Decision Toolbox Blog: Blog/News

By Kathy Marshall, Director of Quality
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Quality, Excellence, Passion . . . You Can Have It All
Part 4 of 4

In this series on ensuring exceptional quality in the service industry, I’ve covered defining and implementing quality as well as what to measure. Now let’s dig into how to measure it. If your organization is like Decision Toolbox (DT), there are lots of intangibles that aren’t easy to measure, but they are still important.

Let’s start by looking at monitoring quality during a client engagement. I use “monitoring” rather than “measuring” — a laser micrometer is useful in a factory, but doesn’t help when we’re dealing with a hiring manager’s (HM) perception of quality.

Stay in the Negative

You can’t rely on metrics and checkpoints alone. If a project isn’t going well, you need to know now. This is another good reason to hire people who are passionate about exceptional performance (see Part 2 of this series). Tools and quality checks are the skeleton of your program, but the heart is professionals who recognize a potential gap and respond with initiative.

You also can encourage ALL your staff to “stay in the negative.” While it’s wonderful to hear what you’re doing well, it can be even more valuable to hear what a client thinks you could do better. And it’s not just the client-facing staff; quality is important in everything your staff does, and everything they do impacts quality, whether clients see it or not.

Grab your Tool Belt

Still, tools are important. I wrote about DT’s Quality Self Service tool in Part 3, which monitors trigger metrics like candidate flow, match of skills to requirements, etc. This tool helps ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Because we make a point of discovering what is important to each HM, we can “tune” the sensitivity of the various triggers to customize the tool for each project.

And you need quality checks, of course. At DT the quality team reaches out to a client two weeks into every search, whether there is an apparent problem or not. Try this approach: “It looks like things are going well from our perspective, but what is your take? What can we do better?”

Satisfaction Surveys: An Imperfect Solution

Regarding overall company performance, customer satisfaction surveys are a time-honored tool. Still, I’m not sure they capture all the data we want. We send them to both HMs and candidates, and we have great numbers. But we don’t get a response for every one we send. Is that because non-responders are happy but don’t have time, or is it because they are unhappy?

The most valuable information doesn’t always come from the loudest; it may be hidden within those who are silent. Even if only a small percentage of non-responders were unhappy, their feedback would be QA gold. This is the voice of the customer we NEED to hear.

What can you do? Make it as easy as possible for people to respond. Just as each client has different ideas about quality, each may prefer a different way to provide feedback. In addition to sending fast, easy online surveys, invite clients to call you voice-to-voice. Look into text-based surveys, or an automated phone process.

Go for the Gold

Do NOT assume that non-response = a satisfied customer. You might be putting lipstick on a pig without even knowing it! Instead, stay in the negative and assume that the client is unhappy. Find a way to connect with that client: reach out via email, via phone, text. Persist. No doubt many of you face this same challenge, and I’d love to hear some of your creative ideas. You can use the comment box, below, or contact me directly.

Quality is a journey of continuous improvement and the bar at DT is always rising — sometimes I feel like I’m getting shorter! Measuring the un-measurable is vital to our success, even if it’s a little like trying to measure a cloud billowing in the breeze. Of course, the important things often don’t come easily.

If you take nothing else away from this blog series, I hope you take this at least:

• Bring passion and set your ego aside.
• Be customer-centric and dig into the negative.
• Remain nimble to make positive changes on a dime.
• And never, ever try to put lipstick on a pig.

By Kathy Marshall, Director of Quality
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Quality, Excellence, Passion . . . You Can Have It All
Part 3 of 4

Where quality is concerned, my goal is to have our clients experience the same euphoria about their Decision Toolbox (DT) experience that a dog feels when it sticks its head out of the car window. But how do you measure euphoria? In the first two parts of this blog series, I wrote about the challenges of defining (Part 1) and implementing (Part 2) quality in the service industry. In the next two parts I’d like to share some thoughts about measuring quality and, wouldn’t you know it, that too is like trying to nail Jello to the wall — in fact, even more so.

At DT we’ve learned that each client defines quality differently, and that means the specifics of implementation vary from client to client. Measuring, then, is different, too. Here in Part 3, I’ll explore what to measure and in Part 4, I’ll write about how to measure it.

My dog Ranger – Oh the euphoria!

Big Pic or Nitty Gritty?

For the 2013 North American Staffing and Recruiting Trends Report, Bullhorn (a recruitment software provider) surveyed senior leaders of staffing firms (primarily in the contingency space) to rank the most important metrics their firms use to measure success. Almost 40% said it was “total number of placements,” which is not surprising considering they get paid per placement. Next came “fill rate,” at 29%, while “time-to-fill” came in lowest among the six metrics at 4.1%.

Since DT’s model is NOT contingency, most important to us is fill rate (what percentage of projects result in a hire) and time-to-hire (how long did it take to fill the position). We want to help our clients fill lots of positions quickly. But these kinds of overall metrics — performance to goals — are just part of the picture.

If you are running a marathon and you finish in the top 10% of the field, then you probably met your goal. I know I would be impressed! But if your shoes pinched you the whole way, you cramped up at mile 11 and you were seriously dehydrated at the end, then something still isn’t quite right, even though you did meet your overall goal.

Use Milestones to Mitigate

Performance metrics certainly are important, but we also need to identify the details that “bubble up” to create overall metrics. Does the client feel he / she is seeing too many candidates? Not enough? Is the search moving fast enough? In essence, are we meeting each client’s expectations regarding process and service during the search?

We strive to recognize the milestones that are important to each client, and then apply a Six Sigma approach to anticipate where we might fall short, so we can then mitigate those shortfalls. Course correcting is an ongoing process, and that process relies on feedback from the hiring manager (HM). If you follow DT’s blogs, you may think we’re obsessed with the importance of regular, open communication with hiring managers (HM). You’re right — we are.

We ask HMs to let us know: are these the right milestones? Are we hitting them? What should we be doing that we’re not? Let’s switch analogies from a marathon to a three-legged race: if we’re connected at the hip and we’ve got the rhythm down, quality is virtually assured.

Measure for the Future

While I’m emphasizing the importance of measuring / monitoring quality during an engagement, it also has a long-term payoff.  Course correcting extends beyond the single search at hand. As I wrote in Part 1, we can hit the overall goal of finding the candidate who is hired and yet still lose the client because we missed a couple of quality milestones. The better we refine our milestones and measures — the stronger the hip attachment — the more likely the client will be back, and the more likely our next search with this client will run more smoothly.

Well, as much as I would like to give you a single, simple answer about what to measure, it doesn’t work that way. In the service industry it’s not as simple as checking that the widget is within a tolerance range of 0.005 millimeters. But if you understand what is important to the client, identify the milestones, monitor progress to them, and get regular feedback from the client, you may find yourself saying, “Move over, Rover — I want to stick my head out, too!”

Coming in Part 4: how to measure the un-measurable.

By Kathy Marshall, Director of Quality
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Quality, Excellence, Passion . . . You Can Have It All

Part 2 of 4

In Part 1 of this series I wrote about how the definition of “quality” can be different for different clients, but when it comes to implementing quality, one thing MUST be constant: passion. But how do you implement passion? I’ll share the approach we take at Decision Toolbox (DT), and hopefully you’ll find a couple of things that might be useful.

Three conditions are essential to the success of a quality program: you need a clear quality vision, your company goals need to be aligned with that vision, and you need commitment from your leadership team. If these three conditions are aligned, you have a culture that will embrace and nurture passion. If any part is out of alignment, the program probably will struggle.

Hire Passion

I’ll talk about tools and systems in a moment, but implementing quality starts with passionate people. You can train people on processes and technology, but you need to hire people who already have passion walking through the door. You can interview for certain behaviors characteristic of passion:

• How do you tap into your entrepreneurial spirit when you care for your client? (the ideal response: “Well, there are so many examples I could share . . .”).
• Using examples, give me an idea of how you respond to quality issues raised by a client (you’re looking for something like, “Those are the kinds of challenges I love to sink my teeth into!”)

Train Well and Often

Now that you have all this passion flying around your organization, you need to focus it. Let’s assume you’ve hired proven professionals with the right experience and skills, as well as the passion. You’ll need to train them not only in your processes and procedures, but also in your quality-oriented, passion-nurturing culture. Part of the training should include the fact that you want them to focus on results AND building rapport with clients. The goal is to empower people to run with the passion.

Yes, they’ll make a mistake or two. But, as DT CEO Kim Shepherd wrote in her recent blog series on culture, “Great culture isn’t afraid to make mistakes. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.”

And don’t stop with initial training — provide ongoing training opportunities. Build out a learning runway for your team.  Help people set performance goals and, when they achieve them, make a really big deal about it (see below for more on acknowledging performance). Then set the bar higher. These are passionate people! They need challenges to stretch and thrive.

Provide Tools and Resources

Warning…shameless brag moment ahead. We recently launched our Recruiter Quality Self Service tool, a function in Recruiting Machine, our ATS / ERP system. We identified a number of “triggers” that alert recruiters if there is a potential quality item . . . for example, if a project is not moving at the expected pace, or we’re not getting feedback on submitted candidates in a timely manner. Once the recruiters get an alert, they can take action themselves, reach out for help from me and my quality team, and/or we can send in paratroopers — professional sourcers, writers, marketing strategists, leads, pods or other resources.

Let me quickly add that, as great as this tool is, it still falls to people to leverage their passion for exceeding expectations to embrace this information to take action, course-correct and make a difference!

Applause! Applause!

If strong performance on quality is a cake, then it’s not finished until you slather icing on as the acknowledgment of a job well done. Kudos are fuel for the fires of passion at work. You might offer a monthly or quarterly Top Performer award, or on-the-spot Shining Star awards, or a “great job!” corner in your employee newsletter. Any recognition is a “rinse and repeat:” it recognizes what the team member has done, and motivates that person not only to do it again, but also to reach even higher.  Others learn new ways of providing excellence in everything they do.  Your entire team is elevated.

In Part 3 I’ll discuss measuring quality — know where I can get a passionometer?

By Kathy Marshall, Director of Quality
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Quality is in the Eye of the Beholder

Part 1 of 4

In service industries, quality presents different challenges than it does in manufacturing, but it is no less important. It can be harder to define quality goals, implement quality processes and measure results. Our quality program at Decision Toolbox (DT) is proving effective, and I’d like to share with you some of what we’ve learned. Here in Part 1 I’ll write about defining quality, and in Parts 2 and 3 I’ll cover implementation and measurement.

Quality Brings ‘Em Back

A key goal with quality is to build repeat business. Results are important, but they don’t necessarily ensure repeat business the way quality can. For example, imagine you run a recruiting firm and consider these two scenarios:

• The client hired your candidate (the result), but customer satisfaction was low.
• The client did NOT hire your candidate but satisfaction was high.

Of course you want both results AND high satisfaction, but if the above scenarios are the only two choices, wouldn’t you take the second one? You don’t want clients’ business just for today — you want a partnership that works today, tomorrow and years from now. Your quality program should encompass not only results but also process and service. That way your clients will be saying, “Wow, I wish I needed to use Company X again . . . I really enjoyed working with them.”

Defining Quality at the Source

At DT we’ve found that the definition of quality changes from client to client and even from one hiring manager (HM) to another. It might have to do with candidate volume, market intel, EOE compliance . . . the list goes on. This is just one reason that we believe it is crucial to establish a strong partnering relationship with hiring managers — our ultimate clients. For more great reasons, see the blog series “Recruiting Hiring Managers as Partners” by DT Founder and CTO Jay Barnett.

You need to discover what is important to the client at the start of the project, and continue to get feedback during the project. It’s hard to overstate the importance of the relationship with the client. A recent internal audit at DT showed that, in 80% of projects in which there was a problem, there was less engagement from the hiring manager and breakdowns in communication.

Of course clients are busy. Who doesn’t have eight phone calls, three meetings, a lunch ‘n’ learn and a ballet recital on their calendar for today? But regular ongoing communication — maybe just a few minutes a week — enables you to continue sharpening your focus.

Communication: the GPS of Quality

Here’s an analogy: a few years ago I was driving with my kids to a beach vacation. My husband was driving separately. The owner of the beach house had given my hubby directions, but they didn’t make it to me. My husband called to check in: “Where are you?” When I told him, he didn’t think it sounded right. He called the owner, who said, “Well, the good news is that she’s making excellent time. The bad news is that she missed the turnoff about 50 miles back.”

You can do everything right according to your own business model, but without communication from the client — which enables you to course-correct in a timely manner — you might miss your turnoff.

Compromise Can Be Costly

When clients want to bypass your quality processes, do you compromise? It’s a tricky question. At DT we evaluate each situation on a case-by-case basis, but in general, the answer is no. Our passion for excellence is such that we have walked away from business if it seemed like the likelihood of delivering “defective” service was too great.

The cost of defective service, processes or results is high for both sides. Most likely it would mean a poor hire for the client and no repeat business for DT. We’re not driven by the dollars; we’re driven by a passion to help clients succeed. And you know what? The dollars follow.

Next post: making excellence happen means making passion happen (it’ll be steamy, I promise!).

By Kim Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Ignore Culture at Your Peril, Part 4 of 4

In the first part of this series I explained why I’m passionate about convincing people that culture is as important as any other aspect of a successful business. Then I described 10 characteristics of great culture. Now that we’re at the last post, my message is this: great culture starts with the WHY. I know, I’m ignoring my own advice. Let’s just say I saved the best for last.

Passion lives in the WHY, and passion motivates people to be exceptional. Author Simon Sinek gave a great presentation at TEDxPugetSound in 2009. He says that too many organizations start with the more tangible things, like the WHAT (products or services) or the HOW (logistics, business models, etc.). You can watch the video at here.

But those who excel, those who defy expectations, start with the WHY. One example is Apple. There are other computer companies who have access to the same resources, but Apple continues to innovate in ways that others don’t. Apple doesn’t just lead markets, they create them. That’s because their business model puts the WHY at the core and then develops the HOW and WHAT out of the WHY.

WHY Do You Do It?

The WHY is not to make a profit. That’s a result, Sinek says. The WHY is deeper. Think about your own situation. WHY do you work where you do? I’m not asking why you became a recruiter or a .NET developer or a financial analyst. True, you probably chose your profession because of some passion. You didn’t discover the WHY after you’d gotten your degree, right?

But you can be any of those things at any company. WHY did you bring your passion to your current employer? Do they start with the WHY? Is their WHY aligned with yours? If so, I’ll bet dimes to dollars that you’re very happy with your job, and your employer is very happy with your performance.

Show Me the Money Passion

For me it’s a lot of things, and money isn’t all that high on the list. More important are things like the fact that I’m having a blast. I don’t have to do it — I get to do it. Another reason: at Decision Toolbox (DT), I can give back to the community. In my life that’s not separate from work. At DT we don’t believe in work / life balance, we believe in life balance. It’s all integrated. For example, my work with organizations like Girls, Inc. and Working Wardrobes allows me to help people improve the quality of their lives, and it’s also a great way to network.

We shared Sinek’s WHY presentation at our last nationwide all-staff gathering, and then asked all our people to write down their WHYs. Not one of them wrote, “It pays the bills.” Here’s a sampling:

• A Recruiter: “Love DT’s culture, flexibility and support.”
• A Director: “I want to feel like I am part of something that makes a difference.”
• Recruiter: “I’m in control.”
• Media specialist: “It is very important for me to spend time with my children, and DT allows me the flexibility to attend football, basketball and other activities.”
• Recruiter: “Recruiting with a conscience.”
• Writer: “I get to partner with DT, not be an employee.”
• Recruiter: “Single parent . . . DT changed our lives. I’m never leaving.”

If that last one didn’t move you, you probably should have an EKG. With that kind of passion — and the WHY at the core — DT has been thriving for 20 years, even through the ups and downs that caused others in our space to close their doors. I hope is your #1 takeaway is this: manage your P&L rationally, but manage your culture passionately.

Follow Kim on Twitter and LinkedIn.

By Kim Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Ignore Culture at Your Peril, Part 3

A lot of business leaders think culture is squishy. They don’t like squishy. They’re more comfortable with data in spreadsheet rectangles. But culture makes up MORE of the foundation of a successful business than sticks and bricks do. Employees don’t come in to your company every day because of the paint on the walls or the water in the cooler. They come because of culture.

As I wrote in my last post, culture is the framework employees use to create meaning and purpose, and THAT’S what motivates people to give their best. We’re proactive about that framework at Decision Toolbox (DT), and it helps us put some nice numbers in those spreadsheet rectangles. As a continuation of my last post, here are five more ways to create great culture.

1. Great culture hires right then lets go. In recruiting, take your time, hire people who are smarter than you, and then get the h#!! out of the way. Forbes contributor Mike Myatt wrote an interesting piece saying that competency-based leadership models are incomplete. In addition to competency, you need to cultivate your people’s “ability to align purpose, vision, values, character and commitment” with competency.

2. Great culture builds exponential energy. It’s hard to stay disgruntled when all around you are shooting off fireworks. Those A players you hired? They help shape your culture. They set the bar high, motivate their colleagues and generate momentum with great ideas. Your culture should encourage people to rev the company’s engines, and reward them for doing so.

3. Great culture welcomes like family. Invest in onboarding and you’ll see the returns. When a new team member starts at DT, we send a giant fortune cookie that says, “We predict a very bright future for you at Decision Toolbox.” We let them know they have the freshest eyes, and that makes them one of the most important people on our team . . . please tell us what you see that’s missing or inefficient or redundant. Not only does that set the stage for them to engage and participate, but it also sends a loud and clear message that they are valued.

4. Great culture isn’t afraid to make mistakes. Everyone screws up. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. But if you think about it, there’s great power in screw-ups. If you screw up good and then share it, no one will EVER screw up that way again. So at DT we celebrate the screw-ups with a Boo-Boo of the Month award, a Starbucks gift card for the biggest mistake. That helps ensure that people come to management for help in smoothing over any rough spots, and it gives everyone a chance to learn.

5. Great culture PIECEs it together. Passion, Integrity, Ethics, Compassion and Empathy — you need them. I wrote in my last post that you build your business with your head, but create culture with your heart. It can be hard to switch back and forth, so why not integrate them? At DT every dollar of our advertising budget goes to support nonprofit organizations. It gives us visibility, allows for networking and, most importantly, lets us give back to our community. We also have a unique channel partner Nonprofit Relief Program. The channel partner chooses a nonprofit and DT donates 8% of our first TWO years of revenue with a company brought in by that channel partner. The channel partner gets revenue, DT gets business and — most importantly again — we all get to give back.

Hopefully that squishiness is starting to look a lot more substantial. In the final post of this series, coming up, I’ll delve deeper into the WHY: why people work for your company, and how the quality of WHY separates great companies from merely good ones.

Follow Kim on Twitter and LinkedIn.

By Kim Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Ignore Culture at Your Peril, Part 2

Every CEO says “People are our most important resource,” but a lot of them don’t really believe it. So I’m singlehandedly trying to make up for that by being the Chief Evangelical Officer for culture. In Part 1 of this series I argued that executives shouldn’t ignore culture. Heck, “not ignoring” isn’t enough!

Culture is not an afterthought; it’s the heart and soul of a great company. At Decision Toolbox (DT) we treat our culture like a plant that needs regular attention and care, and it makes a HUGE difference in our success. So what does great culture look like? Here are five characteristics, and in my next post I’ll share five more.

1. Great culture starts with respect. You build your business with your head, but you create culture with your heart. Employees give us almost half of their waking hours. Ask your heart this (and tell it to be honest): shouldn’t those be some of the best hours of their lives? Your culture should respect every employee, acknowledge their potential and recognize their contributions. It’s the framework that employees use to create meaning and purpose, for better or worse. What meaning and purpose are your people creating?

2. Great culture always respects time. At DT mutual respect is strong and that means not wasting one second of anyone’s time. If someone is late to a DT meeting, they have to sing. In front of the whole group. But it’s not a punishment, it’s fun. And guess what? People are hardly ever late. We recently had an all-staff phone conference starting at 11 AM and all 93 people who were supposed to be on the call were there at 10:59.

3. Great culture isn’t afraid to flatten the hierarchy. As CEO, my client is my staff. Their clients are our customers, but my job to set them up for success as they take care of those customers. Another example: our proprietary ATS, Recruiting Machine, was designed by our fabulous IT team. But from day one, our Recruiters have been kicking the tires and providing feedback. They don’t adapt to the technology, the technology adapts to them. And it’s a great system because of that.

4. Great culture is fluent in tribal-speak. Did you read Terri Davis’ recent blogs on managing perception in communication? Good stuff. At DT we want our people’s perception to be that we’re ALL part of the tribe, insiders who share a common vision and a common language. Here’s a real email I sent to my Chief Recruiting Officer:

“Our CP just landed a chunky monkey. Please send the Green Flag, iceberg it, and flag the cockroach committee. Dog has fleas.”

If you know what that means, welcome to the tribe. ‘Nuff said.

5. Great culture remembers to re-apply often. You can’t just slap a little culture on and then spend all day under the fluorescent sun of Planet Cubicle. You’ll get burned. You have to keep slathering it on. At our last nationwide All-Staff meeting we asked everyone to write down why they work at DT. It was part of a culture-building exercise specific to that meeting, but we’re still using to reapply our culture. Every Wednesday we send out “Humpday Why” emails, sharing a couple of co-workers’ Whys with the team. The Whys include things like, “Recruiting with a conscience” and “I get to be a partner with DT, not an employee.” Meaning and purpose, baby!

The goal is to create the best environment possible, the kind of environment YOU want to work in. And it’s more than just good sense, it’s the right thing to do. Next post: five MORE characteristics of great culture. Absolutely free. How’s that for a chunky monkey?

By Kim Shepherd, Chief Executive Officer
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Part 1: Culture is the Essential Glue

I present to a lot of different groups and when I say, “Culture is the essential glue,” I get a lot of deer-in-the-headlights looks. Even people in our own business, in recruiting and HR, push culture down the priority list. Hey, you can always put up some posters, right? Like that cat hanging from a tree saying, “Hang in there!”

But it IS the essential glue. It’s just as important as your marketing strategy or R&D or the ERP system you choose. At Decision Toolbox our culture is so robust that it helps shape our business plan. Over the next four posts, I’ll give you my take on why culture is so important, share 10 characteristics of great culture, and explain why culture is all about putting “the why” first.

Love ‘Em and Keep ‘Em

To me, a great culture is about having fun and loving your work, but I’ll lead off with a reason that resonates with most people: it can save you money. How? It’s crucial to retaining your top talent, and replacing talent is expensive. A 2008 SHRM study estimates that the total cost, including recruiting, training and loss of productivity, could run as high as “90% to 200% of an employee’s annual salary.” Ouch.

At Decision Toolbox we put culture first and it works. We have a lot of people who have been with us for at least 5 years, and quite a few who have 8 years with us (by the way, if you’re keeping score, the national average is 4.6 years, according to the US Bureau of Labor). All but one of my C-level execs have been with DT at least 10 years.

Enough numbers. HOW does great culture keep people on your team? At DT it does so by helping people love their work, and I’ll give you an example.

At our last nationwide All-Staff gathering, we asked everyone to write down why they work at DT. Similar reasons came up again and again: they love our flexible virtual model (everyone works from a home office) and the fact that they are more like partners than employees. But one of the biggest reasons is that working at DT means being part of something special and unique. Jay Barnett, our founder, boils it down to this: “Recruitment is too important not to be done really well. Work is too time consuming to not be loved.”

Respecting Me Respecting You

I could write about DT all day, but there are other great examples out there. If you shop at Trader Joe’s, you’ve probably noticed how upbeat their people are. They’re bagging my groceries and they’re smiling and having fun . . . not like the baggers at some other places. That enthusiasm makes us respect them, don’t you think?

It’s because Trader Joe’s culture is unique and goes deeper than Hawaiian shirts. It helps their people respect themselves by helping them feel they are part of something that’s bigger than themselves and something that’s unique. TJ’s culture even comes across in their marketing: while other grocers promote freshness or low prices, Trader Joe’s promotes quirkiness and fun.

The story’s similar at Starbucks. The average tenure of their Baristas is six years! They make coffee for a living and earn something close to minimum wage, but they LOVE their jobs. I’ve ordered lattes at other coffee houses without really noticing the person behind the counter, but Starbucks Baristas stand out. I naturally respect them because they clearly respect themselves, and respect comes from the culture.

Great Culture is Intentional

In successful companies, culture is intentional. It makes sense to recruit people who already have strong self-respect, for example, but a lot of companies seem to be good at deflating that quality. DT, TJ’s and Starbucks deliberately pump it up. You take an intentional approach to managing your P&L or controlling inventory, right? You owe it to yourself — and your employees — to do the same for culture.

Next up in this series: five characteristics of great culture (hint: hanging posters is not one of them. Goodbye, kitty!).

By Terri Davis, Director of Client Relations And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Part 4:    Turning negatives into choices

This is the final installment in a gripping, big-budget four-part mini-series on the importance of shaping the perception of the people we communicate with. The ideas apply to just about any communication or interaction: between a company and its market, a provider and a client, manager and employee, and others.

The plot so far: in Part 1 I made a case for taking a deliberate approach to shaping perception. Part 2 outlined a strategy for ensuring that, in any interaction, the other person comes away with a positive perception. In part 3 I focused in on laying the groundwork for making it easier to handle interactions involving the negative. But let’s kick it up a notch: what if we could transform negatives into choices?

Choice is Powerful

Choice gives us greater control over outcomes. More significantly, having no choice means having no power, so even when the choices aren’t ideal, having some options is better than having none. As we head into an example, imagine a scale measuring emotional response to any given situation, with +10 indicating “I am delighted” and 0 indicating “This is some serious %^()$#!+.”

Now imagine you are managing a project, at a recruiting firm, to build a pipeline of Customer Service Reps for a client. Up until now the project hasn’t delivered the number of qualified, available and interested candidates that you — and the client — expected. Based on candidate input and market research, you’re 98% sure that low pay is the issue. You schedule a conversation with the client.

Zero or Hero?

You could start the conversation by saying, “You’ll never fill these roles unless you offer more money.” But that’s almost guaranteed to ensure the client registers a 0 on the response scale. And the client’s perception is likely to be that (1) you can’t get the job done and (2) you’re not helping them achieve their goals.

That approach essentially eliminates choices. What if you share your insights and then recommend some options? The client’s emotional response may not be +10, but it should be higher than 0 . . . and the client’s perception should be that you (1) know what you’re talking about and (2) have good ideas to help them achieve their goals. Borrowing from a recent post by Decision Toolbox (DT) Founder Jay Barnett, you might even turn the negative into a selling point. How? Recommend an approach that markets these openings as an opportunity for candidates with little or no experience to gain the skills and launch a new career.

Another example: DT’s leadership team is proactive about managing our employees’ perception of us; for one thing, we want our people to know that we value their ideas. In fact, Recruiting Machine (RM), our proprietary ATS / CRM / ERP (I could go on) system, has been shaped over the years by input from the recruiters and clients who use it.

Like Those Ideas

We have a “wish list” of almost 600 suggestions to improve RM, contributed by the team, and the list is visible to everyone. Until recently, the IT team prioritized the suggestions. But it’s hard to feel your ideas are valued if your suggestion is #377. So we put a “Like” button next to every suggestion in the list. Employees now have the option of actively campaigning to drum up support among their peers (“If you want a quick snapshot of where you are with each project, vote for this tool!”).

My key message here is to be deliberate about how you communicate and manage perception. You’ve seen it before in DT’s blogs, but it’s worth repeating: Design what you want, or deal with what you get.

By Terri Davis, Director of Client Relations
And Tom Brennan, Senior Writer

Part 3: Managing Perception when the Negative Arises

In Part 1 of this blog series, I made a case for deliberately managing perception in interactions — between recruiter and hiring manager, vendor and customer, and others. In any interaction each party comes away with a perception of the other as well as of the relationship, the outcome and more. In Part 2 I outlined a strategy for managing perception to ensure your interactions result in the kind of perception you want. To see some examples of how NOT to manage interactions, see Nicole Cox’s blog series on the Top Ten Mistakes Hiring Managers and Candidates Make During the Courtship Period.

Like it or not, a lot of our interactions involve negative situations, such as resolving a disagreement or critiquing performance. Many of us are not comfortable in these interactions, whether we’re delivering or receiving the negative. However, managing perception may be even more important in these kinds of interactions than in the positive ones. In How to Say Anything to Anyone: A Guide to Building Business Relationships That Really Work, Shari Harley stresses the importance of establishing direct, candid relationships BEFORE those situations come up.

According to Harley, your partners “can work with you, around you, or against you.” Which one applies to you? It depends on your relationships, and communication is an important part of any relationship. In Part 1 I stated that effective communication is the result of deliberate acts. Harley offers four steps — acts — to lay the groundwork for direct and candid relationships. And that should make it easier to handle interactions involving the negative.

(Per)Mission: Possible

Even when things are spelled out in a job description or service agreement, it’s worth spending a few minutes with the relationship partner to ensure both sides are on the same page. Three of the steps probably are familiar to you: clarify the (1) goals, (2) roles and (3) expectations. The fourth however, is a little unique, so I’d like to spend some time with it: (4) permission to provide feedback.

Harley recommends that we explicitly give and request permission to provide feedback, even if it is negative. In our culture we tend to walk on eggshells, keeping negative feedback to ourselves. That may be courteous, but is it helpful? David Harder, founder of Inspired Work, Inc. and a long-time friend of DT, says “Irritation is a great motivator for change.” Of course, neither David nor I advocate that you deliberately irritate your colleagues or clients (save it for your kids!).

Give It? Get It? Good.

Early in any relationship, then, let the other person know you value their feedback. You might say to a client, “Let me be candid and say that there are going to be challenges along the way. We’re not perfect. But as long as you provide me with feedback, we should work well together.”

At the same time, ask the other person for permission to provide feedback. You might tell a direct report, “I know there will be positives and negatives as our relationship moves forward. Do I have your permission to give you feedback, even when it is negative?” This might take a direct report by surprise; as the boss, you have that authority, but consider the direct report’s perception after you’ve asked permission.

Crack-a-Lackin’ Eggshells

There always will be those who take offense to feedback, but most people appreciate it. Feedback is the data we need to “course-correct” and guide our careers, our business results and our lives. It’s also like food for relationships: healthy input means healthy relationships. You can walk on eggshells, but if you never crack any, you’ll never enjoy an omelet!

In my next post I will perform some daring acts of pretzel logic and explore how to turn negatives into options.