I ordered a New York Strip steak at a restaurant called Recipes Remembered. After the server brought it to the table, she asked if I needed anything. And that’s when I made the mistake of asking for ketchup. At first, I wasn’t sure what our server was doing. She was waving her arms around frantically like she was swatting at a hive of killer bees flying around her head. But then I realized she was trying to convince me not to ask for ketchup. It seems I broke the cardinal rule of fine dining—asking for a condiment that would mask the flavor of what I was eating.
At first, I wondered if Gordon Ramsay was in the back. Why else would a chef at a tiny restaurant in western Pennsylvania potentially take such offense at using ketchup with a steak? But I’m pretty sure he wasn’t Gordon Ramsay. He was just passionate about what he created. That was part of his brand promise. I suppose he could have had a personal prejudice against ketchup, now that I think about it, but let’s assume it was the personal pride and accountability angle.
When’s the last time you took that much ownership over something you created? That you took so much pride over it, even the thought of changing the font style on your PowerPoint deck title card (adding a little ketchup) would feel like a personal insult. After all, I didn’t accuse the chef of serving dog food ala Rodney Dangerfield’s character in Caddyshack, I just asked for a little sauce.
Oh, did I mention the steak was delicious? I didn’t mean to leave you hanging as I pontificate about work ethic. But, to me, the chef’s passion left a much more lasting impression than the meal. He didn’t mail it in, just going through the motions during the Friday night dinner shift on Mt. Nebo road.
I’m not sure if I can operate under such exacting standards 100% of the time, but I know I am definitely going to try. How about you?
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
A simple question, right? It should have been, but when Maureen Anderson asked me during a recent guest appearance on her Career Clinic radio show, I didn’t really have an answer. I asked my mom, my aunt, and I also racked my brain to come up with an answer.
Of course, I also got caught up in what age would be my point of reference. I drew a blank when I defined the range from zero to 10 years old. At around 10, I remember setting up a little table in the front yard to sell apples (I grew up on a small apple farm in case you were wondering where I was getting the apples). Our deal was pretty simple…I pick the apples and sell them, I keep the proceeds.
As a teen, I still wasn’t able to articulate what I wanted to do when I grew up. No wanting to be a doctor, a lawyer, a fireman, or a policeman. But I did learn a lot about what I didn’t want to do. I worked as a day laborer for a monument company where I shuttled wheel barrels full of cement to grave sights so they could install tombstones—it was a great workout, but definitely hard labor. Cross that one off the list. Then I spent a day working in quality control at an aluminum can manufacturer. And that’s where I learned that, after staring at cans for a few hours, I was completely incapable of noticing defects. Obviously that didn’t work out. Then there was my stint working at a car wash. The job didn’t require much skill or thought—I just had to dry off the cars and make sure they didn’t plow into the building as they left the track. That job last two summers. Not glamorous, but we did get minimum wage plus tips so it wasn’t all bad.
And then there were the jobs I told my mom I was going to do when I was ready to quit school during my first semester of college because I was having a hard time adjusting to life on campus—bus driver, garbage truck driver, cook at McDonald’s. Not that any of those jobs did or didn’t require a college education, but rather they were just the first jobs that came to mind as I was stressing out over a microeconomics exam.
Thinking more about it, I realized I chose most of my jobs like I chose my undergraduate major. I didn’t go after something because I was really passionate about it or because it was something I was really interested in, I chose the lesser of two evils. When I chose my major, I didn’t chose economics because I wanted to be an economist, I chose my major because it was “not science.” So that ruled out biology, chemistry, environmental science, neuroscience, and physics. I also didn’t fancy myself as an anthropologist or a sociologist either. So, since I thought economics was fairly similar to business (my declared major), I went with that. And looking back, when it came to work the same thing held true. I chose jobs (or left jobs) because I didn’t like them (see the pouring cement in cemeteries reference I made earlier).
I know one thing is for sure, if you were to randomly sample 1000 people, asking them what they wanted to be when they grew up, career counselor likely wouldn’t make the top five. And that was obviously the case for me—because I didn’t know about it. Yet, more than 10 years later, here I am working as a career counselor.
I figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up by process of elimination and a little luck. How about you? Did you know were you’d end up when you were five? Are you still trying to figure it out? And did you have any off-the-wall jobs along the way?
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
As a manager, there’s an invisible and unspoken wall between you and your staff. It would be great if it didn’t exist, but it does. And even though there are times when you feel like part of the gang, at the end of the day, you’ll still be the boss…and that creates a barrier.
You have a sense that group cohesion isn’t where it needs to be and that a few people are frustrated with your management style but you feel the “boss barrier” is keeping them from sharing their feedback. So you decide to create a brief anonymous survey. And that’s no small task because the questions you ask (or don’t ask) will obviously send signals to your team.
In hopes of opening the lines of communication, you come up with three to four questions designed to get at what you believe are the underlying issues and you elicit their response. But that was the easy part. Once you get their feedback, you have to decide what to do with it. And that is particularly difficult because the feedback you receive wasn’t constructive, but more of a personal attack.
Do you confront the group? Meet with each member of your team individually? Do nothing? Do you respond to their feedback in general without mentioning specifics? That would keep you from repeating some of the negative comments from some that might not be shared by all. Or, do you read each response to the group and talk through what you’re going to do to address their concerns while making sure not to come off as defensive or angry?
How you handle their feedback, from the moment you receive their responses, is more important than the questions you asked or the feedback itself. You can’t sit on it, waiting for the right time. The more time that passes, the less likely it will be that you can get to the underlying frustrations that led to their negative comments. Plus, waiting gives the impression that responding to their feedback isn’t a priority.
Whether to respond to their comments in general (without mentioning specific comments), or to go over each comment is a judgment call. If you’re worried that voicing some of the negative comments could poison those on your team who might not feel that way, keep in mind there’s a good chance that they’ve already heard the comments from their peers because there’s a good chance they’re talking to each
other about it. If anything, it could provide an opportunity for those on your team who are in your corner to stand up and speak out about some of the negative comments they might not agree with.
Regardless of your approach, you’ll want to drive the discussion, keeping comments from others to a minimum. The last thing you want is for the meeting to turn into a heated discussion or argument. No matter how calm you are (or think you are), it’s likely that others will be pretty tense. It’s okay to have a little group discussion, but for the most part, you’re the one steering the ship.
And don’t forget about tone. If you don’t think you can talk about their feedback without appearing defensive or angry, don’t do it. If you do, you could accidentally make things worse than they already are—especially if some of the feedback you received was that you get defensive when you get negative feedback.
As a manager, it’s hard to open yourself up to potential criticism by asking for feedback on your performance. But it’s even harder to put it all out there and process the feedback with your team. Even though it’s uncomfortable, asking for and addressing feedback from your team will make you a better manager.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
I’ve been accused over the years of having unrealistically high expectations of people and I’m sure in some cases it’s true. However, the preponderance of things that really make me get hot under the collar are so low on the expectations spectrum, they really are hard for me to wrap my mind around. Which brings me to what not to do/wear to an MBA admissions fair.
If you’re not familiar with graduate school fairs, the idea is simple enough--colleges and universities send representatives to key cities around the world to meet with prospective students. Some fairs attract hundreds of students and institutions of higher learning. Admissions representatives are trying to stand out from all of the other schools to reel in the best and brightest students. Prospective students are trying to gather information about target schools, present themselves well, and also to get a feel for each program’s culture. Given the goals of the event, it shouldn’t come as a shocker that both groups want to put their proverbial best foot forward. But that doesn’t always seem to be the case for some attendees. Following are some random observations.
Don’t bring a Teacup Chihuahua. I was going to specify graduate school fair, but I think this should be a universal rule for any fair (job fair, state fair, renaissance fair, health fair, etc.) Would you be taken by surprise if you saw a guy carrying a Teacup Chihuahua as he went from table to table? Are my expectations too high on this one?
Blue jeans, by any other color, are still blue jeans—and blue jeans are generally bad when you want to present yourself as an aspiring business professional. I specify color as I’ve had conversations with students on guidelines for business professional dress and they try to find a loophole by wear black jeans because I mentioned that blue jeans weren’t acceptable. I wonder if those students end up working as attorneys??
It’s generally a good idea to tuck in your shirt. I know that might come as a shocker, but I think people want to know you are willing to put in that little extra effort required to tuck in your shirt…especially if you’re wearing jeans. I’m no fashionista (or would that be fashionisto? So much for four years of high school Spanish), but I’m going to say I think it looks bad at a graduate school fair.
Stiletto heels. As with the previous point, you won’t be seeing me as a judge on Project Runway, but I’m pretty sure stilettos are a bit on the high side at recruiting functions.
If you’re only there to grab free stuff, at least try to be subtle about it. I actually watched a guy come up, reach in front of someone who was in the middle of a conversation with a representative from one of the schools, so he could grab a handful of free pens. I can see making a mad dash if they were giving away Mont Blancs, but the pens were probably 50-75 cents each. Was that really necessary? It’s just a hunch, but I don’t think that guy was there to make friends and influence people…I think he was there for the schwag.
I often find myself wondering where common sense has gone and if it’s ever going to make its way back into the mainstream. If it’s gone for good, maybe I’ll adopt myself a Teacup Chihuahua, un-tuck my shirt, throw on some black jeans, put on some heels, grab a handful of free pens, and ride off into the sunset.
Shawn Graham is author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
I’m in the McDonald’s drive-thru this morning and as I pull around to pay, I notice the cashier yelling from the first drive-thru window to a guy in a silver Lexus who was pulling away. Somehow he missed the whole concept of stopping at the first window to pay and was on his way straight to the second window (a real go-getter). And, since the two window concept has only been around for oh, I don’t know, at least 15 years…I guess I can understand his confusion. So he slowly backs up, holding his money out of his car window, and pays.
You’d hope that would be the end of the story, but it wasn’t. He pulled away without picking up his food. Absolutely hilarious. And that got me wondering…how is this guy able to afford a Lexus when he can’t figure out the McDonald’s drive-thru? I mean, using a drive-thru is common sense, right? Right? In this case, not only was the process seemingly self-explanatory, it was also well-signed, and the driver received additional verbal assistance.
But this isn’t about proper drive-thru protocol, it’s about being able to figure stuff out on your own. At work, employees have to balance learning by doing with getting stuff done. They might not want to run to the boss the first time they have a question, but they don’t want to spend hours trying to figure stuff out to the point that they fall way behind. So how can you help an employee struggling with things you think should be common sense?
Encourage them to slow down for a minute and make sure they fully understand what it is they’re working on (something the guy at McDonald’s could have benefited from) including the scope, key deliverables, and input sources. They should look at it both from a granular point of view, and also holistically: how does this fit into the short- and long-term strategic vision of your department? An old technique, but one that often works well, is to have them repeat it back. That not only lets you know they understand, repeating the details also increases the likelihood that they’ll retain the information.
Ask them to think strategically about their approach. If you ask someone on your team why they’re doing something a certain way, their reply shouldn’t be something superficial like “because that’s the way we did it last year.” In the spirit of continuous improvement, everyone on your team should think about what they’re trying to accomplish. And, if that’s unclear, they should try to figure it out or ask.
Speaking of figuring it out…employees sometimes throw in the towel too quickly, looking to management to come up with a solution. Although there are times when that’s necessary, encouraging your team members to come up with their own solutions will not only give them a sense of empowerment, but will help them think through the issue, thus increasing the chances of their developing a holistic view of the issue.
So, Mr. Lexus driver, repeat after me: Order meal at menu stop; pay for meal at Window One; pick up meal order at Window Two. Still too complicated? If you’d like to sketch out the process using tools from your Crayola box, feel free.
Are there other tips you’ve found helpful?
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
The folks at Brazen Careerist realize college students and young professionals aren’t always able to pull from years of previous work experience when marketing themselves to potential employers. And that often puts them at a competitive disadvantage. So, instead of sticking with the status quo, they decided to turn existing traditional online career management tools on their ear.
With the launch of the new Brazen community, members can now showcase their intellectual horsepower (or potential) through their ideas…ideas that can lead to creative solutions to complex problems. And if there’s one word that describes today’s business landscape, it’s complexity.
But it’s not just about individual success. Brazen was founded by a team of bloggers. Collaboration was, and is, at the core of what they do. The new site encourages collaborative career management through the use of fan and idea feeds. Members of the Brazen community can now keep up with recent blog posts and status updates of their fellow Brazenites with a clean, colorful, easy to scan dashboard—a great way to exchange ideas and information with other young professionals.
As someone who works in the career management space on a college campus, I know I have benefited greatly from the Brazen community. From keeping tabs on Dan Schawbel (which is no small feat given the fact that he’s a super nova of information), to having a chance to write a duet blog post with Ryan Paugh, Brazen’s Community Manager extraordinaire, the site keeps me continuously up to date on the challenges faced by today’s young professionals.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
If you’re in a customer-focused business (and really, who isn’t?), you’re always looking for feedback. How was their experience when they entered your store? Were they able to easily navigate your website? Wal Mart (who knew they had a blog?) even asks whether the cashier greeted you before you swipe your credit card at the register.
When you get actionable, constructive feedback, things are great. You can share positive comments with your team as a way to boost morale, you can make modifications based on their suggestions that can help improve the customer experience, and you can increase customer loyalty by showing that you really do care about what they have to say and that you’re nimble enough to make changes.
But feedback isn’t always that cut and dry. Customers don’t always know what they don’t know or know what they think they know. We’ve all been there…a customer sounds off about something totally off the wall and does so in a totally disrespectful manner.
Instead of just dismissing their comments, strip away the noise to get to the underpinnings of why they’re frustrated. If they were responding to a survey or questionnaire, start by looking at the design. It might seem a little cerebral, but survey design can often mean the difference between getting great feedback or throwing accelerant on an already bad situation. What questions do you ask? Are they open ended? Multiple choice? Are they vague? A good example of this is the prompt you see when you’re standing at the register at Wal Mart mentioned earlier. They clearly define what they’re trying to measure instead of asking broader, catch all phrases like “customer service” (which could mean responsiveness, friendliness, level of professionalism, etc.).
But surveys are only part of the equation. Look for opportunities to use focus groups to gather feedback from customers. Marketers do it all the time, but any client-facing business can benefit. One of the best examples I’ve seen is using focus groups to evaluate the effectiveness of your website. Google Analytics are great, but if you’re trying to determine how people find information on your site, get them in a room, give them specific tasks, and observe (and ideally record the session with their permission) how they navigate the site. Ask them to talk through each task so you can hear what they’re thinking first hand. I have to thank the marketing director at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School for teaching me how to conduct an effective focus group—it’s a skill that comes in handy quite often.
To make the most of customer feedback, 1) identify the things you wan tot measure—and make them specific 2) determine the best method for collecting said feedback (online survey, over-the-phone questionnaire) 3) take an objective look at the responses (especially the negative ones) 4) tweak your process as needed if it’s not getting the information you’re looking for and 5) if you’re looking to increase your response rate, you can always go the way of big box retailers and entice your customers by entering them into a drawing for a chance to win a gift card (even though they usually never mention the drawing is across all of their stores so your chances of winning are about as good as your chances of getting hit by lightening…but I digress).
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
I recently had the opportunity to serve as a panelist for the References, Referrals and Inside Connections: How to Obtain, Maintain & Use Them to Your Advantage webinar organized by Heather Huhman, entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com and founder and president of Come Recommended.com.
If you didn’t get a chance to join us, be sure to check out the transcript. We covered a range of information including why references and inside connections are critically important, where and how to find them, and how to effectively leverage social media to expand your personal and professional networks.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
Thanks to an introduction from Grasshopper's Ambassador of Buzz (yes that's his actual job title) Jonathan , I was able to connect with David Hauser, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Grasshopper.com to talk about employee incentives and corporate culture--two topics that a lot of companies talk about but generally don't truly get beyond paying them superficial lip service.
One thing you won't glean from David's lofty title, but that you'll pick up on within 14 seconds of speaking with him, is that he truly cares about this stuff and that he spends an incredible amount of time thinking up new ways to engage their team.
And now on to our Q&A...
Me: You're doing some really neat stuff to makeGrasshopper.coma great place to work. Will you talk about some of the things you're doing and how they've helped to boost morale?
David Hauser: We want Grasshopper to be a place where everyone wants to come to work and enjoys the people around them, this is what culture is all about. We give 4 weeks paid time off, so people can be flexible with their time, rest when needed and ultimately work hard and play hard. Rather than installing a pingpong table (although fun) or any other typical .com perk we decided to put a Wii in all of our offices. This brings people together and provides for some fun entertainment.
Me:Did a lot of your initial inspiration for creating a rewarding work environment come from your previous work at other start ups?
David Hauser:I learned for sure what a fun work environment is like at other startups and my goal was to replicate that not copy it. For example I saw that many startups were offering free drinks and snacks, and this became our healthy snacks and fresh fruit program. So bring the items I would expect to be there or would have in my house to work, compared with the cheapest or easiest option. Anyone can dump some chips and candy in a basket and say they have snacks.
Me:Creating an employee incentive program from scratch might sound like a daunting task for a lot of newly minted managers (I know it did to me). Where would you tell someone to begin?
David Hauser:We started with looking at best practices of companies that highly value true core values and combined this with our understanding of high growth companies. What came out as a result was quarterly reviews, quarterly bonuses and an excellent goals system. Our employees are evaluated not only on what they do, but how they do it. I would start with looking at what the pain points are, what are the goals and in our case the ultimate goal was to link performance with pay and provide timely and effective feedback.
Me: You've had some interesting activities planned around your quarterly strategic planning sessions--kart racing, snowboarding, and most recently brewing beer. Have there been any activities that weren't well received?
David Hauser: As this is a small group each activity has had its positive and negatives but the goal of getting together and doing something different is always accomplished. It is easy to go to dinner and hang out but once in a life time or at least once in a year type things are fun and bring creativity to the team.
Me: Grasshopper.com also has some very interesting and actionable core values. Will you talk a little bit about how you were able to get past clichés and ambiguity to something much more meaningful? And to that end, have any employees had to be disciplined for being overly radically passionate?
David Hauser: Core values must have real meaning, not the honesty and respect ones from years past and large companies. Honesty and respect are expected to even get an interview, so those are the ground rules. Core values define how to do things, how you interact with people and customers. It took a lot of time to get the right words but the actual values are there, they are not aspirational they are what people do and why they were hired. We always try and provide feedback and coaching using core value stories so people can see exactly what is meant in more than just words. There have been times when passion has resulted in a lower rating or a training opportunity because so much passion caused other problems.
Me: Your bio mentioned that you enjoy long walks on the beach. 1) is that true and 2) if so, where are the long beaches in Boston?
David Hauser: I do like the beach, although prefer the pool since as there is less sand. It is not true, and I have not been to many beaches in the Boston area. I am surprised you even saw this.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
Process improvement consultants often talk about the importance of focusing your efforts on the critical few—those 3-4 things that, as a business, you can (or can’t) live without. Everyone agrees that process improvement is necessary; but the process utilized to determine how, when, and what needs improving is a stickier issue.
Do you base your analysis on benchmarking? Institutional knowledge? Tea leaves? All of the above? In many cases, employees are expected to come up with a short- and long-term strategic plan during a two day offsite marathon with the aforementioned process improvement consultants who often save little time for benchmarking (or tea leaves for that matter). And, to compound matters, the issues (too-quickly) identified during the accelerated strategic planning session might be adopted by management and your office held accountable for producing those results.
I’m sure that methodologies employed by process improvement consultants are very impactful in certain environments, but requiring staff to learn these methodologies, particularly in a short time frame, may not be as productive. In the career offices I’ve been affiliated with, the issue has not been recognizing the “critical few,” the issue has been how to address those items and make improvements.
What’s your take? Are we better off learning Kaizen and/or other forms of process improvement methodologies? Or could that time be better spent benchmarking against competitors, assessing productivity gaps, and implementing changes?
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
