Throughout my management career (recession or no recession) there has been a job-related coaching I’ve continually given to the other managers on my team, which in a single sentence goes like this:
“Recruitment, selection and hiring is a fully-loaded stronghold of growth potential for us, and therefore, those processes are among the most crucial ones needing our attention.”
Those three words contained these Intentions:
RECRUITMENT adds business partners to our ‘Ohana in business [MWA Key 6], and we don’t wait for the right people to knock on our door: We actively seek them out.
SELECTION adds strengths to our team [MWA Key 7] and thus we need to understand which strengths we need to add, and why, and how we will immediately employ those strengths to mutual benefit: A job is win-win.
HIRING then, is about starting someone in the best possible way so they can immediately connect our job for them to their Ho‘ohana intention [MWA Key 2]. We start with Aloha [MWA Key 1] aligned throughout ALL of their beginning with us (i.e. The practical container of their first 90 days.)
Bonus link: Rands had written an exceptional blog posting describing how a new hire’s Day 1 with you isn’t necessarily their first day on your payroll… every Alaka‘i Manager should read this: Wanted
To “start with Aloha aligned throughout ALL of their beginning with us” sounds straight-forward enough, however to provide it thoroughly means that you’ve done enough homework and preparation to have that luxury of time and energy to give it.
Seasoned managers reading this will have instantly realized there are a lot of assumptions in those intentions I’d noted above within recruitment, selection and hiring — a company’s language of intention [MWA Key 5] has been thoroughly discussed, made clear, and held in agreement by all involved. For instance, what values are you hiring for?
[At Managing with Aloha: Choose Values]
Our current theme here on Talking Story [The Alaka‘i Manager as Job Maker] is begging a couple more questions about how you design the job before you can begin to recruit and interview for it — in the language of these intentions above, we can see that selection assumptions were settled first: You assessed the team you already have in place, and you identified strengths you need, strengths which need to be doubled up, or which may be missing altogether based on the good working order of your healthy workplace compass.
Strong Job Creation: Identify, Capture, Employ
Therefore, job creation is heavily influenced by designing a job for strengths management:
— a Ho‘ohana-worthy job identifies the strengths which ensure a business will be successful
— a Ho‘ohana-worthy job captures those strengths in the personification of a working human being (your systems and processes exist to support that person’s initiative and creativity)
— a Ho‘ohana-worthy job employs those strengths by giving that person chosen the opportunity to apply his or her strengths to specific activities each and every day
In regard to those specific activities, remember that:
Feeling Good Isn’t the Same as Feeling Strong
Here is our goal for the coming week: Start with what you have, and improve it.
Before you even think about bringing another person into your company, get your workplace to be healthier for those already in it. Consider the jobs already ‘in play’ everyday with you, and analyze them one by one — do so with the people who hold them, and get their first-hand perspective: Are the jobs you now have all Ho‘ohana worthy? (That last link will serve to help you review the Aloha connection as well.)
These will be strength-building conversations: End every conversation you have with an agreement between you on what shift will be made in the right direction — in the Ho‘ohana North Star direction of your healthy workplace compass (wherein an ‘Ohana in business is mission-driven, values-centered, and customer-focused).
And you know what? I bet these will be conversations you sincerely enjoy.
A Teaching with Aloha Bonus from
Workplace Aloha School and Managing with Aloha University:
Another connection for the serious Managing with Aloha learner now in Talking Story self-study: Are you a manager or leader?
I am leaving this post up through-out this week, for I want to encourage you to work on this before I distract you with more writing on this theme! Review the MWA keys within this post, take the links I have carefully placed for you, and let’s talk story about it as you need to.
Relating this to our 2010 Take 5 Game-changing, No. 2:
2. M/L Practical: The 30/70 Mission of Managing with Aloha
The 30: Leading to create the critical resource: Energy
The 70: Managing to channel that resource into the core ‘product’ great managers produce: People who Ho‘ohana (people who thrive within their worthwhile work)Hopefully, these managing versus leading definitions are now familiar to you, as is my insistence that managing and leading are verbs which ALL managers do; they need not have the title of ‘leader.’
More about this strategy was contained in this posting a few weeks back: Reduce your Leadership to a Part-time Gig in 2010
- Your Leadership 30 is this design work on strengths:
It creates energy.
It’s you as leader working on your leadership initiatives. It’s you as leader knowing who you need on your team, and why their work collaborates so well with your own. - Your Management 70 is the operational execution of your resulting job design, and the coaching which goes with it as you continue to forge a boss-employee relationship with someone:
It channels energy.
It’s you as manager having those conversations I suggest, and working with your team on the agreements that will shift work as your healthy workplace compass directs you.
Moving forward, can you maintain this 30/70 mix as an on-going Job Creation strategy in your Strong Week Plan as an Alaka‘i Manager? What will it take?
Can you see how going forward, you will create more energy for you, and your other initiatives, as your people work on the RIGHT things? The more you achieve Ho‘ohana-worthiness, the more your people truly become your business partners, working ON your business with you, and not just IN it.