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Archive for March 14th, 2008

Office Meeting Heresy

I give you CareerJournal.com’s Another Meeting? Good. Another Chance To Hear Myself Talk:

Mr. McKay’s confession helps answer the question of why, if everybody hates meetings so much, do we have so many of them?

Great question.  The gentleman referenced in the article misses meetings in his new company!  My word, I cannot relate to that sentiment.  Here is the stunning research results:

Steven Rogelberg, a professor of industrial organizational psychology at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and a group of colleagues found that among people surveyed about their last meeting, 69% rated them at least “good,” while only 16% rated them “poor” or worse. And although 50% said they complained about meetings, more than 60% of these complainers admitted that they either “don’t mind them that much” or “enjoy them.”

Asked what their ideal work day would look like, two-thirds of respondents said it would include at least one or more meetings.

I just picked myself up from the floor.  I authentically dislike meetings so I am disappointed in these “fakers.”  Salespeople tend to operate outside of the 4 walls of the company so meetings are costly in terms of goal time and selling opportunities.  I suspect the majority of people who enjoy meetings are not in sales positions, but it is just a guess.

Wide-Angle Thinking

I just caught up to this quote in a good quote from Peter Drucker in BusinessWeek.com’s Wide-Angle Thinking:

Surely, Drucker would have applauded. “Too many think they are wonderful because they talk well,” he once pointed out. “They don’t realize that being wonderful with people means listening well.”

Here is another aspect we subscribe to in our sourcing activities:

Handy goes even further, advising that companies should roam far beyond their traditional bounds to better understand not just technology but myriad practices and processes. Say, for instance, a manufacturer needs to tap a team of top talent for a project that will be disbanded after a relatively brief period. Handy’s suggestion: Arrange a visit to one of the Hollywood studios. They manage high-end, short-term work all the time.

Interesting approach in today’s market, don’t you think?  Salespeople who can listen well are valuable in almost all sales positions.  Finding these types of salespeople does not have to be limited to your own industry.  This approach is a trap into which many hiring managers fall.

The part of Handy’s suggestion above that leaps off the page is the idea of looking for similar, or transferable, skills.  Hollywood studios and manufacturing are not normally associated with each other, but their are commonalities that can be applied between them.  The same is true for hiring.

This truth will become more prevalent as candidates become more scarce in the upcoming years.