Topgrading

Another title of this article could be:  How to Say No to a Boss Who Has Very Outrageous Expectations

Of the 6,500 executives I’ve interviewed, asking 16 basic questions about every full-time job, fully one-third have failed in a job because they couldn’t say no to a demanding boss.

Meet Hal, candidate for Division General Manager, 10 years ago.  I interviewed him, labeled him an A player with CEO potentials, and he was hired.  Three months later the CEO said Hal was doing a great job turning the division around, scrapping low-profit products, consolidating plants, and Topgrading.  Great – Hal is proving to be an A player!

A year later I had a scheduled follow-up coaching session to help him tweak his Individual Development Plan, to keep him on track to become CEO of this or another billion dollar company.  “Cancel your coaching session with Hal,” the CEO said, “because he’s failed; I gave him some additional responsibilities to keep him challenged and growing, but I’ll probably have to let him go!”

“Impossible,” I said, “I’ll keep the coaching session and find out what’s gone wrong, but there’s no way Hal can be failing unless there is some personal crisis or something.”

Long story short – the CEO had tripled Hal’s job, essentially giving him three divisions to run; Hal was working 15 hours per day and failing.  I suggested that the CEO narrow Hal’s job to the original Division GM job; he did, Hal succeeded, and today Hal is successfully running a $2.5 billion company, as CEO.

Bottom line, Hal’s CEO was outrageous in expecting Hal to do three jobs, but Hal was a chicken, fearful of saying no to the CEO.  Both are responsible for Hal’s failure.

“JUST SAY NO”

Picture yourself in the room with, say, Jack Welch, who says to you, “Pete, we have a problem.  We need to send Joe to China for six months and unfortunately he has no back-up.  It’s a lot to ask, but would you be a good soldier, a team player, and do your best to hold his fort together for a few months?”

Gulp – how the heck can you say no?  “Sorry, Jack, but there is no friggin way you’ll be satisfied with my just holding Joe’s fort together – you’ll expect those three product launches to be successful.  And I have a crisis that is already taking me 12 hours per day to address.  If I say no this means I’m not a good soldier, not a team player, not an A player, so of course I have to suck it up and say yes.”  That might be the truth, but of course you can’t utter those words!

Thousands of executives, mostly A players, have described the agony of taking on more than they could do, struggling, and then failing.  The blip in their resume is usually significant, resulting in the next job being smaller.  After all, it doesn’t sound A player-like to admit one could not “take on some additional responsibilities.”

HERE’S HOW TO SAY NO

Let’s put you back in the office with Jack Welch, and you instantly KNOW that you’ll either kill yourself or fail if you say yes to him.  The challenge is to refuse the overwhelming responsibilities while retaining the respect of the demanding boss.

The thousands of executives who have successfully said no followed this 1-2-3 step process:

1.  Be positive. “Jack, I’m honored that you have the confidence in me, and no doubt I’d learn a lot.”

2.  Ask for a couple days to analyze the situation.  “But, I’ve just reorganized and have complex plans for my job, and I don’t know how complex Joe’s job is.  How about my taking just two days to analyze both situations, to be sure I can develop a plan to succeed.  The last thing you or I want is for me, a pole vaulter, to promise I can learn the high hurdles enough to medal and then fail.  I’ll get back to you Wednesday with a decision and a plan, for your approval.  Okay?”

Would Jack want a decision without a brief but thorough analysis?  How can Jack discourage a plan to succeed? That metaphor – sports – makes it common sense to try to figure out if someone can do another sport, and do it well enough to medal (succeed).  Note that you stayed positive, not using words like “possible failure,” and your attitude was that of a team player.

3.  Show confidence. “Jack. I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that with my reorg and new strategy, I believe I will turn the division around and the shareholders will benefit.  But if I take on Joe’s division, I’ll fail at both.  After looking at Joe’s division, I have a suggestion:  put Sam, head of marketing, in an Acting GM role because Sam knows a lot about product launches and that’s got to be the focus this year.  I’d be happy to help Sam with the financial analysis and Topgrading parts of the job he lacks experience in.”

You’re confident because you did the analysis of both jobs, you looked Jack in the eye and said without embarrassment that you’d fail if you took on Joe’s job, and you offered a positive solution.

ANOTHER WAY TO SAY NO

Looking through my extensive files, I was reminded of an alternative way managers have said no without sounding weak, wimpy.  Those managers create a spreadsheet to show their responsibilities and the amount of time they spend in each, monthly, and their “no” sounds like this:  “Jack, I have four major projects that are taking 60 hours per week, not just for me but for my team.  If I take on this additional project, my team will fail, so let’s prioritize and see which are the most important projects to keep.”

NO GUARANTEES

Obviously the above solutions fail to address the possibility that the boss is truly outrageous in making demands.  But if that is your situation, blame yourself for taking a job reporting to someone impossible to please.

All of the executives who experienced such a career failure swore they would a) perform due diligence on bosses in the future, by asking others what they like and dislike about the boss, and b) not accept a job offer reporting to someone with a pattern of having unrealistic expectations.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Wow, do we have a recommended resource for you today! It truly is the best product ever to teach the Topgrading methods that are the world’s best practices not just for hiring, but for auditing your talent and promoting with terrific success. It’s 7 1/2 hours of high definition DVDs with all the latest Topgrading methods explained by me, with great graphics. But also there is a real life case study so you learn the job scorecard for a real job, study the career history form of a real candidate named Erik, see me and Erik in split screen as I conduct a telephone screening interview with him, observe a tandem Topgrading Interview with him, watch and listen to a real reference call with Erik’s boss, and watch me coach him in a real life setting.

So, whether you are an individual manager wanting to master Topgrading, or you have a team needing thorough training, or you are interested in train-the-trainer, this is the total, total package with the DVDs, Topgrading Workbook, other books and guides, a 3-month license, on-line resources, and quarterly conference calls with Topgraders and me.

Click here to see the basic material, but you’ll want to click on where it says to learn more.

Does Topgrading “translate” well into other cultures?  You bet!  During the past 6 months I’ve spent most of my professional time working with global rollouts of companies such as Barclays, DTZ (global commercial real estate management), Argo (insurance), and several other companies in Russia, Europe, South America, and Asia.  Following are key conclusions, insights, and advice:

1.  USE TOPGRADING METHODS NOT JUST FOR HIRING BUT FOR PROMOTING PEOPLE AND FOR AUDITING YOUR PEOPLE TO SEE WHO REALLY ARE THE A, B, AND C PLAYERS.

Companies usually begin using Topgrading methods to hire the best people, but soon realize that those same methods, with a simple tweak, can dramatically improve their success promoting people.

A survey of Global 100 heads of HR showed only 25% of the people they promote into management turn out to be high performers, except for the Topgraders in the room who reported 75%+ success.  My first project with GE was improving their promoting methods and GE soon achieved 90%+ promoting success.

How?  Simple – trained Topgrading interviewers do the same chronological interview they use for hiring, but instead of conducting external reference checks they interview internal people – bosses, peers, and subordinates.

Global companies struggle to understand who are their A, B, and C players in other locations.  A terrific use of Topgrading methods is to parachute in trained Topgrading interviewers who conduct the interview and just as in promoting, interview internal bosses, peers, and subordinates.

Bottom line:  use all 3 applications of Topgrading globally – hiring, promoting, and auditing talent.

2.  ROLLING OUT TOPGRADING IS NO MORE DIFFICULT THAN ANY OTHER GLOBAL CHANGE.

The good news is that global companies find it quite easy to make tweaks to accommodate Topgrading other cultures.

Recently I was in Shanghai, training managers from several parts of China, Singapore, Australia, and Europe, and did not even need a translator.  English truly is the global language of business.

If translations are necessary, the key ones are PowerPoint (slides for workshops), the Topgrading Workbook (with all 12 Topgrading hiring steps plus the latest Topgrading forms and guides), and the 50-page eBook, Avoid Costly Mis-Hires. (My permission for translations and edits is required, but I almost always give it.)

Cautions: Do a double translation – into the language, and from the language back into English.  There will be some weird translations, but this step surfaces them.  For example, there is no Russian word for the most important of 50 management competencies – resourcefulness – so we had to create a paragraph translation, and that took some, uh, resourcefulness.

Also, when using a translator in workshops, slow down 30% and simplify content at least that amount.

3.  TOPGRADING IS LEGAL EVERYWHERE WE KNOW OF.

Chapter 12 (Legalities of Topgrading) of my big book, Topgrading, was written by the largest employment law firm in the US, Seyfarth Shaw, and they vetted all Topgrading methods not only in the US but a lot of other countries (through their partners).

4.  “TWEAK” THE TOPGRADING CAREER HISTORY FORM FOR EACH COUNTRY.

Even if a translation is not required, a few sections – different education systems, currencies, and military requirements – require different terms for each country.  Our British friends will say that indeed a translation is required so the form uses English, not American.

We believe the Topgrading Career History Form is the best pre-selection instrument on the planet.  The TORC Technique is now in the Instructions (”At an appropriate time, near a job offer, you will be asked to arrange personal reference calls with supervisors and others you have worked with in the past decade”).  The form now has supervisor ratings, true reasons for leaving, and ratings on key competencies - all of which are quite accurate because of the TORC Technique.

Companies that do not use the Topgrading Career History Form have a problem – they screen from deceptive resumes, so they waste a lot of time in phone screens, and worst of all, they end up interviewing too many C players.  The Topgrading Career History Form saves a lot of time and, more importantly, assures that only the best candidates will come in for interviews, so it’s important to make those few modifications for each country.

5.  THE WORDING IN THE TOPGRADING INTERVIEW GUIDE SHOULD BE MODIFIED FOR DIFFERENT CULTURES.

In some cultures the wording of some questions is too direct.  For example, asking, “We all make mistakes – what mistakes did you make in that job?” might be changed to, “What are some ways you might have achieved even more?”  Or, in cultures that favor teamwork and downplay individual contributions, instead of asking, “What were your successes, your accomplishments,” you might ask, “In what ways might your efforts have contributed to the team successes?”

6.  TOPGRADING INTERVIEWS SHOULD BE CONDUCTED WITH A TANDEM PARTNER, A LOCAL A PLAYER TRAINED IN TOPGRADING METHODS.

Locals can “read between the lines” with respect to words used and body language.   For example, Americans expect interviewees to look them in the eye but not stare, and can leap to the wrong conclusion when interviewing someone from a culture in which eye contact is considered hostile.

Caution: Become a student of the culture – ask lots and lots of questions about body language, values, history, attire, etc.

7.  BEST PRACTICES IN COACHING ARE UNIVERSAL.

Coaching is part of Topgrading and best practices that are routine in the US, such as using email 360 surveys to track a manager’s progress changing his leadership style, are not commonplace in other cultures.  No problem – just introduce these tools.  Ditto for asking individuals to compose their Individual Development Plan with What they are going to do, Why, When, and How the results will be measured.

“But we’ve never done anything like this” can be true, but when the methods and benefits are stated, and the people in authority express confidence in those methods, people in all cultures comply.  At the risk of being redundant – be sure to modify language for the culture!

As CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch was the first CEO to rollout Topgrading methods globally. The first version was for assessing and coaching candidates for promotion. So, overnight managers around the world learned to create job scorecards with measurable accountabilities; hundreds of managers were trained in the tandem Topgrading Interview, and used the Topgrading Interview Guide.

8.  THE CEO MUST DRIVE GLOBALIZATION OF TOPGRADING.

As with any meaningful change, Topgrading must be driven by the CEO.  Sure, Human Resources is key, but managers can “game” Topgrading if the CEO is not a Topgrader.

9.  IMPLEMENT TOPGRADING FIRST IN THE HOME COUNTRY, TO WORK OUT THE DETAILS.

Then roll it out globally.  There is an exception:  A CEO who has previously Topgraded an organization can implement it globally all at once, confident that the tweaks will be minor and that the company will have a lot more A players, faster, with the global rollout all at once.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Wow, do we have a recommended resource for you today! It truly is the best product ever to teach the Topgrading methods that are the world’s best practices not just for hiring, but for auditing your talent and promoting with terrific success. It’s 7 1/2 hours of high definition DVDs with all the latest Topgrading methods explained by me, with great graphics. But also there is a real life case study so you learn the job scorecard for a real job, study the career history form of a real candidate named Erik, see me and Erik in split screen as I conduct a telephone screening interview with him, observe a tandem Topgrading Interview with him, watch and listen to a real reference call with Erik’s boss, and watch me coach him in a real life setting.

So, whether you are an individual manager wanting to master Topgrading, or you have a team needing thorough training, or you are interested in train-the-trainer, this is the total, total package with the DVDs, Topgrading Workbook, other books and guides, a 3-month license, on-line resources, and quarterly conference calls with Topgraders and me.

Click here to see the basic material, but you’ll want to click on where it says to learn more.

I’ve had the chance to sit with a lot of new Topgrading interviewers over the past several months and there is one piece of advice that was given to almost all of them.  (…and it didn’t matter if it was their first or 20th interview!)

The advice is to stick to the script in the Topgrading Interview Guide.  Too often, new Topgrading interviewers are too creative, rewording questions so as not to sound monotonous.  Rewording can result in not getting the information you need.  For example, asking, “What were some things you learned in that job?” instead of asking, “What mistakes did you make in that job?” gives the interviewee an easy way to dodge the “mistakes” issue and give you a positive answer when you were looking for a situation that did not go so well. Read more »

This short article spells out the quick and dirty “Cliff Notes” version of Topgrading methods that are truly best practices NOT just for hiring but for auditing your talent and for promoting people with great success.

We’ll start with Topgrading hiring: the 1 – 2 – 3 punch, the 3 most important practices any manager can use to hire better, and then you’ll learn the simple tweaks that can show you who are your A, B, and C players and can help you triple your success promoting people.

(Experienced Topgraders, please forward this article to managers who, as you well know, can literally use these methods today and immediately improve their hiring and promoting “batting averages,” and also to audit their talent to see who really are As, Bs, and Cs, and which of their people have the best potentials for the future.)

The Topgrading hiring advice that follows may seem like common sense but it’s not the common practice even in many Global 100 companies.  Hundreds of companies and thousands of managers have doubled and tripled their hiring success following these methods:

1.  Use the Topgrading “Truth Serum,” the TORC Technique.

TORC stands for Threat of Reference Check.  At every step in the hiring process let candidates know that just prior to a job offer they will have to arrange personal reference calls with supervisors and others you choose.

C players, who probably fudged their resumes, don’t want you talking to their former supervisors, and they know they can’t get them to talk anyway, so they drop out of the hiring process.  Good!  A players, whose resumes are accurate and complete, want to arrange calls with former supervisors. Good!

2.  No matter what hiring methods you currently use, add the Topgrading Interview.

Okay, I’ve written 4 books on this interviewing method and every manager we know of who achieves 90%+ high performers hired uses this interview.  And in our 2-day workshop the entire second day teaches it and gives managers coaching.  However, here is the essence of a Topgrading Interview in a nutshell:

Starting with the first fulltime job and coming forward to the present job, ask 7 basic questions plus follow-up questions:

1. What were your responsibilities?
2. What were your successes and how did you achieve them?
3. What were your mistakes — what do you wish you’d done differently and what lessons were learned?
4. What was your supervisor’s name and what did you like and dislike about him/her?
5. What’s your best guess as to what that supervisor would say, in a personal reference call you would arrange, were your strengths, weaker points, and overall performance?
6. Of your direct reports, how many A, B, and C players did you inherit, how many in each category did you end up with, and what did you do with respect to coaching, hiring, and firing?
7. Why did you leave that job?

What’s so brilliant about a thorough chronological interview?  It’s the patterns that are revealed about literally dozens of competencies.  Those patterns reveal what a candidate is really like today.

For example, suppose a candidate, taking the TORC “truth serum,” admits that her supervisor 10 years ago would criticize her for being disorganized, and she admits that her biggest mistake was lacking a follow-up system; so, she missed due dates and went over budget on 3 of 8 projects.

Okay, that’s useful, but the pattern is most revealing and as you discuss her performance in the past decade you will learn if she got organized or not.  Those patterns give you extremely deep and accurate insights into all key competencies.

3.  Ask finalists to arrange personal reference calls with supervisors and others you choose.

The TORC Technique is not an idle threat; you absolutely should talk with supervisors and others, but make the candidate do the work of arranging them.  After you have gotten descriptions of all supervisors (and others), you choose which ones you’d like to talk with.

Chances are you want to talk with all supervisors in the past 10 years (if the candidate doesn’t want you to talk with the current supervisor, okay, but ask the candidate to arrange a call with someone at the supervisor’s level who left the company).

THE WORLD’S BEST PRACTICES FOR AUDITING TALENT AND PROMOTING PEOPLE

Topgraders usually learn hiring methods first and find that with just a small tweak, they can promote with much greater success and they can audit their people to learn who is the most talented.

My first Topgrading project with GE was not to improve hiring, but to improve their success promoting people.  And it worked!

I met with the #1 Human Resource executives at Global 100 companies, and they said only 25% of the people they promoted into management turned out to be high performers, except for the Topgraders in the room, who said they doubled or tripled their promoting success using Topgrading methods.

How did GE and others do it?  Simple – train managers in Topgrading methods and instead of using external reference calls, arrange internal interviews with boss(es), peers, and subordinates. GE improved to over 90% of those promoted turning out to be high performers.

Finally, do you need deeper insights into your current managers?  In these problematic times former high performers slip and it’s common to wonder if they still have what it takes.  Or do you simply want to know who are your a, B, and C players?

The Topgrading audit methodology is exactly the same as the promoting methods just described with one tweak:  in promoting people you have one job in mind, and in the audit you look broadly at where someone can be an A player.

CONGRATULATIONS! If you use that Topgrading 1 – 2 – 3 punch, you may not achieve 90% high performers hired and promoted, but you will know you’ve been far more thorough, and you’ve gotten much deeper insights into candidates, than ever before.  And simply by using internal rather than external “references,” you can use the same basic methods to audit your talent, to get much deeper insights into who really are the high potentials.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Wow, do we have a recommended resource for you today!  It truly is the best product ever to teach the Topgrading methods that are the world’s best practices not just for hiring, but for auditing your talent and promoting with terrific success.  It’s 7 1/2 hours of high definition DVDs with all the latest Topgrading methods explained by me, with great graphics.  But also there is a real life case study so you learn the job scorecard for a real job, study the career history form of a real candidate named Erik, see me and Erik in split screen as I conduct a telephone screening interview with him, observe a tandem Topgrading Interview with him, watch and listen to a real reference call with Erik’s boss, and watch me coach him in a real life setting.

So, whether you are an individual manager wanting to master Topgrading, or you have a team needing thorough training, or you are interested in train-the-trainer, this is the total, total package with the DVDs, Topgrading Workbook, other books and guides, a 3-month license, on-line resources, and quarterly conference calls with Topgraders and me.

Click here to see the basic material, but you’ll want to click on where it says to learn more.

A recent Wall Street Journal article described several companies’ employee referral programs and highlighted two especially effective programs at WhitePages, Inc. and Concur Technologies.  Since January, WhitePages has hired 27 people, 9 of which have come from referrals.  Forty-eight percent of Concur Technologies 150 hires this year have come from referrals.

Step 3 in Topgrading hiring methods is “Recruit from Networks.”  How do you get your employees to cultivate their networks?  Offer them a bonus for referring A players.  Though none of the companies in the WSJ article mention the quality of the referral, that is an important component of any effective referral program.  It’s not only important that referred employees stick around for a given time period, it’s important that they be high performers.  So we recommend that at least some of the bonus only be paid if the person turns out to be a high performer. Read more »