Perception Versus Rejection

In our professional careers, we come across many different types of individuals with a wide ranging number of personalities. Most of us will find that we gravitate towards some and away from others. It is only natural and human that you will ultimately want to spend more time with certain individuals. Unfortunately this is not always the best mix for success in business. Even the individuals with whom you may not get along (at any level) have the opportunity to contribute value in the form of good ideas if you keep an open mind. Make sure you do not automatically discount the ideas of individuals for whom you may not be fond just because of your own personal perception of that individual. Even though they are not someone that you would enjoy spending time with away from the office does not mean that their ideas and ability to contribute are any less. In fact, this interaction can sometimes provide good balance for you when making key decisions.

I am not saying that there is great value in always being a contrarian or to seek out those who always tend to disagree with you. There does after all need to be some form of "team fit" for an individual to be a successful part of the team. Just be careful not to discount a good idea because of the individual who came up with it in the first place.

Listen to Lead

Listening is a skill. Listening is 70% of all communication. In today's business climate of rushing and working at a fast pace while multi-tasking, listening can become an afterthought. People tend to speak over one another and even will finish each other's sentences. I even find myself doing the same thing at times and have to pull back, slow down and make sure I am giving someone my full attention or take the time to summarize what someone has just communicated to me to be certain that I understand what they are trying to tell me. Once you find yourself in a leadership role, the importance the skill of listening takes on is amplified. Through listening you find out what works and what will not. What the organization will buy into and what they will not. You also gain credibility with those that you lead because they know that you care enough to listen to their thoughts, ideas and concerns. Listening goes hand-in-hand with leadership.

In our company the most successful ideas always "bubble up" verses being pushed down throughout the organization. I can readily count off many such examples of projects that started at the local level and become successes verses a few that were forced down. It goes to show you that people like to innovate and be original. It is exciting to try something new or to take a new spin on an old idea. As a leader, it is important to listen to the ideas of your people and find out what is working and what is generating excitement and passion, to provide any needed tools or resources, and then get out of their way and let your folks execute.

The next time someone comes into your office to speak with you, listen. Truly listen. Then summarize your conversation back to that person before they leave your office as a way of saying, "Hey, I respect you, and what you are saying to me is important enough for me to make sure I completely understand what you are trying to communicate." Did you hear something more than you might have in the past? Did the person walk away from your conversation feeling good about the exchange? By slowing down and giving people your time and attention you will effectively motivate, have a better understanding of what is going on in your business and will be in a position to make better decisions. Listening is leading.

Try to do this with every one-on-one conversation over the course of a day. Let me know what you learn from the experience?

The Changing Face of Distribution

As the publishing industry continues to evolve and become predominantly one that is electronic media oriented, so will distribution. The move towards changing the way in which publishing companies look and measure their distribution is being driven by the consumer. As more consumers switch to predominantly online sources for the news and information, publishers will have to follow. Newspapers are no exception to this change, especially given the collapse of the paid subscriber. The questions are: Are they willing to change and can their culture allow for this change quickly enough as to not lose the franchise?

Our organization, The Employment Guide, is a publisher. We publish 80 free weekly employment publications across the United States. Just like all other publishers, we are not exempt from the changing media landscape. Our website EmploymentGuide.com is one of the top ten job boards in the United States (according to the comScore Media Metrix for Career Resources & Development sites, September 2007). We are making a concerted effort and significant investments in leading our organization successfully into the future. One component of our future will include an electronic distribution network that is being constructed to support our print titles in how we are meeting the needs of our customers. We are in the process of constructing this network which will allow for our client's message to be delivered through an electronic means to job seekers in a way that will specifically match the job seekers needs. In addition to distribution directly to job seekers, we are continually building additional distribution channels for our customers' job postings. We currently distribute our content to a multitude of websites, as well as powering a job board for a variety of websites across the internet landscape.

Of note is the recent trend towards publishers communicating their total distribution to include their online distribution. It is about time! Most of these publishers, including us, have made significant investments into developing this side of their business. All of this hard work, investments and the results of the effort should be allowed to be an extension of their distribution. In fact, if you were to take the more than two million copies of our print publication that we are distributing across the country on a weekly basis and add the readership (averaging 2.5 readers per free publication picked up) of the job seekers picking up our titles to our comScore, we would rank as the number four job resource in the Untied States, only outpaced by the three largest general job boards/resources. As far as niche resources for the hourly non-exempt job seeker, we would rank number one.

That is exciting as we strive to deliver quality results for our customers. We will continue to work on the development of an online distribution channel that will be hourly, non-exempt job seeker centric. The results of this initiative will manifest in the upward trend in our traffic over the course of the effort. We love to compete. We are excited about the future. No doubt we are a publisher that is evolving, but we are on the right track to continue our progression as a dominant player online. The Employment Guide is an exciting place to be right now. We are having a lot of fun while working on our own professional development as we continue on our journey of organizational evolution.

How is your organization evolving?

Apples to Apples

It is extremely helpful and potentially humbling when you get to hear feedback from your customers and those who are in positions or roles to support your customers. One recent such experience created an opportunity for our business to better educate our sales representatives on how to ask questions about our customers results given the nature of our product verses that of the competition.

In the vertical space of transportation recruitment, most publishers (both print and online) typically only offer a national presence. One unique factor of our product, Careers in Gear the magazine and CareerinGear.com, is that it is published regionally as to give national, regional and local recruiters a better means by which to target their message based on geographical needs. We do not force a national buy. A lot of our customers do not recruit for drivers on a national scale. In fact, we have customers that recruit on a national scale, but may only be using us in one regional zone. This is where we have to be very careful in how we educate our customers to view our results and their ROI when using our product compared to the competition. It is our responsibility to work close enough with our clients to have a better understanding of how they are measuring their results. In the end, meeting our customers needs is ultimately our goal as to earn their business in the future. That means we have to accurately know how our customers define their goals and expectations as far as our ability to live up to their expectations. Just as important is our ability to have the knowledge of what other products and services our clients are utilizing to meet the same need and how they will be comparing results. With regards to our Careers in Gear the magazine and CareersinGear.com, we have learned of examples where customers have been comparing our results within one region to those of other products that only offer a national presence. While we outperform these competitors within a region, they might have delivered a greater response, just not within the specific area of need. ROI within the area of need was better using our products. It is our job to point this out to our customer and to educate our customer on looking at our products and services on an "apples-to-apples" basis.

The transportation industry is a terrific industry in which to be conducting business. While attending the 2007 American Trucking Association's Management Conference and Exposition, I had the opportunity to speak with many leaders within the industry. I appreciate the time and feedback that everyone gave me and others within our business. We look forward to working closely with our current customers and those that we will be serving in the future. We will continue to invest in the ongoing research and development of our current suite of products and products that are future-focused in nature to meet the dynamic needs of the driver recruitment industry.

Core Values

What are the core values that define your organization? As a leader your actions and decisions should support your organizational core values. Our core values, which are all in support of our ability to meet our customers' needs and to provide award winning customer service, are to always be devoted to the professional development of our people, to maintain a high level of fiscal responsibility and to grow revenue. All three of these items add up to providing excellent products and services that are of great value to our customers. It is important that those in leadership positions within our organization focus on these attributes as they lead their teams towards accomplishing our goals in a local market in any of our 55 offices across the United States. While the path to accomplishing our goals might be different in each market, the road on which each leader in our organization travels is paved with the same asphalt.

I strongly believe that the core values of an organization define the leaders of that organization. Our core values can also be attributed to the individuals who were involved in the professional development of our current leaders. I for one am reminded of the lessons I have learned from those who have been in a mentoring role over the course of my career on almost a daily basis. It is easy for an organization or leadership within an organization to proclaim that it is devoted to the ongoing professional development of its people. It is much harder to actually execute this philosophy and to keep it ingrained into an organization's culture. I have a high degree of respect for those who are successful in making this a reality. A good barometer is in the number of folks who have been promoted from within an organization. A good leader always promotes the need for ongoing professional development to his or her folks so these individuals can get promoted. One way a leader can make this happen is to never stop working on his or her own professional development. An organization will take on the personality of its leaders. If you, as a leader, continue to work on your development, those that you lead will be more receptive to emulating this practice. Likewise, if you routinely show up late for work, it will become less important to those who work for you to be on time. People emulate their leaders. This is extremely important for those in leadership roles to remember whether at the office, after work, on the weekend, etc.

Every action that you do is, in some sense, like a ritual that celebrates the values that you hold.- Dr. Matthew Basston, Ethics Instructor

What are the core values of your organization? If you cannot answer this question quickly, make time to answer this question. Use your answers as a guide to make better decisions that will always be in support of what your organization is trying to accomplish.