Make Yourself Unforgettable

You may be good. You may even be great. But are you UNFORGETTABLE?

Whether you’re competing for a candidate, a contract, a client, a job, or anything else of value, there’s nothing more critical to your success than your ability to stand out as a uniquely qualified, valuable, appealing individual — someone whom other people really want to work with, work for, know, and help.

It used to be that a top-notch education, exceptional talent, and a positive attitude were enough to distinguish a person as truly exceptional. If you had all three, you were pretty much guaranteed an open road to wealth and achievement.

But what is it that will make you stand out today, when everyone seems to be offering those advantages?

The surprising answer can be found in this brief true story:

Ted drove a truck for a small family-owned manufacturing company, and his wife was about to have a baby. Complications arose during the delivery that resulted in a $20,000 hospital bill. His wife and baby were healthy, but Ted had a major financial crisis on his hands: Fine print in his insurance coverage seemed to indicate that the bill would not be covered.

As Ted had no means of paying the bill out of pocket, he went to see Warren, the owner of his company, in the hopes that he might be able to intercede with the insurer. Warren listened to Ted’s problem and promised to call the insurance company himself to find out why Ted’s expenses weren’t covered, and what could be done about it. A few days later, Warren let Ted know that he had spoken with the insurance company and cleared up the confusion. The hospital expenses would be fully covered, and Ted wouldn’t be receiving any more bills.

Ted thanked Warren profusely for his help and never forgot the way his boss went to bat for him. It wasn’t until Warren’s funeral, years later, that Ted learned the truth. The insurance company hadn’t agreed to cover Ted’s bill. So Warren had paid it himself.
Now, Warren could have dealt with this situation in any number of ways that would have marked him as a good boss. What he did do elevated him to an entirely different stature.

There’s only one way to describe a person like Warren. He was a CLASS ACT.

Class acts are the kind of people who make tough challenges seem easy and big problems seem small. They stay cool, calm, and collected, no matter what the circumstance. They get the job done extremely well, but they do so without arrogance, braggadocio, or any need for praise and recognition (although they always get it!).
Class acts can be counted on to play the game of life at the highest levels … and inspire everyone around them to do the same. They feel good about themselves … and they make other people feel good about themselves as well. Class acts are able to lift themselves up … without ever tearing anyone else down.

In turn, class acts receive the respect and admiration of virtually everyone they meet. People want to be associated with them. People bend over backwards to help them. People leap to their defense. People line up to spend time with them and part ways with them feeling positive and energized.

Educated, talented, motivated people are a dime a dozen these days. But class acts? They’re a rare breed. You can spot them right away. And you never forget them.

Which is why if someone identifies YOU as a class act, you will have a tremendous advantage over everyone else you’re competing with — even people whose other, more concrete, qualifications and experience may surpass yours!


From Dale Carnengie: Class Act System

Why Good Employees Leave

by Louise Kursmark, Monster Contributing Writer

Rather than finding yourself in a serious staffing shortage a few months or years down the road, take the time now to address retention issues at your company.
In any employment market, good companies want to keep their best people. But when labor becomes scarce, as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects it will for the next decade or so, employee retention becomes an increasingly critical priority.

What, then, can companies do to retain the people they worked so hard to recruit? From an informal survey I conducted of more than 100 executives recently in a career transition, several important facts emerge.

Compensation

The Issue: While just 31 percent of respondents indicated making more money was their primary reason for job hunting, it's evident that paying competitive salaries is an important retention tool.

What You Can Do:

1. Use industry surveys and other data tools to stay informed on wage trends.


2. To benefit both company and employees, tie increased pay to meeting specific goals aligned with business objectives.


3. Collect data from exit interviews to document trends from your departing employees, then use this data to make a business case for increasing salaries across the board.


4. Survey employees to find out what perks, benefits and forms of compensation other than money will help keep them on board.

Management and Retention

The Issue: In the survey, comments about poor management abounded. For 29 percent, the fact that they "did not like, respect or get along with their manager" was a significant factor in their decision to leave.

According to Irving Stackpole, president of healthcare consulting firm Stackpole & Associates, "It's absolutely clear that the reason people stay in jobs are the relationships that they have -- primarily with their supervisor." And when those relationships are strained, many people leave.

What You Can Do:

1. Improve managers' leadership, communication and interpersonal skills through coaching, training and feedback. Rate these key skills in their evaluations, and tie compensation to performance.


2. Create a safe environment and process for employees to bring up concerns with their managers. Address problems quickly.

Communication

The Issue: When asked what advice they would give management to keep talented staff on board, survey respondents repeatedly mentioned better communication of company goals, performance expectations and value/appreciation of staff work.

What You Can Do: Consider this sampling of ideas from the survey, and compare how your own company and its managers operate:

1. Provide clear vision, strong and consistent communication, teamwork and respect for workers' efforts.


2. Share the company vision/mission clearly and regularly.


3. Collaborate, communicate and listen. Happy employees accomplish amazing things.

Case Study: Why One Good Employee Left

For one senior executive, the decision to leave his job came down to listening and respect. After leading a successful turnaround of his division, he was excited to learn that the board of directors was launching a CEO search to replace the departing top executive. Because of his knowledge of the company and undisputed successes leading one of its most challenging divisions, he felt he was a strong candidate.

After drafting a resume and cover letter that put forth his vision of the key challenges and growth opportunities facing the organization, he assembled a strong list of references and alerted each to expect a call from a board member. He sent in his package with confidence that he would be able to expand on his ideas during an interview.

A few months later, he is actively searching outside the organization. His interview turned out to be a 20-minute meeting with a board member who clearly hadn't read his documents or contacted any references. "I felt disrespected," the worker says. "It's not that I thought I was a shoo-in for the job, but I expected to be given a fair shot."

Thus, the company will lose a top performer, because an executive didn't take the time or extend the courtesy to listen.

Be Proactive

Rather than finding yourself in a serious staffing shortage a few months or years down the road, take the time now to address retention issues at your company. You can create strategies to improve your company's ability to carefully preserve and develop its most valuable asset: Its people.

This article originally appeared on Monster.com. Copyright 2006 Monster.com

Mediocre Managers

The High Price Companies Pay for Mediocre Managers

Weak management can wreak havoc in even the best organization and send the most talented employees running for the exits, say the authors of First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently.

The smartest executives know that the most competitive market they operate in each day is not the market for their product; it is the market for the best employees for their company. In a global economy that continues to race along as if fueled by an unending supply of double cappuccinos, companies are finding it more and more difficult to attract and retain talented employees. Human resources executives and consultants search for ever more generous pay packages to hold on to the best workers at every level.

In their bestseller, First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of the Gallup organization conclude that focusing on pay and perquisites is misguided. A company can offer employees generous compensation, benefits, and wonderful perks such as health clubs and daycare centers, and still lose their best workers. What many otherwise excellent companies miss, according to the authors, is that one mediocre manager can wreak havoc in even the best organization and send the most talented employees running for the exits.

The two researchers gathered information from more than 80,000 managers in more than 400 companies. They found that the single biggest stumbling block to corporate success is bad management in a company's middle levels. Buckingham and Coffman don't dither: "The manager was the critical player in building a strong workplace." Their findings fly in the face of the long-accepted nostrum that as long as a company has a strong leader at the top, creates an attractive corporate campus, complete with a health club and concierge, and provides generous pay and benefits, it will have no trouble attracting, motivating, and retaining talented employees. Wrong, say the Gallup duo. Employees want excellent management at every level.

Companies, according to the authors, have overlooked the "manager" issue. Senior managers in companies are guilty of the same omission: They have failed to train staff to be effective managers, and they have failed to supervise managers' performance effectively. Companies are awash in information, performance metrics, and statistical analyses of products and markets. But, asks the duo, what is top management doing to capture information about the effectiveness of their managers and the impact the managers are having on their direct reports? Far too little, they conclude.

Buckingham and Coffman observe that each manager creates a culture within his or her department. The end result is that a company has as many cultures as it has managers. That culture may be positive and strong or it may be destructive and at odds with the culture top management is trying to create. Companies need to recognize the fact that each company is a collection of cultures. One significant benefit of this finding, the authors stress, is that the company does not have to go outside the organization for best practice assessment. They've got best practice somewhere within their own organization. They just need to find it and then learn from it.

The best manager will focus on helping his or her workers answer the following key questions with vigorous affirmation:

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?

2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?

5. Does my supervisor, or someone else at work, seem to care about me as a person?

6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

These are fundamental questions, but the authors argue that too many businesses miss the mark because they stray from the fundamentals. They aim too high and forget about building a strong foundation. Executives tend to run past the basics as they stampede to the latest book, the newest theory, or the hottest guru.

Buckingham and Coffman found that the best managers work each day to create heroes in every role. These managers level the playing field and help each employee discover how best to grow within the organization. Outstanding managers are adept at "holding up the mirror" when they give performance feedback. They meet with their direct reports on average once a quarter to talk not only about the quarter just ended, but more important, to set new goals and objectives for the next quarter. The focus of these meetings is on the future. The great manager sees herself or himself in partnership with each worker.

This does not mean that great managers are soft. Indeed, they are firm believers in tough love. Employees who do not excel don't last long. Great managers believe in excellence and create an environment in which anything short of excellence is not tolerated for long. But the key distinction between great managers and others is that great managers understand that employees who underperform do not do so because they are stupid, inept, or uncooperative. Rather, the manager realizes that the person has been miscast and put in a position where his or her strengths do not match the skills needed to excel.

Buckingham and Coffman conclude that exceptional managers want to set up their employees for success. They want to help employees become more of who they already are. They want to treat each employee with dignity and respect. They recognize that they cannot change a person's nature or characteristics; they can only facilitate. Great managers focus on the basics, which, as the authors point out with no small degree of distress, flies in the face of conventional wisdom. The first step, therefore, to developing great managers within a company is, as the title of this insightful book tells us, to "break all the rules."

Copyright © 2000 the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.