Resumes are Everything; Job Interview are IEDs

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

“Your resume is everything. Job interviews are improvised explosive demonstrations.”

CVWhat you have done – what you have accomplished and achieved, and where you have been – is everything. The CV, the resume, should capture it all, and it along with a good cover letter that speaks directly to the job description by reconciling you background to what the employer is looking for – that’s everything.

The interview should be about YOU interviewing THEM. Is it the right organization for you? Will it leverage your skills the way you want them leveraged? Will you have fun? Will you have the tools and resources you need to be successful?

If you go into the interview knowing that without this job you will not be able to pay the bills, your desperation will come through loud and clear. If you go in into the interview trying to prepare for every question these people might conjure up, then you will have wasted your time. Better to run around the block and think about baseball or football or soccer than to prepare mentally for a job interview.  Interviews are improvised – pure and simple. I know of not one HR “professional” who knows how to conduct a pleasant discussion that masquerades as a job interview. Not one. They are all out to trip you up.

Exhibit A would be the stupid silly questions that Google purportedly asks its interviewees. To wit (and these are only a couple out of a purported 140):

  • How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?
  • You have eight balls all of the same size. 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weigh-ins?
  • You have five pirates, ranked from 5 to 1 in descending order. The top pirate has the right to propose how 100 gold coins should be divided among them. But the others get to vote on his plan, and if fewer than half agree with him, he gets killed. How should he allocate the gold in order to maximize his share but live to enjoy it? (Hint: One pirate ends up with 98 percent of the gold.)
  • You are given 2 eggs. You have access to a 100-story building. Eggs can be very hard or very fragile means it may break if dropped from the first floor or may not even break if dropped from 100th floor. Both eggs are identical. You need to figure out the highest floor of a 100-story building an egg can be dropped without breaking. The question is how many drops you need to make. You are allowed to break 2 eggs in the process.

I have no earthly idea. Honest to God. What a terrific waste of time.

Even brilliant people do not take tests very well. They stress and they worry and they cram. But remember, they are brilliant. Their resumes provide evidence of such brilliance. Their educational backgrounds provide evidence of accomplishment and the ability to synthesize and metamorphose and whatever else the modern HR person needs in a top notch person.

If you want to have fun at work and work somewhere that values its employee’s performance, go somewhere that focuses on your past accomplishments and is committed to have a pleasant discussion about what you can do to help the firm’s future.

If they start asking stupid, silly questions beginning with the words, “You have five pirates…” run away as fast as you can. Your resume ought to speak for itself.

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Life Forms as Minorities … Even they can be tyrannical!

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo
Colin Quinn - a Life Form

Colin Quinn – a Life Form

Reflecting this morning on some interesting news out of Oregon; To wit,

An Oregon judge ruled Friday that a transgender person can legally change their sex to “non-binary” rather than male or female in what legal experts believe is a first in the United States.  Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Amy Holmes Hehn legally changed 52-year-old Jamie Shupe‘s sex from “female” to non-binary.

Now, I really do not care what someone wants to call themselves. Dog, cat, vacuum cleaner, God, Jesus, non-binary, whatever. But what really bugs me is how the entirety of the nation’s basic systems must now be changed to accommodate this tiny little change. Think of what the driver’s license systems must undergo in order to list non-binary, or, in the words of Colin Quinn, simple “Life Forms.”

One person (probably a few more than one once this news gets out) was able to bring the system to its knees.  Legions of bureaucrats will now marshal all available resources to make this tiny little change in thousands of systems.  Think of what the new IRS Form 1040 will have to look like. Or for that matter the countless Medicaid forms in existence. And on and on. Mark my words: if the Oregon DMV doesn’t soon make the change, Jamie-Shupe-Life-Form will bring suit, the defense of which (shit, the basic filing of which) will cost thousands of dollars, if not millions.

This is tyranny of a kind of minority our Founding Life-Forms never expected. And if you don’t think that our national debt is comprised of the expense of bowing to such tyranny, you are nuts. The bureaucracies will undoubtedly go back to Congress and to state legislatures with requests for additional funding to make the thousands of tiny little changes. That money isn’t available (well, it is, but we’d have to stop making an aircraft carrier or two); instead, it will come out of deficit spending and that in turn, ramps up the national debt. Simple equation.

Tyranny of the Minority. I am reminded of this wonderful post several years back in Human Events (to whom I attribute ownership):

When the Founding Fathers created this nation, they designated it a republic rather than a democracy. They did so because a republic is fixed and tends toward stability over time, whereas a democracy, which is always in flux, is prone to violent dissolution at any moment.  In fact, many of them referred to democracy as “mob rule,” and wanted to avoid it like the plague for fear that it could provide a faction the opportunity to access to the levers of political power and change the course of the nation for the worse in a relatively short period of time.

Although we have all but abolished the Constitution the Founders left us and moved closer to a democracy with each passing generation, we have still managed to remain a republic foundationally. Yet somewhere along the way, between 1776 and now, we opened the door to a rabid political correctness that has actually nurtured the very faction-like atmosphere which tends to undo a republic.

But it’s not the kind of faction our Founders feared: not one where a majority of voters unite for a cause and force their will upon the citizenry as a whole. Instead, it’s a perverted use of the court system and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that allow a person to claim that he’s been offended and then to levy the charge against those who gave offense in order to control their actions.

In other words, we’re not dealing with the tyranny of the majority, but the tyranny of the minority.

We have lost nativity scenes in cities across America because one citizen of one city doesn’t like Christmas. We have lost freedom of religious expression in our public school system because a student here or there is bothered when people pray. We have lost crosses on many of our war memorials because atheists want to shield their children from religious exposure. And we are poised to lose even more freedoms if we don’t stop this scourge before it sweeps across our land and our intellectual landscape completely.

As I am writing this, citizens in King, North Carolina are protesting the removal of a Christian flag from a war memorial in that city: a flag that was removed by order of the King City Council after one veteran who saw duty in Afghanistan filed a complaint with the ACLU.

In today’s usual cryptic fashion, the name of the offended party has not been released to the public, a withholding that reflects a degree of secrecy that could lead some to believe that the offended soldier is a Muslim, an atheist, or a figment of the ACLU’s imagination. Whatever the case may be, the complaint from this ghostlike citizen in King has proven sufficient to have a flag removed that had been proudly flying over the memorial for more than six years.

And in Oxford, Mississippi, where the Ole Miss Rebels have enjoyed the rich tradition of having a mascot named “Colonel Reb” roaming the football sidelines since 1979, politically correct tendencies led them to do away with the southern icon this season and to replace him with a black bear. That’s right: the new mascot is a black bear in a southern gentlemen’s suit, and his name is the “Rebel Black Bear.”

How out of whack do things have to get before we finally say enough is enough?

The majority are losing freedom after freedom and tradition after tradition to a wimpy, nameless, minority that hides behind groups like the ACLU and dumps shame on its opposition through words like ‘diversity’ and ‘fairness.’  But there is nothing diverse about a politically correct landscape, and the methods used to try to create one are clearly anything but fair.

Our Founders were wise enough to know that a tendency toward unchecked factions would devastate the country they sought to leave to posterity. Surely we must be brave enough to take their fears into account and fight against the one person here or the two people there who are actively using the court system to rip us away from our moorings.

The tyranny of the minority is tyrannical indeed.

Couldn’t the Oregonian Life Form simply have let sleeping dogs lie and picked a gender closest to his-her-it perceived category? Wouldn’t that have been the polite thing to do? It’s not like s/he is experiencing any sort of tyranny. We are talking about a tiny little thing here, folks.

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Ten Things Non-Robots (Humans) Will Always Do Better

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

thHarping (still) on this — about the rise of the robot — I got to wondering: What are TenThings™ Non-Robots Will Always Do Better?

  1. Act – Here I am talking about the ability of a robot to “act” like a human.  Not merely reproduce what a human might outwardly look like and do, but truly become human.  A good actor does just that – he or she becomes the character and for all intents and purposes is indistinguishable from the real thing (for at least the duration of the show).  I can imagine in 50 years that there will be television shows which embody nostalgia for the good old days, when humans outnumbered robots. Think about it – we had nostalgia shows in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and to some extent, the 90s. I don’t think we have had any good ones in the past 20 years, per se, but they will come roaring back. Why? Read on.
  2. Making money for the sake of making money and acquiring wealth – of course this will depend on who’s programming the damn things (another source of worry for me) – but if greed is good (Gordon Gecko said so), and I believe that self-interest may well be something that robots can never be programmed to execute upon, then chances are the non-robots will corner this market (on greed).
  3. Mental health counseling – can robots suffer depression or mania or borderline? Probably not, and for that we would need humans. At least in the next 50 years I can foresee an increasing need for counseling for the newly displaced – those whose livelihoods have ended because of robots. Can empathy be programmed? Deep down inside, I doubt it.
  4. Auto Repair – if we manage to make it through the robot transformation of our world, does that mean we will have nothing – absolutely nothing – that robots cannot repair for us? What about antique autos and other machines that robots will not have been programmed to understand? Grease monkeys – you have a future! Unite now.
  5. Social work – kinda related to counseling, but en mass I can foresee the continuing need.
  6. Govern – see number 2. Power, the acquisition of which seems to be solely a human trait, will probably never inure to the robots (unless you see today’s Pols as robots already, which I do).
  7. Teaching – someone needs to teach the humans how to maintain the robots or program the robots to do so.
  8. Surpass expectations – robots will always be programmed to meet expectations, not surpass them. That is a human trait.
  9. Fight wars – when you think about it, why would a robot want to self-destruct? Even if it could learn how to do it, and even if they somehow develop the neural programming underlying the suicide impulse, what machine logic could ever be invented to undo itself? That will forever remain a human trait, me thinks.
  10. Watch porn – this is surely related to nostalgia, but what robot even with the aforementioned neural programming could ever be persuaded that the virtual thing is better than the real thing? That seems a human trait too.
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What will the Non-Robots Do?

Posted on June 9, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

RobotsA recent article in the Times of India reminded me a long-held fear I’ve had about a future with robots doing everything for us (as we doing nothing).  My friends are somewhat sick of hearing me harp on this, so I wanted to explain myself somewhat.

The debate has raged for most of my lifetime.  It certainly had currency in my dad’s lifetime, what with H.G. Wells and the like. And the same conclusion is reached every time: The replacement of humans by robots in inevitable.

The follow-on question is equally inevitable: “What then will happen to the displaced humans?” Lacking overall economic growth, or even WITH growth, what will the non-robots (formerly known as human) people do? The utopia envisioned by those promoting robots – that is, a world where humans need only wait around to be serviced by a robot – assumes a natural ability on the part of human beings to fill the increasing amounts of leisure time with, well, leisure. Leisure, to be clear, that is somehow ennobling of the human spirit. Not playing video games all day.  Not playing golf every day.  And certainly not helping those in need. Let the robots do it!  I just don’t get it.

My position is that leisure is only appreciated (valued) in the context of the work-leisure-work-leisure cycle of existence. What will happen when it is all leisure all the time? How can leisure be valued? I value warmth in the context of cold-warmth-cold-warmth. If it is all-warmth-all-the-time, how can I value warmth?

The hope, I guess, is that we will fill our time with ennobling pursuits that solve other problems, like say cancer. But won’t that “pursuit” (otherwise known to me as work) become roboticised somehow?

You might answer, “Well, Joe, the smarts behind such robotics must be thought-through by humans, and that is where humans will remain relevant.”

I can see that. But is that enough “pursuit” for the millions surely to be displaced by robots? Think here of the “brain surgeons” who are being displaced by the demise of Holden in South Australia. Will they move naturally into higher order pursuits like programming robots? The answer is of course no. They are among the permanently unemployed. The new “leisure class” if you will.

Could they move into the production line of a New Holden, one that makes robots? The answer, sadly, is no.  Just look at how cars are made today – by robots of course.

Is it any wonder that the auto industry hasn’t suffered a major worker’s strike in several years? The threat looms large, like the Sword of Damocles, that the strikers will just get replaced by … robots.

Marx must be either turning in his grave or actually trying to get out.  His entire premise what that labor must be valued as a capital good. But that assumes a certain scarcity.  As labor becomes decidedly not-scarce, what would Marx do?

Adelaide, my most recent hometown, recently suffered a bus driver strike.  I am not sure how it was resolved, but as I read about autonomous vehicles coming on the scene, can self-driving buses be too far behind?

What the promise of robots really boils down to is this: a rapidly increasing number of permanently unemployed and unemployable people. Non-robots. One only has to look at the number of American workers not now in the workforce – 94,000,000!

My belief is that man needs to work, to build, to be productive.  The “new normal” of 1, 2 or 3% growth simply won’t keep up with basic population growth, and so we will have increasing numbers of permanently unproductive non-robots.

“How, then, do you employ the unemployable?” you might ask.  It is unanswerable. Absent an innate ability to pursue leisure for its intrinsic worth, the unemployable will stew. And stewing has anarchy as its inevitable outcome.  Or a Hillary Clinton or a Nicolas Maduro.  Or a Bernie Sanders. Or a Donald Trump*.  Or so I think.

For my part, as a “highly trained mental health professional” (tongue in cheek here), I shall focus on helping those confronted by leisure-without-end.

In the good old days (about two weeks ago) that was a class of people known as the “newly retired.” It was easy to work with them, to help them cultivate long-forgotten passions, and to help them channel energy appropriately.  Moreover, they had wealth – or some semblance of it and could afford to stay unemployed to the end of their days.

But these were clients who had naturally progressed to such a point in their lives. The “unnatural” displacement is something that the great life-cycle theorists never envisioned.

Never.

I’ll have more to say on this topic, my new found bone (of which I shall never let go).  Not even if a robot wants my bone.

* Full disclosure: I will be voting for Trump, not because he’s the best, but because he’s the least bad of the worst. I also happen to agree with him that America has given away far too much in extraordinarily sweet trade deals over the years.  This will kill Walmart, to be sure, and I doubt that Mexico will be very happy about it, but it remains to be seen.  I also believe that Trump will be able to manage the bureaucracy that has sclerotized my country for far too long. Take for example what the EPA has done to Wyoming and its coal fields.  18,000 men are out of work with absolutely nothing to do. Nowhere to go.  The coal fields are being shut down everywhere.  And robots had nothing to do with it. Good old fashioned fanaticism did that. Unless you count the windmills.

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I Never Forget a Face

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

clip_image001This article appeared in today’s Guardian, from London. Note the number: 250 MILLION CAMERAS! Not to be paranoid, but we can now safely say that someone is watching our every move. Excerpts from the article are italicized. My comments are interlineated …

Nearly 250 million video surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the world, and chances are you’ve been seen by several of them today. Most people barely notice their presence anymore — on the streets, inside stores, and even within our homes. We accept the fact that we are constantly being recorded because we expect this to have virtually no impact on our lives. But this balance may soon be upended by advancements in facial recognition technology.

The cameras are undoubtedly concentrated in urban settings and have not reached the smaller, semi-rural towns like good old Laramie, Wyoming. But … the University has them and people I’ve spoken to inside of the Campus Police Department say that it is only a matter of time before they install recognition technology.

Moreover, the cameras are not yet highly networked. So, while they are of use to the local urban police forces and perhaps Homeland Security, they are not accessible all at once. Or, at least I’d like to think so.

Soon anybody with a high-resolution camera and the right software will be able to determine your identity. That’s because several technologies are converging to make this accessible. Recognition algorithms have become far more accurate, the devices we carry can process huge amounts of data, and there’s massive databases of faces now available on social media that are tied to our real names. As facial recognition enters the mainstream, it will have serious implications for your privacy.

Seriously, however, when we are in public is our privacy really all that paramount? It has long been an unrecognized but no less important tenet of the counseling psychology profession that what we do in public matters as much, if not more, than what we do in private. We should expect to be recognized and conduct ourselves accordingly. However …

A new app called FindFace, recently released in Russia, gives us a glimpse into what this future might look like. Made by two 20-something entrepreneurs, FindFace allows anybody to snap a photo of a passerby and discover their real name — already with 70% reliability. The app allows people to upload photos and compare faces to user profiles from the popular social network Vkontakte, returning a result in a matter of seconds. According to an interview in the Guardian, the founders claim to already have 500,000 users and have processed over 3 million searches in the two months since they’ve launched.

FindFace will certainly help those who are name- or face-challenged (or both). What’s not to like? My fear, however, is that the links to financial records won’t be too far behind, and that’s where the manipulating and compromising with begin. To wit:

What’s particularly unsettling are the use cases they advocate: identifying strangers to send them dating requests, helping government security agencies to determine the identities of dissenters, and allowing retailers to bombard you with advertisements based on what you look at in stores.

Network security rigor has been and will continue to be crucial. Provided that security professionals uphold their ethos and enforce boundaries, we should be ok.

Still, there are other reasons to be concerned:

FindFace is already being deployed in questionable ways. Some users have tried to identify fellow riders on the subway, while others are using the app to reveal the real names of porn actresses against their will. Powerful facial recognition technology is now in the hands of consumers to use how they please.

But should we be worried?

Tracking people in the real world might start to look more like it does online, causing changes to our behavior. That’s no small adjustment. Just as with social media, we will continually have to worry about what footage will be preserved forever and how it will shape our reputation. We’ve already seen how stalkers and criminals use enormous amount of personal data on social media to learn everything they can to target their victims. It’s not hard to imagine a company’s human-resources department in a few years searching for your face on YouTube when you apply for a job. They can observe how you behave in public, find you in a crowd, and access videos and photos where you appeared but weren’t tagged — and which you may not even know exist.

To that I say, “So what?” the answer is simply never to do anything you don’t want shared with a million people in 22 seconds flat. Or, in the words of Mark Twain, “Conduct yourself in private so that you’d never hesitate to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.”

Finally, if it makes you feel any better, the technology has some ways to go:

To be clear, the technology still has some major hurdles to overcome: It’s far less useful in poor lighting, at strange angles, and when video quality is low. But we leave our “face-prints” everywhere we go, which means our movements can be tracked and stored on an unprecedented scale. We’d be wise to start preparing for the consequences now.

But the reality is that it’s nearly impossible to stop the use of a technology once it’s available to everyone. Losing anonymity comes at a cost. We will have to decide whether we really want a world where there are no more strangers and everything we do in public is analyzed indefinitely.

Tarun Wadhwa, the author of the foregoing, is an entrepreneur who is writing a book on the global rise of digital identification systems. Follow him on Twitter @Twadhwa You can follow me on Twitter @Joseph_V_Russo

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The Gallup Twelve

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

gallup-engagement-hierarchy-2014-04-01The Gallup Twelve is a set of questions you might ask yourself when starting a new job or reviewing the one you already have (perhaps in deciding whether to leave or stay).  They are most often answered and then arrayed in the attached image.

Ask yourself these questions frequently:

  1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?

  2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my job right?

  3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday?

  4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition of praise for doing good work?

  5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?

  6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

  7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?

  8. Does the mission purpose of my company make me feel that my job is important?

  9. Are my associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?

  10. Do I have best friends at work? (Alternative: Are the people I work with people I actually like?)

  11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?

  12. In the last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Nothing in life is 100% certain or, for that matter, do’able. But you should be getting affirmative answers to most of these questions. Otherwise, why ever would you stay?

Thoughts?

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20 Things to Let Go

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

Letting go of my worries has made a difference for me; of course I still dip in my stress jar from time to time, but I’ve found this list a good reminder of what I need to strive for each day in order to reach unlimited happiness.

1. Let go of all thoughts that don’t make you feel empowered and strong.

2. Let go of feeling guilty for doing what you truly want to do.

3. Let go of the fear of the unknown; take one small step and watch the path reveal itself.

4. Let go of regrets; at one point in your life, that “whatever” was exactly what you wanted.

5. Let go of worrying; worrying is like praying for what you don’t want.

6. Let go of blaming anyone for anything; be accountable for your own life. If you don’t like something, you have two choices, accept it or change it.

7. Let go of thinking you are damaged; you matter, and the world needs you just as you are.

8. Let go of thinking your dreams are not important; always follow your heart.

9. Let go of being the “go-to person” for everyone, all the time; stop blowing yourself off and take care of yourself first … because you matter.

10. Let go of thinking everyone else is happier, more successful or better off than you. You are right where you need to be. Your journey is unfolding perfectly for you.

11. Let go of thinking there’s a right and wrong way to do things or to see the world. Enjoy the contrast and celebrate the diversity and richness of life.

12. Let go of cheating on your future with your past. It’s time to move on and tell a new story.

13. Let go of thinking you are not where you should be. You are right where you need to be to get to where you want to go, so start asking yourself where you want to go.

14. Let go of anger toward ex-lovers and family. We all deserve happiness and love; just because it is over doesn’t mean the love was wrong.

15. Let go of the need to do more and be more; for today, you’ve done the best you can, and that’s enough.

16. Let go of thinking you have to know how to make it happen; we learn the way on the way.

17. Let go of your money woes — make a plan to pay off debt and focus on your abundance.

18. Let go of trying to save or change people. Everyone has her own path, and the best thing you can do is work on yourself and stop focusing on others.

19. Let go of trying to fit in and be accepted by everyone. Your uniqueness is what makes you outstanding.

20. Let go of self-hate. You are not the shape of your body or the number on the scale. Who you are matters, and the world needs you as you are. Celebrate you!

This was a list I saw somewhere, perhaps in a newspaper (back when newspapers were full of wisdom and not vitriol) many years ago (circa, 1990?). I have carried it around with me ever since.

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Russo’s TenThings™ When Starting a New Job

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

An old colleague of mine asked recently, “Any advice my first 90 days?” My first reaction was this: You may not have 90 days! Today, honeymoons are far shorter than ever. You are expected to hit the ground running. You might have 60 days, but I suspect (and this comes from having hired and fired many executives and middle managers over the years) you have maybe 30 days before your reputation is more or less cemented. But no matter what, you need to mind your Ps and Qs*.

1. Ask lots of questions!

a. In many ways, you will be defined by the questions you asked, and most of them ought to begin with the word “why.”

I am reminded of the story that Dr. Conte (one of my favorite school teachers of all time) used to tell in class, about how at Christmas time mom and grandma and great-grandma would ceremoniously cut the ends off of a roast before putting it into the oven: “Why do you do that, Mama?” the little girl asks. “Because that’s the way grandma did it. Go ask her.” And so she does. “Grandma, why do you cut the ends off of the roast, grandmamma?” The answer? “Because that’s the way great-grandma did it. Go ask her?” And so she does. “Great-grandmamma, why do you all cut the ends off the roast before putting it into the oven?” “Well, child, we cut the ends off simply because in the old days roasting pans were too small to accommodate the cuts of beef that the butcher produced. So, we had to cut the ends off so that they would fit our pans!”

b. In other words, habits form early, and they are hard to break. We must be mindful that just because something is done one way, and that it has been done that way for eons, is not justification for continuing to do it that way.

Ask questions. Ask WHY questions!  Peel back the onion. Pull on strings.

2. Take notes!

a. Whether it is an answer to a question, or meeting minutes, or just your own reflections at the end of the day, write them down.

b. Use paper. Scan later if you want. Use a pen. Show the person with whom you’re speaking that you actually care enough to write down what they’re saying.

I had a boss once who used to grab his notebook and a pen as we were headed out to lunch, adding …” just in case you say something smart.” He meant it as a compliment.

3. Find a mentor!

a. Someone who can help you navigate the cultural shoals and avoid the rapids.

b. And remember your experience for when you hire the next person! Find that person a mentor.

4. Learn the Culture!

a. All organizations, all groups of people, all communities, develop cultures.

b. And a company’s culture, with infinite definitions abounding on the Internet and elsewhere, boils down to this: what is it that everyone does when the bosses aren’t looking?

c. Learn yours. Ask your co-workers what it means to be a part of the group. Ask them, What’s the best part of working here?

5. Stay Humble!

a. The old saying goes like this: “If you are the smartest guy in the room, you’re in wrong room.” Remember that.

b. You may be the second coming, you may think you are precisely what the organization needs, but …

… stay humble. You were hired because your background and experience fit the bill, but until you prove yourself, and prove it with the resources you are given (plus those you argue effectively for), you are on probation.

c. Arrive early and stay late. Work hard. And here’s something to consider: write your boss a resignation letter. Do not date it. Tell her that she can execute on it at any time. It will blow her away.

6. Stay Hungry!

a. Got a pay raise with your new job? Bank it. Live on what you earned at the last job.

b. Took a pay cut in exchange for greater experience? Good on you. This will keep you hungry. Stay focused on why you made the move. See No 10 below.

7. Trust No One!

a. This may sound cynical, and it is, but you know as well as I do that there is probably someone inside of your new organization that did not get the job that you got; someone who was passed over and would love nothing more than to see you fail.

b. Develop colleagues, not friends.

c. Remember, a company is not a family. Family is where you can go and they must let you in. Not so an enterprise. It exists for itself. Period.

8. Do not engage in gossip!

a. Stay away from gossip mongers. They exist everywhere. Be polite but firm: exchanging gossip is not the kind of behavior a newcomer should engage in.

b. Indeed, as you grow into your new position, be a force for change and avoid the water cooler.

9. Understand your mandate!

a. WHY did you get hired? WHY you and not someone else? What about YOUR background and experiences does your boss want brought to bear on her organization? What changes are you expected to make?

b. Understand it clearly. Check back with your boss frequently. Ask for guidance. Ask for a weekly check-up. Whatever it takes for you to understand your mandate.

c. Ask – am I the employee you thought you hired?

10. Make damn sure that you are adding to your experience set!

a. You took the job because it offered something you did not have before.

b. What skills are you leveraging in this new position? What skills will you hope to gain?

c. What is YOUR mission in this role?

* Ps and Qs, the minding of which will serve you well, are said to have originated in Jolly Old England. The bartender at my local public house (my “pub”), said that it was his job to mind my pints and quarts, so that I did not drink beyond what he knew to be my limit.

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List of Russo’s Ten Commandments of Operations

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

Years ago I worked for a guy, Don Liedtke, who published a similar list, one which I have taken and modified to be my own. When mentoring young executives, I share this with them and encourage them to make it their own as well.

One – Understand your contract – perfectly.  Keep a bound copy close at hand. Mark it up. Test your knowledge.

Two – Follow the Plan.  If you don’t know the Plan, you cannot follow it. Ask. Then follow.

Three – Manage the contract and sub-contractors as if you owned the business.  Our bonus plans ensure that you do own the business, so act like it.

Four – You are what you measure. Measure everything.  Take notes, journalize, and then feedback what you’ve learned. Metricize.

Five – Improve your operation – everyday. Eliminate clutter. If it isn’t used, throw it away. If it ain’t broke, break it anyway and see what happens. Bump into power buttons. Go forth and fail. In order to profit from your mistakes, you have to get out and make some. In other words, do something, anything, and worry about failure another time.

Six – Every employee is critical – treat them that way.  And when you fall short, as we all do, apologize quickly and move on.

Seven – Be ethical – always.  We may talk about things that aren’t, but at the end of the day what we do is a direct reflection of who we are.

Eight – Make your numbers.  Or try to anyway. This is sometimes trumped by the need to keep your customer satisfied and serviced. But try.

Nine – Make sure our Customer is satisfied.  Ask. Delve. Manage to a Customer Satisfaction Plan. And remember that not everyone is satisfied all the time. It fluxes.

Ten – Deliver outstanding performance – no matter what.  A no-brainer. Make it happen.

 

Thoughts? In business I referred to it everyday. Work for me. How about you?

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Why Can’t They Say Thank You?

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Dr Joseph Russo

 

I am waging a private war (not so private now, I guess). I am tired of spending money at retail stores and then having the clerk say to me, “Have a Nice Day” instead of “Thank You.” If I hear it one more time, I swear I will never return a shopping cart to its parking space ever again!

Seriously, where is their training coming from? When I was much younger and working at the Dairy Deli in Woodland Hills, the owner Elsworth Ely trained us to say thank you and to mean it. If he caught us NOT saying that or saying anything else, we were re-trained (and that is to put it mildly). His thinking was rather simple: People were spending their hard-earned money at his store and he wanted everyone of his employees to express his gratitude.

Here is what none other than Wikipedia has to say about the phrase Have a Nice Day:

Have a nice day is a commonly spoken expression used to conclude a conversation (whether brief or extensive), or end a message by hoping the person to whom it is addressed experiences a pleasant day. Since it is often uttered by service employees to customers at the end of a transaction, particularly in Israel and the United States, its repetitious and dutiful usage has resulted in the phrase developing, according to some journalists and scholars, especially outside of these two countries, a cultural connotation of impersonality, lack of interest, passive–aggressive behavior, or sarcasm. The phrase is generally not used in Europe, as some find it artificial or even offensive. Critics of the phrase characterize it as an imperative, obliging the person to have a nice day. Other critics argue that it is a parting platitude that comes across as pretended.

I wonder if Sam Walton had the same ethic. My guess is that he did. And then there’s Ace Hardware, where yesterday Cindy and I spent about $500 on an outdoor grill. We got a thank you, not “Have a Nice Day.”

Ace Hardware was founded in 1924 by Richard Hesse, E. Gunnard Lindquist, Frank Burke, Oscar Fisher, and William Stauber in Chicago, Illinois. Ace Hardware, incorporated in 1927 as Ace Stores Inc., was founded to provide a centralized purchasing organization to supply the founders’ and members’ stores. The company was named after the ace fighter pilots of World War I, who were able to overcome all odds. Hesse, et al, no doubt thought a lot about gratitude.

Overcoming the odds is what a good business is all about. The odds that you could fail almost as easily as you could succeed and the difference is the customer. The more the better. Being grateful for that ought to mean saying thank you at every turn, including thanking your lucky stars.

Have a nice day means nothing to me after spending my hard-earned money. Thank you makes me feels good about it.

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