Accountability: Podcast Focus, Entreleadership Hiring

Hello!

As one of my tasks every sprint is to review podcasts and the themes which arise I thought one thing which may be interesting, instead of constantly reviewing them as a series may be to drill down on to one key area.

For the first of these Podcast Focus sessions I'm looking at is the Entreleadership approach to hiring. Now as I've mentioned before, Ramsey is seen as a divisive figure but his company is consistently voted as one of the best places to work in his state. Part of this will be directly associated with the hiring process, so, why is this?

Passion

“Passion is so key in leading and creating excellence that I will hire passion over education or talent every time. I prefer to have both, but given a choice I will take passion. La Rochefoucauld once said, “The most untutored person with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without.”
EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches by Dave Ramsey

When interviewing someone they must have a good understanding of what's expected of them on a daily basis and they must be competent. But what separates people with equal talent? Personality and passion, with a drive to succeed.

When building a team we must work to ensure they have a hunger and drive to do their job to the best of the ability, and the way we do that is try to cultivate a positive environment where individuals feel that they can succeed. Ask yourself, would you rather hire someone with first who had a dour personality and came across uninterested, or a candidate with a 2.1 who was excited at the prospect of the job?

“Hire slow. Fire fast.”
EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches by Dave Ramsey

Imagine your team as a perfect pot of white paint. Pristine and gleaming, the paint is all of one shade of the most brilliant white. Without checking you accidentally add a glob of black paint and mix it. You will never again have that shade of white paint again, the influence has already spread and made your paint grey. By adding gallons and gallons of white paint you may be able to remove the strength and influence of the that colour but it will not get back to that brilliant white glow.

Your team is precious, and it must be protected before you would add a new component that you must be completely certain is a match before hiring. Ramsey uses anecdotes to illustrate his point, but it can be boiled down to the four words, 'hire slow, fire fast'. Be sure that there is a match and when there isn't remove it quickly to stop any damage.

“People will not buy from you if they don’t trust you, your product, and your company.”
― Dave Ramsey, EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches 

Hire trustworthy people, if you don't trust them, will your team trust them? Will your customer trust you? Similar to the above point, if your team is trustworthy why would you hire someone you think could ruin the external perception of your team?

"Gossip is defined as discussing anything negative with someone who can’t help solve the problem. If you’re having computer problems, and IT is slow about helping you, you don’t complain about it to the sales rep in the break room. You talk to your leader because he or she can and will do something about it."
http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/gossip-is-poison-to-your-team/

Ramsey is known for his zero tolerance gossip policy and it shows in his hiring. This is also a personal peeve of mine. Discuss positive things, celebrate them, but why be bitching and moaning? Yes, if you complain about something you have no control over I understand you may feel stressed, but what good will it do? If you complain over something you can control, but just want to complain, not necessarily vent, but complain, I have no time for you. You drag me down, go away and let me be awesome in my role.

Thanks for reading this slightly different post, if you liked it let me know and I can potentially change my accountability progress approach this way.

Thanks for reading!
AT

Accountability: Charity Begins in a Committee

Hello!

For today's update I'm looking at my work within the charity committee and what can be done to raise money in the most effective way possible. Utilising skills and techniques from the business world I thought what would be best would be to pitch for a BHAG.

A BHAG you ask? Well just type it in to Google or look at the fancy screenshot below of what a BHAG is which I stole from Google just seconds ago.

 

Look at that big hairy audacious gorilla.

So, what I suggested for the charity BHAG is that each year we would aim to raise £10,000 a year for charity. Each quarter we would look to choose a charity or cause and donate time, effort and money to.

Each quarter we would have a different chair of the committee which would ensure continued energy and also some competition between the committee members.

Whilst the BHAG of £10k may appear imposing what I'm suggesting is more than raising money. One thing that would be highly valuable to those in the local area would be our time and resources. If individuals were able to donate time or teach skills to young people that may be incredibly valuable to the local community. If we value developer time at £40 an hour and that developer visits a school to teach young people coding techniques and the value of STEM education, that would be £200 worth of resources donated to the local community.

We're meeting again soon to discuss our approach and hopefully I should have more information for you soon!

Thanks for reading!

AT