TalentedApps

Momentum continues to build around the idea that internal use of social media and social networking in particular has a place in and can benefit the enterprise.

So let’s say you accept the notion that internal social media (blogs, wikis, social networks, etc.) will benefit your company. You believe that it will make your employees more productive and engaged, resulting in higher profits and improved retention of some of your best talent. You’ll have a more agile and innovative company. So, you start providing the technologies, announcing their availability, and wait for the improvements to begin.

Trust is key to participation.

What good is it if people don’t participate? As “Groundswell” by Forrester analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff points out, participation is essential for the effort to pay off in achieving your objectives. What level of participation is required to make it worth the effort varies depending on the industry, the roles of the participants, etc. But whatever that level is, it will more likely be achieved if there is sufficient trust by employees that by their participation, not only will good come of it, but just as important, no harm will come from it.

Management is key to creating trust.

This trust factor is a key prerequisite in your company culture prior to the introduction of internal social media. There are two directions in this trust. The first direction of trust is that management trusts that employees will generally use these new tools constructively. Clear objectives, policies, and guidelines can clear up most potential misunderstandings here. The second direction of trust is that employees trust that management will also use these new tools constructively as well. That means that not only is management prepared and actively supporting the initiative, but also actively participating in it in an authentic way. Not only does this demonstrate to employees that management really values participation, but it also engenders trust by putting management’s virtual skin in the game along with everyone else’s. Otherwise, employees will get the feeling that they’re just being watched, and in the absence of genuine positive feedback from management, you can’t blame folks for feeling that management is just waiting to bring the hammer down for a mistake. Of course, there will always be a part of the employee population (“early adopters”) that will participate regardless, but if you want to see participation climb up the “S curve”, trust must be built up.

Participation as barometer of trust.

Getting trust to a sufficient level may take time. Management participation may take a while to build; there will be the inevitable miscue, and so on. Rather than see this as just an obstacle to getting sufficient participation for the productivity, innovation, etc. benefits to start, look at this as another way to take periodic readings on the corporate culture and see how it changes over time. Recall that internal predictive markets can be used to not only get valuable information directly from the prediction market, but can also be analyzed to see how information/knowledge/bias moves through the organization. Similarly, internal social media can be used not only directly to foster collaboration, innovation, and engagement, but can also be used to measure indirectly how engaged employees are over time.

You know me, I love my job.

One of the primary reasons I love my job is because of the amazing people I get to talk to at our customer sites.  These are busy people at industry-leading organizations and they make time for me to answer questions and brainstorm about strategic talent management.

Though our revenue recognition policies prevent us from speaking publicly about our next release, we are able to engage and learn from our customers.  They challenge us to do more and do better.  And, they are rooting for our success!

Thank you!

I was inspired by this idea  (have seen several Twitter versions as well) that maybe using tag clouds can give us some insight.  Maybe not, you be the judge. 

I decided to use a 5 word limit so as to not suggest we think we compare with the likes of Scoble or anything.  Special thanks to tagcrowd for making this easy.

Mark

• Talent
• Measurements
• Investment
• Value
• Decision  

 Meg

• Managers
• People
• Learning
• Goals
• Team

Amy

• Organizations
• Engagement
• Mindset
• Potential
• Tools

Kathi

• Candidate
• Social
• Tip
• Recruiter
• Software

Ken

• Management
• Applications
• Employee
• Job
• Potential

Justin

• Employee
• Management
• Development
• Turnover
• Factors

Last week I had the opportunity to attend The Business of Talent conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. (Kudos to the team at Bersin & Associates for putting together a great conference.) One theme consistently discussed throughout the conference was the need to make leadership development a core part of your talent management strategy. Leadership development goes beyond just training and is equal in importance to recruiting, succession planning and performance management. Most talent management solutions provide applications that help companies to recruit, train, measure, and compensate their workforce. But few have incorporated leadership development as a core business process within the talent management suite; which is interesting since leadership development is generally considered a mission critical part of most business strategies. So the question is how can our talent management solutions help us achieve this critical objective?

First I think it’s important to understand that no software application by itself will ever find the leaders in your organization, let alone develop them (unless of course you have access to Deep Thought or Professor Farnsworth). This is a task for your managers, directors, and senior executives. I also subscribe to the idea that leadership is not tied to a specific role in the company, like manager, vice president or CEO. I think every employee is a potential leader and in my opinion the hallmark of a truly great company is having more leaders than managers, or better yet, just leaders and no managers! With that said, there are some tools your talent management applications ought to provide to assist your organization in identifying and growing your leadership pipeline.

• First is a configurable profile management application. Profiles tell us everything we need to know about the person and the position. They help us assess whether we have the right people in the right job. Person profiles should include things like risk of loss, impact of loss, personal, professional and developmental goals as well as the skills (competencies) the employee has today. Job profiles include the key competencies, certifications, licenses, education requirements, etc. needed to succeed in the position. A good talent management solution will help you match each employee with the right position.

• Second are integrated performance, learning and compensation management applications. Having performance management without learning management is like constructing a house with a yardstick and no hammer; why measure if you can’t build. Likewise, having a learning management application without performance management means you can train your employees but can’t measure their growth or level of accomplishment. Compensation helps you recognize and reward good performance; without it you have a stick (performance management) but no carrot and good employees won’t hang around for very long under those conditions.

• Finally, the talent management suite should include robust analytic tools that aggregate and integrate your data across applications. These tools should help you calibrate performance and potential across the organization; identify risk of loss candidates; craft talent pools and succession plans; and create customized development objectives tied to the key business drivers for your organization.

Most companies believe the best leaders are grown rather than recruited. Individuals who grow up in the organization have already embraced the company’s culture and core values. They understand the business, the market place and most importantly the customer. All they really need is experience and an opportunity to lead. Mark Sanborn writes in You Don’t Need A Title To Be A Leader, “It doesn’t matter what your position is, or how long you’ve worked at your job, whether you help to run your family, a PTA committee, or a Fortune 1000 company. Anyone at any level can learn to be a leader and help to shape or influence the world around them.” Our job as talent management specialists is to provide every employee with the opportunity to become the leaders who will help our organizations succeed and our companies thrive.

Over the weekend while attending a Cabernet tasting event*, I was talking with a friend and somehow  (yes I know — this suggests I have no life OR maybe I’m just really excited about Talent Management) the topic of “top talent transparency” came up.  Of course we didn’t use those words, but it was the topic nonetheless.

When we talk about “top talent” we tend to agonize along the following lines

• If I tell someone that they are on “the list” will their ego make me regret it?
• What about those who are not on “the list” will they be negatively impacted?

I’m going to risk it all with an opinion here, feel free to disagree (in comments or otherwise).  I believe you should be willing to disclose this information to individuals.  Why?  Well, because they are going to find out anyway, so pretending to hide it will not solve your problems.  By sharing this information you can have a better chance of actually getting what you want from those individuals who you consider your top talent.  In otherwords, by letting them know you consider them top talent you have a better opportunity to help them understand why, and as a result they can focus on the behaviors that make them critical to your organization. 

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my mother in the second grade, after I was tested for the MGM program.  The conversation went something like this:

Meg: How did I do?

Mom: I can’t tell you

Meg: Why? I had to take a test today instead of getting to watch a film in the library with the rest of my class, what do you mean you wont tell me how I did?

Mom: I’m told not to tell you because they are worried that by knowing the results it might cause you to act differently.

Meg: Huh?!

Yes, there are risks with transparency but at least those you can actively manage.

* For those interested the category was 2003 California Cabs and the winners were Signorello Valley and Long Vineyards

We’ve just had our 50th post, by Kathi, our resident Social Connections Product Manager (of course). She can pick up her gift certificate the next time she’s out here. Since our start last November, we’ve built our team of bloggers to six, we’ve had many comments, we’ve developed a great presence for Oracle HCM in the blogosphere, and we’ve made many connections as a result of this blog.

So, what do the numbers tell us? Which of the posts have been most popular, or at least (in this day of RSS readers), had the most pagegviews? Here are the top five (as of today):

1. Starbucks: Growth, Trust, and Risk
2. If you love someone set them free
3. About
4. Ode to Fusion Middleware
5. Encourage Job Hopping

Clearly this shows folks aren’t paying any attention and they think we know a lot about Starbucks as it relates to their investment strategy ;-). In addition, it appears we’ve been taken for an advice column on relationships. After finding out neither was the case, people are then reading who we are and what we do, and that appears to have naturally resulted in curiosity about our Fusion Middleware Platform. Finally, it all makes sense when people read that this seemingly eclectic blog is due to our support of a rich, diverse set of experiences.

Thank you to our readers for giving us your time and attention. We will continue to strive to be interesting, entertaining, and informative.

The TalentedApps Crew

Now that we’ve had one 70 degree day, my husband and I are interviewing contractors to build us a deck. We started off by searching for a pool of candidates. We had no idea how to approach this.

My husband asked all his buddies what to do and they had no ideas. Most forgot which contractor they used themselves. Finally one friend said to go to the local home improvement store and ask for recommendations.

So, he got a list of three names and called the first one. That would be Candidate #1, Harry who agreed to come to our house the next business day at 5pm. He arrived on time. He showed us a book of sample decks. He gave us a rundown of his experience. He measured; he talked to us about what we wanted. He drew a rough sketch and promised that he’d hand-deliver an estimate the day after tomorrow. He did so, and he phoned to let us know he’d left it in our mailbox. His estimate and design were professional except that we kept saying we wanted either cedar or composite and his estimate was for pine. (Candidate Tip: Listen to your interviewers –don’t just talk)

Meanwhile, we decided we needed some more candidates.

My husband searched online (that’s how he found me…which worked out pretty well). Nothing ‘local’ came up. Hard to believe all these business don’t have websites in this day and age, but we are in Indiana, not exactly the leading edge of technology. Anyway, a few were listed within about 50 miles, across the Illinois state line, and seemed kind of far. Still, one of them had a map showing their service area. The map wasn’t the greatest but some of those blue dots looked like they were in or near our town so I called them and set up an appointment. (Candidate tip: make sure you know where the recruiters are looking for you. Be there.)

None of the other Illinois websites gave any indication of their service area so we skipped them. I imagine Recruiters may sometimes pass over a candidate for a job if they think the candidate lives ‘too far’ away. (Recruiter tip: Don’t eliminate someone because you assume they aren’t interested. Let them tell you.)

So I called this far-away-in-Illinois contractor, candidate #2, Lenny. He came out a few days later, at lunch time. Lenny listened to what we wanted, took some measurements, showed us his book, showed us sample materials. Lenny has a PASSION for deck building. He told us the story of how he got into the business, his love of architecture. He talked us out of some goofy ideas we had about the deck and gave us some better ideas. (Candidate tip: Sometimes it pays not to blindly nod and agree with everything the interviewer says). He talked to us about cedar versus composite and told us about how cellular vinyl is actually the latest ‘fake’ material used in deck building. He helped us decide on material. He didn’t try to sell us; it truly felt like a conversation. He left us with a drawing, an estimate and a business card. He promised my husband he’d get real professional drawings with bill of materials if we select him. This caused my engineer husband to salivate.

The next day we decided we needed more names. Meanwhile I had pulled out the phone book to find the location of health food store to buy a remedy that was recommended to make my cat stop her nocturnal meowing (long story) when it hit me. Hmmmm…I bet there is a Deck section in here! Yes, there was! How old-fashioned is that? My husband kept marveling that “all the people I asked how to find a contractor and no one told me to use the phone book” (Recruiter tip: Don’t overlook ‘old-fashioned’ methods of sourcing candidates). Sure enough we saw ads for Harry and Lenny. And we also found two different Dwaynes. Were it my own choice, I probably wouldn’t have picked a second Dwayne but the same-name thing didn’t seem to bother my husband like it did me. (Recruiter tip: It’s OK to have two Dwaynes).

Candidate #3, Dwayne-the-first, came out another day at lunch time. One of the first things he said “Oh….I probably should have brought my book” (Candidate Tip/ Boy Scout moto: Be prepared). Dwayne did a quick sketch of what I now realize is a weird deck but at the time I liked it. I think because he and I realized we went to the same high school and grew up a few blocks from each other. (Candidate tip: If you aren’t good at your job you might get away with it by schmoozing. For awhile.) Anyway he made a drawing of ‘weird-deck’ but then took it with him so he could remember it (and we couldn’t). He left us with an immediate estimate which was an exact round number, yet no details with that number. (Candidate tip: Give your salary preference in non-round numbers. It appears to have some logic and thought behind it. )

Which brings me to Candidate #4, Dwayne-the-second. He was supposed to come yesterday at 5pm. He called that morning. “I just was informed that I have to attend a function at my daughter’s school” (translation: my wife just reminded me about my daughter’s thing and even though she told me about it weeks ago, I totally forgot and there’s NO WAY I can get out of it).

Dwayne-the-second asked to reschedule for a week out. I said sure. I informed him he is our last guy, so he should come sooner or not at all. (Candidate tip: If you must reschedule, you maintain the appearance that the interview is a priority for you) Dwayne-the-second hasn’t even given me an estimate or drawn a deck (weird or otherwise) yet I already have a negative impression of him. Not good.

Those are all our candidates.

I’ve drawn some conclusions on this process and how it relates to candidate selection. The candidate you select should meet the basic requirements, which of course should be stated in your job posting. We didn’t have a job posting. We didn’t sit down and agree on any criteria ahead of time. We didn’t really have any screening questions. Well, we had a few but we kept forgetting them and didn’t always ask all of them consistently. Our interview usually started with us flailing our arms in the backyard giving our vision of the deck (which probably varied from candidate to candidate depending on whether it was cold outside that day).

We didn’t even have a well thought out plan about how to find our candidates, we just searched willy nilly. Because of our poor Deck-Builder Recruiting Practices we are in danger of making a decision based on subjective versus objective job-related criteria. Namely:

1) We like Harry because he was punctual, polite and professional (how is this related to building a deck?) OK this one is marginal – sometimes those soft skills matter. It feels like it could correlate to getting the job done on time.

2) I spent too much time in the ‘interview’ talking to Dwayne-the-first about people we knew in high school. I like him because he’s ‘like me’. I should have kept the interview more focused.

3) We don’t like Dwayne-the-second because he seems like a flake. He did not make a good first impression.

For these reasons, we chose…….Lenny.

 Special thanks to Ken for getting me to read The Fred Factor which reminds us that each and every day we make an impact, the real question is what kind of impact do we make? 

This reminded me of something a good friend said once, I will attempt to paraphrase the story.

I was working for a company that was falling upon hard times.  The rule, not the exception really with Valley startups (although we always seem to forget that when we hear of the big winners but I digress).  I had the luxury of working with a great team at this company and we were all very sad to know that it had to end.  One of the team members asked the other if he was concerned that he might not have another team as fun to work for in his next job.  His answer was simple and profound to me, he said “no, I’m planning to bring it with me”.

Wow.  Powerful and humbling thing to think about.  So I ask you, is your workplace better for having you there? 

If not, why not?

I’ve been studying turnover and retention recently and it led me to wonder about the real reasons for turnover.  Everybody understands that some turnover is functional (or beneficial to the organisation) and some turnover is dysfunctional (bad for the organisation).  And we all understand that some turnover is necessary, otherwise organisations would stagnate. 

So, the fundamental reason that employees leave organisations is that they are not satisfied.  Their dissatisfaction could occur on many levels.  Much published research on turnover indicates that money is often NOT the most important reason.  Employees leave for other reasons such as career growth and development, or a change in life circumstances, or factors like that.

It’s handy to think of the reasons for dissatisfaction in terms of push factors (things that make employees more dissatisfied) and pull factors (things that make employees more satisfied).  Here’s a diagram.

The factors that are going to make some MORE dissatisfied are things like:

• poor pay
• poor compensation
• poor work conditions
• lack of promotions
• poor benefits offering
• lack of job security

Curiously enough, if you were to fix all these factors, you’d still not get a satisfied employee.  If you fixed everything above, you’d have an employee sitting somewhere in the middle of the satisfaction scale, so they would be neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.

The factors that make an employee MORE satisfied are things like:

• good leadership in the organisation
• good relationship with their manager
• recognition for their achievements (not necessarily monetary recognition)
• advancement in their careers
• personal growth and development
• feedback and support (meaningful feedback, not just naked criticism)
• clear direction and objectives

So there is a lot that can be done on the positive side to increase satisfaction.  Naturally, there are of course many opportunities on this side of the house where a good talent management solution can helps things along.

There has been a lot of talk in the industry about Millennials and how they impact a talent strategy.  Given the age demographic (newly joining the workforce), it is natural that the segment that has been giving this the most attention is the Recruiting process.    Most recruiters today are actively taking advantage of new technologies and social norms to increase their access to a larger (and hopefully more qualified) candidate pool.  This is all goodness.

Today, I’d like to suggest that there is another, equally important part of the talent “wheel” that really must stand up and take notice.  This is the Learning group.  As some of you probably know, this is a topic near and dear to my heart, but like anything that you are close to, I have also been guilty of wanting the answer to be in providing more methods of delivery vs. really needing to re-think the whole business strategy.  Would that it was as simple as providing a few wikis and making eLearning available as a podcast.   I am now convinced that starting with the “delivery will save us” premise, is a recipe to being totally irrelevant within your HR Business strategy in the next 5-10 years.

Watching this video about university learning, is a good start to understanding what is different today in how people learn.  I personally believe that this is not  just a GenY issue.  Even our news channels, which have an over 30 demographic, feel the need to provide an increasingly large volume of content at a more rapid pace.  The world is expecting information faster.  Sure, younger generations are more quick to adapt to this kind of change, but that does not mean that it is only the under 30 crowd that is expecting more today then they have in the past.

How people “learn” and how they are “trained” are often not well aligned in most organizations today.  I believe this problem is growing and that we need to start to think about this in the context of a “Learning strategy” vs. just a Millennial problem.  To that end, I’ve decided to try and articulate what I think is needed for a impactful learning strategy.  I’m sure I’ve missed some things, so please feel free to sound off in the comments with additional ideas.

Meg’s suggestions for a Next Generation Learning strategy

• Organizational Development and Training organizations need a tighter alignment then the loose “competency gap” relationship they have today.  Companies need to be able to drive the need for learning to individuals based on a wide-variety of “triggers”.  Competencies are certainly one, but what about things like missed objectives, long term career plans, poor customer satisfaction surveys, or even manager or individual observations?
• Learning groups need to be comfortable expanding their influence and take an active role in the dreaded worlds of knowledge management, informal land experiential learning.  To do this, we must realize that we need a seamless transition for people between formal and informal learning.  Not everything is going to be managed by the catalog and not everything can have the same level of formal monitoring as compliance training. 
• Take advantage of “wisdom of the crowds” and avoid the tendency to have everything centrally managed.  Tier your programs so that you can get comfortable with the volume of information that is going to naturally come along with the idea of opening up to the unwashed masses.  Don’t run away from these concepts just because they are complex. 
• Recognize that key learning today is not just coming from static channels, it is also coming from people.  Having better understanding about what human assets you have that can help your organization learn is key.  Who knows what and who is willing to share what they know is going to be one of the key elements to understand.
• Begin to think about incentive and tracking programs for learning.  What is mission critical for your business?  What learning is needed to make that happen?  How do you drive that learning to the individuals?   How do you help individuals get real value from your learning programs so that they continue to participate?  Understanding individual incentives is key.
• Be open to the idea that the learning department will turn into a facilitator of learning vs. the source of learning in the organization. 

It is my prediction that learning departments will either embrace this new world and find their place in it, or they will become a third appendage with only compliance as their real value proposition. 

I caught an episode from season 2 of Futurama last week titled A Clone of My Own, thanks to a recent acquisition (by me, not Oracle), of a DVR player. In this episode Professor Farnsworth, the owner of an interplanetary delivery service and inventor extraordinaire, is celebrating his 150th birthday. During his party the professor laments, “There’s no one to carry on after I’m gone, no one to take care of my work and my research and my fabulous fortune. I’ve got to name a successor. There’s no time to lose. I’m off to my lab to build a successor-naming machine!” A potentially lucrative opportunity, for what pioneering software company worth its salt wouldn’t jump at the chance to acquire such an invention? Alas, after much time and effort the professor completes his machine only to discover that none of his employees are up to the job. So he does what any mad software vendor, er um, I mean scientific genius would do, he clones himself, resulting in much mayhem and hilarity.

Thankfully cloning isn’t an option for us average Joes. Unfortunately most of us don’t have access to a successor-naming machine either; but this does not mean we’re helpless when it comes to succession planning. We can start by identifying each of the key positions in the organization that drive our business and consider how the business would be impacted if someone working in one of these positions were to leave. Next, we can identify the high performers in each of these essential roles and create a profile of the attributes that make them successful. A good profile will include hard skills for job competencies, degrees, and certifications as well as soft skills like enthusiasm, creativity, flexibility, and perseverance. Once we have a strong profile definition we’re ready to find the high potential candidates who already fit the profile as well as those who are a close match and create individual development plans that will help each employee reach the next level.

Succession planning is a critical component for any talent management strategy and requires proactive rather than reactive timing; because looking for a successor after a person leaves puts the business at undue risk. Identifying critical positions in your organization, defining key profiles for these roles, locating high potential employees, and investing in development requires planning and commitment. And even if science could solve the problem of succession for us, I’m guessing it still wouldn’t work out the way we hoped; because as any fan of the sci-fi genre knows something always goes wrong – think Jurassic Park! But growing high potential employees into key roles is a safe and proven methodology for keeping your business strong and your employees happy.

 This Tuesday marked the 12th anniversary of getting fooled by my husband.  Since we consider it a sort of anniversary, Paul surprised me with a gourmet dinner of Filet Mignon, Lobster, asparagus and home-made twice baked potatoes.  No fooling!  Hmm, yummy. 

Since I’ve been thinking a lot about potential lately, it got me remembering old chef Paul.  When we first met, I would never have picked him as a future chef.  Sure, he cooked a lot.  He made ramen noodles, he burnt chicken stir fry, he made these really weird tacos.  But 95% of it was terrible!  In fact, at one point I declared that we would only eat cereal for dinner. 

Then something interesting happened.  Paul’s aspirations joined together with opportunity (stay-at-home dad), tools (good pots and pans, gadgets, and cooking shows), and constructive feedback (me!) and he’s really fabulous!  Now those weird tacos have transformed into a unique delicacy that could be served at the finest mexican-asian fusion restaurant.  His signature dishes blend hearty favorites with innovative ingredients. 

I never thought I’d say it, but the kid’s got potential!  

How do you view Talent? How do you see it contribute value through ideas? 

A recent post described how the Clinton campaign claimed Obama copied her “second stimulus” package, calling for a $30 billion package after she did. Obvious political maneuvering aside, this strikes as having a very “fixed mindset” perspective on the value of ideas. Is the idea itself really the thing of value, and just how much does it reflect the ability of a staff that decides to propose it? What we can do is look at this and reflect on how we view (and treat) ideas inside our organization, and what impact that has on how well we create value through Talent. 

Do you see Talent as largely a “fixed and invariant” quality in people? Or do you see that while people can have different strengths (and weaknesses), Talent is not completely fixed or determined and can be influenced by factors such as motivation, experience, management, and leadership? Check out Chapter 4 of Pfeffer and Sutton’s “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, & Total Nonsense” if you aren’t sure. Viewing Talent as a fixed quality originates from, and perpetuates, a “fixed mindset” in the organization vs. a “growth mindset.” One result is that people in that kind of organization have no incentive to contribute in the open sharing and collaboration of ideas; the downside is simply too great. A fixed mindset organization sees only the ideas as the unit of value, which in turn originate but are separate from the minds that brought them forth, and that the goal is to extract as many of them as possible that can be successfully transformed into profitable pursuits. Most measurements in that environment are around how much knowledge a person has, how many ideas they’ve come with, etc. People quickly learn to not share knowledge or ideas with others (i.e. the competition that copies your ideas), but instead fight for as many resources as possible to turn their ideas and knowledge into value before someone else does. This kind of culture breeds fear; fear of failure because that means less likelihood of obtaining future resources. 

A growth mindset organization recognizes that through everyone’s contribution, not hoarding, of knowledge and ideas does the maximum value get created. This doesn’t mean all ideas are equal in value and it doesn’t mean all ideas get the resources to move forward. Instead, the incentives are such that all contribution is recognized and performance is measured more on how a person collaborates with others to find and promote the ideas that hold the most promise for creating value. The notion of “copying ideas” just doesn’t factor in. Instead, it’s about turning knowledge and ideas into action. True, there will still be disagreements and competition for resources, but the open exchange and development of ideas are rewarded. In many cases, ideas will start from anywhere, possibly change the way people look at things, and trigger input from a diverse and informed set of supportive coworkers. Then, through discussion, experimentation, and testing, they will get developed and transformed into a sustainable competitive advantage for the company. In addition, a growth mindset organization sees there is value even in failure because something is learned that results in increased understanding. Since the failure is not hidden, everyone benefits from the greater understanding. 

Are you recognizing your Talent, wherever it is, for sharing ideas, contributing to their development, and assisting in their successful transformation into action? 

Are you providing the collaborative tools (like wikis, blogs, forums, and networks) to let them share their ideas, comment on other ideas, synthesize ideas, and be recognized for it?

If you have read any of my prior posts I think it is clear that my praise of Fusion Middleware is not exactly in line with what I might normally be writing about. 

 In fact, I personally define hardware as something I can physically jump on and/or throw at someone vs. software which is usually the reason for why I want to throw the hardware.  So, other then the clue from the name  (I’m guessing it’s in the middle), I’ve not been really clear what “Middleware” has to do with anything I care about.  In fact, when I used the word in conversation with some non-tech friends, they had that pre-school reaction that comes with learning new words that sound funny; namely they laughed and tried to fit the word ”Middleware” into every sentence for the next few hours.  Not far off the review from this WSJ article commenting on how no one outside of tech really understands what we are talking about. 

In the last few weeks I’ve been having a bit of epiphany as to why Fusion Middleware is really cool and why I care.   Of course, as the name implies, Fusion middleware is part of the core techstack we are using to build our Fusion Applications.   In recent weeks, we have been collaborating with the WebCenter team to bring forward their functionality to the best leverage for our customers and I was instantly reminded why I decided to join PSFT and then ORCL. 

1. First, I love working with smart people.  I find a lot of energy and enthusiasm working with other excited, committed, smart people.
2. Second, I love the B-school concept of an unfair competitive advantage.  The power of the extended development team here at ORCL is staggering. 

Working with the WebCenter teams has reinforced my belief that working with internal teams, that build products for sale in their own right, provides an environment that I find personally engaging and rewarding.   I wonder if that qualifies me as a Happy Cow? 

 If you are using Fusion Middleware products in your environments today, I strongly recommend you give the WebCenter products a look.  They really are the bomb.

I just finished reading an excellent book, Mindset by Carol Dweck.  This is one of those crossover books that combines social science with stuff you actually care about.  Similar to The Tipping Point (Sociology) and Freakonomics (Economics), Mindset considers psychology in sports, business, raising kids and more. 

Mindset’s main premise is that some people have a fixed mindset and some have a growth mindset.  In a fixed mindset, people believe that their traits and capabilities are set in stone and cannot be substantially changed (I am smart, I am bad at math, I cannot draw, I am a naturally gifted tennis player).  Meanwhile, those with a growth mindset believe that, by applying effort, they are able to develop abilities over time.  

The consequences of these mindsets are far-reaching.  With the fixed mindset, “talented” individuals must prove themselves over and over and are deathly afraid of failure.  Thus, they tend to stick with things they are already good at and avoid challenges.  However, those with the growth mindset are able to take mistakes and learn from them, believing that they are becoming better, smarter, tougher as a result.   

What struck me most was how easily others (parents, teachers, coaches, business leaders) could instill one mindset or the other merely by the use of labels and the phrasing of praise (”you’re smart” rather than “your effort really paid off.”)

I couldn’t help but draw parallels with the dilemmas of measuring and taking action based on potential.  Let’s consider these common questions:

1.  How do you really measure potential?  Organizations struggle to separate potential from past performance.  It is, of course, impossible to completely separate the two.  But often organizations get stuck in the fixed mindset and performance and potential end up being nearly equivalent.  On the other hand, I have started to see organizations include factors like “change agility” and “capability to grow.”  They are essentially measuring whether the individual has a growth mindset.  Exxcellent.  But, what if, as the book suggests, the business leaders have the ability to teach a growth mindset to all high performing individuals?  Is it really necessary to measure potential at all or do we just need to focus on teaching the mindset?       

2. How transparent do you make potential?  Most organizations do not tell people their potential rating, though they admit that high potentials “sort of know.”  They are given unique opportunites, are assigned to a pool, are offered a mentor, etc.  As a result, many organizations are starting to address the label head on.  The key here is in the communication.  Extrapolating from the book, a label of “high potential” could suddenly thrust a talented individual into a fixed mindset.  This causes the opposite of the desired effect.  Suddenly, all of those chosen for success are fearful of failure and stop growing.  As a result, these organizations are communicating high potential as a temporary indicator of hard work and ongoing development. 

Here’s a message that might work: 

“We’re recognizing your effort to grow and learn.  We will reward that effort by providing you more resources to grow and learn.   If you keep growing and learning, we’ll keep rewarding you.”

For those familiar with Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you may recognize the number 42 as “The Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything” given by Deep Thought after seven and half million years of computational analysis; and, as I’m sure you will recall, not everyone was happy with the answer. Poor Phouchg (probably the VP of HR) grasped the seriousness of the situation right away, “We’re going to get lynched, aren’t we?” While Loonquawl (I’m guessing he was the CIO) was sure the problem lay with Deep Thought (and by association the software vendor who supplied its programming), “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and half million years’ work?”  But the problem, as Deep Thought explains, was not with the answer: “I checked it very thoroughly and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quiet honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

Like those who were present on the great day of The Answer, many of us look to our software applications to answer the really hard questions around performance, potential, risk-of-loss, and succession. The promise of predictive analytics and the possibilities associated with data mining lead many to the false hope that the answers to these difficult questions lie buried deep within their data warehouses. Many C-level executives believe it is possible to quantify a persons potential or risk-of-loss in the same way a mathematician uses a predefined formula to discover an unknown variable. They long to replace the personal (subjective) aspects of the appraisal process with a dispassionate (objective) analytic tool. But the human experience is anything but objective. Our experiences, relationships, thoughts and feelings are as unique to each of us as our fingerprints; and the practice of measuring qualities like job satisfaction, potential, and performance requires a distinctly human touch.

Now before I get escorted from the building, let me clarify what I’m saying. Well defined competency models, clear organizational goals, and well integrated talent management applications are critical tools, which every manager should utilize, especially those who are new to their role. But managers must not abandon their responsibility in bridging the gap between the objective statistics generated from a data warehouse and the subjective nature of the human experience. As a colleague of mine is fond of saying, “managers need to have some skin in the game.” Calculating and calibrating a person’s performance and potential should be the natural outcome of a manager’s relationship with their employee and not a task to be completed once annually. Manager’s need to provide clear, honest, sincere feedback well before the appraisal period begins. This means meeting regularly with the employee, getting to know them, understanding what they like and dislike about their jobs, and helping them play to their strengths. These are tasks that can only be done by a person. Analytic tools may provide a good starting point for the evaluation, but they cannot replace the relationship between the manager and employee; because it is the manager, and not the application, who will understand that getting the right answer means asking the right question.

It just occurred to me.  I am not as new to social software as I thought.  I was doing some research earlier this week and came across the Wikipedia definition of social software.    I was originally trying to understand social bookmarking.  I’ll probably come back to talk about that experience in another blog….but the point for today is, I was on one of those random explorations through Wikipedia where you click one thing and then another and the next thing you know you are reading about the philosophy of artificial intelligence.  Hmmm, interesting but not why I came here.  And now it strikes me that the social bookmarking may be helpful when I start losing my place, huh? OK yes, like I said, that’s for another blog.

Anyway during this particular stroll through Wikipedia, I came across a  list of social software.  And there I saw it: match.com.   Match.com would’ve been my first foray into social software, I suppose. The year was 2003.  I decided to join just to see what would happen.  My first obstacle was uploading a picture of myself since I didn’t own a camera, let alone a digital one.  I finally decided to use one that my colleague (and Meg’s fashion consultant) had posted from the PeopleSoft User Conference.  Yes, a photo of me standing in the Meet-the-Experts booth with the dorky red “experts” shirt.  Of course I cropped out the actual booth, but still.  It’s a bit sad that the only picture of me is while I am at work, isn’t it?  And thus the reason I had turned to match.com in the first place!

And then I had to write a profile.  Torture!  I think I write the most boring self-descriptions known to man.  Though maybe I need more interesting subject-matter.  In any case, it was a rather drab, yet truthful, description of myself that I posted that day. So for a couple of weeks I fielded some messages from various guys (most of whom were just blindly messaging everyone).  Spelling was atrocious!  I’m sorry but I weeded out a lot of them for using horrible spelling and punctuation.  I mean, if you are going to cut/paste the same lame message to every girl in a 20 mile radius at least do a spell-check on it first.  And take the time to capitalize “I”. 

For my part, I was still a bit clueless on the whole message exchange process.  The messages were sent ‘blind’ but I kept messing up and replying directly, thereby revealing my true email address.  Most guys were pretty cool and pretended not to notice. Hey at least I can spell.  But I guess I established my inability to quickly master social software right from that first experience. So, one day a brief email came in from a cute guy with good spelling.  He thought it was interesting that I developed software for a living. (Again I am a dork.  What kind of a profile is THAT to attract guys?!? Didn’t I learn in college that you never reveal you major in Computer Science in social settings?  Unless it’s Triangle Fraternity.  Those guys were always cool with it. ). 

The guy-with-good-spelling and I wrote back and forth for a week and then he asked if I wanted to meet. I think he was just growing tired of my meandering emails as I’m sure you readers can relate. After my initial panic: meet!?!   So soon?  Well OK, I agreed.  I got to pick the date.  I shot down March 17th because I didn’t want to forever ruin St Patrick’s Day if he was an idiot.  I settled on March 20th.   We met at the local BW3s, a sports bar, where March Madness was underway, as well as the first shots of the Iraq War, which we assumed would be brief in it’s duration. We talked for a few hours, we ended up dating for awhile….

Five years later, he and I still connect online from time to time.  Just the other day I contacted him on video chat.  He was in the kitchen and I was upstairs in my office.  Just checking in with my husband to see how things are going in the lower half of the house.  Yes, that cute guy with the good spelling that I met five years ago is now my husband.  And I owe it all to social software.

 I grew up on basketball.  My mom went into labor at a University of Minnesota basketball game.  I not only attended every Canisius College home game as a kid, I wore blue and gold, I knew what a “Griffin” was and I got autographs from the (very embarrassed) team. 

March was always bittersweet.  I watched hopefully as Canisius lost in the conference championship or in the play-offs.  I watched as other teams in the conference, powerhouses such as Northeastern and Siena, went on to the “big show.”  When I was a teenager, I found myself “adopting” other teams - Syracuse, who I saw play Canisius once a year (they were so shiny in their orange brilliance!) and Duke, whose star player was from Buffalo.

By the time I went to Cornell, I had given up on the idea of my team participating in March Madness.  Well, the angels are singing!  Sure, I might need to adopt Tennessee (because my Grandma used to live there) in a few days … but for now, I’m all about Cornell!

How did Cornell do it?  Ivy leagues can’t hire talent (no scholarships) and it certainly didn’t have a legacy program.  Well, it appears that they’ve taken Mark’s messages to heart and focused on differentiating themselves on something they could impact - shooting, and particularly shooting 3-pointers.  How will this strategy fare against a couple of 7 footers and a legacy program?  We’ll be watching …

We are always hearing people complain that performance evaluations require a lot of work and always seem to miss the mark. Those of us who are looking to help automate the process absolutely agree that the systems today are too complex and we are, of course, looking to ease that pain point, but even when the paperwork is simple that still wont be enough.

The biggest problem here is not a software problem. Nor is it really the fault of the desire of HR to put down a repeatable system of measurement. Where the process breaks down is, of course, that it often lacks honesty, I mean real honesty.

I like the way Debora Dunn expressed this in the HBR article

“I feel there is no greater disrespect you can do to a person then to let them hang out in a job where they are not respected by their peers, not viewed as successful, and probably losing their self-esteem. To do that under the guise of repsect for people, is, to me, ridiculous.”

Maybe it is just that I have always been well aware of my weaknesses, that I find myself surprised that often people are not aware of where they are strong and where they are weak. I probably have to thank my family who were so quick to provide me with early feedback

You are a crybaby, a snob, a wimp, a bad dresser, a geek, stubbern, opinionated, always think you are right, and so on…

Why is it that our families are able to tell us these things and never have us doubt that they like us anyway. Maybe it is that these kind of phrases were followed up with things like “oh, and can I borrow some money?” I guess when you have mutually assured destruction you build an alliance that transcends brutally honest feedback.

Of course, some of my flaws have softened over time, in fact, I’m pretty sure few really know that I’m a crybaby anymore. I have also managed to build elaborate systems to work around some of my other flaws. For instance, my lack of fashion sense is currently solved by having a style coach and personal shopper on my team. While I didn’t actually post the job description that way, I did change the job requirements based on the skills of the individual.

Still lots of my core flaws remain and have produced quotable feedback items like

“Meg does not suffer fools gladly” or “sometimes a more tactful approach is appropriate”

In fact, as far as I can see there is really only one character flaw that was not first identified by my family. The reason is, that they are to blame. In my family the only way to get a word in any conversation is to quickly jump in during a pause. Turns out, that in the “real” world people see this as interrupting, who knew?

So what is a manager to do here?

1. Realize that honest feedback is not mean, lack of feedback is mean
2. Recognize that feedback is not just constructive. In fact, the best feedback is pointing out those traits that you want to continue. It works with puppy training and it also works with humans. Yes, you heard it here first. Positive feedback works better. Try it.
3. Remind people that they will make more progress if they play to their strengths and get support for their weaknesses. When possible, help move people into roles that play to their strengths.
4. Understand that feedback has the most impact when it is timely. When you observe a behavior that warrants a comment, give it, as soon as you can.
5. Finally, be sincere. Sincere in your motivation about why you are giving feedback and sincere about the content of the feedback you give. If you really care about the people who work for you, then you want to help them. You are not filling out the form because HR is forcing you to, you are providing feedback because you want the person to benefit.

Sincerely.

I can’t vouch for the science behind the Happy Cow theory but their commercials do make me smile. Over the past couple of weeks there have been some great discussions around the benefits of employee mobility. Amy, Meg and Mark have waxed eloquent on the advantages of allowing an employee to move up via promotion or move on by finding a new role in the organization. Sometimes though, the employee is already in the right job and keeping them engaged and successful (read happy) means helping them grow where they are, to cultivate new skills within their current position.

Over the past year I’ve been struggling with the question of whether I’m still in the right role or even on the right career path. I’ve been working in the software industry for more than ten years now, but this wasn’t actually part of the plan. Life is funny that way. Most of us have a pretty good idea of what we want to do after we finish college, but then we hop on the job train and ten years and a whole lot of miles later we find ourselves in a career we didn’t even consider as undergraduates. That said I really do like the work I’m doing. I just feel like there’s something missing – that I still haven’t reached my full potential. So is it time for me to move on?

As I nearly always do when these sorts of questions creep into my thoughts, I asked my good friend and informal mentor to lunch. (I am so bad in this regard that an invitation to lunch now carries the implied message: “I’m having a career crisis!”) Anyway, we have lunch and, as usual, my friend patiently listens as I explain all of the reasons why I need to quit my job and find my true path in life. When I finished, I was confident she fully understood my problem and was now going to reach into her bag – the one labeled All the Answers – and give me the one that would solve my career crisis. But instead of an answer, she asked me a question: “Rather than quitting your job, have you thought about how you could grow your current role to include what you feel is missing”?

It was a really great question and one that I hadn’t considered. Rather than give up all the things I loved about my job, why not find ways to grow the job into something even more interesting and fulfilling. Too often employees find themselves in great, if imperfect, careers and so go hunting for something new. However, the truth is for most of us the perfect job simply doesn’t exist. But there are a great many jobs that are nearly perfect; so maybe the trick is to find an almost perfect job and see how we can improve it. Strong, effective managers will consistently cultivate a culture of mobility and encourage their employees to develop new skill sets to grow beyond their current roles; but there are times when the job itself needs to be grown to ensure the goals and aspirations of the employee can be fully realized.