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Leaders, you and your direct reports have great impact on attracting and keeping top talent. Though you might think it’s only about the money, it isn’t.

There are many behaviors that drive talent away. Talent includes full time employees, contractors, consultants, and even suppliers.

You as leaders and your directors and managers can attract and retain top talent by replacing behaviors that secretly repel them.

Image by: Dee_Gee via Creative Commons License


Behaviors repel talent for any of three reasons:

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QL: They seriously reduce quality of life or
BS: They make it unnecessarily difficult to succeed or
$$: They indirectly cost the talent money.


Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Talent

1. Highly disorganized or uncertain. Top talent blossoms when leaders set a clear vision. Wandering through a disorganized morass when deadlines loom, leaves talent wondering if success is possible. They envision more attractive opportunities and yearn for success. Replace disorganization and uncertainty with valuable vision.




2. Negativity. Top talent wants to hear what is possible. They feed off of a reality of belief, ideas, and action. Negativity drains their spirit for they see it as unnecessary difficulty. Replace this drain with energy and a call to action.




3. Perfectionism. Top talent see this as a triple whammy. It always comes across as unnecessary stress, it reduces the quality of their work life, and it costs them money. How? By reducing the time they can spend learning or accomplishing other valuable tasks or opportunities. Replace the scourge of perfectionism with the goal of excellence. What a difference!




4. Fear of failure. It produces behaviors that demoralize others. Even if you as leaders aren’t afraid, those that report to you may be. If you love to delegate, do it wisely. Replace delegation based on occupational skill with delegation based on inspirational leadership ability. Otherwise, top talent will move on to work with project managers and directors who aren’t stuck in fear.




5. Me-itis. Top talent tend to love a confident humble leader. Non-confident self-absorbed leaders drive top talent from the organization like a fire alarm. Replace the engineered comfort of me-itis with a belief in what the top talent can produce for the organization and thus for you.

Attracting top talent today is quite different than years ago. There was a time when casting doubt about a talent’s skill would make them work harder to prove you wrong and win out over other talent you are considering.

Though there is still some talent who respond that way, there is top talent who will walk away from you and toward positive inspirational leaders that embrace their talent.

Replace competition with collaboration and doubt with a coalition for success!

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What other behaviors would you add to this list? What other leadership traits attract top talent?


From professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, customer service, customer experience, and teamwork. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Great Teamwork: Competitive or Collaborative?

“Is great teamwork competitive or collaborative?”   This is the one question I still face after 20 years of team-building in corporations across diverse industries.  In today’s tough economy with great business challenges, the question is front and center once again.

It is popular right now to call for collaboration – in politics, in government, and in business.  Yet are your team members more frightened by the potential for job loss than they are inspired by success through collaboration? The old belief, knowledge is power, may be a hidden yet active virus affecting how far your teams go in collaboration.

Some tangible examples.  Which category on this list applies to you?

Sales Departments Your company wants to capture a new sector.  There is a learning curve involved.  Are your Sales Reps sharing knowledge learned with all the other reps to help the company reach its goal of capturing a new sector?  Or are they tempted to share less in a competitive team atmosphere to achieve individual sales goals?

Customer Service Solution Centers: Solution Centers and Help Desks are the front lines of service to customers and clients.  Customer satisfaction goes up the sooner the rep can accurately solve the problem.  When a rep receives a call s/he doesn’t know how to solve, do other reps freely offer their knowledge and creative problem solving?  Or do they focus on their own calls and follow-throughs to be ranked high in # of calls taken and closed?  Do you inspire knowledge sharing?

Project Teams: Years back in IT, I was on several project teams.  Many were collaborative because all the pieces had to fit together for the project to succeed.  Yet I recall two project teams where knowledge didn’t flow.  The reply instead was “Give that piece to me and I will do it.”  Those of us sharing knowledge spoke to our manager about this concern.  His response was: Well some people don’t like to share their knowledge.  His comment was a small revelation about his beliefs on teamwork.

As a leader, how can you assess whether your teams are more collaborative or competitive?

In your next team meeting, have team members discuss a current team issue which affects them individually and about which they have differing opinions. Have them come up with possible solutions.  Observe how they interact and what solutions they develop. It will give you insight on how they balance their individual needs vs. coming up with solutions that meet the team goal.  Are they more competitive or collaborative in their approach?  Would their solutions bring team success?  Did they meet your expectations for team collaboration or competition?

How can you unearth if the knowledge is power virus is alive on your teams?

Hold a “Food for Thought” symposium. In advance of this meeting, send out an invitation to each team member asking them to create a “menu” of 5 knowledge items they will share with the rest of the team. Purpose of the symposium: to strengthen everyone’s knowledge and performance.

• Item #1 should be a true “food” item they like to eat. For this item, they must outline what they like about the food, a very short history of that food, and how long they have eaten it. Have fun with this segment. It creates a positive environment and team interaction.
• Items #2-4 must be job related knowledge. Each team member takes turns presenting her/his menu and fielding questions.
  Observe the depth of knowledge team members share. Do some contribute only surface level knowledge? Or are most engaged in true knowledge sharing?

This Food for Thought symposium also builds awareness of who knows what for subsequent teamwork, can develop presentation skills, and connects a fun vibe to knowledge sharing.

You are welcome to share this info with other people, on other blogs, on other website, and in articles.  I ask only that you credit me as the source with URL link (www.smartpeopleskills.com) to continue sharing.

Discussion and Comments

So what is your philosophy of teamwork?  Teams use different approaches.  I would love to have your questions, comments, and perspectives here.  I encourage debate.  I ask only that it is civil.  Despite the online trend toward wild sometimes insulting exchanges, I think people can hear better when they are not insulted.

1. Does a competitive spirit between team members strengthen teamwork and morale?
2. Does individual competition between team members inspire them to work harder and smarter?
3. Would it be better to have a collaborative spirit to help each other rather than compete with each other on a team?
4. Are you seeing knowledge sharing on teams that are pressed to do more with less in this economy?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach
Thanks for 20 years and counting …
MA Organizational Psychology
www.smartpeopleskills.com
908.595.1515