| Building Capacity to Improve Results Newsletter August 2008 |
August, 2008 Volume 02 Issue 03
All articles, quotes, and material in this newsletter are copyrighted. © No part can be reproduced in
any form without specific written consent from copyright holder(s). All rights reserved worldwide.
| Building Capacity to Improve Results |
Copyright Meaker & Associates 2008, Telephone 941-792-6926,
Email meakerandassociates@yahoo.com
Email meakerandassociates@yahoo.com
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Inside this Issue
Don’t Be the Victim of a
Hiring Mistake
Maintaining a Positive
Attitude in the Workplace
One Minute Ideas
Future Insights
Don’t Be the Victim of a
Hiring Mistake
Maintaining a Positive
Attitude in the Workplace
One Minute Ideas
Future Insights
Maintaining a Positive Attitude in the Workplace
If you want to remain or become a positive force in the workplace, you need a strategy. Follow the suggestions
below to get yourself on your way:
Ask three people you consider positive forces how they maintain their attitudes.
Survey your use of language, and change it when necessary. This includes inner talk and outer talk.
Change your negative words and thoughts into positive ones.
Surround yourself with as many positive people as possible.
Appreciate yourself. Accept yourself for who you are, not who you ought to be.
Don’t worry about something that has already happened. If there is a lesson to be learned, learn it and
move on.
Accept that you are going to make mistakes.
For one entire day, commit yourself to using all of your energy to be positive.
Realize that how you feel about something is your choice.
Take charge of your life, and give yourself credit when you do.
─ Adapted from The 6 Success Strategies for Winning at Life, Love & Business by Wolf J. Rinke
If you want to remain or become a positive force in the workplace, you need a strategy. Follow the suggestions
below to get yourself on your way:
Ask three people you consider positive forces how they maintain their attitudes.
Survey your use of language, and change it when necessary. This includes inner talk and outer talk.
Change your negative words and thoughts into positive ones.
Surround yourself with as many positive people as possible.
Appreciate yourself. Accept yourself for who you are, not who you ought to be.
Don’t worry about something that has already happened. If there is a lesson to be learned, learn it and
move on.
Accept that you are going to make mistakes.
For one entire day, commit yourself to using all of your energy to be positive.
Realize that how you feel about something is your choice.
Take charge of your life, and give yourself credit when you do.
─ Adapted from The 6 Success Strategies for Winning at Life, Love & Business by Wolf J. Rinke
Don't Be a Victim of a Hiring Mistake
Every employer makes both good and bad hiring decisions. Both are unavoidable. Even the worst hiring
system will produce some very good employees on occasion, and the best selection systems will occasionally
produce mis-hires, or employees that don’t fit the job they are hired for.
No selection process can guarantee that every newly hired employee is the best or even a good match for the
job. A good selection process is designed to reduce the probability of hiring the wrong person, regardless of
what the person that designed the process says it will do.
The problem is not that employers occasionally hire a bad employee. The problem is that once the bad
employee is on the job and gives indicators of being a poor performer, the employer avoids terminating the
worker promptly.
A supervisor once said to me that his reason for not immediately firing a mis-hire was that “there is a 90-day
probationary period and he has only been here for 30 days.”
The experience then becomes one that lasts far too long. While the employer is wrestling with determining the
“right” decision, the better employees in the organization have already made their decision. They begin to
either distance themselves from the poor performer, complain, or they start doing the extra work that is now
required to assure that their performance is not hurt by the new employee’s poor performance. After the first
mis-hire, good employees may wonder what went wrong with the selection process. After additional mis-hires,
they will begin to wonder how much longer they will be able to put up with carrying the load for the employee
that can’t carry their fair share.
The result is that towards the conclusion of the 90-day probationary period the mis-hired employee is
terminated. Unfortunately, bad employees do not always leave by themselves. They often (unintentionally)
convince more valued employees that there may be a better place to work.
Employers and their most valued employees are better served when time is invested in terminating the mis-hire
rather than trying to make him or her into the next good employee. When newly hired employees are
determined to be “mistakes,” their employment should be terminated, regardless of how much time remains in
the probationary period.
The chances of hiring a person that is not a good fit for the job decreases when an employer invests quality
time in selecting employees, adheres to a policy of not settling for the “best of the bunch,” and terminating mis-
hires when it is determined that they are not the right person for the job.
─ Lonnie Harvey, Jr SPHR, President of The JESCLON Group Inc.
Every employer makes both good and bad hiring decisions. Both are unavoidable. Even the worst hiring
system will produce some very good employees on occasion, and the best selection systems will occasionally
produce mis-hires, or employees that don’t fit the job they are hired for.
No selection process can guarantee that every newly hired employee is the best or even a good match for the
job. A good selection process is designed to reduce the probability of hiring the wrong person, regardless of
what the person that designed the process says it will do.
The problem is not that employers occasionally hire a bad employee. The problem is that once the bad
employee is on the job and gives indicators of being a poor performer, the employer avoids terminating the
worker promptly.
A supervisor once said to me that his reason for not immediately firing a mis-hire was that “there is a 90-day
probationary period and he has only been here for 30 days.”
The experience then becomes one that lasts far too long. While the employer is wrestling with determining the
“right” decision, the better employees in the organization have already made their decision. They begin to
either distance themselves from the poor performer, complain, or they start doing the extra work that is now
required to assure that their performance is not hurt by the new employee’s poor performance. After the first
mis-hire, good employees may wonder what went wrong with the selection process. After additional mis-hires,
they will begin to wonder how much longer they will be able to put up with carrying the load for the employee
that can’t carry their fair share.
The result is that towards the conclusion of the 90-day probationary period the mis-hired employee is
terminated. Unfortunately, bad employees do not always leave by themselves. They often (unintentionally)
convince more valued employees that there may be a better place to work.
Employers and their most valued employees are better served when time is invested in terminating the mis-hire
rather than trying to make him or her into the next good employee. When newly hired employees are
determined to be “mistakes,” their employment should be terminated, regardless of how much time remains in
the probationary period.
The chances of hiring a person that is not a good fit for the job decreases when an employer invests quality
time in selecting employees, adheres to a policy of not settling for the “best of the bunch,” and terminating mis-
hires when it is determined that they are not the right person for the job.
─ Lonnie Harvey, Jr SPHR, President of The JESCLON Group Inc.
Contribute In Meetings
Do some of your employees
contribute more at staff
meetings, while quieter
members hold back?
To achieve more balance,
inform staffers in advance that
you’ll be directing specific
questions to them. Once you’
ve given quieter employees
fair warning, call on them.
Games People Play
You can crack down on
computer game playing in your
office and still maintain morale.
Set up “games-only”
computers in the lounge or
lunchroom for staff members
to use on their own time,
during breaks and at lunch
time.
Opportunity… Often it comes
disguised in the form of
misfortune, or temporary
defeat.
─ Napoleon Hill
There is no future in any job.
The future lies in the person
who holds the job.
─ George Crane
In the middle of difficulty lies
opportunity.
─ Albert Einstein
Do some of your employees
contribute more at staff
meetings, while quieter
members hold back?
To achieve more balance,
inform staffers in advance that
you’ll be directing specific
questions to them. Once you’
ve given quieter employees
fair warning, call on them.
Games People Play
You can crack down on
computer game playing in your
office and still maintain morale.
Set up “games-only”
computers in the lounge or
lunchroom for staff members
to use on their own time,
during breaks and at lunch
time.
Opportunity… Often it comes
disguised in the form of
misfortune, or temporary
defeat.
─ Napoleon Hill
There is no future in any job.
The future lies in the person
who holds the job.
─ George Crane
In the middle of difficulty lies
opportunity.
─ Albert Einstein
Future Insights
Stay flexible. Change will be constant. New opportunities will present themselves. Unexpected challenges will throw themselves at you. Be
ready to duck, bob, weave, side step, and hop-scotch. Agility is power.
Stay alert to your own environment. Even carefully watching the trends, we can't predict everything that will happen to you and your
company. Futurists work at the "30,000 foot" level; corporate leaders operate at the mountain top level. Keep your head in the clouds and your
feet on the ground.
Practice "Future Thinking." Always look ahead in everything you do. Anticipate, project. Consider the future consequences of every
decision you make. Train and encourage your staff to think the same way. Build this kind of active futures perspective into your company's
culture.
Clarify your mission. Involve all your people in the creation-or confirmation-of your mission. Crystallize your reason for being, and your
direction into the future. People support what they help to create.
─ Adapted with permission granted by The Herman Group. All rights reserved
Stay flexible. Change will be constant. New opportunities will present themselves. Unexpected challenges will throw themselves at you. Be
ready to duck, bob, weave, side step, and hop-scotch. Agility is power.
Stay alert to your own environment. Even carefully watching the trends, we can't predict everything that will happen to you and your
company. Futurists work at the "30,000 foot" level; corporate leaders operate at the mountain top level. Keep your head in the clouds and your
feet on the ground.
Practice "Future Thinking." Always look ahead in everything you do. Anticipate, project. Consider the future consequences of every
decision you make. Train and encourage your staff to think the same way. Build this kind of active futures perspective into your company's
culture.
Clarify your mission. Involve all your people in the creation-or confirmation-of your mission. Crystallize your reason for being, and your
direction into the future. People support what they help to create.
─ Adapted with permission granted by The Herman Group. All rights reserved
Copyright Meaker & Associates 2008, Telephone 941-792-6926, Email meakerandassociates@yahoo.com