But if that’s the case I am sure at this point in time you folks would be probably wondering what’s the new role of leadership then in the world of Social Business? Can we define it nowadays in some sort of form or shape? Or will we have to create a new one altogether? Well, we may not. Once again, we may not need to go ahead and reinvent the wheel, since we may have had it all along over the last few hundred years and we never noticed… Welcome to the Era of Servant Leadership! 

Indeed, Servant Leadership is 

“[…] a management philosophy which implies a comprehensive view of the quality of people, work and community spirit. It requires a spiritual understanding of identity, mission, vision and environment. A servant leader is someone who is servant first, who has responsibility to be in the world, and so he contributes to the well-being of people and community. A servant leader looks to the needs of the people and asks himself how he can help them to solve problems and promote personal development. He places his main focus on people, because only content and motivated people are able to reach their targets and to fulfill the set expectations” (Quoted from Wikipedia’s reference article on the topic)

and while catching up last week with my good friend, the always insightful and equally thought provoking, Stowe Boyd I just couldn’t help thinking about how we may not need to redefine much what was already hinted hundreds of years ago about servant leaders, but perhaps just fine tune a little bit more the work carried out eventually by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 on this very same topic, as a way to help define what will be demanded of, a few decades later, Leaders 2.0 in the knowledge economy of the 21st century where social technologies have finally introduced wirearchy in the corporate world for it to stay, moving right along, with traditional hierarchy. 

And in that context I just couldn’t help thinking about this superb article at Inc.com under the suggestive heading “8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses” by Geoffrey James that has been making the rounds on various social networks out there and which clearly portraits the kind of shift that traditional management needs to make in order to help prepare the leaders of tomorrow, if not today altogether already. No, I am not going to spoil the fun and try to reproduce Geoffrey’s article with plenty of quotes here and there. On the contrary, I would like to encourage you all to have a look into that truly inspirational dissertation and be prepared to be wowed big time! As a teaser, here you have got the 8 Core Beliefs Geoffrey talks about, just to get you going: 

1. “Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield
2. A company is a community, not a machine
3. Management is service, not control
4. My employees are my peers, not my children
5. Motivation comes from vision, not from fear
6. Change equals growth, not pain
7. Technology offers empowerment, not automation
8. Work should be fun, not mere toil”

Pretty powerful stuff, don’t you think? I am sure you would all agree with that assertion, but there is more, there is always more eventually!, because, just as I was putting together this article I bumped into a rather evoking image on Google Plus that can certainly help folks differentiate between traditional management, the boss, and this new kind of management, the leader: 

And as I kept reflecting on that transition from bosses to leaders as the one that is going to shape up management as we know it within the business world, and all of that thanks to social networking, amongst several other timely happenings, I just couldn’t help remembering, quite fondly, the absolutely stunning blog post that Kathy Sierra (Gosh, how much do I miss her mind-boggling blog posts!) shared over 6 years ago!! under the title “Manager 2.0” with this brilliant image that would surely resonate quite a bit with that of servant leadership:

I would happily recommend you all to go through Kathy’s article to realise how close Social Business has been all along, even right from the start!, on helping shape up the way we understand and embrace both management and leadership 2.0 nowadays, 6 years later, into something that perhaps we have been having all along, but that we just didn’t know it, or maybe that we have neglected and ignored for far too long. The reality is that if someone would be asking me to define the new role of leadership in today’s interconnected, instrumented, intelligent, engaged, smarter, trustworthy and transparent social business world the one single key concept that would keep coming up, in a recurring way, time and time again, would be what’s been there all along with us throughout history: Servant Leadership. 

And here is probably the toughest question of them all that will keep coming up repeatedly, now more than ever, and that we all need to try and find an answer for: in todays social business world are your / our current leaders servant leaders? And if they aren’t, what can we do to help prepare them?

Comments

I spent some time recently, with the former owner of a retail outlet. He explained that the reason his store flopped, was that the economy was too weak. I know a number of the people whose retail outlets are on the same high street as his and although a few have flopped, they are the minority. Most are doing fine, others are doing very well and expanding.

Not his fault?

He was blaming the wrong culprit. The reason that guys retail outlet failed, was that he did too few of the things required for success.

For example, he was trying to compete based on price, against online retailers who had a fraction of his overhead – playing to his weaknesses, rather than his strengths. His marketing was ineffective compared to his competitors and his in store experience was also very poor.

Blaming the economy for the failure of his business is like a bank robber blaming the police for being in jail, rather than taking responsibility for having robbed the bank.

We see the blame game everywhere

Listen to the coach of a losing team after a game and you will often hear all kinds of blame being dished out. Listen to the winning coach and you will hear them talking about how effective the planning was and how committed the team were.

The most effective people in any area of life, take responsibility for their actions and inactions. The buck stops with them and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Why? Because accepting responsibility gives them complete freedom. It motivates them to do the right things, correctly; knowing that the right results will surely follow.

The only way we can improve our results, is to accept responsibility for them.

• If you want more sales, build a better marketing plan and work that plan.
• If you want higher profits, build a better profitability plan and work that plan.
• If you want to start getting bankable results from all that social networking you do, build a better social networking plan and work that plan.
• If you want to retain more customers, build a better customer retention plan and work that plan.

If you want better results in any area, build a better plan and work that plan.

In short: Take responsibility. Decide what you want. Do the research. Then do the work. Don’t wait for the economy or Lady Luck to save you.

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In the many years of helping businesses align business objectives with social and new media strategies, there is one thing that always introduces difficulty into the equation, employee engagement. At some point in the development of any strategy, employee and stakeholder input is critical to ensure relevance and ultimately success. While social media may more often than not live in the marketing department, it affects the entire organization and as such, requires a centralized approach to leadership and management combined with a distributed platform for communication and learning.

Enterprise social networks (ESNs) are on the rise as they can deliver an immediate solution for aligning stakeholders around activity streams with the familiarity of Twitter or Facebook. These internal social networks are not only validating and useful to power users, but also friendly and easy to participate in for those who are new to the platform. While the promise of ESNs is significant to the future of how employees interact, learn, and ultimately work, challenges exist around adoption and overall measurement. And, like social media in general, businesses often underestimate or altogether miss the true potential of social networks and the role they play in bringing people together to do something incredible…over and over.

Charlene Li, my colleague at Altimeter Group, published a new report, “Making The Business Case For Enterprise Social Networking” to do just that, help you make the business case for enterprise social networking. As she observes from the onset, “ESNs are not simply Facebook behind a firewall. Every enterprise has distinct needs and nuances that require a reframing of a social network.”

So often, businesses deploy new technology without designing goals, processes, and reward systems to promote new engagement. Additionally, decision makers miss the need to empower key stakeholders to drive adoption and address internal skeptics and detractors. Thus, the potential for ESNs is restricted right out of the gate and in the absence of leadership and executive sponsorship, internal networking strategies miss critical opportunities to engage and inspire people, internally and externally, to more effectively connect and collaborate.

Everything begins with investing in a culture of employee and customer-centricity where ESNs and social networks in general become enablers for a new vision, empowerment, supported by defined outcomes and rewards. Yes, it’s part technology. But, tools only take you so far. It’s the philosophy and eventually vision and leadership behind the implementation that serves as the foundation for internal engagement.

Four Key Ways ESNs Deliver Value to a Social Business

In Charlene’s report, she found that many companies place greater emphasis on technology and not the people or the relationship factor that ESNs are designed to nurture.

Most companies approach enterprise social networks as a technology deployment and fail to understand that the new relationships created by enterprise social networks are the source for value creation. Yesteryear, internal technology departments could force software on business units, but in today’s consumerized world, business units can adopt enterprise software, often without IT ever knowing. As a result, a new approach is required that focuses on four key ways that relationships create value through enterprise social networks:

1) Encourage sharing.
2) Capture knowledge.
3) Enable action.
4) Empower employees.

These four points serve as beacons for guiding the development of a more meaningful engagement strategy within and across work groups to set the stage for a social business. If we bring a “Facebook-like” (get it?) mentality into our ESN strategy, we may fall short of enabling a truly social enterprise. In the report, she introduces the six elements that outline the differences between a public and enterprise social network to clarify the nuances between what’s truly possible.

What we have here is a failure to communicate

In general, expectations are high for ESNs because of the wonderful opportunities introduced through public-facing social networks. Executives are learning about the benefits associated with customer engagement through Facebook, Twitter, et al. But without establishing initial goals and then driving toward those outcomes, expectations for ESNs often go unmet.

Charlene’s research team interviewed 185 end users and surveyed 81 decision makers to learn about expectations for ESNs. They found that not only is there strong belief i the ability for ESNs to provide value to the organization, there is an emphasis on improving collaboration and the flow of information and knowledge within the organization.

However, Charlene uncovered “an undercurrent of concern” around potential value creation and the sustainable adoption of ESNs. Notably, most organizations saw one or more of the following four scenarios:

1. An initial enthusiasm and usage followed by slow decline.
2. Only one department strongly adopts the ESN.
3. Culture confusion and lack of executive engagement stymied growth from the start.
4. Lack of social business maturity.

Looking at the chart above, the majority of organizations are still in the experimental phases of ESN deployments. They’re piloting without operating under a formalized strategy. Examining the other numbers however, the distribution between formalized, mature, and advanced is notable.  But as Charlene notes, there are three critical painpoints that are either limiting success or hindering adoption. And, one could then revisit these numbers to discover that organizations may not be as far along as they believe.

Pain Point #1: Lack Of Metrics Means Business Impact Goes Unmeasured

Pain Point #2: Rapidly Developing Technology Platforms Create A Myriad Of Confusing Options

Pain Point #3: Integration Into Existing Platforms, Workflow, And Access Remain A Barrier

Developing an Action Plan

Making The Business Case For Enterprise Social Networking is rich, full of insights, and most importantly, it delivers a series of steps to follow to design ESN strategies to drive business value.

Regardless of where you are on the maturity curve, there should be four essential elements of your ESN action plan:
1) Objectives;
2) Metrics;
3) Relationships; and
4) Technology.

To get started, use the following checklist to help organize and prioritize your effort

Taking a Step Back: You are the Change Agent

There is no “I” in team, but there certainly is a “me.” And, to that point, there is also a “me” in social media. I guess, there’s an “I” too, but my point is that at the center of every team you belong to, is well, you. You are already learning about the importance of social media in your personal life. Many of you who are reading this now have also invested in demonstrating the importance of social media to your organization. But there’s a stark difference between traditional networking applications that most likely exist at your company today and the social networks you depend on for everyday communication, discovery, and engagement.

When you joined the organization you’re at today, you most likely received a desk, a PC, a phone, an email account, etc. You probably didn’t receive a Twitter handle or a Facebook page. You brought those into company. But that’s not all that came along with you. You introduced a new perspective on how transparent communication and connections facilitate engagement and collaboration. And this is why existing infrastructures that facilitate employee interaction and knowledge sharing are often not up to par to meet the needs for those pushing for transformation in the social economy.

Social media is about you. You have a voice. Everything you see in social networks is unique to you because you are at the center of the entire experience. This is why I lovingly refer to social media as the Egosystem. By design, everything revolves around you. Your friends, co-workers, the businesses and organizations you support, are linked to by you. You have become the ringmaster of your personal connectivity and in many ways, serve as the IT department not only for yourself, but also the people who rely upon you to ease their way into the egosystem. You know better than anyone what it takes to engage you and also inspire you to take action. You need to get something out of it. You need to see what happens as a result.

It comes down to you to demonstrate what’s possible because in the end, you know that employee engagement influences customer engagement.

As Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh recently shared with me, “If employees weren’t happy, they would not make customers happy. If customers weren’t happy, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We believe that if we get the culture right, then most of the other stuff, like delivering great service, or building a long-term enduring brand will just happen naturally on its own.”

Slides from “Making The Business Case For Enterprise Social Networks” Report

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]]> http://www.managernewz.com/2012/04/02/enterprise-social-networking-is-more-than-facebook-behind-a-firewall/feed/ 0 http://www.managernewz.com/2012/03/21/moxie-for-managers-by-ann-tardy/ http://www.managernewz.com/2012/03/21/moxie-for-managers-by-ann-tardy/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:13:22 +0000 Wayne Hurlbert http://www.managernewz.com/?p=319 “Mediocre managers operate as if people have jobs only to serve managers. Moxie leaders, on the other hand, operate as if their job is to serve other people”, writes thought leader, Founder and Chief Catalyst of LifeMoxie, Ann Tardy, in her transformational and inspiring book Moxie for Managers: The Secret to Evolving from Manager to Leader. The author describes how instead of underestimating themselves and their staff members, middle leaders should take the initiative to influence real change within the organization, and shares the techniques for moving from manager to leader.

Moxie for Managers

The Secret to Evolving from Manager to Leader

By: Ann Tardy

Published: July 2, 2011
Format: Paperback, 354 pages
ISBN-10: 0979585716
ISBN-13: 978-0979585715
Publisher: Fish Head Publishing

Ann Tardy recognizes the importance of changing the mindset of the leader and of the staff to achieve peak performance. The author encourages changing the labeling of the middle manager to that of middle leader. While manager is simply descriptive of a position on an organizational chart, a leader demonstrates their commitment and motivation from within. When the person changes their outlook from one of manager, to one of leader, they are ready to influence and facilitate real change within the organization. Ann Tardy demonstrates how to make the transition, from the limiting mindset of a middle manager, to the empowered and and revolutionary moxie mindset of a middle leader.

Ann Tardy understands that potential leaders very often underestimate their own abilities, including their capacity to instigate change. At the same time, managers lack confidence in the abilities and potential of their staff members. They are satisfied with mediocre results, and expect little more from themselves or their employees. Ann Tardy challenges leaders to end this limiting view of people, and replace it with a vision to achieve extraordinary results. The author points out that potential leaders believe incorrectly that they lack any real power to influence change, or to motivate people beyond their very average performance.

Ann Tardy shares the strategies to change this counterproductive mode of thinking, and replace it with her ten influencing tenets of moxie. The ten tenets are as follows:

* We believe we are the center of our own worlds
* We seek meaning in our work and lives
* We want to make a difference
* We all want to win; and be seen as winners
* We want control over events and our lives
* We want to feel as if we are important
* We want to be respected, appreciated, valued, and heard
* We all risk becoming part of the mediocre herd
* We let our thoughts and beliefs dictate our ambition
* We all fear rejection

Foe me, the power of the book is how An Tardy combines her concept of moxie based management with the the actionable strategies for achieving peak performance. The author provides the powerful catalyst of changing one’s mindset from middle manager to middle leader. Instead of simply managing the plans of others, Ann Tardy encourages the iconoclastic behavior of influencing and enacting change in the behavior and outlook of everyone, including the leaders themselves.

Ann Tardy guides leaders, toward goals they never before imagined achieving, through a deeper understanding of people’s emotions, fears, hopes, and needs. Through this richer understanding of people’s true motivations, and also the reasons they may resist change, the moxie leader is able to not only overcome resistance, but create the conditions where change and innovation are embraced. Ann Tardy shows leaders how anyone can cause meaningful and productive change through a change in their own mindset of expectations of themselves and others.

I highly recommend the mindset altering and top performance creating book Moxie for Managers: The Secret to Evolving from Manager to Leader by Ann Tardy, to any leaders seeking a practical and hands on guide to achieving outstanding results in any organization. This book will help you make the personal transformation from middle manager to that of highly effective leader with moxie.
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]]> http://www.managernewz.com/2012/03/21/moxie-for-managers-by-ann-tardy/feed/ 0 http://www.managernewz.com/2012/03/05/change-now-or-become-irrelevant/ http://www.managernewz.com/2012/03/05/change-now-or-become-irrelevant/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:56:23 +0000 Michael Brito http://www.managernewz.com/?p=316 One thing I learned in the Marine Corps was the ability to be flexible and agile because circumstances always change.  The “Improvise, Adapt and Overcome” quote which was made famous by Gunny Highway in Heartbreak Ridge (great movie btw) is often used to solidify this point to new recruits in boot camp. It can mean the difference between life and death in battle.

The same is true for business or what we call social business today. But it goes beyond just the organization.  It’s just as important for their agencies, vendors, consultants and partners to change and adapt as well.

Jay Baer, a friend, intelligent guy and leader in this space brought up a subject a few months ago. He asked … “Should Your PR Firm Be Your Social Business Advisor?” Lots and lots of folks chimed in with some saying yes, some saying no and others unsure. I, then, wrote somewhat of a rebuttal which was pretty much ignored by everyone.

Enough of the history and pity party, I’ll get straight to the point.

If you or your agency aren’t learning the ins and outs of social business, you will become irrelevant in this space. Here’s why. The fundamentals of social business planning enables an organization to scale and have more meaningful conversations with customers, partners and more importantly each other. It is the infrastructure that enables a brand to listen to the collective intellect of the community, solve customers problems, and change the way it communicates and does business. Stay still if you want but I guarantee your clients will expect some level of proficiency in this space. Most won’t call it social business but they will look to your agency for help in several areas.

I’ll take it one step further and say that you are only adding to the problem by not learning social business and counseling your clients to make smart decisions. One reason why there is so much chaos in organizations today is because of that “bright and shiny” object called social media, and the agency promise to grow friends, fans and followers. Years ago and even today, brands and agencies jumped right in without proper planning – internal alignment, no vision, inconsistent business objectives, lack of a content strategy, measurement consistency, moderation & governance, training and the list goes on. Now they are all scratching their heads in wonder because anarchy reigns.

Change is inevitable. When a client asks for something that is not part of your core proficiency, you can only say no a few times. If multiple clients ask you multiple times, you better change your business and adapt. And if you don’t have the expertise in house, you go out and hire the right people to fill the gaps. It doesn’t mean that you have to build an entire social business practice but its important to have keen understanding of what it is and why it’s important.

Is this not the same reason why many traditional PR and creative agencies now have social media capabilities? It’s an effort to stay relevant and provide value to their clients.

Let’s stop questioning each other about “who” should be in charge of social business consulting. Let’s stop taking “subtle” jabs at each other and instead learn. It will benefit everyone in the long run.

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]]> http://www.managernewz.com/2012/03/05/change-now-or-become-irrelevant/feed/ 0 http://www.managernewz.com/2012/02/20/design-for-collaboration-plan-for-serendipity/ http://www.managernewz.com/2012/02/20/design-for-collaboration-plan-for-serendipity/#comments Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:49:06 +0000 Jacob Morgan http://www.managernewz.com/?p=314 Last week I wrote an article on “designing for collaboration” and this got me thinking a lot about serendipity which is the unexpected occurrence of events in a beneficial way.  Within organizations this can be something such as an employee finding another employee to connect with to help on a project, ideas being shared which then turn into revenue generating or cost cutting projects, finding some piece of useful but perhaps unexpected information, and a host of other things.

This made me think that serendipity within the organization should be more than this unexpected “happy” thing we hope will happen.  Instead we should plan for it to happen.  I started going through some of the collaboration case studies I have put together and recalling the many conversations I have been having with clients and colleagues at organizations from around the world.  Every person at every company I talked to has had or has heard of their fair share of serendipitous occurrences at their organization.  It’s something we should expect to happen and something we should plan to happen as a result of deploying the new collaboration tools and strategies we have today.

There are a few things we should know about serendipity if we are to plan for it.  Typically serendipity has a better chance of happening among a larger group of people, oftentimes a group that doesn’t know each other well.  Within organizations serendipity also happens when an employee happens to come across something or someone.  So knowing these things how can we start to plan for serendipity?

There are a few things organizations can do:

• Allow as many employees as possible to have access to collaboration tools within your company (I understand that sometimes you start with a pilot and a smaller group)
• Make it easy for employees to search for other  people and for information
• Make it easy for employees to discover other people or information (for example an activity stream that allows employees to see what others are working on and doing)
• Encourage, educate, train, and provide incentives to employees to collaborate
• Make sure the tools you deploy are simple and intuitive

The point of this is to move beyond hoping for serendipity to expecting and perhaps even cultivating it within our organizations.  Now I don’t think serendipity alone can always make a valid use case or piece of value (sometimes it can), but, we still need to recognize the fact that oftentimes great ideas and things happen in this serendipitous way regardless of how hard we try to force them to come naturally.

I also strong believe that serendipity and innovation go hand in hand for we oftentimes innovate when we get that “light bulb” over our heads, that “aha” moment that can come at any time when something or someone reminds us of an idea (or creates a new idea in our heads).

Although serendipity is unexpected perhaps we can help it happen more often just by doing the things mentioned above, we should stop hoping for serendipity and start planning for it.

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]]> http://www.managernewz.com/2012/02/20/design-for-collaboration-plan-for-serendipity/feed/ 0 http://www.managernewz.com/2012/02/08/community-management-is-a-growing-trend/ http://www.managernewz.com/2012/02/08/community-management-is-a-growing-trend/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:16:42 +0000 Soud Alabbasi http://www.managernewz.com/?p=310 ​As the world around us evolves and changes, so do businesses. As a matter of fact, a new position was made available in 2011 that is related to using social media as a marketing tool, public relations, and so on. Community management is indeed on the rise as more companies and organizations started to recognize it as a department by itself.

​Organizations and companies differ from each other in a way that there is no room for standardizing the position of community managers across industries. However, ​ Meghan Peters from Mashable has 4 predictions for the very near future of this position:

​Perfecting Post Timing

​Because timing is a factor, analytics tools, such as PageLever and SocialFlow, can create a system to determine when to post social statuses.

​Because of the large stream of updates on social networks, it is essential to understand how to effectively deliver content, and this is where social media is heading.

​Community-Driven Content and Products.

​We do notice the explosion of content creation by the average user; from the ease of using the tools available, to the low expense of acquiring assets. Soon, more brands and organizations will take these quality content and integrate it into their business strategy.

​Mashable is a great example where the website features YouTube videos from community members in their Cover Song Face-off series.

Optimizing for Mobile

​2012 is the year for mobile SMO. One third of the US population accesses social media via mobile devices, according to comScore.

​It is community managers’ responsibility to understand the behavior that comes with using mobile devices and how this experience differs from that of utilizing the computer.

​One obstacle is that screens come in all different sizes. It requires keeping this into consideration when trying to create tools for such devices. Also, information can be gathered from different sources; some mobile devices depend on retrieving content from websites, some are from apps, and some from content aggregator. These are only a few of the current sources, and there are more yet to come as technology advances. Community managers should always keep up to date with these new sources.

​Mass Appeal on Niche Networks.

​Although Facebook and Twitter have the most members, niche social media have been appearing here and there in 2011, such as Instagram and Pinterest.​ Community managers should go ahead and understand how to utilize these niche social networks.

​These are very highly targeted environments, so they give the chance the connect with specific demographics that share common interest with your brand.

]]> http://www.managernewz.com/2012/02/08/community-management-is-a-growing-trend/feed/ 1 http://www.managernewz.com/2012/01/16/hiring-for-attitude/ http://www.managernewz.com/2012/01/16/hiring-for-attitude/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:19:52 +0000 Wayne Hurlbert http://www.managernewz.com/?p=306 “If your organization is going to excel, it needs the right people. But virtually every one of the standard approaches to selecting those right people is dead wrong”, writes leadership strategist and Chairman and CEO of Leadership IQ, Mark Murphy, in his pioneering and real world research based book Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude. The author describes his fresh approach to employing the right people for an organization that goes beyond the standard skills based human resources hiring techniques.


Hiring for Attitude

A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude

By: Mark Murphy

Published: November 11, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 007178585X
ISBN-13: 978-0071785853
Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Mark Murphy recognizes that almost half of new hires fail in their job during their first eighteen months in the position. That is only part of the story, as the author points out that almost all of the failed employees don’t succeed because of attitudinal issues. That startling finding, based on the leading edge research conducted by Leadership IQ, underlines the weaknesses of traditional hiring practices and techniques. Mark Murphy demonstrates that hiring staff based on skills, rather than a positive attitude and strong interpersonal skills, leads to workplace tension, lower overall morale, and lower productivity. To counter these attitudinal based problems, the author provides the strategies, tools, and techniques for hiring employees with the right attitude for the company culture from the very beginning.

Mark Murphy understands the critical importance of hiring employees with a positive attitude. The right attitude not only benefits the employee, but also maintains workplace morale, and improves overall performance that benefits the organization as a whole. Mark Murphy points out that the reason that companies end up hiring employees based on skills, rather than attitude, is that they ask all of the wrong questions on the interview. Having the right skill set may get the applicant hired, but having the wrong attitude will ultimately result in the employee failing in the position.

To overcome this skills instead of attitude hiring dilemma, Mark Murphy proposes an entirely new and dynamic approach to interviewing employment hopefuls, including a completely different set of interview questions. The author also provides a unique and effective new system for scoring the responses objectively, to ensure that the individuals with the best attitudes are discovered during interview process, and are ultimately hired.

For me, the power of the book is how Mark Murphy shares very compelling evidence for the importance of hiring based on attitude rather than skills. The author also provides real world case studies and research based data that also show the value of employing people with great attitudes, as well as the dangers of thinking only in terms of skill sets. Mark Murphy moves beyond the theoretical and research based concepts by offering practical advice for finding the right employees through improved interview questions, techniques, and applicant interview scoring tools. All of the recommendations, for utilizing the enhanced interviewing practices, are based on actual results in real world situations in all types of companies.

I highly recommend the insightful and game changing book Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude by Mark Murphy, to any business owners, managers, hiring decision makers, and human resources professionals who hire employees for any positions within their organizations. This book will change completely the focus of the interview process, and find the right employees, with the right attitude for your company culture.

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]]> http://www.managernewz.com/2012/01/16/hiring-for-attitude/feed/ 0 http://www.managernewz.com/2012/01/03/multiple-admin-support-on-google-plus-pages-now-available/ http://www.managernewz.com/2012/01/03/multiple-admin-support-on-google-plus-pages-now-available/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:38:44 +0000 Scott Clark http://www.managernewz.com/?p=303 Previously, I had posted about the lack of multiple managers for Google Plus pages, a fact that made creation and delegation of such pages awkward in the real world.  Well, I can say now that the feature is available.  (h/t/  Impulse Webdesign for emailing me about it while I was on holiday.)   I am looking forward to doing a bunch of ownership changes this week (grr.)

Now, you can invite other users to be administrators and share work, and even transfer full ownership.  You can have up to 50 named managers for your Google page, and all managers get notification about changes to the G+ Page.  Nobody can see who is an owner and manager for privacy reasons.

Permissions and capabilities are as follows:

Steps:

First, you go to the Plus Page, and click on the settings gear in upper right:

Then, click on “managers” on the left.

 

 

Finally, a new set of features are available for managing delegation

 

Thanks Google for getting this up!

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