Another Step Towards Engaging Millennials





Higher Minimum Wages and Success in the Hospitality Industry





Our Love/Hate Relationship With Meetings

Coming across this today, I can only imagine that every editor of a business section of any published content has a yearly reminder to put in an article about meetings.

What it comes down to are several sometimes contradictory feelings that employees have:

  1. I want to have lots of communication in my organization.
  2. I get too much e-mail.
  3. I go to too many meetings.
  4. I hate meetings because:
    • They are hopelessly inefficient.
    • I have other more pressing things to do.

The articles are usually written from the point of view of the put upon employee and focus on how to eliminate meetings.  I’d like to take a different take.  What can a leader do to execute better meetings?

Be Thoughtful of Who to Invite.  Meeting invites should not be about status. Rather, they should include those who can provide useful ideas and insights to the rest of the group.  If someone comes and does not think he can contribute, don’t invite him to the next one.  If someone else hears about the meeting and thinks she can contribute, invite her to the next one.

Set a Good Agenda.  Sending out an agenda before a meeting is a no brainer (and can help people determine if they should attend, per above). Better agendas include action words (e.g., Discuss project X; Decide on project Y) to help guide the conversation.  Also, they estimate how much time will be allocated for each topic.  This ensures that all important topics are addressed in the meeting.

Be the Best Facilitator Possible.  Meetings can be inefficient (or worse) because they go off on tangents, one person dominates the conversation, decisions don’t get made, etc.  Meeting leaders who can manage the process better get the most out of their groups.  These skills are not hard to acquire. Extra tip: Rotate which of the group members facilitates the meeting. It provides a different perspective of the group’s processes.

Get All Ideas on the Table. Some people choose to defer to others in meetings for a variety of reasons.  Good meeting leaders set the expectation that everyone with relevant ideas participates and draws out those who are not sharing.

Summarize Decisions and Action Steps.  No one should ever leave a meeting wondering, “So what’s next?”  Meeting leaders should be clear in their language about what has been decided.  This allows others to either object or agree.

We cannot say we have to have better communications AND fewer meetings.  However, we can have better meetings and better communications.

When Even Tech Job Training Lags Behind Need







While I am Likely to be Wrong, Allow me to Continue

Interviews are worse predictors of job success than you think.  And I do not care if you don’t think very highly of them as you read this, it’s still lower.  Yet, there is an insistence that they are better than they are and no company I know of is willing to give them up.  Why is this?

Of course, it’s because doing them is ingrained in our corporate cultures.  Thomas Edison (supposedly) conducted the first one.  However, note in the example that it was a test and not an interview, which ensured that it could not be less valid, even with the ridiculous questions cited.  Obviously, if a guy as smart as Thomas Edison was doing it, it must be right.  Then again, he was not trained in understanding human behavior.

The problem with interviews (besides just these) is that they are fraught with noise.  As I’ve written about before, interviewers (which are all of us) are loaded with biases which skew a good deal of information that we get from the person being interviewed.  Of course, the person being interviewed is likely to have prepared for the questions.  In fact some millennial job seekers I know informed me about how they are rarely asked a question they haven’t seen online and when they do get one they post it immediately.  From all of this pre-work, the interviewer is getting canned answers that may not reflect the person.  Of course, this may be a fine attribute if hiring someone who is not supposed to give his/her opinion on anything.  However, it does hurt the validity of even the best structured interviews.  As an aside, if you MUST interview, please make it highly structured and use it as a lever to find out about the person’s job related skills.

So, what is a company to do?  Go on a blind date with candidates?

I would suggest making your hiring decision BEFORE you interview.  Let the interview be the last bit of data that might break ties.  For instance, be sure that someone you are hiring for a customer facing position can actually make eye contact and put a few sentences together.  Or, use it to double-check the person’s availability for your work hours, give them a tour/realistic job preview, etc.  This allows HR or the hiring manager the last look without adding unpredictive noise to the process.  And think about how much time you will save!

It is not your fault that interviews do not predict performance.  The question is what are you going to do to prevent them from messing up your hiring process?

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