In HR – in the business world in general, really – there’s a tendency to add “one more thing” to every project. This is called “feature creep.”
I think it’s a horrible side-effect of over-collaboration. We create huge teams of “key stakeholders,” and in an effort to get “buy-in,” we add a whole ton of crap that’s completely unnecessary.
Dan and Chip Heath tell a great story about this in their book, Made to Stick:
The team that developed the original Palm Pilot, aware of this danger, took a hard line against feature creep. Jeff Hawkins, the team leader, wanted the Palm Pilot to be simple. It would handle only four things: calendars, contacts, memos, and task lists, but it would do them well. Hawkins fought feature creep by carrying around a wooden block the size of the Palm.
Hawkins would pull out the wooden block to “take notes” during a meeting or “check his calendar” in the hallway.
When someone would suggest another feature, Hawkins would pull out the wooden block and ask them where it would fit. Hawkins knew that the core idea of his project needed to be elegance and simplicity. In sharing this core idea, Hawkins and his team used what was, in essence, a visual proverb. The block of wood became a visual reminder to do a few things and do them well.
This month, the topic is employee engagement, and I’m in it, along with a handful of other awesome people. You’ll find personal stories about engagement and what it means, tips for companies on communication and culture, and some really great, specific how-to content.
By Chris Ferdinandi on February 28, 2011 - 2 Comments
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely (a great blog you should definitely check out) recently wrote a piece called In Praise of the Handshake. In it, he told this story…
A CEO of a large internet company recently told me about one of the worst decisions of his career. He instituted a very specific performance-evaluation matrix that would determine 10% of his employees’ compensation. Before this, the firm, like most, had a general agreement with its employees—they had to work hard, behave well, and were measured on certain goals. In return they were rewarded with salary increases, bonuses, and benefits. This CEO believed he could eliminate the uncertainty of the incomplete contract and better define ideal performance.
The complete-contract approach backfired. Employees became obsessively focused on meeting the specific terms of their contracts, even when it came at the expense of colleagues and the company. Morale sank, as did overall performance.
While this isn’t exactly the same as what Dan Pink talks about in his book, Drive, I think there’s some strong correlations. People work better when you give them the trust and freedom to do awesome stuff. Specify a few key goals they need to meet, and then get the hell out of the way and let them do awesome stuff.
A few years ago I got this note from a mother in my son’s class. “Hey, we both end our e-mails with ‘Carpe Diem’! Hope the parents in class won’t confuse us, ha-ha!” Naturally I thought she was kidding, and wrote back saying our different names might be a tip-off we were not the same person. “Oh, sure,” she said, “but I’ve used ‘Carpe Diem’ forever. People know me by that one. It would be great if you used something else from now on. Thanks!”
After briefly considering the alternative “Carpe Diem, You Control Freak,” I continued ending my notes as I had, and the mother dropped the issue. But it was the first time I realized how fraught that little epistolary goodbye can be.
By Chris Ferdinandi on February 23, 2011 - 1 Comment
In case you need a business justification to do the right thing…
My colleague Cassandra Walsh says that being green makes your employees happy – even more so than financial performance.
She’s co-written a paper on it with Adam J. Sulkowski, an Assistant Professor at the Charlton College of Business at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, that was published in the Interdisciplinary Environmental Review (Vol. 11, No. 4, 2010).
By Chris Ferdinandi on February 21, 2011 - 3 Comments
Did you know the first resume was written by Leonardo DaVinci? Until the 1950′s, resumes weren’t required to get a job. Until the 1970′s, they were handwritten.
Maybe it’s time we got rid of resumes again….
Resumes Become an Institution
1930 - Resumes were just formalities. Most wrote them on scraps of paper over lunch with employers.
1940 - Resumes are like Facebook profiles. They include weight, age, height, marital status and religion.
1950 - Resumes are no longer just formalities, they are now expected.
