Band of All Talents

I love the alternative US rock band Wilco. I first came a across them about 14 years ago, around the time they released their second album Being There. It was a great collection of alt country songs from the doleful to the exhilarating…a mixture of the simple and the surreal. I bought it on the strength of reviews but one fact really endeared them to me – the album was a double but they wanted it priced as a single album so as not to deter new fans. The record label agreed only if Jeff Tweedy (band leader and writer of all their songs) cut most of his royalties…and he agreed!

I really admired such confidence, such dogged self-belief in his/their ability and the strength of his songs! He lost about $600,000 but was satisfied as he released an album that was critically acclaimed by the music press and won them many new fans.

And five years later Tweedy and the band even trumped this when their record label (Reprise) rejected the master tapes for their 4th album on the grounds that it wasn’t commercial enough. They refused to write new songs and were promptly dropped from the label…ending up having to pay to get their master tapes back. Without a deal they streamed the music on their website. Such was the positive response from fans and critics that they found themselves promptly snapped up by another label, Nonesuch. And the sweet irony was… Nonesuch were a sister label to Reprise!! And it’s their biggest selling album to date!

Again you couldn’t fail to admire the single minded belief and determination in their abilities.

Studio album number 8 was released this week and the band is still going strong. Having beaten an addiction to prescription painkillers, and gone through various changes in personnel, their leader Jeff Tweedy has assembled a band of all talents. Within the confines of a rock group he has managed to put together a collective of talented musicians. On lead guitar (Nels Cline) and drums (Glen Kotche) he has two of America’s most admired leftfield, improvisational musicians, each much in demand for guest appearances and side projects, and each with a solo career running parallel.

Not an easy trick to pull off, particularly in an industry with big egos, creative differences and sometimes relentless single-mindedness. Yet it works, and they combine to make music that is stylistically diverse, by turns interesting, challenging and hummable.

More by luck than judgement Wilco may actually show us interesting business parallels.

Relentless self-belief in your ability and offering eventually gets it reward…OK, they aren’t in the major league but they get by!

It’s possible to build and blend a team with diversely talented performers…maybe giving your better performers some flexibility and the freedom to indulge their passions and pursue side projects can keep them on message for the day job.

 

Things I Learned From My Dad

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three years ago today my father passed away. At the time it wasn’t a great shock; he had been suffering from a degenerative heart condition and spent his last few months in a care home. I visited him every weekend when he was in the home, though as often happens at these times sadly the only weekend that I was unable to make proved to be his last.

I often wanted to ask him what he thought of me, of how I had turned out, what had been his hopes or expectations and whether I had met them or had disappointed. I had never really known what he had wanted for me, but I suppose those kinds of conversations rarely happen…parental responsibilities don’t come with a performance review plan.

I’m not sure if any of us ever have that kind of conversation with our parents, or how honest the answers would be.

I was talking to a friend recently about things that we learn from our fathers. Certainly I’m sure my love of football (well Arsenal!) music and politics come from him as these were passions of his. He took me to my first live football match when I was four, and we still went to some games together until the start of his illness.

It goes without saying that our parent’s hobbies and obsessions are often picked up by us, but what about personality traits and attitudes?

What things did I learn from my dad? Continue reading “Things I Learned From My Dad” →

Easy Like Monday Morning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the recent TruLondon event the comment ‘Recruiters are Lazy ‘caused a real stir. Almost immediately recruiters were talking about the hours they work, the early starts and late evenings. Certainly blog references to the comment have also tended to defend the dedication and long hours.

I think they are all missing the point though. When we talk about someone being lazy I don’t think we necessarily mean the hours they put in, the application and dedication…I think it’s more about the way their time is utilised, the methods they use and the outcomes.

With office jobs it’s easy to draw the distinction between clock watchers and those that work long hours. Yet I’m not sure the 8 to 8 person necessarily always achieves more than someone who puts in a shorter shift. So I turned to an industry where everyone works the same hours – an airline crew. Continue reading “Easy Like Monday Morning” →

Skills to Pay the Bills

Late August always seems to bring education angst to the chattering classes. A-level and GCSE results always raise the questions:

  • Are exams too easy?
  • Are students studying too many ‘soft’ subjects?

Then we get the inevitable

  • The education system isn’t providing the future workforce with the skills they need
  • Why do so many need to go to university, why don’t they go straight into work

This year I had more than a passing interest in the annual kvetching– my son got his GCSE results and is studying a couple of ‘soft subjects’ for A levels.

I certainly don’t think that the exams are getting easier and find the comparisons of results before the merging of O Levels and CSEs into GCSEs with those since pointless. Results are now partly based on coursework and controlled assessments…surely a much better was to assess someone’s grasp of a subject and work ethic than relying solely on a three hour cram-a-thon jumble of facts and figures shorn of much context and relevance.

The shift from quota based marking to criteria based…away from having set numbers achieving each grade to recognising the attainment of a level of achievement…has also clearly helped to create the impression that grades are more easily achieved.

So what of the soft subjects? Well Drama has given my son confidence, an ability to express and project himself, and experience of teamwork – many of the things supposedly lacking in today’s workforce. Additionally he has had the opportunity to be part of a group creating a production from scratch, which was assessed as a whole, with each group member getting the same grade. Real project experience with teamwork and interdependency…great experience for the workplace. Continue reading “Skills to Pay the Bills” →

The Wisdom of Herbert : Management Insights 80 Years On

‘The anxiety which is felt in some cases when teams are threatened with the loss of their status must be almost beyond bearing. I know of one club who in their plight insisted on their star players being in their homes every Friday night at nine o’clock, and officials visited them to see that the rule is observed. Recently I have heard of the complaints of players who declare that every Friday night they are spied on, and that they are threatened with all sorts of penalties if they do not observe the club curfew. I have no patience with such supervision. If I were unable to trust a player I would not retain him. In my experience I have found that the man who is treated fairly, and in whom confidence is placed, will not let you down.’

Wise words.

If you changed the word ‘club’ to ‘company’ and ‘players’ to ‘employees’ and said that at a conference or unconference in relation to employer brand and social media you’d be a guru. It would be tweeted and re-tweeted, blogged about and quoted.

And it’s true. If you can’t trust your employees then you shouldn’t have them working for you…likewise if you treat them fairly, and with respect, you will get the best out of them.

But this quote isn’t recent. It’s not from this week, this year or this century. It was written in 1932!

It was written by Herbert Chapman, a man who was named Greatest British Football Manager of all time in a Sunday Times poll in 2004 and is widely regarded as the father of modern football. His revolutionary and pioneering legacy is long and impressive: Continue reading “The Wisdom of Herbert : Management Insights 80 Years On” →

Do Recruiters Need Representing? Or Enlightening?

Here’s a question…who sets the standards in the recruitment agency industry?

The recruitment industry isn’t a profession requiring a qualification or quality badge. It’s a B2B sales business, predominantly made up of a disparate myriad of small owner managed businesses all competing with each other and showing little appetite for collaboration or ethics.

Standards are set by company owners, and their prime motivator is often profit not quality of operation. In the ten years I was supplying recruiters to the industry no-one asked me about the standards to which individuals operated. Their main concerns were fees and transferable client relationships. I was never asked to find someone with a relevant qualification…usually just someone who could sell.

Being a thorough interviewer, or having a string of recommendations from clients and candidates, were irrelevant if there were not billing figures to back them up.

Recruiters who don’t hit their targets are labelled failures. It doesn’t matter if their clients and candidates rate their service highly, and would recommend them… they won’t get hired in the rough, tough recruitment world without those billings. A blank couple of months usually mean a warning or redundancy, no matter if you’re with a member of a trade body or attend some training courses.

So I remain fairy ambivalent towards representative bodies, particularly those who make claims to create standards and set benchmarks. I followed the brouhaha that surrounded the launch of the IOR which still seems to continue – read this insightful blog from SteveWard. Continue reading “Do Recruiters Need Representing? Or Enlightening?” →

Weak ties or strong links – it’s a question of bandwidth

Its called Relationship Recruiting!

When I started working in recruitment I was quickly told about the 80/20 rule – 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. It certainly informed my day to day relationship building as I quickly focused on a small number of deep relationships which held good for me for my years as a recruiter.

As we moved towards modern social networking though the accent was more on broadening out your network, concentrating on the ‘weak ties’, the ones that were most likely to bring new information and opportunity. Although the research that showed the strength of these weak ties dates back to 1973 they certainly started becoming more popular over the last few years, a situation exacerbated with rising usage of networking and connecting platforms – LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter – as they, in turn, facilitated growing the widest network possible.

So it was with great interest that I read in this month’s Wired of research conducted by two information economists, in a white paper due to be published later this year, that found that it was, after all the strong links that delivered the most profitable relationships. The weaker ties may deliver unique information, but the nature of the connection (weak) means that the interactions are rare.

Closer links may bring less unique news, but the higher level of interaction will ultimately make them a stronger source. The contacts with the greatest bandwidth do ultimately deliver the best results.

And to test this they used an executive recruiting firm, analysing e-mail correspondence. Guess what? Those consultants relying on a tight cluster of contacts received more new leads and generated greater fees.

Whilst the ideal results may well derive from a combination of weak and strong ties, it can’t be denied that close connections really are important after all.

If you’re a recruiter then develop them and nurture them…they may provide your best route to success.

And if you’re a jobseeker building the widest network you can, then stop for a moment and think about who is closer to home and who you may be overlooking. Close friends, family, neighbours and ex-colleagues…they may be able give you that vital lead a lot quicker than the sister-in-law of the guy who sold a computer to the wife of the friend of the golf partner you just shot an 82 with!

This post originally appeared as a guest blog on the excellent Blogging4jobs site run by Jessica Miller-Merrell. If you don’t follow her…you really should!

Thank You For Your Interest. Now Go Away.

Imagine this scene

….

You’re out shopping.  There’s quite a bit you need to buy and you’re getting frustrated because shop after shop doesn’t seem to stock what you want. And if they do, then invariably it’s the wrong size or colour.

Then you spot a new shop, one you haven’t seen on your High Street before. Looking through the window, you can see that it stocks much of what you’ve been trying to find. But it’s crowded, and you can’t really identify who is serving. There seem to be a few assistants but not enough to cope with the number of customers.

Undeterred you go in and start easing your way through the crowds. You can’t get close to the stock but from what you see it’s what you need. You start pushing through, looking for someone to serve you.

Suddenly you spot someone wearing a t-shirt bearing the shop name. At last, someone who can serve you! It’s been a long day of shopping with little reward and this is a great opportunity to get what you’ve been looking for.

You move towards the guy in the t-shirt – he appears to be free – but just as you’re about to reach him a bouncer appears from nowhere and blocks your path.

He stands there, arms folded, shielding the assistant from you. He hands you a card. It says…

‘Thank you for showing interest in our shop but as you can see we are very busy. Please go and wait at the back of the store. If no-one serves you within 5 minutes you can assume that we do not need your custom and you should leave’ Continue reading “Thank You For Your Interest. Now Go Away.” →

Calling For The Voice of Reason

“I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what it is I need
Call up to listen to the voice of reason
And got his answering machine
I left my message but did he f*** get back to me
And now I’m stuck still wondering
How it’s meant to be”

That’s a lyric from the new Arctic Monkeys album. The song’s called ‘Reckless Serenade’ and deals with the uncontrollable emotions you feel when you’re with the most beautiful girl in the world.

Feelings of passion and attempts at understanding love.

You don’t notice distractions (Those twinkling vixens/With the shining spiral eyes/Their hypnosis goes unnoticed/When she’s walking by) you’re just consumed by what you have (The type of kisses/Where teeth collide/When she laughs the Heavens hum/A stun-gun lullaby).

He needs help, needs the voice of reason…but the voice of reason goes to voicemail and never returns the call. Continue reading “Calling For The Voice of Reason” →

Sherlock Holmes and the Curious Case of the Bursting Facebook Bubble

It may have escaped your notice but the bubble has burst. We’re falling out of love with Facebook. It’s all over. 100,000 of us in the UK have ‘deactivated’ accounts. 700,000,000 still use it but it’s clearly all over now.

The media has been awash with it. Whoopin’ and Hollerin’ the mainstream print and broadcast media have been sounding the death knell. Last night on TV two newspaper reviewers triumphantly declared the bubble burst. They admitted that they don’t use Facebook, or have accounts…but they knew it was over, that it couldn’t last.

The headlines were there – ‘Are we falling out of love with Facebook’ and ‘How to de-activate your Facebook account’. Everyone has a theory, everyone knows why. It’s the trivia, the embarrassing photos, the privacy…IT’S BECAUSE EVEN YOUR MOTHER IS ON IT                !

Except…we’ve heard it all before.

Look at this…

This wasn’t today or yesterday’s news. This was an article from 22nd FEBRUARY 2008! The bubble had burst then! It burst after 200,000,000 members, never mind 700,000,000! And the journalist who wrote that article also knew the reasons. It’s the trivia, the embarrassing photos, the privacy…IT WAS BECAUSE EVEN YOUR MOTHER IS ON IT! She added another one…apparently we were turning away from it because we didn’t like the politics of the founder.

I checked the newspaper’s online archive and the article was no longer there. Every other one from 22nd February 2008 seemed to be…but not that one.

I’m sure there will be more theories. Ignore the fact that the next generation to enter the workforce, and the media, barely know any other way to communicate…it’s over. You choose the reason.

What do I think?

I think Sherlock Holmes had it right…not once but twice

‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.’

‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’

What do you think?