Hire Up

It takes real courage to hire the person who knows more than you about your area of expertise — for two reasons:

1) Hiring someone who knows more can feel threatening
2) The fact that you're responsible for hiring someone probably means you're no longer expected to be the expert in the area for which YOU were initially hired. Now you need to be the expert at building a team.


What if your colleagues figure out that the person you hired knows more than you and decide you're redundant? Worse still, what if your bosses notice the same thing?

The courageous team leader recognizes that in order to build the very best crew, you need the very best people. Hiring the duds, people with limited knowledge and experience, happy to toe the line and duck questioning the status quo, only serves to make you feel comfortable and still in control. Hire the person who's going to make you unsettled and vulnerable, the one who blows out the work you've started and raises it to a whole new level. That is ultimately what will make your team better and consequently, make you better.

How will you continue to learn and grow professionally if there isn't someone who will constructively challenge what you've established? Someone who brings new knowledge, perspective and experience to the organization? It can be difficult to watch someone take over what you've been working on and make it even better. After all, how can it really get any better than when you did it?

Hiring the smarter candidate, the more knowledgable and experienced person, injects life into your team. And you'll benefit as exceptional work gets done and people recognize not only the new star employee, but your savvy and selflessness for bringing them on board and creating a team environment where they can thrive.

Hang on — did you get that last part about creating a team environment? That very well could be the most nerve wracking part of making a new hire. Now you have to be the smartest person in the room on how to build a great team. You just became the top dog of cultivating talent and creating a fun and inspired environment that produces exceptional work.

While the new hire takes the lead on areas that used to be your responsibility, you'll be planning strategy, providing proper support and resources, creating the freedom for risks to be taken, getting voices heard and opinions expressed.

Focus on this and quickly watch how your team members begin to view you as an advocate for their ideas and work. They'll want to work for you and, if they're indeed the authentic individual you saw in the interview, tell everyone that their success is due to your efforts.

Be the architect of a team no one can beat. Let go of your old territories and successes and embrace this new challenge. And watch the accolades from team members, bosses and colleagues roll in — possibly even more than they ever did for the work you were initially hired to do.

It Is What It Is

I have a colleague who says this expression a lot (and he's not the guy to the left here...) Ask him anything—from how he feels about the Jay's lost season to a friend who's undergoing chemo and it's almost guaranteed he'll end his response with a shrug and, "Hey, it is what it is."

I also hear it being used a fair bit around our offices, right up there with "Just sayin'" and "Shit happens." The other day, frustrated with a retail partner moving an initiative along much too slowly for our liking, I caught myself doing the very same thing—a shrug and then, "It is what it is."

How very zen. At the core of It is what it is lies a grounding reminder, an acknowledgment and acceptance of the current state of affairs. It's also an incomplete statement. "It is what it is AND there's nothing we can do to change it," is the full implication. That important last part is often left out. It's also where the danger starts, because there are two ways to interpret this:

1) It is what it is and there's nothing I can do about it
or
2) It is what it is, I accept that and now what can I do to change it?

Two very different perspectives.

No disrespect to my friend, but the shoulder shrug is the distinction. The shrug suggests an indifference and a passive concession of defeat. "Yep, you beat me there."

Now, sometimes nothing can be done. Frustratingly, nothing about a situation can be changed or fixed and we have no option but to accept and learn from it. Most times though, if you look at the situation as it really is and acknowledge it—even when it's difficult, almost painful to look at—you'll begin to see how to change things. A new opportunity emerges.

I often catch myself shrugging and saying it is what it is, only to never carry on with the other half of the statement—making a new plan and moving forward. In staff meetings, I've caught our team glossing over issues that require focussed examination and a new plan. We get caught up playing fantasy. "Well, next month this should happen and then this won't be an issue. And if this happens and that deal comes into play, we'll be laughing."

That's not, "It is what it is." That's, "Well, it could be this next month…"

No more excuses. Accept the situation for what it is. A failed project. A dismal sales report. It's human nature to polish up the positives and ignore the negatives. It's like studying for a test and going over and over what you already know, avoiding the hard work of learning the material you don't know so well.

Remaining in the present moment and looking at things as they truly are and then making decisions and plans from that point of reference is a key skill to master in your working life. Companies are begging for people who can call it as it lies—see the truth, state it and then make a map to get things moving forward.

It takes real courage to accept—courage to admit you failed and courage to admit there's more hard work to be done. And even more courage to see the success and truly savour it. From this point of authentic reference, real change and growth can begin, setting the stage for new opportunities to take hold.

No more shrugs. Call it as it is. Move forward.

Do Your Own Work First

Pay yourself first. It's a key lesson in the finance book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki —an excellent read, BTW, if you're interested in improving your personal finance acumen. Pay yourself first means simply that — when the money comes in, first pay yourself. Not your bills, not your rent, not your school loan. Put the money into your own investments — the RSPs, the ETF's, the savings account for you or your kid's education. Whatever your investments are, be disciplined and pay into those first. Then pay your bills, mortgage and taxes with what remains.

It may feel a bit uncomfortable, knowing you might be late paying those you owe. Being disciplined means ignoring the unease, forgoing that new Brony swag you've been eyeing and having the courage to pay yourself first and settle other debts later. I'm trying to retrain my "pay right away" instincts and I can tell you, it's not easy. My urge to pay a bill as soon as it comes in and get rid of my debt worries can be overwhelming. I don't like knowing I owe. I've bought into the belief that responsible citizens pay their bills right away. What I'm realizing now is responsible people DO pay their bills, but not always right away. Successful people pay themselves first. The cable company can wait a week, if that's what it takes. They have plenty of money. Pay yourself first.

At the core of this financial concept lies a fundamental truth — success at any venture means first taking care of yourself. It may sound selfish and not at all the behaviour of a mature and accountable colleague, but in my experience, those who produce great work week after week ARE SELFISH.  Selectively selfish. They know when to look after themselves and carve out time each day to do so. And once they've moved their personal goals forward, they're free to give fully of themselves and help others, secure in knowing what they want to achieve is done.

Do your own work first.

Too often, I've started my morning allowing my valuable time to be hijacked by an "urgent" Email or the fear of a missed deadline. I've let myself believe, like paying my bills on time, that a "good" team player will sacrifice their time in order to help others achieve their goals. That's what a stand up team member does. But, the experienced team leader understands they can only be of real help if they first look after themselves. Listen to your stewardess at the start of your next flight.  "In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, secure your oxygen mask first before helping children and those around you."  The message is clear — You're no good to anyone if you're turning blue at 25,000 feet.

If you're like me, you create a small list of things you want to accomplish each day in order to push things forward. If I allow myself to be overrun by Email requests, early design meetings or a compelling debate over the body count on last night's episode of Game Of Thrones, guess what? What I want to accomplish gets pushed to later in the day, when the emotional clutter is piling up and I'm far less inclined to make things happen.

Do not make checking your phone messages and updating your Facebook status the first order of business. Take the first morning time slot, close your door and do what you need to do to keep your important projects moving forward. Consider it an investment in yourself. Fight the feeling that you're being selfish. If you NEVER give to your team and are never available for them, then, yes, you're being selfish and it's time for a reality check. But, taking the first hour of the day to get what you need done, with the intention of opening your door and being available afterwards, is not selfish. It's disciplined. It's seeing the big picture and knowing that you will be a far more helpful/productive/creative team member if you know your shit is done.

There will be days when it's not always possible — a fire will be raging the moment you step into work and you'll be manning the hose all day long. Unavoidable. Maybe you'll feel guilty, keeping your door closed when others are clamouring for help. Get used to it. Being selectively selfish is key to your success. Your organization will love you for it when they see: a) how much quality work you ship and b) how you still manage to be a great team member, able to dive in and help out when it's crunch time.

The Effective Perfectionist

He'd built a better database system. It had every feature you could possibly want —highly searchable, customizable options and intuitive to use. To fund his work on his masterpiece, he'd mortgaged his home twice, rented out every spare room and borrowed money from friends and family. All for the sake of his database.

Which he never shipped. Because it was never quite right, never quite done. There was always something more to add or a feature to tweak. Seven long years later, the perfectionism which had spurred my former associate to create a truly amazing system had generated a bloated mess and landed him in deep debt.

I confess. I too am a perfectionist. Sweating over the small details to ensure they're just right is all part of my work day. It drives many of my team members mental and has given me more than a few sleepless nights. Yet, I would never trade it.

I experienced a moment of awareness about my borderline neurotic perfectionism when a colleague, Ian, and I were making a spoof video about our workplace for an end of year celebration. I was obsessing with a snippet of music that I wanted to fade out in sync with the fade to black on the screen. After about ten minutes of playing the sequence, rewinding, nudging the clip forward, playing it again, nudging it back, I heard Ian, standing behind me, suck in his breath.  "For Chrissake!" he said. "It's fine. Leave it!"

His frustration caught me by surprise. It seemed only natural to me that we'd tweak the clip until it was looking and sounding just as we'd imagined. But, for him, it was good enough. It wouldn't even be noticed. So let's move on.

I told him to hold, trimmed a quarter second of video and nudged the clip back and forth for another minute until I felt it was perfect. The fade out ended at precisely the moment a new scene began. It was a small thing, but for me, it was everything.

That kind of detailed perfectionism pervades all of my work. I've sat and played with the positioning of images on landing pages, repositioning them a millimetre to the left and then back. I've changed words in copy, deleted everything, then put it all back. I've sat for ten minutes trying to match the precise colour to an image.

It might take me a bit longer to complete a project, but I KNOW the extra time and care is worth it. Perfectionism is really code for doing exceptional work. It means taking the time to do the job right, sweat the details and create work that stands out. That's why I'm proud of my perfectionism streak and I admire others who have it in them. You don't find perfectionists very often, but when you do, find a way to get them on your team fast.


Get It Out The Door

The downside of perfectionism is when it becomes obsessive and prevents you from making things happen.

Too many people, and count me in on this, get hung up on making their project absolutely flawless, unwilling to release it until it's the magnum opus they always dreamt it would be. Deadlines get missed. You hear excuses such as, "It's not quite right" or "It needs a bit more time to get it where I want it."  Allowed to run unfettered, an obsessive perfectionist streak will consume everything and everyone around it and become an endless spiralling quest in search of the impossible. And nothing gets done.

The great fear of the perfectionist is not receiving approval and acclaim for their efforts, but instead, painful criticism that would indicate a failure. The need for approval drives a perfectionist streak — the fear of failure often keeps the work from being completed. The effective perfectionist rides that powerful wave of internal motivation to make something great and still has the courage to ship it out the door on time, knowing their efforts may be rejected.

To manage that precarious balancing act, it's important to recognize perfection for what it is — elusive, lightning in a glass that defies containment. Perfection is seized in drafts and stages and the true art comes in sensing when to delay a project because it should be much better and knowing when to say "it's perfect enough for now" and work on making it flawless in the subsequent revisions that will come later.

Apple releases great products that are above average, where the details have been carefully nurtured and many revisions produced. But, they're far from perfect. Perfection draws closer with version 2.0, generation 3 and the iPad 4. The Apple team keeps revising and moving the bar, revising some more and moving the bar again. Then they release the next version and immediately begin to refine and prepare another version, moving one step closer towards a perfect product.

This stages and drafts approach is key. Instead of setting an unobtainable goal, set a "close enough to perfect" goal and get there. Be ruthless—cut and prioritize to reach your deadline. Ensure the most vital aspect of the project meets your impossibly high standards and let the smaller pieces be just good enough. Then ship, take a break, reevaluate, and go at it again. Move the bar one step closer to perfect. Repeat.

Stand tall, perfectionists. Your obsessive compulsion to aim and hit the mark is greatly needed. And once you're done taking in the applause, double check that you've come to a mutual arrangement with perfection and it's not overtaking your work. Tame the beast, sit beside it and share the same space. But, don't try to hang onto it. If possible, begin to embrace the beauty that also lies in imperfection.

If you're not a perfectionist, no harm done. Your role is to be the rational balance for the perfectionists on your team — whom you'll want to hire and put in key positions. Do the work of managing all those perfectionist streaks, obtaining exemplary heights in stages, and it'll pay off with accolades and quality work for years to come.

It's All Right Before Your Eyes

Recently, I had the opportunity to take a few practice swings with my brother-in-law's putter. It felt good in my hands. I liked the length, which was shorter than my own putter. I should cut one of my old putter's down to that length, I thought. I have a putter in the basement that would be perfect.

I rummaged through the basement closet in search. I went through my wife's golf bag, where I sometimes store old clubs. I began pulling items out of the closet for a better look.

No putter.

I unpacked the upstairs storage closet. Still no go. I went over to my sister's house, where I'd stored my clubs while my wife and I were travelling for a year, convinced someone had liberated the putter for their own round. I rummaged through their closets and in their golf bags. No putter. Had I lent it to someone and never got it backI? My recollection was foggy.

Eventually, I gave up looking and wrote the putter off. It was gone, sucked into some other plane of existence.

And then last week, I found that putter in the basement closet where I'd first looked, shining out at me like a beacon. It wasn't in some dark corner or hidden behind skis. It was right in front of my eyes.  Somehow, in my initial search, I'd looked right through it.

A few days ago, in the kitchen, my wife asked me to pass her the olive oil. I looked at the spot on the counter where the olive oil always is kept, now just an empty space. "Where is it," I asked.

"Right there!" My wife's back was turned as she chopped onions. She turned, pointing to the olive oil bottle— right before my eyes. It was sitting two feet away from it's usual place, but it was still in my line of sight. I didn't see it, even though I was looking right at it.

My wake up call was the event this morning when my wife added "shampoo" to our grocery list. "But, I just bought some last week," I said. "No, you bought conditioner."  I marched straight into the bathroom. "I bought shampoo!"  I found the bottle, looked at the label and sure enough, there it was in plain letters — CONDITIONER.  That mixup stung, because I'd made a point to double check the label while in the store to ensure I was buying shampoo and not conditioner—and still got it wrong.

Now, I might very well be going senile, but, I don' think that's the case. Disregarding my sporadic inability to pull up words when I want them, there's no other evidence to support it. The root of the problem is a wavering lack of alertness, making me blind to things right before my eyes.  I have a growing awareness that this is happening most days in my personal life and have decided to make a conscious effort to change it.

Which then makes me think—what's getting past me in my working life? How much else am I looking right at and choosing not to see?

Seeing is not a true experience. It's selective. In order to cut down on processing the volumes of data that our eyes deliver, we've conditioned our brains to unconsciously choose what to process of all that we see. We see, but we don't always register that we see.

Need to test this theory? Watch a movie and then watch it again the next day — a good movie, by a director who knows what he/she is doing. Notice what you missed the first time you watched. The sub-plot you didn't even know was there, the facial expression of an actor that reveals something new, or an action in the background that changes the whole perspective on a scene and busts the film wide open. Your brain, having already processed the movie once the first time you watched it, is free to process more and allow you to see it all over again.

The incidents with the golf club, the olive oil and the shampoo switcheroo are signs of a constant struggle with an attention deficit that if left unchecked, will affect the quality of my working life. Blame it on an overactive and undisciplined brain that likes to run like an open tap when it's excited or anxious. I have to make a deliberate and conscious choice at the important moments to be present and alert. In fact, I know that being able to be in the moment and truly see what is happening in each moment is one of the keys to a successful, fulfilling life.

Pull out a project you're working on and "re-watch the movie," reviewing it all over again. What do you notice this time? Is there something you missed that could raise the whole idea to a new level? Are innovations, connections and ideal solutions still waiting to be discovered because your brain chose to miss them the first time?

Learning to retrain your brain and re-see is a whole other topic in itself. But, for today, for THIS MOMENT, will yourself to be totally aware. It's a choice. You're brain doesn't run mental marathons on its own. You can choose what you think and choose to see what you want to see.

So go ahead and choose.

Push It Forward

Launch day. For the past three months, we'd been working on a major overhaul to the company's website and now was the deadline for pulling the trigger. There were still last minute details to take care of — a banner ad wasn't right, social media icons weren't linked and a few products lacked proper descriptions. But, to my mild amazement, a very large task scheduled to be completed in a short time period was ready to go —on time. When we began, I couldn't possibly see how it was all going to come together and get finished by the due date, everything working properly and looking sharp. But, here it was.  Minor DNS issues pushed back our release by a few hours, but by mid-day we had traffic on our new site. Our CEO was ecstatic with the results. For the rest of the week, he made a point to tell us daily how pleased he was with the final outcome.

Launch days like that remind me that good work rarely gets completed all in one day. Things happen in pieces, moving forward in baby steps and leaps before finally coming together at the deadline in a flurry of activity. The secret to getting a successful new site launched on time, or any project for that matter, comes down to simply pushing things forward each day.

It's how things get done.

Prominent on my desk is an ever evolving list of ongoing projects and initiatives. And everyday, I go through it and review the next actions to be completed that will push the boulders a little further up the hill towards the finish line. It might mean grinding it out and getting my part of the project completed. It might be a phone call to a team leader or an email to a developer. Sometimes those conversations are simply a weekend debrief followed by a quick status update.  And sometimes, it's a kick in the pants reminder that a timeline has been missed and no one's coming forth to explain why.

David Allen promotes tracking and recording Next Actions as a foundation for getting things done, which is why his very detailed and methodical book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity is a worthy read.  Did I mention detailed? This guy goes into the minutiae of organization, which can be a bit daunting. However, I guarantee it's worth picking up a copy.

It's easy to get overwhelmed, viewing an ongoing project from a wide angle and seeing all the pieces that need to come together — and wondering if they ever will. Too many great initiatives suffer from poor quality and execution because somewhere along the way, the mojo was lost. Someone wasn't maintaining a narrow focus and actively pushing the small pieces forward. Consequently, the flame that lit the project burns out and getting that fire going again can take double the time and energy it took to start up in the first place. In my experience, once the momentum is lost, it rarely comes back as strong.

When I get home feeling mentally sapped from a hectic day, often all I want is the couch and back-to-back episodes of House Hunters. But, I know there are other things I want to do — write that eMail for the non-profit. Read that article. Research new trail bikes. I know it won't all get done that night, but if I can complete one next action and propel it forward, over the course of a few nights, it all magically gets done without much effort.

Agreed, sometimes problems and creative blocks are solved from taking a break. So pause, if need be. But, never let a time out go on too long. Keep the next action ready to go and after a healthy amount of time, resume shunting that project down the pipeline towards completion.

Want that oh-so-brief but mildly uplifting sensation of knowing you've accomplished something today? Review the ongoing projects from the ground level, seeing all the pieces and then ask yourself, "What's one thing I can do today to to push things forward?" Steve Jobs said it — "Great artists ship." Whether it's great or not can't be determined unless you get it out the door.  - K

The King Of All Media Comes Into His Own

A credible argument could be put forth that Howard Stern came into his own a long time ago, however prime time TV is one area where he has yet to leave his indelible mark.  Perhaps because he's aware of this himself, he's taken up residence this season as the left sided judge on NBC's televised gong show, America's Got Talent.  Not surprisingly, he's making the most of it.  

You love me, America! You really love me!

Thirty-five years in show business, mostly on the radio, have prepared Stern for this role and what may be the commencement of his final act.  At one time he ruled the AM/FM spectrums, a morning radio ratings hit in every market.  Since moving over to satellite radio on Sirius XM, he's kept a substantially loyal following, but become largely irrelevant outside the private digital signals.  Older and newly married to his second wife, one could assume he was content to just fade away doing what he knows how to do best.

Yet, here he is once again and looking very comfortable in his big prime time opportunity.  He's been on TV before.  There were a couple of stints on the Fox network, the second attempt a short lived and ill conceived attempt to go up against Saturday Night Live.  He was on the E! Network in the U.S. during prime time, but it was a smaller cable network with a limited audience and the show was merely a televised version of his morning radio show with Howard and his crew hiding behind microphones, trying to uncover the bridge between good audio and good video.  It didn't always work.

Now he finds himself front and centre on a major network and a hit show with an established fan base.  Call the brand of humour that made him famous what you will — crude, sensationalistic, sexist, low brow or downright mean and petty.  In his new prime time slot, he's been forced to leave most of that behind and rely on his years of honed comedic timing and a comfort in who he's become to keep things entertaining.  

It's working.  The other two judges, Howie Mandel and Sharon Osbourne, seem to like having Stern around.  There is an ease and good humour at the judge's table, like they might actually be having fun with this preposterous gig.   Piers Morgan, Stern's predecessor, could never manage that.  Piers always seemed to be sporting a perpetual grimace as if internally he was debating whether his decision to be on this show was helping or hurting his career.  Howard, a self confessed fan of AGT, appears to be relishing the opportunity.  Unlike Piers, Howard is willing to engage and ham it up on stage with the contestants, something he's no stranger to having done it for years on his radio show.  His 6 foot, five inch frame vertically challenges the TV screen and he looks a little awkward climbing out of his seat and slouching about on stage.  But, he pulls it off.

And why wouldn't he?  AGT is a natural extension of what he's been doing for years, discovering the truly bizarre oddballs and freaks of the world and turning them into comedic entertainment.  He has a knack for uncovering the interesting human element in even the most undeserving loser and transforming that into something of value worth watching.  And with his ridiculous Wack Pack and morning show team left on the sidelines, he's able to step out and just be Howard.  He still manages to bring a much needed edge to the proceedings.  On one episode, when an escape artist contestant narrowly misses being crushed by snapping steel jaws, Howard quips that he won't be content with the act until he sees someone die.  The joke feels a touch inappropriate for prime time family viewing, but it's sly enough to slip by.  After all, it's what every viewer is thinking and if there is one thing Stern is not afraid to say, it's what everyone is thinking.   Howard continues to ride that edge just as he's done all throughout his career.

The only thing holding this season of AGT back from truly busting out is the inane host, Nick Cannon, who seems so starved for attention, it's embarrassing.  One has to wonder just how shitty he must feel about himself when he looks in the mirror and remembers his antics from the previous evening's show like a bad hangover.  Don't try so hard, bro.  Learn from Howard.  Keep it real and just be yourself.

During the filming of episodes in his home town of New York, Stern brought his elderly father up on stage for a comedic bit that no doubt melted the heart of even the most hardened Howard hater.  Stern's always had a contentious relationship with his father, the paternal tension forming the driving force behind his life long desire for attention and approval in any manner he can get it.   This night, with his father on stage beside him, the two berated a contestant in a classic Stern family dressing down.  Yes, it was a funny, but one couldn't help wonder if it was a contrived effort by Stern to prove to his father that after years of being loathed by mainstream America, he was now experiencing his shining moment.   "I'm on TV on a station where you and everyone can watch me.  I made it Dad.  I made it."

Yes, Howard.  Indeed you have.  Enjoy.