Walt Disney's commitment to excellence

Disneyland and Disney World have set the bar for amusement parks.

Both parks and Disney resorts have an amazing culture. The culture goes back to Walt Disney himself. Disney was committed to excellence. He understood the importance of managing by walking around. This set the tone for future Disney leaders.

Shortly after Disneyland opened, Walt stopped by to inspect The Jungle Cruise.

After taking the cruise, Disney asked the person in charge ho long the cruise lasted. The person in charge said seven minutes. Walt said it only lasted four minutes. He said it was going so fast you couldn’t tell a Zebra from a Hippo. Disney said, “Fix it.”

Walt came back to do another inspection. There were six boats used for the ride. Disney rode all six boats, timed and listened to the tour from all six skippers. He didn’t just ride once or twice. He made sure all six skippers were following the process.

One of the many reasons for Disney’s success was that believed in paying attention to details and everyone doing things the same way. Disney was committed to excellence. That commitment to excellence became such a part of the culture long after Walt.

Need help solidifying your processes? Contact me:

- Doug Myrick 

Road Map to Hiring Good People

Here is a simple strategy using cost-effective assessment tools for hiring good people. First, allow me offer you a simple strategy that will make your life easier and produce results. The following scenario can show you how to take advantage of cost-effective aptitude and competency assessments.

Scenario: You need to hire an outside sales person to represent your product or service and get new business. This is a critical role for growing your business. If this person doesn’t generate at least $6,000 per month in revenue, they are costing you money.

Step One: Create a strategy

Be open-minded. Write a performance based job description to avoid disqualifying candidates for the industry-specific skills they can learn on the job. Remember you are going to hire people who are smart, fast learners.

Step Two: Post your job ad to as many job boards as possible

The goal is to cast the widest net possible. If your first impulse is to say, “But I don’t have time to screen all those resumes or talk to all those people”, remember: you don’t need to spend a lot of time screening resumes. Have a check list of items you are looking for by the time you get to the third resume you’ll have it memorized. Once you have selected you first group of great applicants put them in a pile and review them again to make sure they meet your needs, then start contacting them. Dedicate time to contact people put 20 minutes aside to make calls or send e-mails to schedule phone screens Check out: Indeed, CareerBuilder, Craigslist, industry job boards, LinkedIn, and local classifieds.

Step Three: Use a basic skills test upfront.

Send your best applicants a short, inexpensive 10 minute skills test or integrate the skills test into your applicant tracking system (ATS) platform. Have them take the skill test before you schedule an in person interview, so you don’t waste their time or yours on an unnecessary meeting

Step Four: Phone-screen your best candidates

Spend 20 minutes, no more, no less, phone screening the candidates with the best resumes and the ones that scored well on your skills test.  You will probably have five-to-ten good applicants at that point, so your time investment is minimal.

Step Five: Interview the top five candidates

You should have five, or fewer, candidates who look pretty good at this point. Bring them in for a 30-45 minute interview. To figure out all the reasons why they shouldn’t work for you, see our article on “Common Mistakes Made by Interviewers.” If you still like the candidate in the interview, have him or her take a more in-depth aptitude assessment and a competency test.  If you find disqualifiers early in the interview, cut it short. You are not doing anyone any favors by going through a full interview if you know the person isn’t a good fit.

Step Six: Invite the top candidates to meet with your top management

Bring the best two or three people back (you might only have one at that point) to meet other leaders in your organization. Spend a few hours with this person to clarify all of your unanswered questions about disqualifiers. Spend time finding out how these people might add value to your business. Discuss real business scenarios to learn how they would solve these real business problems. By now you should have a clear picture of whether this person is a great fit or not.

Step Seven: Check the candidate’s references

Have the top candidates provide you with references from their direct supervisors (get at least three references). Make sure the candidates permit their references to talk to you. If they won’t, that is a red flag. Confirm the candidates’ successes and weakness with these references. If the comments made by the references don’t match up with what the candidates have been saying about their qualifications and experience, ask the candidates for clarification, or move on because there is a problem.

This process can be completed in 2-4 weeks. If you are really serious about finding the best people, you may discover other candidates along the way. Start the process with those people, too. Don’t stop looking. You never know who you are going to find.

- Doug Myrick

4 Common Mistakes Made by Interviewers

These are the four common interviewing mistakes:

1. Talking too much.
2. Emotionally believing you’ve found the perfect candidate.
3. Jumping to conclusions.
4. Telegraphing what you want or the answer you want.

Talking Too Much

The purpose of interviewing is to find out faults.  How can you do that when you’re the one doing the talking? Also, you can be easily manipulated if you’re talking too much.  So talking too much wastes time, and opens the interviewer up to being manipulated.

Another fault with talking is the tendency to turn candidates off from wanting the job as they hear things they don’t like.  On the other hand, when you question, you’re inferring you have a great job to offer without directly saying it.  If the candidate can get you talking about your favorite ideas, you’re much more likely to be sold on the candidate.  The one doing the talking is the one being sold.  If interviewers are doing the talking then they will tend to be sold on the applicants regardless of how qualified they are.

When the candidates talk they want the job more and more as they talk and talk.  We know this sounds unbelievable but notice how your feelings for candidates change depending on whom was doing the talking.  Also, rather than giving a long speech on how great your company is, just give a short summary that does not expose your requirements.  The more you question and listen, the more you’ll find out and the more you’ll know about the appropriateness of the candidate.

Emotionally Believing You’ve Found the Perfect Candidate

If you feel you have the perfect candidate before thoroughly testing, interviewing, and reference checking, you’re making a mistake.  The problem with this interview fault is the difficulty seeing or hearing anything negative after you’re in love with the candidate.  You know the person will be perfect, so why bother checking the person out any more?  For example, let’s say you are sold on the applicant but the applicant tells you he has problems of arriving on time.  The great honesty is seen as a plus even though arriving late is a reason for termination in the company.  Realize that when you fall in love you have been blinded.

When we feel like we have a perfect candidate, we do thorough testing and reference checking before thorough interviewing, or we have another expert interviewer check the person out.  This fault is far more likely to happen if the candidate is meant to work for you directly.  You should definitely have an objective interview, and/or reference check the person.  You should think back to all the so-called “perfect people” you’ve hired, and how they turned out in reality.

Jumping to Conclusions

Not only are there challenges from applicants trying to look good, but also from interviewers’ urges to make up their minds too fast and on too little information.  It takes more than one incident or statement to judge anything.

Avoid making generalized judgments of people.  Learn to detect specific flaws, good job qualification fits or personality traits.  For best results, both legally and effectively, find out the specifics before deciding anything.

Interviewers typically form opinions about the person at first sight.  They also form opinions too quickly after applicants convince them of the success they’ll bring to their company.  Interviewers would be wise to convince themselves they don’t know how suitable the applicant is until all the interview questions have been answered.  Even then one would be wise to take a two hour break after the interview to let any sales hype go out of one’s mind and a more objective look to take over.  In this new state of mind look over the test results, reference check results and interview answers.  Now decide about the candidate.

After a new interviewer has had the experience of being thoroughly impressed by an applicant, who later turns out to be unsuitable, he’ll become less likely to jump to conclusions.  Doing a complete in-depth interview is the best answer.

Telegraphing The Answer You Want

This is a huge subject in the interview process.  Skill in this area makes the most difference between the expert and the ineffective interviewer.  Telegraphing is the act of letting the candidate know what you want them to say or giving them clues of your concerns so they can effectively reduce your concerns and side step the truth.  In some ways it is another form of talking too much.  When you explain to the candidate the type of person you’re looking for, the candidate can’t help but become the ideal.  If you tell the candidate you’re looking for a high-energy, aggressive person, the candidate will try to convince you he’s energetic and aggressive.  If you ask the candidate if he’s honest, he now knows that’s part of the profile.  He’ll not only say he is, but will attempt to convince of that.  At some level everyone thinks they are energetic, aggressive and honest, so it’s easy to say so.  The biggest problem with this common fault is the interviewer’s belief in the candidate’s response without realizing how easy it was for the candidate to know what to say.  To make matters worse the interviewers think they are asking great questions and that the candidate’s answers are very meaningful.

The best way to avoid this problem is to ask broad questions around the subject you are concerned about.  For example, if you think a supervisor candidate may not actually supervise their people, you could ask what they like most and dislike most about supervising.  The candidate doesn’t have a clue what you want them to say.  So if they say they hate having to listen to employees concerns and problems you now have more confirmation of what you wanted to check.  On the other hand asking them if they actually supervise their people will be met with, “Of course I do…..”  In this case the interviewers may think this was a false concern they had until four to twelve months later they find out the truth when the damage and expense has already happened.

If we all just follow these four golden rules we would all make better hiring decisions right away.

- Doug Myrick

How to Handle a Workers’ Compensation Audit

A workers’ compensation audit can be a very frustrating process and can result in increased end of the year premiums if not handled correctly. This article will address the typical problems associated with increased end of the year premiums from workers’ compensation audits and how to avoid these problems.

The Three Major Causes for End of the Year Premium Increases

The three major causes for increased end of the year premiums are (1) the payroll for the given year was higher than projected, (2) the insured company did not have someone who understood the auditing process work on the audit with the insurance auditor, and (3) the effect of using contractors without workers’ compensation.

1. Higher Than Expected Payroll Projections

To avoid issues with reason 1, it is important to give as accurate a projection as possible at the beginning of the year. Many businesses will not spend enough time making estimations, resulting in low projections and high end of the year premiums. It is also important to pay attention to payroll projections throughout the year. An insurance agent, business owner, or employee can compare actual payroll with expected payroll as often as each quarter. This will allow the business sufficient time to make adjustments in the workers’ comp premium throughout the year.

2. Business Does Not Utilize Someone Educated in Workers’ Compensation

For reason 2, it is important to have someone who understands how class codes work when rating employees. Different class codes for different positions have different premiums associated with them. The insurance auditor may rate an employee as a higher class code if the business is not aware of the various class codes. It is best to use someone who is not the insurance auditor who understands these codes and who has the business’ best interests in mind. This way they can work with the insurance auditor to make sure that each employee is properly rated and that the company does not receive unnecessarily high premiums at the end of the year.

3. Effect of Using Certain Contractors

Finally, the headaches of reason 3 can be avoided by understanding that contractors will need to be covered by workers’ compensation in some form. If a contractor is already covered by another employer, such as a subcontracted employee, then a business will not need to provide double coverage. However, if a business cannot show that a contractor has his or her own form of workers’ compensation insurance, then the business will need to pay for the workers’ compensation of said contractor while the contractor is working under the business. It is important to factor this into the payroll projections for the end of the year audit as well as use this as a factor as to which contractors to higher. All else equal, it will be cheaper to hire a contractor who is already covered by workers’ compensation insurance.

If you are a business and you heed this advice, then you will see that the workers’ compensation audits can be a relatively pain free and inexpensive process. Good luck!

Going Without Health Insurance Can Double Your Risk of Bankruptcy

Well, a new study from the American Bankruptcy Institute indicates that going without health insurance makes you twice as likely to file for bankruptcy. As MarketWatch reports.

People are twice as likely to file for bankruptcy if their health insurance has been interrupted, according to a new study published this week. In fact, all it takes is a coverage gap within two years for the chance of bankruptcy to jump twofold, according to the study published by the American Bankruptcy Institute.

MarketWatch notes that correlation is not causation, and that people without health insurance who filed for bankruptcy may have had additional financial pressures (such as low income or a lack of savings) that contributed to the filing decision. In other words, not everybody who goes without health insurance will have the same increased bankruptcy risk.

However, since the adoption of the Affordable Care Act, bankruptcy filings have dropped by 50 percent, according to Consumer Reports.

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- Doug Myrick

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- Doug Myrick

Developing Great Leaders: - The Human Workplace Perspective

Set The Bar

A leader that doesn’t abide by his own rules is one who won’t be respected by those under him. The workplace today is different than ever before. It has exceptional levels of effectiveness, but layers of bureaucracy and self-interest combine to percolate internal friction. This impedes profitable operation and is to be avoided as possible.

Leadership is key in facilitating streamlined internal operation. However, leaders are made, not born. Well, in truth, there’s a combination of strength, intellect, and charisma which defines the best leaders. Some are thrust into situations where these skills must be immediately learned.

Others find themselves higher up than they should be without having mastered these skills. Following, we’ll examine some of the things that make a good leader in today’s fast-paced professional world. Wherever you’re coming from, there is always room to make yourself better. The key to all the following considerations is the right attitude.

Build Strong Relationships

Good leaders build strong relationships. Strong relationships take work, attention, and time. They additionally take attention beyond what is simply occupational. If you want to be in good shape, you’ve got to eat right and exercise. If you want to be a good leader, you need to build relationships and be passionate about keeping them. You need to truly be interested in people.

Would you yourself follow some faceless power figure who views you as less than human? As beneath him? Or would you follow someone who would sacrifice their own personal comfort on your behalf? Know the names of your employees. Know what’s important to them. Know their strengths and weaknesses. Work with them.

Leadership does require a level of give and take. If you want people to willingly follow you, sometimes you need to let them prove to themselves that you’re more appropriate to the task of leadership than they are. Tell them what to do, and if they don’t do it, let the fallout of this decision take place, then calmly demonstrate this is why you don’t do things that way.

Certainly sometimes this approach isn’t an option, but it’s noted here to help give the reader an idea of the attitude to take. When employees see that your leadership isn’t just de facto, but necessary, they’re more likely to respect it, and you’re more likely to have a real relationship with them. The reason for their respect of your leadership will have been personally experienced.

Give Employees the Right Tools to Succeed

It’s essential to give workers the right tools to succeed. The same is true with managers. Technology which helps you to source the right people must be used. The truth is, you can’t do anything to determine another person’s attitude. They have to determine this themselves. However, you can increase your likelihood of finding people with the right attitudes.

Technology exists today which can help you decentralize operational management such that remote employees can handle appropriate tasks, optimizing on-site employee effectiveness and providing less “static” between team leads. BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, open the whole world up to you in terms of those who can be hired.

Learn To Improve Yourself

Are you some superhuman with the ability to eschew all error? Or are you a human being with an objective and responsibilities? The vast majority of humanity is the latter, and that means mistakes will be made. For a child to learn to walk, they must fall down multiple times. To learn to run, they’ve got to fall again—but for different reasons.

Yet once running is learned, skating, skiing, snowboarding, swimming, and other more complex disciplines can be mastered. All will have elements of failure before a plateau of skill is reached. This reality is no different when it comes to leadership. If you want to be a good leader, you must understand that you will make mistakes.

When that happens, be as transparent as professionally feasible—sometimes disclosure will be a bad idea, but most of the time it’s going to be your best move. Acknowledge your foibles, learn from your mistakes, and seek to improve. Do this where all employees can see, so they’ll follow your example and do the same.

Be The Kind Of Leader You Would Follow

Recognize your own humanity, and use the tools available. Build relationships with your potential employees from the first second. More and more people these days streamline their recruiting process by using applicant tracking tools to cut down on the time spent on recruiting and get to the right applicants faster. This will leave you more time to focus on your leadership skills, business ideas and decisions and making your workplace more desirable to work in.

- Doug Myrick