The things that make you go aaarrggghh!!

There are a thousand and one hurdles in business, most of which at one time or another make you want to retreat to a quiet (sound proofed) corner and scream in frustration!

I was approached earlier in the year by a client to recruit an important role for one of their global business streams which needed some specific difficult to find skills, without which the candidate would be out of their depth. The global Head Office in the States had been looking internally for a year for this person and given up, finally tasking EMEA to find this mystical candidate.

Which is where I come in!

Three weeks after being briefed I had a shortlist of five candidates from three countries, all of whom had proven track records and reputations in their field. My client and his boss started to put some diary dates together for the five candidates to be either interviewed in person or by video conference: at which point the States announced that they had transferred one of their spare Project Mangers across on a contract so that he could learn on the job!

Yup, it’s the things that make you go aaarrggghh!!

What’s in a name?

The eagle eyed amongst you who have struggled into work after the Christmas and New Year holiday period will have noticed that whilst this blog retains some of the traits that we’ve all come to know and love, there has been one significant change.

Yup, we’ve changed the company name. Which begs the question, why?

After eleven years as the UK partner of InterSearch we made the decision in December that it was time for a change. The boss and I have spent several weeks’ soul searching and scratching our heads whilst debating the pro’s and con’s of the change before setting up the new name, which we believe has a certain ring to it and reflects our beliefs in the way search should be delivered.

We’re not alone in leaving InterSearch, as a number of other countries have also terminated their membership and gone their separate ways. The team here remains unchanged and has proved over the last twelve months that it has the capability to successfully deliver global searches based purely on its own abilities.

Far from looking back with any form of regret, we are looking forward to a New Year with considerable hope and expectation. The vagaries of the global economy in 2011 will ensure that the year will be a challenging one, but one that with the right people in place yours and our businesses will be well positioned to take advantage of the market as it recovers.

If you’d like to discuss the name change or how we can work with you in 2011 then don’t hesitate to contact us at www.chestertongray.com

Can problem leaders ever change?

Being a relatively sporty person I don’t watch very much TV, but one Saturday morning I found myself channel-surfing for about 15 minutes. I was amazed at how many of the ads were about getting in shape. Some of the “promises” they made were:

“Six-second abs.” “Easy shaper.” “Incredible — a miracle!”
“Quickly turn your flabby abs into that sexy six-pack!”

My favourite was one that claimed that “visible results” could be achieved in two three-minute sessions. Excuse the language, but a phrase from my childhood captures my feeling for these claims: “What a load of c**p!”

If you want to know why so many goal setters don’t become goal achievers, you can pore over a bunch of enlightening academic studies about goals, or you can watch webinars for hours on end. Where did we ever get the crazy idea that getting in shape is supposed to be quick and easy? Why do we think that there will be almost no cost and why are we surprised when working out turns out to be arduous?

In the search industry we see the impact of this kind of thinking all the time. We recently received a call from a HR Director who was dealing with the integration of people and systems after their company had made a large acquisition. They had concerns over one of the senior Directors and his management style and the CEO had suggested they get an executive coach to work with the Director. They hoped to see a dramatic change in him within a couple of months. Could we help us and when could we start?

Like anybody who buys miracle products to help them get in shape, they wanted a miracle coach to immediately change the Director.

It was pointed out that he was a 56-year-old executive and just as with diet and exercise, his behavioural habits took years to develop and wouldn’t go away overnight. We all set goals to get some aspect of our lives in shape. All too often, we fail to meet them. Why? There are five major challenges that we usually underestimate:

Time: “This is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. I don’t have time for this.”

Effort: “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’m tired. It’s just not worth it.”

Distracting events: “I had no idea I would be so busy this year. I’ll just have to worry about this later.”

Maintenance: “After I got in shape, I celebrated by drinking beer and eating curry. Now, for some unexplained reason, I’m back to where I started. What am I supposed to do? Go on some kind of diet for the rest of my life?”

Rewards: “After I lost weight, I thought that everyone would fall in love with me. I still can’t seem to get a date, so why bother?”

We often confuse the words “simple” and “easy.” The changes we help people make are generally very simple. However, they are never easy. Just as with diet and exercise, changing behaviour involves hard work and takes time.

During the next year, he will be barraged with distracting events that will take him away from his efforts to change. He needs to realise that lasting leadership development is a lifelong process. A temporary change in behaviour to “look good” in the short term will only create cynicism if he doesn’t stick with it. We can help if he is willing to put in the time and effort. If not, hiring us would probably be a waste of everyone’s time.

Look in the mirror. Not just at how you look, but at who you are. If you want to be a better leader, a better professional, or just a better person, don’t kid yourself. To achieve meaningful goals, you’ll have to pay the price. There’s no product, no diet, no exercise program, and (I hate to admit it) no executive coach who can make you better. Only you can do it. If your source of motivation doesn’t come from inside, you won’t stick with it. This may not be good material for a Saturday morning infomercial, but its great advice for any real achievement.

Life on the roller coaster!

In a market that can’t seem to work up whether it’s shackled down by lead weights and sinking to the bottom of the ocean or bobbling along on the surface; everyday seems to bring a new discussion.

For much of the early part of the year our clients put us on pause until we had had the election, and finally once that was out of the way we saw a distinct upturn across all of our market sectors. However, like a candle with a damp wick, the announcements of the budget cuts and the Spending Review soon snuffed out that initial post election optimism.

Fortunately for us, we have little exposure to the public sector and now that the business world has finally digested what it believes the full impact of the spending review to be, we have again seem a shimmer of cautious optimism from clients.

Why cautious? The VAT rise in the New Year will again hit much of the construction and retails sectors although many expect the rise to be spread across the supply chain before reaching consumers. Talking with my colleagues across Europe has shown that many of the CEE states, Germany and Scandinavia are bucking the trend and performing well, giving rise to business opportunities for UK companies in those markets, whilst Ireland’s problems are well documented.

Putting a wet finger up in the cold early winter air to offer you a prediction for 2011 is a mugs game and one which for the moment I will pass on, but many clients feel that the UK has many of the fundamentals in place to deliver a slow growth economy and improve upon previous year’s performances.

If you would like to talk with one of the Directors about how InterSearch in the UK can work with you then please contact us at www.intersearchuk.com

Making life easier for whom?

Following last week’s blog I received a number of comments and a link to a vociferous debate which was taking place on another LinkedIn forum. It too was intrinsically linked to the PSL debate but had been expanded to take in CV management systems. Rather than repeat the debate chapter & verse, I’ll tell you a brief tale of our experiences of them.

Following a number of major presentations to a global infrastructure group a couple of years ago we were selected to join their PSL as the sole recruiter at senior (non Group) board level. Terms were agreed and we were set up on their CV management system and following a few minor teething problems (clerical vacancies!) we started on our first assignment for the company. When it came to presenting the shortlist reports along with the candidate’s CV’s their system wouldn’t accept/recognise anything other than the CV. Presenting that shortlist to the line managers resulted in a swift telling off by the recruitment team. The line managers selected those that they wanted to interview based upon the reports, which were then rejected by the system as the CV’s didn’t match the recruiters key criteria template for the role.

Eventually we negotiated a way around this for other future assignments but after a year working with them we decided not to renew the agreement when we were asked to. The CV system is still in place but the number of firms who have passed through the same PSL process is a worrying sign of their view on their recruitment suppliers.

Our role is to work with companies and recruitment teams to deliver a service that goes beyond CV shuffling, but when so many companies these days use comparable systems, we have to ask who they are being implemented for? At senior level they negate the value that we add by running search processes but at the high volume end of the market their value becomes apparent.

If you are interested in talking with any of the heads of our practice groups then please contact us at www.intersearchuk.com

So just what is the point of a PSL?

The Preferred Supplier List (PSL) has been around in one form or another for as long as anyone in this office can recall - and that’s actually quite a long time!

Over the years InterSearch in the UK has been on a few and come off a few, both through clients and our own choice. Interestingly there is a vast difference between those sectors where all the companies seem to have them and others where they are few and far between. The pharmaceutical sector falls very firmly in the former camp and making in-roads into these companies appears on the surface nigh on impossible,

My colleague who works in the sector has found that once you delve a little deeper invariably there is a difference of opinion between the line managers who are becoming increasingly frustrated by their roles being unfilled, whilst those charged with recruitment refuse to go outside of the PSL, which patently isn’t delivering the expected results. The subsequent request to us to “just send us some CV’s” is met with a polite decline.

So, back to the original question; What is the point of the PSL?

The simple answer in most cases seems to be cost. We were recently asked to complete a long PSL application by one of Europe’s largest distribution/logistics firms that focused solely on lowest cost without a single reference to delivery methods, quality standards or relationships between our two firms.

For many companies they are a great idea and if created and managed properly they can work to the benefit of both parties, but equally many companies have scrapped them and decided to focus on closer less formal and more successful relationships with their search firms.

If you are interested in talking with any of the heads of our practice groups then please contact us at www.intersearchuk.com

Why companies watch your every Facebook & Twitter move.

The recent banning and fining of a number sports stars for tweeting rude comments about their lack of selection has once again brought attention on modern networking sites back into focus and a reappraisal of how they’re used by commercial organisations.

Once upon a time companies could afford to be rude. I might grumble to a few friends and walk to the next shop on the high street but there was little else that I could do. These days I’ll still grumble to my friends, but now I do it online, using social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Today one witty Tweet, one clever blog post, one devastating video - forwarded to hundreds of friends at the click of a mouse - can snowball and kill a product or damage a company's share price. It's a dramatic shift in consumer power. But what if companies could harness this power and turn it to their advantage?

Social media is quickly becoming a customer relationship management system, as companies have for the first time access to people's minds in near real-time. It may be all the buzz, but I suspect that in reality only a few firms understand it and know how to use it, it's been of peripheral interest for most. Few realise that using social media has become much more than customer service and reputation management.

Most importantly, it can act as an early warning system when something goes wrong. But for many companies social media tools are poorly integrated into the corporate structure, if your system tells you that your customers are unhappy about a product or service, it can be critical that the tool immediately alerts the team in charge of it.

It also makes business sense. Good use of social media can reduce complaints and costly calls to a service centre. But there are dangers that the obsession with social networking can make management lose focus. If a company needed a random tweet to alert them to a problem, surely something was wrong in the first place.

Even in normal times social media marketing has its quirks. I was told that the single most important rule is to try to sound genuine, "don't push... and don't pretend you are hip". Just as readers can quickly tell whether a CEO's blog is really written by the boss or the PR team, Twitter and Facebook don't lend themselves to spreading the corporate message.

As companies are getting to grips with social media, the very business model of customer relationships looks set to change. Consumers are spending their attention on social media but firms don't know how to repay them properly. There's no manual for that yet and there probably never will be.

After all, what works today, might not work tomorrow.