Imagine your new employee, working under pressure for the first time in their new role, slowing your team down yet another time. At this moment you might say, “This isn’t working out,” and you might have to go through an awkward transition, forced to hire a new person—yet again. Many eyes might well glare at you for enabling this frustrating mess. Let’s stop here and rewind. We can focus on recruiting strategies to find a more qualified applicant pool. We’ll assume that you have some basic hiring preparation regarding a job description, work culture assessment, and a job posting. How do you find the best available employee to fit your profile? First, let’s review some traditional methods of recruiting. Then we’ll explore some evolving recruiting strategies and some of the latest trends. Afterwards, you might consider a different recruiting approach for your next key employee. Here are some traditional methods of recruiting: some old school (let’s say prior to the year 2000), some tried-and-true, and others too cost-prohibitive to consider: • Print: Classified ad, print ad in trade magazine or newsletter, unemployment office job posting. Sign in window or at place of business near foot traffic. • Website: Your company website, job specific website. • Other Media: Billboard, radio, TV. • In-Person Social Networking: Referrals. Networking, job fair, word-of-mouth. • Third Party: Employment Agency: Temporary or permanent. Recruiter—retained or contingency. Here are some more contemporary tactics that I see established business owners using today: • E-mail Campaign to customers within a geographic radius of employment. • Outsourcing: The sourcing and prescreening of applicants to third party HR firms. • LinkedIn: A targeted campaign of network connections. • Mobile Phone Apps: These are becoming like dating websites, matching employers with employees. Recruitifi caught my eye. • Networking: Hiring notices sent to network contacts via an email blast, phone calls or face to face. • Targeted Websites: Industry-specific or functional-discipline-specific. • Employee Referral Bonus Program: For a third party or employee. • Employee Development Program • Recruiting Directly from Competition • A Hybrid Approach of traditional and other recruiting approaches mentioned herein Corporate Trends in Recruiting

1. Corporate Talent Networks—using online social media tools and even vendors to build an audience for potential talent. Not just applicants for a job, but an audience of people interested in jobs at the firm—including alumni, fans, candidates, and current employees. 2. Social Sourcing—LinkedIn’s recruiter tool is more of a standard today than a trend in HR departments. Tools are evolving to develop competency ratings based on social profiles. 3. Recruiters as Sources, Not Recruiters—the focus is shifting to make the recruiter a talent sourcing specialist and initial screener, while the hiring manager becomes a better interviewer. 4. Assessment Tools—more tools keep evolving. 5. A Great Candidate Experience—to promote positive word of mouth and minimize negative online comments.

(Learn more about this.)4 Trends That Will Define Recruiting in the US in 20151. Intense competition is the main obstacle to hiring talent. 2. Social professional networks are the #1 source of quality hires in the US. 3. US companies are more likely to recruit passive talent than their global counterparts. 4. US companies are above average in prioritizing and proactively managing their talent brand. However, they have some catching up to do in properly funding and measuring their talent brand. (Learn more.) As you plan your strategy to recruit your next employee, it’s valuable to consider traditional methods of recruiting, tactics that established business owners are using, and trends in corporate recruiting. You’ll increase your odds of hiring right the first time. While we’ve ignored cost and time requirements here, it makes sense to adjust the recruiting tactic with the applicant pool before selecting a recruiting method, For example, hourly employees generally use different methods than salaried staff to find work. Also, the millennial age bracket is probably more likely to use a mobile phone to find jobs than a baby boomer. As your HR needs grow in size and complexity, consider doing what the big leagues do: developing a talent network, social sourcing, and creating specialties in the recruiting value chain. Whatever methods you choose, I hope that you can evolve your recruiting over time to build a better workplace.

Eventually we all need legal advice in business with key legal areas. When your first form or acquire your business, you should have counsel review all documents to represent your best interests. When key contracts arise with customers, suppliers, employees, investors or new partners, you need legal counsel. Basically, any time a significant agreement becomes necessary to grow or change the way you do business, you should seek counsel to help you stay out of trouble. Have you ever hired a lawyer and felt like the process was getting out of control? For me, there have been times when the bill provides a shocking reminder that I need to manage my lawyer, just like any other service provider. No one is going to tell you that your lawyer is out of control. You are going to have to recognize the signs. Here are some that I’ve learned: Money: You engage with a lawyer, the bill arrives and you find yourself surprised by the size of the invoice. You weren’t keeping track of the time you and your lawyer were talking, but your lawyer sure did. Now it’s time to pay the bill. Time: Sometimes legal matters become extraordinarily time-consuming. Lawyers get paid to manage risks for their clients and keep them out of trouble. Since lawyers get paid for their time, a natural incentive exists to spend as much time as can possibly be necessary on a legal matter. Focus: I find that some lawyers lose sight of the main objective of the legal engagement. Despite good intentions, they start managing minor legal issues rather than the main one. Negotiation representation: This issue continues to challenge me. Lawyers like to argue and negotiate on behalf of their clients. Problems and conflicts can inevitably arise that upset both parties. I’ve had business deals blow up only to find out later that my lawyer was negotiating vigorously on my behalf on unanticipated legal issues. Once you understand what can potentially go wrong with your legal representation, you are in a better position to manage your lawyer. Here are a few tips to help you manage your lawyer during your next legal issue: Set a budget: Ideally, set cap on your legal expenses. It is very reasonable to ask your lawyer for a budget with a fixed dollar amount or to provide a narrow budget range. Some lawyers might argue that they need to do the job right and not worry about a budget. Recognize this potential conflict of interest if it arises. A budget can be your condition of engaging a lawyer in order to control legal costs. Control the time—for both of you: You can set time limits for managing legal issues that will help you manage your budget and your emotions around the legal matter. One of the best pieces of legal advice a lawyer gave me was to set aside a certain number of hours per week to work on a legal matter, and then stop. Be done with it until the next block of budgeted time. Stay focused on the main legal issue: Let’s say you are trying to acquire a piece of property and have engaged a lawyer for an agreement of sale. The legal focus has shifted to an unlikely scenario in which the environment could be contaminated as a result of the prior owner’s business. While this might be important, it is unlikely and therefore a minor issue. You can insist that this be addressed quickly and with standard legal language. Then bring the legal focus back to the agreement of sale, the primary legal matter. Negotiate key terms yourself: Make sure that you have an agreement with the “other party” in writing, with a term sheet, before engaging a lawyer. Unintentionally omitted essential agreement terms might get messy as your lawyer and their lawyer negotiate. Recognize when you need to intervene and speak with the other party directly to agree upon key terms. Managing a lawyer can be difficult. Left unmanaged, lawyers can start behaving like any other employees, subcontractors, or service providers, resulting in a loss of control over your time and your money. A reasonable business lawyer should understand your business’s need for a legal budget. If your business deal starts unraveling, then you might need to provide focus to ensure that you, and not your lawyer, are negotiating the key terms between you and the other party. Sometimes using the right management tools will help you get what you need from a legal transaction without breaking the bank. Give them a try the next time you need a lawyer.         _{^{Copyright © John McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved.}}

Did you ever have to work with a person that you were mad at? Years ago, I heard men threaten to take their problem outside at work, and on occasion I’ve heard women literally scream at each other in the office. But that was a long time ago. Obviously something needed to change about such extreme conflict. Today, we have become more politically-correct, judgmental, litigious—and for good reasons we’ve also become more guarded and careful. We learn from experience how to work with difficult people even if it is us that needs the work. But other times simply broadening the time perspective and focusing on the bigger picture of our work relationship is all we need to do.            

What about when you are mad at your business partner, family member, or spouse at work? There are many articles and other blog posts written  about working with difficult coworkers at work or working with a difficult boss. The focus here will be on business partners who are family  members, ones that become angry at one another and find it difficult to work together.  Conflict with business partners often becomes more  difficult when our business partner is also our family member, best friend, or spouse. Emotions become heightened and conflict resolution  frustrates us based primarily on the commitment to the relationship. When the business is not making enough money, or even losing money, it’s like being on a sports team that’s losing. Disagreements and fights  happen out in the open for all to see.  Even when a business makes money, business partners sometimes fight over power alone—which is very  awkward for everyone involved. What can we do in these angry business situations? Here are some tips to work out problems with business partners and family members:

• Have written agreements. Agreements have many names, but most of them can be broken down into either an operating or shareholder agreement. An operating agreement addresses how the partnership will function to operate the business. A shareholders’ agreement is intended to clarify the ownership of the business and what happens in the event of partnership transitions, partial ownership valuation or a complete company sale, to name a few. Written agreements alone will not solve all of your partnership problems, but they sure make conflict resolution easier when they’re well-written. They’re good to have to establish understanding, but you should also be wary. Try to learn how to work out problems before referencing written agreements. From my experience, when written agreements are referenced and quoted, the partnership may have already begun dissolving.
• Have a planning process. Notice that I did not say have a plan or even a One Hour Business Plan. A business plan needs to be updated at regular intervals, such as every 6 or 12 months. A quality business planning process, on the other hand, allows time to solve problems openly and capitalize on business opportunities. The absence of a regular business planning process makes conflict resolution more “one-off,” emotionally charged, and less efficient. If you don’t believe me, try a business planning process with some problem solving included for a while.
• Remember the goals for the business. Most business partners are going to fight at some point in the relationship. So hopefully they’ve learned to fight fairly. When the inevitable conflict arises, sometimes it helps to resolve conflict by simply keeping your eyes on the prize—which are the goals for the business. That can be goals like to make x dollars, relocate the firm, or terminate a longtime employee, for example. What are the business goals here? Share them with all parties involved.
• Critique yourself objectively the best you can. Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Most people are naturally good at criticizing others and laying blame on someone else. We are quick to point out whoever has wronged us. However, how many of us look at ourselves when we are in conflict with another? Ask the simple question, what can I do better to help resolve this conflict? It might be enough to take at least part of the responsibility for the conflict and move toward an amicable resolution.
• Broaden the time perspective. When we are mad at somebody, our relationship focus is often very much in the moment, and that can be good for focus. Other times, it might help us to broaden the time horizon for resolving the conflict. We might have years invested in a productive business/working relationship. Is it worth giving that up over this particular conflict? Family members in a business conflict need to remember that their family relationship is far more important than the business relationship. If we think beyond the present situation of the relationship and remember our commitment to the relationship itself, then we are often enabled to be in a much better frame of mind to solve our problem.
• Other tips to help you get along. At planned meetings, discuss openly what is bothering each of you. Recognize what you cannot agree on and agree to disagree. During any communication, keep it informative and logical. Try your best to replace unproductive emotions at work with logic and reasoning. And by all means agree to stay positive.

When business partners become angry at one another, it creates a serious business challenge. When the business partners are also family members, best friends, or a spouse, then the challenges rise to new levels of sensitivity and difficulty. Before the anger boils over, we can do some things to help resolve the conflict. Using tools such as written agreements, a planning process, goal stating, self-inspection, and broadening the time perspective of the relationship can all help us out of difficult business partnership situations. While there are other tips for working with angry business partners, these are the tools that I have used most often. Drop me a note (at john at planfoundations dot com) and let me know what you have done to resolve conflict with a business partner at work.     ^{Copyright © John McAdam 2015. All Rights Reserved}.

Do you ever get through your day and think, “I could have gotten so much more done today if I had an assistant? I feel so unproductive.” How about when you look at your to-do list and feel like you could definitely leverage your time better? How can you tell that you might need an assistant? The typical signs that you might need an assistant often include: overbooking your calendar, missing appointments, suffering from email overload, passing on business opportunities, or feeling overloaded with stress. Don’t you wish you had an assistant to take care of some or most of that for you?   The decision on whether or not to hire an assistant is an important one. Choosing wisely with proper planning will make you more productive and wealthier over time. Choose an assistant without thinking the decision through and planning, and guess what? You throw gasoline on the fire of unproductivity—and you will most likely spend money without earning a profitable return. What are the important factors when deciding whether or not to hire an assistant? Expectations & Goals– Arguably the most important factor in your hiring decision. A little planning can go a long way here, whether it’s writing a One-Hour Business Plan or just a simple job description. If you’re trying to leverage your assistant’s time to make you more money, then you need to hire someone who can support your business development efforts and sales efforts. One candidate might be better suited to conduct Internet sales research, while another might focus on administrative work. If you need business development leverage, make sure you hire for that skill set. If you fail to change your behavior to follow up on the assistant’s preparation work, then you as the business owner might make the whole process fail. It’s hard for us business owners to change our work activities sometimes, but it’s necessary to ensure a successful addition to your team.   Virtual or In-Person Assistant – If you have enough office space, an in-person assistant might be best for you. Consider the talent pool for assistants in your local area; if you’re not in a large city, it may be limited. Part-Time vs. Full-Time –How much assistant can you afford? Some business owners use part-time employment as a test before committing to the expense and risk of taking on a full-time employee. The decision often comes down to money more than to work requirements. Be careful not to overestimate the productivity gains, cost savings, or sales leverage an assistant will provide you. Be conservative with your estimates. Domestic vs. International– It is true that lower-wage assistants are available outside the US. But if your assistant is interfacing with your customers, then English-language and cultural skills become very important in who you’re hiring. If your assistant will be doing primarily back-office tasks such as research, supplier management, and scheduling, consider an international assistant. Personality– This might sound obvious, but the personalities of a business owner and an assistant must blend well for the relationship to work, even more so than other work relationships. They must enjoy each other’s company and anticipate one another’s needs for the working relationship to function optimally. Work Style– A quality assistant should be able to know what the boss is doing right now, as well as anticipating his or her future needs. Work style fit is important. Do you need someone who can operate without specific instructions? Are your work tasks very routine and repetitive, without a lot of thinking involved? Does one of you prefer to work on difficult tasks in the morning, the other in the afternoon?  Perhaps you prefer to manage your employees’ work closely, but your potential assistant detests being micromanaged. Using an Agency vs. Hiring Independently– if you are a trial-and-error person by nature or anticipate having to work with more than one assistant until you find the right fit, consider using an agency. It will cost you a little more, but will save you a lot of time. If you are mostly clear on what you want in an assistant, hiring independently might be the best way to proceed. There certainly are a lot of factors to consider when hiring an assistant. The point is not to make it complicated, but to consider your needs and those of your business. If hiring an assistant is right for you, do yourself a favor and consider these important factors.  Even a little careful planning can go a long way to increase your odds of a successful hire. Setting expectations and goals for your assistant—including what you want to accomplish—is a logical place to start. Let us know what you think.       Copyright © John McAdam 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Did you ever finish your workday and wonder, “What happened to my time? Where did it go?” One of the hardest parts about being a small business owner is to manage you. We often ignore managing ourselves. Let’s face it; one of the reasons many of us own small businesses is that we despise being managed. Otherwise we might pursue a work life of predictability in a large corporation. However, even in small business, we need to hold ourselves accountable for the appropriate use of our time. Otherwise, increasing amounts of time slips away faster and faster. Consequently, if you have ever asked yourself how you could manage your time better, then by all means read on—it should be worth your time.     Time management is defined as “the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity.” Sounds kind of boring—until we learn more: the threats to our time management, a few time management tools, and how we can improve our time management.       What are the threats to your time management? – Email       Telephone        Travel       Problem Customers -Absent or inadequate prioritization to task demands – Redundant and/or repetitious activities       Poor listening -Inadequate rest for body and mind to perform optimally – Distractions and/or interruptions       Disorganization – Procrastination       Personal Problems       Others When you look at the aforementioned threats to your business time, what jumps out at you? Email is the biggest complaint I hear today. It used to be telephones that interrupted us, but now email has taken over as the main channel of communication in business. It’s not the same for all businesses though, particularly businesses where you’re not staring at a computer screen.  Some of you might feel overwhelmed by all of the above, depending on what’s happening in your business. The key is to simply take the time to identify your largest time threats currently. What are the common time management tools available for business owners? Most people think that a quick fix solution exists. It doesn’t. I could write about different theories of time management such as ABC Analysis (ranking by importance), Pareto’s Rule (80 vs. 20), The Eisenhower Method (unimportant vs important), but they all drift off of the mark eventually in our struggle to manage our time at work. We could consider various software tools to help us mange time. This can be useful in certain professions, particularly if we are billing by the hour, but not for all of us. Plus, managing the software and data seem to take up a lot of time, ironically. The time management tools that stand the test of time (sorry for the pun) are tried, true, and more practical and tactical in nature. The best tools have relevance no matter how we manage our time—such as our appointment calendars (Outlook, Day-Timer, Palm Pilot, etc.), the clock in the room, or a time plan of activities, etc. The point is to track your activities by time segment and plan to some degree how you are going to best use your time. Other tips for managing time include:

• Hire or outsource your low-skill work. If you have too much to do and not enough time, something must be done. Have other people complete the tasks that you can most readily hire and teach and monitor their work.
• Plan your day comfortably and watch it comfortably. Planning the day in 15-minute increments will drive anyone crazy. Instead, plan in increments of 20 minutes, a whole hour, or a few hours at a time, and monitor your performance without annoying yourself.
• Manage your interruptions – these are inevitable, so plan for them by making time for interruptions.
• Take care of your body and mind – allow yourself to replenish your body and mind regularly or one or both will eventually shut down on you. Proper relaxation now promotes productivity later.
• Humor is undervalued in business to relieve stress!

If you have not already, you will eventually stop and wonder where your time went during your business day. If you are curious and want to understand the threats to your time, keep a piece of paper, or electronic notepad, ready and keep track of the threats to your time management. The more recurring threats might surprise you.  Whatever time management tools you decide to use, note that no one time management tool works for everybody in all phases of entrepreneurial or business life. Only you can find the best time management system that works for you and where you are now. If you have a tip or suggestion for the rest of us, don’t forget to share it through a reply or email. We definitely appreciate your time.       Copyright © John McAdam 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Whether you’re in a team of 1 or a group of 1,000, an innovative workplace will become important for your business to maintain competitiveness in the long run.  An innovative workplace is also a benefit for your employees: it creates a fun and exciting place to work.  So If your business offers new products every year (or as often as your customers needs them), then you know that you probably maintain an innovative workplace. But what if you haven’t come out with a new product or service in years? Are you still innovative at work? How do you know? First, let’s look at solo entrepreneurs (or business owners who mostly work alone). Then, we’ll explore some characteristics of innovation in teams. If you work mostly alone and haven’t offered a new product or service to your customers in a while, then consider new avenues or new approaches Remember, if you don’t offer something new to your customers, your competitors will. Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing: • Look for small innovative extensions of what you already do, as opposed to radically new ideas and inventions • Look at what your closest competitors are doing and see if you can do it better in any way • Ask some of your customers what they need. But remember: it takes more than one customer to establish a trend. • Regularly schedule some time to review your business innovation. This can be anywhere from weekly to monthly. You might need a colleague or advisor as a sounding board to obtain more objective feedback. • Consider a business partnership, strategic alliance or joint venture with another small firm that has unique skill sets. Together, the two of you might be able to offer something more powerful to the market than you can individually.         If you work with teams, your situation is a little different. A published study by Bledow, Frese, Anderson, Eres, & Farr (2009) analyzed over 150 research studies on innovation and suggested that several factors can contribute to the degree of innovation in organizations.  Based on this research, their insights about the characteristics of innovative workplaces include: • Regular idea generation meetings that focus on idea generation, not idea evaluation. • Idea exploration meetings to explore benefits and risks without managerial involvement. • Encouraging small incremental innovation rather than radical innovation. • Hiring people, particularity managers that will encourage improvements and innovation and be comfortable with the ambiguity, unknowns, and challenges therein. • Making innovation valued enough that it’s part of an employee’s performance criteria and is discussed at review time. • Supporting an innovative culture by minimizing strict and restrictive rules, guidelines, policies, or norms that get in the way of creativity. • Rewarding new and successful ideas. • Encouraging diversity in thinking to lead to greater innovations. • Practicing “Proactive Creativity” – a work culture method whereby a worker identifies a work-related problem then identifies new ways to solve the problem. This has been successful with production workers at manufacturers and with nurses in healthcare. A fun challenge exists when creating a more innovative workplace. Whether a solo entrepreneur or a large employer, ask yourself what you can do to make your workplace more innovative. By comparing characteristics of innovation between large and small organizations, we see some unique perspectives. For example, both types of organizations benefit from keeping innovations small, natural extensions of existing offerings—as opposed to a radically new invention. Also, small organizations rely more on studying customers and competitors, while the large organizations rely more on cooperating with each other.  Either way, there is something that each of us can do to make our workplace more innovative. How about you?