Orchestrate Your Future

Rethink Hiring

I just finished reading The War for Talent.  If you've ever had any hiring or staffing problems, I would highly recommend that you read this book.  OK, so I'm recommending that everyone reading this post should read it. 

Aside from numerous references to Enron – it was written before Enron's collapse – it’s full of so much great stuff, I know I'll be blogging about it again in the near future.  But for today, chew on this quote from the founder of Visa.

"Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind.  Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to use by people with all the other qualities."
- Dee Hock, founder and CEO emeritus of Visa

Are You Creating Your Team by Design or Default?

OK.  I admit it.  I’m a total Starbucks addict.  I'm sipping a grande bold as I write this.  And I know that my last post was also about Starbucks.  But I just bought The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary, by Joseph A. Michelli.  (By the way, did you know that if you’d invested $10,000 in the Starbucks IPO in 1992, your investment would be worth about $650,000 today?)

As I read the book last night, I reflected on attorneys I’ve known over the years, and the ongoing staffing issues they've faced.   Here's what Starbucks International President Martin Coles has to say about creating a positive, team-oriented workforce:  It doesn’t happen by accident.

"We've spent a lot of time with our partners (all employees are referred to as 'partners'), both in the selection process and in helping them understand what we stand for as individuals, and what the company stands for as a whole, and the difference we intend to make,” says Coles.

According to Michelli:  "It is by design, not by default, that Starbucks leadership creates a powerful experience for its partners.  It is expected that partners will pass on the dignity and respect that they are afforded into interactions with their customers."

Are you creating your team by design or by default?