50 Great Ideas for
Finding and Keeping Great People

A Values Coach Special Report

People do not quit a leader, they only quit a boss.
People do not quit a mission, they only quit a job.
People do not quit a team, they only quit an organization.

Bring The Twelve Core Action Values to your organization

The Twelve Core Action Values is a comprehensive and systematic curriculum of values-based life and leadership skills. We’ve achieved outstanding results in conducting Strategic Values Initiatives with a wide variety of organizations, ranging from hospitals to agricultural cooperatives to Fortune 500 corporations. The leaders of these clients agree with us: the first step to building a winning team is teaching individual team members how to think and act like winning players. To learn more about how Strategic Values Initiatives work, and the possible benefit to your organization, go to: http://www.joetye.com/staged-values-initiatives.html

“The Twelve Core Action Values has been an important complement to Griffin’s patient-centered philosophy of care. As the number of Spark Plug graduates has grown, their example has had a positive impact on our workplace environment, which I believe has been one of the factors earning Griffin a place on Fortune magazine’s roster of America’s 100 Best Companies to Work For each of the past seven years [most recently at position #4 overall]. But more important in my view has been the influence our commitment to The Twelve Core Action Values has had on individuals.  I’ve heard from many of our people who, as a result of this training, have made impressive personal changes.”

Patrick Charmel, President and CEO
Griffin Hospital and The Planetree Alliance

The Story of Bob

“Hi Joe, my name is Bob, and I’m your worst nightmare.”

It was the morning of the first day of a Spark Plug training session on The Twelve Core Action Values at a client hospital. I remembered having seen “Bob” at one of the orientation sessions, though I had not personally met her.  Shaking her hand, I said: “So tell me, ‘Bob’ – why are you my worst nightmare?”

She replied that she was an intensive care unit nurse, and that B.O.B. stood for “Bitter Old Bitch,” a title she’d earned through many years of being what she called “the counterweight of realism to the administration’s Pollyanna routine.”

“What on Earth are you doing in this class?” I asked. She replied that she’d been doing a lot of thinking since the orientation session, and had decided it might be time for a name change. We agreed that she could stay in the course, so long as “Bob” stayed home. She honored that commitment, and at the end of our three days simply said, “Thank you, I’m convinced.”

About a year later, I ran into the CEO of that hospital at a conference. “How’s ‘Bob’ doing?” I asked. He told me that at the time of our training, he’d been actively working with his human resources department to move her out of the organization, but that now he would hate to lose her. She had become, he told me, a real informal leader on her unit and within the Spark Plug group, and a role model of self-transformation. “I would hate to lose her,” he said. Not only that, he continued, he also knew that things had improved for “Bob” on her home front.

When you consider that the cost to a hospital of replacing one registered nurse is estimated to be $60,000 or more (much more for an ICU nurse), this was obviously a good investment for the hospital. But more important was the transformation of “Bob,” and the impact of that transformation upon others in her work unit (not to mention others at home). Had that transformation not occurred, the cost of keeping “Bob” on the job might have ultimately outweighed the cost of needing to replace her, not least because her toxic negativity could have driven other good people away (in fact, according to the CEO, had in the past done exactly that).

I begin with the story of “Bob” because it captures several key points concerning this vital challenge of recruiting and retaining great people:

• Loyalty is not dead. As Frederick Reichheld (quoted below) and others have cogently argued, there is much that can be done to earn both employee and customer loyalty – and in fact, the one leads to the other.
• Loyalty should be a two-way street. “Bob” had put in many years at her hospital, but her toxic negativity was hardly a reflection of loyalty. She felt that because of her tenure, she was owed job security, but did not (until after Spark Plug training) appreciate the existence of a reciprocal obligation.
• As we shall see, the emotional climate of an organization profoundly influences loyalty. This climate is ultimately defined by what the leadership expects and by what it tolerates, and over time the latter will prevail. By tolerating “Bob’s” toxic emotional negativity, this organization’s management was tacitly approving it, with the implicit excuse that it would be too difficult to replace her. But, as a participant in one of my workshops recently noted, to permit is to promote. Creating a loyalty-driven workplace requires a high level of intolerance to the toxic emotional negativity that will inevitably drive away the best people.
• As an old EMT, I’ve always appreciated that you stop the bleeding before you start the IV. In recent years, I’ve spoken with too many people who felt like they were being taken for granted by their employers at the same time extravagant efforts were being made to recruit newbies. But as with the case of “Bob,” making an investment in current staff can be far more profitable – especially if they in turn become self-designated CRROs (chief recruiting and retention officers).
• In his book Love and Profit James A. Autry said that it is more productive to integrate one’s personal life and work life than it is to try and balance the two. In “Bob’s” case, learning values-based life and leadership skills in Spark Plug training helped her to be more effective in her personal life, and this in turn reflected positively in her workplace attitudes and behaviors. 
• Like service excellence, productivity, or profitability, loyalty does not happen spontaneously. It requires plans and action. That is the subject of this report.

“Loyalty is to the organization what gravity is to the solar system; it holds the structure together, and keeps each individual working in the proper orbit relative to the system.”

The war for talent is over - and the talent won! That’s how one authority summarized the recruiting and retention challenge that will face every organization in the years to come. The confluence of many trends – notably the mass retirement of baby-boomers and the relatively smaller size of subsequent generations – means that recruiting and retention will increasingly be Job #1 for America’s organizations. This special report will share 50 great strategies for finding and keeping great people. But first, several important general observations:

• In an environment where the number of excellent opportunities far exceeds the available supply of highly trained and talented candidates, the primary responsibility of leadership will be cultivating an organizational culture that is a magnet for good people.
• A consistent theme throughout this special report will be the importance of values, both personal and organizational. People are ultimately not loyal to organizations, or for that matter, to other people; they are really loyal to what those organizations and those people stand for. We’ve seen far too many instances of the harm that can be caused by blind loyalty to an organization, or to an individual leader, even when basic values are being violated.
• As Patrick Charmel (CEO of Griffin Hospital, which is consistently ranked as one of the best places to work in America) points out, when it comes to creating the sort of workplace environment that attracts and retains great people, employee pride is much more important than employee satisfaction.
• True loyalty is more than mere tenure; it is enthusiastic effort applied over a long period of time.
• Earning employee loyalty is one of the most cost-effective investments an organization can make; operating with high turnover staff is one of the costliest and least effective ways of operating (and trying to compete).
• Loyalty is almost never about money. Many studies and surveys have shown that money ranks well down on the list of factors that keep people engaged with their work and their organizations.
• If people truly are your greatest resource (and they are), then giving those people training and resources to help them be more effective and successful in their own personal and professional lives is one of the best investments you can make.
• In Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras describe how excellent companies substitute “the genius of AND” for “the tyranny of OR.” Great companies achieve BOTH high productivity AND high morale through a loyal workforce.
• Companies that achieve loyalty leader status do so by engaging people emotionally and spiritually as well as professionally and economically.
• The only sustainable long-term source of competitive advantage is having a distinctive corporate culture; virtually everything else can be copied. But it is people who transmit culture, and without loyalty, it is almost impossible to sustain the best qualities of that culture.
• Not all of the ideas and strategies included in this Values Coach special report will be appropriate for your organization or situation, but you can be sure that – out of a total of 50 – at least one of them is!

“The search for great employees has reached an unprecedented level.

The labor shortage is now regularly cited as the major deterrent to organizational success and future growth. CEOs and leaders in virtually every industry cry out for more skilled workers. Strategic plans fail, and expansion opportunities are dropped, for lack of manpower. What was once a seemingly endless number of potential employees has become a narrow number of applicants.”

Jim Harris and Joan Brannick: Finding and Keeping Great Employees

Hardwiring takes you to good; softwiring takes you to great

In recent years, executives have taken to talking about “hardwiring” customer service excellence, quality management, sales techniques and the like. That’s all to the good. Systematizing operations can help you create a good organization, even a very good organization. But to build a great organization requires softwiring – all those right brain attributes like enthusiasm and passion, courage and perseverance. As just one example, you can hardwire customer service scripts, but the customer will read the emotional delivery, not the scripted words. When it comes to creating the sort of organization that will be a magnet for positive and passionate people, remember this:

Don’t sell your organization or your people short by assuming that right brain skills cannot be taught. In the twelve years that I have been teaching values-based life and leadership skills with Values Coach, I have been astonished by the incredible, even miraculous, changes that people have made in their lives by getting serious about changing their attitudes, managing their emotions, and controlling their egos.

“Human behaviors are notoriously difficult to change, but changes in attitude and culture – rather than in organizational structure or business practices per se – are the only way to differentiate yourself long term. To have any meaningful effect, changes in organization or execution must spring from the attitudinal changes in leaders, the social change in the organization, and the biological change that results in the minds of employees as they shift from stress behavior to positive behavior. Structural changes in an organization by themselves cannot create business change.”

Dan Baker, Cathy Greenberg, and Collins Hemingway: What Happy Companies Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Company for the Better

Consciously design the cultural architecture to softwire greatness

You would never construct or remodel a building without first having created detailed architectural and engineering plans. If you’ve done the job right, your building will create a great first impression on customers (or patients in healthcare). But the wallpaper, the water features, and the designer chairs are not what creates the lasting impression – the one that people tell their neighbors about. That enduring impression is created by invisible factors, emotional factors – by the cultural architecture of the organization. Yet how many organizational leaders have consciously created blueprints for the emotional environment and the cultural architecture?

If the emotional and cultural architecture of an organization is key to creating customer impressions, how much more so for current and potential employees? I’ve used the illustration below as a simple exercise with small groups, and it’s always very clear what they view as the ideal culture for their organization. They can also identify gaps between that ideal and the current reality. This is an effective, and out-of-the-box, technique to create your expectations with regard to attitudes and behaviors.

“The men and women we call resonant leaders are stepping up, charting paths through unfamiliar territory, and inspiring people in their organizations, institutions, and communities. They are finding new opportunities within today’s challenges, creating hope in the face of fear and despair. These leaders are moving people – powerfully, passionately, and purposefully.”

Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee: Resonant Leadership

The 50 Great Strategies

“Although the talent journey will be continuous, you should expect impact from your efforts within the first year. If you don’t, you are not being sufficiently aggressive.  You are not investing enough time and money in strengthening your talent pool. You are not setting the talent bar high enough. Expect huge impact in the first year and craft a program that will achieve that.”

Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones and
Beth Axelrod: The War for Talent

Strategy #1: Be clear about your identity

Strategy #2A: Clarify your organization’s values statement, distinguishing between values, behaviors, and outcomes

Strategy #2B: Clarify the linkage between personal values and organizational outcomes

Strategy #2C: Revisit your organization’s values, vision, and mission statements

Strategy #3: Recruit for fit

Strategy #4: Recruit to retain

Interlude: A note on knowing the competition

Strategy #5: Make orientation special

Strategy #6: Move from accountability to ownership

Strategy #7: Move from hired hand thinking to partner thinking

Strategy #8: Move from empowerment to self-empowerment

Strategy #9: Invest in people’s personal success and happiness

Strategy #10: Re-recruit your best people on a regular basis

Strategy #11: Hire for attitude, train for attitude, and evaluate for attitude

Strategy #12: Eradicate emotional toxicity in the workplace

Strategy #13A: Encourage people to be (genuinely) authentic

Strategy #13B: Have a “Bring a Strength to Work” day

Strategy #14: Give people a worthy challenge

Interlude: A reflection on the work ethic of the younger generation

Strategy #15: Keep raising the bar, but do it gradually

Strategy #16: Celebrate good faith “failures”

Strategy #17: Foster contrarian toughness

Strategy #18: Minimize status consciousness

Strategy #19: Teach people a better way to answer the universal icebreaker question, “What do you do?”

Strategy #20: Cultivate your leadership charisma

Strategy #21: Be a cheerleader and a story-teller

Strategy #22: Lighten up and have more fun (the man in the Gray flannel suit is dead!)

Strategy #23: Surprise people

Strategy #24: Foster a support group environment

Strategy #25: Develop and promote rituals

Strategy #26: Preach to the choir – then grow the choir

Strategy #27: Spend most of your time with your best people

Strategy #28: Be visible

Strategy #29: Be a Dionarap

Strategy #30: Open the books

Strategy #31: Tear down the silo walls

Strategy #32A: Don’t waste people’s time

Strategy #32B: Give people the gift of time

Strategy #33: Make strategic use of performance appraisals

Strategy #34: Stand by people when they are struggling

Strategy #35: Establish a leadership, self-help, and career library

Strategy #36: Offer people personal or executive coaching

Strategy #37: Give everyone the job title of CRO (Chief Retention Officer), beginning with yourself

Strategy #38: Don’t just recruit for employees, recruit for missionaries

Strategy #39: Give your people worthy heroes

Strategy #40: Write your own story

Strategy #41: Be a FILO leader

Strategy #42: Promote “world-class buddy thanking”

Strategy #43: Make the job description a floor, not a ceiling

Strategy #44: Watch for subtle signs of trouble (and remind your managers to do likewise)

Strategy #45: Give people something to crow about

Strategy #46: Talk the talk

Strategy #47: Protect positive new people from negative old people

Strategy #48: Give people work that is real

Strategy #49: Commit yourself for the long haul

Strategy #50: Move from 2P2C management to 2V2E leadership

Conclusion: The greatest strategy for today

Very few leaders have ever earned the type of loyalty of that commanded by Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled England for over forty years. At the time she ascended to the throne, England was nearly bankrupt, and was seen as a bit player on the stage of Europe. By the time Elizabeth died in 1603, Britannia ruled the waves and England was one of the world’s great powers. And all this in a world where women were almost universally regarded as being innately inferior to men when it came to managing worldly affairs. What was her secret?

In The Life of Elizabeth I, Alison Weir includes excerpts from Elizabeth’s “golden speech,” her final address to the English Parliament. In it, Elizabeth lays out the one factor that did most to establish her success. She said this: “I do assure you, there is no prince that loves his subjects better… To be a king and wear a crown is more glorious to them that see it than it is a pleasure to them that bear it… And though you have had and may have many mightier and wiser princes sitting on this seat, yet you never had nor shall have any that will love you better.”

Were The Beatles right when they sang that there’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, that all you need is love? Several years ago Fast Company, the self-proclaimed magazine for fast-track entrepreneurs and executives, ran a cover story with the title: Love is the Killer Ap: Why Faith Beats Fear, Greed Isn’t Good, and Nice Guys Finish First.  Really. Do you want to recruit great people, and then earn their loyalty for the long haul? All you need is love – love the people, love the work. Have faith in yourself, in your mission, and in the future.  Be generous, including with your time. Be nice. Really. It’s just that simple.

“[In] organizations that display a strong commitment to their values… it doesn’t matter where you go, whom you talk with, or what that person’s role is. By observing the behavior of a production floor employee or a senior executive, you can tell what the organization values and how it chooses to do its work. You hear the values referred to even in casual conversation. You feel the values are real and alive.”

Margaret J. Wheatley: Leadership and the New Science

Click here for complete report in pdf

Next >