Be Persistent and Work Hard
By · Comments5 – Be Persistent and Work Hard: Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Never give up. (Investor's Business Daily's 10 Rules to Success)
Hiring the right executive is not a task that should happen quickly. When it comes to finding the person with the right combination of professional and interpersonal skills to work in your organization, success is a marathon, not a sprint.
We have seen many companies come to us saying they need a new leader and we need them yesterday. No one plans to be in such a situation where you don’t have an effective leader in place; but should you end up there, it is important to recognize the opportunity in front of you. You have the opportunity to find a leader who can really impact the business. Take the time and work with your internal and/or external recruiting teams to walk through the specific details that have worked and not worked in the past. Look at your company’s goals and visions and what skills/experiences could help – experience with acquisitions, internet growth, negotiations, etc. Meet with multiple candidates and have an effective way for your decision makers to compare and contrast. Most of all, expect it to take at least a few months. Even once you’ve made a hiring decision; your chosen executive will have to transition out of his role, perhaps move his family to a new city, and prepare to step into your organization.
Success is a marathon, so take the time to get the right people in place to bring you toward the finish line.
Never stop learning
By · CommentsNever stop learning: Go back to school or read books. Get training and acquire skills.
The fourth installment of IBD’s 10 Secrets to Success is to “Never stop learning.”
An education, whether undergraduate or graduate, is required for majority of professional jobs in today’s world. Yet it is just one piece of a resume, a piece that represents just a few years of one’s professional life. As a hiring organization, learn to look beyond the degree and education; look at how a candidate continuously learns and improves over the course of his/her career. In many cases, such “additional” learning is much more relevant and specific to one’s career. Understand the seminars, certifications, courses and books a candidate has used to continue learning. Ask Questions such as, “what do you like to read?”, “how do you stay on top of current events in the market?”, or “what are your interests outside of work and how do you pursue them?” These are all great questions to understand a candidate’s drive to continuously learn and improve.
Understanding a candidate’s motives to learn, improve and succeed in work and life will help you find the best person to join your team.
Taking Action
By · Comments3. Take Action! Goals are nothing without action. Don't be afraid to get started now. Just do it.
The third installment of IBD’s 10 Secrets to Success is to “Take Action!”
Every company has a mission or vision statement. Few companies follow through on those statements. Whether related to the direction of the company (i.e., new products, services), growth of the company (i.e., increase market share), or productivity of the company (i.e., getting people in the right roles), visions are easy to come up with and hard to follow through on. Why is this? The most obvious reason is there is no plan of action behind the vision, but even when there is a plan, many still fail to reach their goals.
Fear is the enemy of action. Goals tend to stay on paper instead of becoming reality because of fear and uncertainty. What if it backfires? What if we lose customers? What if I fire Jack and everything falls apart? Fears wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a possibility of them coming true. Think of all the truly great companies, leaders, inventors you have ever known. Did they take chances? Did they move beyond normal business practices? Yes. To succeed as a corporation is to recognize your fear of failure, push it aside and make the changes you believe will make your company GREAT.
Even though most of us agree with the Jim Collins adage – “first get the right people on the bus…”, talent building plans often fall short due to fear and complacency. Getting the right people requires that you have a clear plan and that you take action quickly. To make the change as smooth and effective as possible, your hiring plan, how you execute it and how you assimilate the new executive are very important.
Action is the enemy of fear. Take a hard look at your organization. Are you getting the results you want, living up to your mission? Do you have top performers or high potentials in the key roles? If your answer is negative to these questions you must take action or the market will pass you by.
In today’s market, with the economy picking up speed, top executives are in high demand. To ensure that the most desirable candidate winds up on your team, it is crucial that everyone involved with the hiring process is on board with your goals and action plan including the timeframe, job specification, interview procedures, and the final decision making process. In this you find the main advantage of working with a retained search firm – they streamline the hiring process and guarantee the best results for your organization.
2. Decide Upon your True Dreams & Goals
By · Comments2. Decide upon your true dreams and goals
The second secret in IBD’s 10 Secrets to Success is “Decide upon your true dreams and goals: Write down your specific goals and develop a plan to reach them.” This is most likely a piece of advice that everyone has received at some point in their life. In childhood, we are encouraged to play and explore our dreams, in college professors inspire us to examine all the different options and paths available to us, but in adult life, many people seem to forget about dreams and fall in step with day to day life. Those who live their life in such a “day-to-day” manner, will plateau at some point and never fulfill their true potential. Clearly, that is not a description of someone who you want running a company, and most likely isn't how you want to describe yourself. Yet people and companies do plateau and one of the main reasons it happens is that they lose track of their dreams, goals and motivations. The very first step to ensuring that doesn’t happen to you, or your business, is to write down your goals. Writing things down makes them more real and puts an unspoken pressure on you to achieve what you’ve written.
The second step, as the guideline says, is to develop a plan to achieve your dreams and goals. This part is much more challenging than simply writing a goal or dream on a piece of paper. This requires thought and work. But, these plans can be very simple and spread out over time; in fact, they should be simple and long-term. Whether this is a goal/dream that you’ve had your most of your life (become president of a company) or a shorter term goal (get promoted, increase profits, land a new client, etc.) having a plan is an essential step to achieving it. As an example, I recently interviewed a man who said that his goal when he graduated college was to one day be CEO of a company. He, at the time of graduation, had no idea what company he wanted to work for, but he knew that he wanted to get to the top. I am happy to say that, at a relatively young age, he is about to achieve that goal. Why? He decided on the goal, wrote it down, and was very capable of articulating his exact plan and steps that brought him from a fresh college grad to a highly paid CEO.
If you are in the position of hiring someone, particularly at senior levels, probing candidates on their goals and dreams can prove very useful and will show you much about their motivations, drive and successes. On a similar note, as a hiring executive, you should also have goals for what you are trying to accomplish, and a plan to hire the right candidate. As a candidate, being able to articulate your goals and how you have (or continue to) achieved them will prove invaluable in interviews. It demonstrates ambition, initiative and communication skills, amongst countless others qualities. Whether you are a hiring company or a candidate, having a written plan to reach your goal will only help you on your mission. So, in your venture toward building a successful company, career or life, take a few minutes to write down your goals and dreams and you’ll be one step closer to making them reality.
1. How You Think is Everything
By · CommentsAs you may or may not know, Investor's Business Daily has published 10 Secrets to Success, a list which was developed by the IBD team after years of watching, listening to, and analyzing leaders and successful people. These “Secrets to Success” can be applied to situations far beyond investing; they are more guidelines to success for anyone in any walk of life. We, at SRG, fully agree with these life guidelines and are going to delve a bit deeper into how they can be applied to you and your career.
1. How you think is everything: Always be positive. Think success, not failure. Beware of a negative environment
How you think is everything. NO matter where you are in your career, how you think truly is at the core. Negative vs. Positive; Success vs. Failure; Cost vs. Profit; Risk vs. Reward. Naturally, how you think affects you and your choices, but it also directly affects everyone around you. All too often, I hear (or overhear as the case may be) people with negativity spewing from their lips: “not enough of this, too much of that, so-and-so messed up everything again, not good enough!, etc.” Most likely, you’ve heard similar statements slip out of at least one of your colleagues’ mouths, or perhaps your own. Now, I am not saying that I don’t complain or that complaining is altogether a bad thing. In fact, sometimes it helps to complain, if for nothing else, to point out the negatives to those too blind to see them. However, it is destructive to let your mind automatically see the negative side of situations, people, places, and things.
One particular reason it is destructive to your career is that your employees, bosses, shareholders, etc, will grow tired of hearing negativity without a positive solution attached to it. Thus, negative thoughts can inadvertently put your career at risk. Now, obviously, to overcome a problem you have to identify it and admit that it exists, but once you’ve done that, think positively toward a successful solution to the problem. Your colleagues will appreciate your positive forward thinking far more than your skills at identifying problems. For a successful career, it is essential that you think positive. Assuming you are in a senior level position, how you think also directly influences your hiring and firing decisions. If you are unable to recognize a negative environment, you are at risk for keeping a poor performer(s) on board longer than you should. Removal of negative thinking and creating an environment of confidence and optimism will motivate those in your company and promote long term growth.
Rule 1: How you think is everything, seems very straight forward and simple to apply to your life and decision making. Most find that it takes work. But it is work that will pay off in life and in your career. So, think success, think to the future of who you want to be.