about yourself in the most positive light, ask someone familiar with your skills and talents to craft a recommendation letter for you. A long-time business partner asked me for a professional recommendation. I wrote a sincere, very favorable letter about the impact he’d had on our business. His comment back to me was, “(This guy) seems to be everything I doubt about myself.” Everything in the letter was true, but it was much easier for me to say these things than it would have ever been for him. If you’re in a comparable situation, a close friend or business confidant may provide all the words and phrases you need to better showcase yourself.

2. Create a daily “smile file” list of your personal accomplishments.

At a recent lunch with former co-workers, there was lots of discussion about what everyone was doing professionally – exciting projects, travel, even looking for new jobs. Lots of discussion – except for one person who was largely silent. He later admitted struggling with anything of comparable interest in his own career to share.  If your day-to-day routine doesn’t seem conversation worthy, make yourself create a daily list of accomplishments and noteworthy things you do. How long should the list be? Try as long as your daily to-do list. The discipline of tracking these items allows you to refresh your memory on personal accomplishments over time and makes it easier when updating a resume if you’re looking for a newer job, too.

3. Save nice things people say about you online.

If you’re providing value through your social media interactions and the content you’re creating and sharing, chances are people in your audience are saying favorable things about you. These tweets, comments, and updates can contain words and phrases to incorporate in your own self-vocabulary. Since these comments are crowd sourced, you should feel more comfortable and credible in using them. Favorite or copy the comments into an online file for future reference. If the positive comments are being tweeted, you can actually display them on your blog as an unobtrusive way to share positive comments with a broader audience.

4. Blog about your successes.

One benefit of blogging I’d not anticipated was how my blog has become a personal reference of what I’ve worked on and lessons learned through work assignments. Blogging also offers the opportunity to share personal accomplishments of which you’re proud and that you might want to share with others. Having them captured on your blog provides a convenient and understated way to share personal accomplishments via links in electronic versions of resumes and cover letters as further background.

5. Look at status updates from those prone to self-promotion.

We all have a list of people we know who are inveterate self-promoters through social media. Many of them are completely overboard. Others self-promote but aren’t nearly as egregious about it. If you’re currently blocking these people, start following them and notice what they’re doing. What are they sharing about themselves, both professionally and personally? Examine their social media updates, and ask yourself what you’ve done that’s comparable, different, or even more distinct. This exercise can prompt you to think of analogous situations you might have been downplaying as well as cause you to realize additional personal accomplishments to feature in conversations and in your own social media content.

Wrap-up

If you struggle with talking yourself up positively, implement one or two of these ideas. Try them and see what types of results you achieve, while keeping your humility intact. All the while, you’ll do yourself and the world a big favor by representing yourself more favorably and accurately.

Social Networking For Career Success

/1 Comment/ /by

Today’s post is by Miriam Salpeter — owner of Keppie Careers. She teaches job seekers and entrepreneurs how to leverage social media, writes resumes and helps clients succeed with their goals. Miriam writes for U.S. News & World Report’s “On Careers” column, CNN named her a “top 10 job tweeter you should be following” and Monster.com included her in “The Monster 11 for 2011: Career Experts Who Can Help Your Search.” She blogs at KeppieCareers.com and GetASocialResume.com.

Why do companies hire the people they hire? Is it always because the selected candidate is the absolute best qualified to do the job? It’s hard to quantify, but my guess is probably not. Hiring is a complicated art involving selecting a person to do a job, but, often more importantly, someone who is a good “fit” for the role.

Think about interviewing someone to join your family – someone you need to see and spend a lot of time with for the conceivable future. You may be interested in particular skills, depending on your family’s culture. (Cooking? Softball? Driving?) At the end of the day, you probably want to select the one who won’t annoy or embarrass you; someone willing to pitch in (even if it is not his or her job), the candidate who can communicate – and who people like to be around.

It’s not surprising to learn these emotional intelligence skills are gaining more focus and impacting job seekers. A quick definition is in order. Here is one that I like and is easy to understand from Mike Poskey, VP of Zerorisk HR, Inc:

Emotional Intelligence…is defined as a set of competencies demonstrating the ability one has to recognize his or her behaviors, moods and impulses, and to manage them best according to the situation.

Companies are incorporating emotional intelligence into their hiring processes, with good reason. The Sodexo(one of the largest food services and facilities management companies in the world) blog reminds readers that “businesses that will succeed in the 21st century will be the ones that allow employees to bring the whole of their intelligence into the work force – their emotional and intellectual self. Not only does this impact morale, but productivity increases, too.” A recent study from Virginia Commonwealth University shows that “high emotional intelligence does have a relationship to strong job performance — in short, emotionally intelligent people make better workers.”

To be successful in a job hunt, you not only need to demonstrate an association between what the employer wants and your skills and accomplishments, you need to be able to tell your story in a way that makes it obvious you have the emotional intelligence/emotional quotient (EI/EQ – or soft skills) to fit in. Companies want to hire a candidate who will work well in the team; they all seek someone who will contribute and get the job done with finesse. Most seek employees they will trust to represent the company graciously. No one wants to be embarrassed.

This is why social media is such a great tool for job seekers. A job seeker with a pristine online portfolio and nothing questionable in her digital footprint makes a strong case for actually being someone who knows how to negotiate the digital world where we all function.

Using social networking tools to illustrate your expertise can provide entree into a network of professionals writing and talking about the topics important for you and your field. If, for example, you write a blog to showcase your knowledge of the restaurant industry, or use Twitter and Facebook to be sure people understand you know a lot about finance, you have a chance to connect with multitudes of potential contacts, any one of whom may connect you to the person you need to know to land an opportunity.

At the same time you demonstrate your expertise online and grow your network, you are also giving people a taste of the type of person you may be in person. Granted, some people have a distinct online-only persona. Many of us know people who seem mean and spiteful online and are amazing friends in person. Certainly, the opposite is possible.

However, for the most part, it’s safe to assume how people act and communicate online represents how they behave in person. When we get to know people via social media, by sharing tweets (including those all important personal tweets about what we’re eating, watching, and doing for the weekend), trading comments on blog posts, and keeping in touch via Facebook and LinkedIn, we are part of the longest job interview – with a very long “tail.”

No doubt, for some people, social media is dangerous for their job search. The people who aren’t attentive to details (and don’t untag themselves in inappropriate photos), the ones with short tempers and no filter who share every thought, and those who complain about people or things and appear excessively negative online. In an environment where employers are reviewing digital footprints, those people, who are not illustrating high levels of emotional intelligence, may have difficulty landing jobs.

The flip side? If you know your business, connect and share easily online, make new friends and contacts, and try to give at least as much as you hope to receive, social media may be just the “social proof” you need to help you stand out from the crowd.

My book, Social Networking for Career Success, shows you how to leverage the “big three” tools (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook), and describes how blogging and many other social media tools can help job seekers distinguish themselves. Learn more at www.socialnetworkingforcareersuccess.com. Download a free chapter HERE.

Miriam Salpeter, MA
Coach, Speaker, Author

Empowering Success
http://www.keppiecareers.com

Take a look at what people are saying about Social Networking for Career Success, just released by Learning Express, LLC. Copies are available from Amazon or your favorite bookseller.

IMAGE VIA www.socialnetworkingforcareersuccess.com/

A Good Detective Knows Emotional Intelligence Trumps IQ– Just Ask My Dad

/2 Comments/ /by

“In the fields I have studied, emotional intelligence is much more powerful than IQ in determining who emerges as a leader. IQ is a threshold competence. You need it, but it doesn’t make you a star. Emotional Intelligence can.”
–Warren Bennis, leadership pioneer, author and researcher


My dad was in the business of chasing bad guys across paper.

And he was really good at it; he had found his true passion in work and life — his groovy do-be-do.

As a detective in charge of forgery and fraud in the California Central Valley town I grew up in, chasing bad guys (and gals) across paper was how he always described it to my sister and me.

Dad’s passion as a young man was justice, maybe a little on the side of the professional wild west side of justice, but full of “to protect and serve” just the same.

After the Air Force and years of being a patrolman he found what we was really good at: finding the folks involved in check scams and credit card scams and embezzlement scams and identity scams and the like.

My dad was (is) smart — book smart and street smart — but he had an edge, the uncanny ability to empathically connect with anyone, anywhere at anytime. As the kids would say, he had the “soft skills” goin’ on.

He had organically developed the ability to lead “self” with lots of emotional intelligence, before emotional intelligence was truly defined and developed as it is today in the workplace.

Good guys, bad guys, in the middle guys (and gals) — it didn’t matter. He could immediately connect with them. Rapport and trust soon followed. His emotional self-awareness and awareness of others’ emotions and actions knew no limits. Some can counterfeit this behavior, but it can’t be sustained with any authenticity.

No wonder those he arrested couldn’t help but like him; he called them his “clients”.

That was all well and good, but from a police “business” perspective, he had a very high case-closed ratio and his arrests usually stuck and were prosecuted.

Of course, he had return customers, but he just kept doing what he did until he retired in early 1994.

During his career he had the opportunity for multiple leadership roles and was recruited by other city police departments and even the secret service, but he never wanted to leave where has was and the position he was in.

Thank goodness for that, because otherwise my mom and him maybe never would’ve met.

There are those who just naturally develop their emotional intelligence (EQ), who live a synchronous melody appropriate action and reaction, but most of us need assistance in the form of assessments, development programs and coaching in order to be better empathic leaders of self and others.  The good news is that we can develop it and sustain it.

Here are a couple of business examples of what developing high emotional intelligence (EQ) can do:

1) Fortune Brands saw 100% of leaders who developed their EQ skills through classroom training, coaching, and online learning exceed the performance targets set for them in the company’s metric-based performance management system. Just 28% of leaders who failed to develop their EQ skills exceeded their performance targets (Bradberry, 2005).

2) Emotionally intelligent leaders are indeed more successful than their less emotionally intelligent peers. So are their companies. At PepsiCo, for example, executives identified as emotionally intelligent generated 10% more productivity and added nearly $4 million in economic value; for Sheraton, an emotional intelligence initiative helped increase the company’s market share by 24% (Freedman & Everett, 2008).

And the 2011 New Year episode 81 of HR Happy Hour featured author and consultant Adele Lynn of the Lynn Leadership Group who talked all about the value of emotional intelligence in the workplace.

There’s a lot more research out there to substantiate the value of assessing and developing emotional intelligence.

Groovy do-be-do intersects at Emotional Intelligence HQ. That’s hip Em-Tel worth having.

What? No Skype Interviews? #TChat Recap

/1 Comment/ /by

That was most surprising to me in last night’s #TChat on interviewing.  The fact that most of the participants didn’t think live webcam interviewing was viable.

Here’s a quote: “Skype interviewing is like buying a car on EBay. Saves a trip, but not always worth the hassle.”

Why is it such a hassle?  I understand the U.S. still falls behind other nations in big Internet bandwidth and solid connectivity, but between basic Internet connections, webcams and Skype to Cisco’s TelePresence Meeting Solutions, we can connect so easily these days live and in person without really being “in person”.

Even smaller firms are hiring remote, virtual teams around the world, and it’s just not fiscally feasible to fly folks in for face-to-face interviews.

Phone screening works well for early-on interviews, but a lot of non-verbal queues are missed when you can’t see the person — and that goes for interviewer and interviewee.  Sure you can “sense” verbal queues via tone and responses, but there’s still interpretation lost without “seeing”.

I thank Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter for having my back:  “I think Skyping will become a ‘norm’ for interviewing; is fairly comfy, easy venue, in my experience. Just go to quiet room, dial up.”

Right on.

Otherwise most participants last night agreed that better interview preparation for employer and applicant are necessary to improve the potential hiring exchange rate.

I agree with one of Meghan’s final points:  “Key take away = Questions should be open — ended; avoid questions that can only be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

That’s the basic premise to behavioral interviewing — probing past performance with scenario-based questions will predict future performance.  You’re not going to get much insight when you ask an applicant “tell what your strengths and weaknesses are.”  But you will when you discover how the applicant acted in specific employment-related situations.

One other point I liked from last night was the fact that interviewing, at least early-stage interviewing, is more about screening out those who don’t make the cut versus identifying hiring potential of those who do.

Here were the questions we asked last night:

  • Q1: Why are interviews so important in the screening and hiring process?
  • Q2: Why are so many employers and applicants “bad” at interviews?
  • Q3: What are the advantages and disadvantages to phone screening?
  • Q4: How much are employers using live video calls for virtual team interviews (Skype)?
  • Q5: Why are behavioral interviews better than traditional interviews?
  • Q6: It’s been said that even the best applicants can train to even best a behavioral interview.  What to do?
  • Q7: How can emotional intelligence be assessed in behavioral interviews?  And can it be?
  • Q8: Any interviews gone bad stories?  Do spill.  I will repeat them in the recap.

I’m going to probe question 7 more in another post, but in the meantime, here’s a Monster article on the subject of interviewing and emotional intelligence.  And it’s hard to tell stories in Twitter because it takes a lot more space that 140 characters, so if any of you want to send me your “interviews gone bad” stories for future fun recapping, please send to me at kgrossman (at) marcomhrsay (dot) com.

The stats from last night were again fantastic.  Who says you can’t engage on Twitter?  We had well over 100 people participating in the actual #TChat hour contributing over 1,200 tweets.

Dang.

Meghan and her savvy TalentCulture team, the TC community and little ol’ me, are again very grateful for you all and for your participation.  You gave us some great ideas for future topics and we look forward to next week already!

Here are some insightful #TChat tweets from last night:

Interviewing: #TChat Preview

/2 Comments/ /by

Our last #TChat before Thanksgiving was all about assessments.

What was resoundingly clear was the fact that face-to-face interviews were preferred when making hiring decisions, as opposed to using assessments from last week’s chatters. We are still weighing the verdict and will simply keep exploring this.

So Meghan and I decided that the in’s and out’s of interviewing would be the topic for the next #TChat tomorrow, 11/30/10, from 8-9 p.m. ET & 7-8 p.m. CT & 6-7 p.m MT & 5-6 p.m. PT. Remember we welcome global input! Join in from wherever you might be

We’ve got a great group of savvy recruiters, careerists, human resource folk, fascinating leaders, media mavens and hiring managers in our greater TalentCulture community, so we look forward to a festively raucous Twitter discussion on the subject.

Because most “hiring” professionals don’t know know how to objectively interview very well at all.  I would argue that some of the worst hiring decisions are made via interviews.  Yep, I said it.  So bring it.  Plus, most job applicants don’t prepare, at all, for their interviews.

Just ask a few of our resident career experts, Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter and Chris Perry and others….We love this stuff.

We’ll also throw in a shout or two for emotional intelligence (our first #TChat topic) and how that plays a role in interviewing today.

Wherever you stand on interviews and interviewing, there are best practices to follow and we hope to unravel those mysteries in our next #TChat.

Use your favorite Twitter client of choice to follow the lively #TChat hashtag or use to TweetChat and log in with your Twitter handle.

We’ll see you there!  Come subjectively unprepared.  You know, like for an interview.

Emotional Intelligence: Inaugural #TChat Recap

/10 Comments/ /by

Bravo! It’s safe to say that our first #TChat attracted talented, insightful participants eager to engage (one of our favorite verbs). You can read up on our preparation post to see our introduction of the chat idea to the community. This is a wonderful work in progress.

At the intersection of Talent + Culture, you’re all welcomed for your like-mindedness and celebrated for your unique thinking.

At the intersection of Talent + Culture, you’re all right here.

Our community.  Your community.  The TalentCulture Community.

The first one was last night, November 16, from 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. ET.  We discussed Emotional Intelligence and the importance of assessing it and developing it, which for us, is everything that makes a best place to work – the best talent (people) and the best workplace culture.

There are many varying definitions of emotional intelligence, but the one we used last night was:

Emotional intelligence is a person’s ability to understand and manage their emotions and those of others.

You can check out the participation stats here, and the transcript, but we had a smart bunch of diverse folk during the hour and beyond.  Lots who believe that the two decades of science and research behind emotional intelligence is sound and valid, and yet many contrarians who thought EI is a whole bunch of hoo-hah.

During the hour alone, there were over 240 contributors and over 1,400 tweets.  Not sure how that compares with other Tweet Chats, but we certainly weren’t expecting that kind of response.  Thrilled, but didn’t expect it.

The questions we asked included:

  • Question #1: What role do emotions play in the workplace? And should they play a role?
  • Question #2: How do you deal with conflict in the workplace?
  • Question #3: How can emotional intelligence help (or hurt) employees engage with stakeholders both inside/outside a company?
  • Question #4: Are virtual/mobile workforces changing the way we emotionally engage (or don’t) and communicate with one another?
  • Question #5: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if he/she was highly emotionally intelligent?

Okay, so #5 was a joke.  You got us there.

For those of you who asked if companies are really investing in assessing and developing emotional intelligence to improve the bottom line (like @BethHarte — thank you!), here are some examples (EI and EQ are interchangeable):

  • According to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, for leadership positions, emotional intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence.
  • At PepsiCo, executives identified as emotionally intelligent generated 10% more productivity and added nearly $4 million in economic value.
  • At Sheraton, an emotional intelligence initiative helped increase the company’s market share by 24%.
  • L’ Oreal realized a $91,370 increase per head for salespeople selected for EQ skills. The group also had 63% less turnover than sales staff not part of the EQ program.
  • Coca-Cola saw division leaders who developed EQ competencies outperform their targets by more than 15%. Division leaders who didn’t develop their EQ missed targets by the same margin.
  • The US Air Force reduced recruiter turnover from 35% annually to 5% annually by selecting candidates high in emotional intelligence. Total cost savings of $3 million per year on a $10,000 investment.
  • Hallmark Communities sales staff who developed emotional intelligence were 25% more productive than their low EQ counterparts and EQ was more important to executive job performance than character, strategic thinking, and focus on results.
I’ve included some tweet screen shots below from last night for your viewing pleasure.  A special thanks to our very own @MeghanMBiro and @TalentCulture for their ongoing dedication to innovation within the community and beyond.  Also, very special thank you’s go out to our community supporters @HRMargo @Brainzooming @Monster_WORKS @BillBoorman @sourcepov @TanveerNaseer @AvidCareerist @ValueIntoWords @KeppieCareers and countless others for their fabulous participatory support. We heart you all!

Join us for #TChat every Tuesday from 8-9 p.m. EST, 5-6 p.m. PT and 7-8 p.m. CT.

Next week’s topic to be announced soon! You can join in from all over the globe!

Join @TalentCulture: #TChat on Tuesday

/9 Comments/ /by

Sure there are a lot of Twitter Chats you could participate in.

But there isn’t one that I’m aware of that intersects Talent + Culture, where you’ll find:

  • People who are inspired by incredible individuals driving organizations and creating dramatic change.
  • Brands that are humanizing themselves as layers of hierarchy yield to emotionally-connected leaders.
  • Innovative expertise which catalyzes transformational growth online and in real life.

At the intersection of Talent + Culture, you’re all welcomed for your like-mindedness and celebrated for your unique thinking.

At the intersection of Talent + Culture, you’re all right here.

Our community.  Your community.  The TalentCulture Community.

We welcome you all to join us for our new Twitter Chat called #TChat.  The first one will be this Tuesday, November 16, from 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. ET where we’re going to discuss Emotional Intelligence and the importance of assessing it and developing it, which for us, is everything that makes a best place to work – the best talent (people) and the best workplace culture.

Discussing the intersection of Talent and Culture.  We consider all the things that make a best place to work, individual career growth, and social community development — ideas to help your business and your career accelerate – the right people, the right ideas, at the right time.  This includes all areas of HR, recruiting, career coaching, training and development, leadership development, product/service development, business development, ideation, marketing, social media, and much more.  We also explore engagement, creativity, innovation and collaboration between businesses, employees, and social communities.  It’s an open forum, so anyone interested is welcome.  Be ready for a lively discussion and bring your best place to work ideas!

Based on recent research, the difference between those who reach their full potential in the workplace and in life, and those who do not, is their degree of emotional intelligence (EI), or “people skills”.

These people skills (your EI) encompass:

  • An awareness of your own emotions,
  • An awareness of emotions in others,
  • An understanding of these emotions,
  • And the ability to manage your own emotions and the emotions of others.

However, according to recent research, 75% of the reasons careers get derailed are EI-related:

  • Unsatisfactory leadership across all levels during challenging times.
  • Inability to handle interpersonal issues.
  • Inability to adapt to change.
  • Inability to elicit trust.

Without question, successful leaders to individual contributors must possess business acumen along with industry knowledge and organizational insight. But the quality that separates the most successful leaders from their peers is emotional intelligence—the ability to understand, manage and respond effectively to one’s own emotions and the emotions of others.

In fact, research has confirmed that emotionally intelligent employees and leaders are indeed more successful than their less emotionally intelligent peers.  So are their companies.

At PepsiCo, for example, executives identified as emotionally intelligent generated 10% more productivity and added nearly $4 million in economic value; for Sheraton, an emotional intelligence initiative helped increase the company’s market share by 24%.

Please join us to share your questions and commentary about assessing and developing Emotional Intelligence.

What’s your role in the TalentCulture Community?

  • Sharing your real world expertise and candid perspectives.
  • Actively participating with others in expanding the depth and breadth of your reach.
  • Contributing as much as you benefit.

Join us for #TChat on Twitter every Tuesday from 8:00-9:00p.m. ET.  We’ll be posting a calendar of topics soon. Our live chat will be hosted by @KevinWGrossman @MeghanMBiro and @TalentCulture. Please Tweet or DM us for more scoop.