BarrieBergman

Boys and Toys

Another sad week went by last week.  The first buffoon decided not to run for president (big surprise!), and the governator turned out to be Johnny Appleseed, although he wasn’t planting apple seeds.  Also, the Republicans’ other major clown, Newt Gingrich, self destructed.  Without Trump and the Newtster to kick around, who are we going to laugh at?  Is Bristol Palin too young to run?

Watching politics and the class of individuals it attracts, reminds me once again of sports team owners.  Why do sports attract all these sleaze balls?  For every Rooney family there are five McCourts, Jerry Jones, or Marge Schotts, not to mention the worst of all time, the late, great George Steinbrenner.  What is it about teams playing games that attract these lowlifes?  Why do they love to go down to the field during and after games and prance around like they had some involvement in the outcome of the contest?

The owners meddle in the running of the organization without any knowledge or expertise just because they made a few bucks in the oil business or home improvement.  They become enraged when anyone questions their decision making, and the solution for very problem is to fire the coach or the manager.

I just heard that a hedge fund manager put $200 million into the NY Mets for a minority share.  The Mets are in trouble because their owner invested with Bernie Madoff.  The hedge fund guy said he’s doing it for fun.  Big Boys and their toys!

From Mars to St. Barths

I’ve got to stop reading the newspaper.  There’s too much stupidity in the world, and I may have to move to Mars.  I’m sure Martians are more intelligent than the inhabitants of Earth.  I’ll bet no one there is the equivalent of Sarah Palin.

Last week I wrote about Tenure, but I neglected to mention Seniority.   In Los Angeles recently, a teacher was decorated and praised for excellent performance.  He was so good at teaching kids to read, that he started speaking to groups of teachers to help them better instruct their students.

He was laid off last week, while the teacher in the next classroom was retained.  The neighboring teacher was cited for poor performance on a standardized test, but was kept on because he had seniority.  Can we possibly be this dumb?  Is this kind of insanity the reason our educational system is behind other countries?  Am I on some sort of hallucinogen?

I believe in making seniority part of the evaluative process, but performance must come first.  Maybe these union inspired rules are the reason people are so pissed off at teachers’ unions (see: Wisconsin).  If we don’t do a better job of educating our kids, this country is going to hell in a hand basket, and my great-grandchildren will have to live in St. Barths.  On second thought . . .

Are You Insane?

It's not always easy to change a person's behavior.  If you're in a situation where your employee, boss or client repeatedly commits an act that is manipulative, nonproductive, or unethical, and you want the behavior to change, what do you do?

You have 3 choices:                                                                                                                                1.  Accept the behavior and move on.          

    2.  Change the behavior and move on.  If what you're doing to encourage the person to change his behavior isn't working, then change your strategy.

    3.  Fire the individual and move on.  And if it's your boss with whom you have  issues, you can move on - out the door, that is.

Definition of insanity:  Continuing to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome.                                                                                                             

What Happens When Hiring Mistakes are Made

Firing someone is never easy. As a corporate executive, the hardest thing I ever had to do was to fire an employee. The words, “You’re fired” have become a catch phrase in TV entertainment. This incenses me. Firing someone is not fun. If firing someone gets easy, I believe there is something wrong with you. It may be the right thing to do, but it really sucks to have to do it.

I would get a feeling in the pit of my stomach when I knew somebody had to go. I would try to ignore it or prove it wrong, but the feeling never changed. And whether I fired them the next day, the next week or the next year, it always came to pass. So eventually I realized that once I got that feeling, the best way to proceed was to let the person go and to do it as quickly as possible.

Of course nobody ever wants to get fired. In the moment, you are never going to hear anyone say, “Oh thank you so much! I know this is best for me!” Getting fired is an emotionally painful experience. That’s why I developed strategies to make the experience as quick and succinct as possible. Firing someone is not a time for a lengthy discussion or rehashing what went wrong. It’s a time to deliver your decision as a fait accompli.

Over time, I realized that in the process of firing someone, I couldn’t teach them anything. There is no point in offering any parting words of wisdom. Nobody’s going to hear them anyway. The only thing that will register is the fact they have just lost their job. So I decided when I had to fire someone, I wouldn’t get into any detailed explanations, discussions or arguments. So if you have to fire someone, just do it and get it over with.

I developed a set of informal guidelines for firing someone. They may not be for everyone, but it certainly helped me in a very difficult situation.

• I always fired somebody in their office, never in mine, so I could do it and get the hell out of there. That probably sounds cowardly and maybe it is, but the truth is, it does no one any good to prolong the agony. There was nothing else to be accomplished. I could try to assuage hurt feelings, but experience taught me that I couldn’t even do that.
• I would wait until late in the day, even after hours if I thought I could manage it. As much as possible, I wanted to avoid the humiliation of having their co-workers witness the event.
• I would never arrange a meeting ahead of time because I didn’t want them to have to think about it all day. I did it when I could find somebody in his or her office. Unfortunately this brought on a sort of cat and mouse game a few times, when I went to fire somebody and they weren’t there. Once I couldn’t find a guy for three days!

My experience was that firings never came as a surprise to anybody. When somebody was screwing up, everybody knew it including the person being fired. If you are doing your job properly as a manager, you are providing regular feedback, so a person should never be truly surprised, when they are fired for poor performance.

I don’t believe in lame ducks. When people are fired, they should go immediately. I’d pay them severance and try to be fair, but I would ask them to leave. It was better for the morale of the organization to move on quickly. I always had somebody ready to step in to make the transition as smooth as possible.

After firing someone, I would always meet with the people in the affected department as quickly as I could get them together, so I could manage the information flow. This made it easier to settle down any organizational turmoil after the word got out. In a void, all kinds of rumors will develop as to why somebody had to go. It’s best to allow people a chance to ask questions and to vent their feelings.

Without a doubt, firing someone was the toughest single thing that I ever had to do in business. And I hope to God I never have to do it again.

There were a few times I should have fired myself. I thought about it. But I was usually able to right my ship by having a stern talk with myself. That’s one very nice thing about being a CEO.

Hiring the Right Employee

One of the most important jobs of a manager is hiring the right people.  When the right person is in place, managing them becomes an easy and enjoyable experience.  The right person makes you look good as a manager.  Unfortunately, the flipside is also true.  A bad hire can make you look incompetent as a manager and a leader.

 Most managers are taught to hire from resumes.  They look at qualifications on paper and decide whether the resume fits the job.  Then they interview the person and make the hire - without regard for what makes the person tick.  Personality dynamics are rarely considered.  A person's got to have the qualifications, but the interaction between the manager and the potential hire is just as important.  I also believe it is a mistake to delegate the hiring decision to the Human Resources department.  HR doesn't have to live with this person every day.  The hiring manager does.  It’s HR's responsibility to provide managers with qualified candidates.  The manager's responsibility is to choose the candidate whose personality and energy best fits with the rest of the team.

 If you want to create synergy, you've got to have a certain kind of chemistry with your team.  In my early days as a manager, I hired a number of people who I really didn't like.  They had excellent resumes with all the right experience, but I didn't have a good feeling about them.  Without exception, down the road, these people turned out to be bad hires.  I discovered it is vitally important to also take into account an individual's character and temperament before making a hiring decision.

 After hiring enough of the wrong people I realized that watching and listening are critical, when conducting an interview.  As I watched and listened, I would ask myself the following questions:

             Do I LIKE this person?

Sounds simple enough, but there are a lot of components that go into deciding that.  Liking a person is crucial in a work environment.  You want to find someone to compliment your personality and work style, who will support your leadership, and who you will like running into at the water cooler.  I'm not saying to hire someone just like yourself.   Ask yourself what personality traits are you looking for in this position - someone who is friendly, shy, assertive, or aggressive?  Maybe it's a combination of traits.  If the position you're filling is for a salesperson, a shy quiet person would probably not be as effective a choice as one who is more assertive and confident.

            Is he or she emotionally stable?

Observe carefully during the interview.  Hopefully you won't run into a pathological liar.  They're extremely hard to read.  Just look for simple signs.  Interviewees are often nervous.  They may really need a job, and this one may look perfect to them.  But is their nervousness over the top or just normal?  Do they appear truthful or stressed?  Are you witnessing mood swings?  Just watch the behavior.

            Will this person fit in?

What is the culture like in your office?  Is it nose to the grindstone, casual and fun, or professional and formal?  First define the culture of your work place.  Then ask yourself, will this person I'm interviewing be comfortable here?  Is this an environment that will work for him? Determine why or why not.  If not, what would it take to make the person fit in, and is it worth the effort?

 But it doesn't always go as planned . . . Sometimes it's not until after an employee has worked for you for a while that you realize that the employee is not cut out for the job.  I'm not some heartless bastard, who enjoys cutting off people's heads.  But there are times when people just can't make the grade.  If someone is not right for the organization, inevitably, the organization is not right for him or her either.  It's better for the individual to move on and to have a chance to find a better fit where they can feel happy and appreciated for their contribution.

 A Record Bar we once hired a buyer who had worked in one of our record stores.  He loved music, was very bright, and had many friends in the company.  His job was to purchase games for our stores.  The music business attracted a lot of creative people, those who liked music, those who played a musical instrument, and some who performed in a band.  We had many wonderful creative people working for us.  This particular guy spent an inordinate amount of time dreaming or thinking.  I'm really not sure about what.  While sitting at his desk he would throw pencils at the tiled ceiling and see how many he could get to stick.  I walked in one day, and there must have been hundreds of pencils stuck to the ceiling.  Obviously, he didn't present the image of an employee hard at work, and time proved exactly that, since his immediate supervisor made the decision that it was time for a personnel change in his department.

 Even with the best intentions, mistakes are made.  A smart manager realizes when a person and position are not a good match, and that a change in personnel needs to take place.

 Stay tuned next week for What Happens When Hiring Mistakes are Made