Home | Newsletters | Hiring the Best, How Sprinting and Sitting Both Help, Rules for a Knight!

Hiring the Best, How Sprinting and Sitting Both Help, Rules for a Knight!

As a Christian business leader you want to accelerate your growth, profit, and impact in the marketplace (and build a better life!). Our goal is to bring you the best tips, tools, and techniques to do just that!

Let’s get started!

Business

The People Funnel – Learning from the Best

This post is part of a larger effort to help my clients solve the “I can’t find good people” problem. Everyone is struggling to find and keep good people, but a few companies excel at attracting and retaining excellent people. Let’s see what we can learn from them.

LinkedIn recently released its Top Attractors List of 2016. A listing of the organizations that are the most sought-after places to work. They created the list based on data collected through LinkedIn and job sites around the world.

As you can guess, these brands have a significant advantage in the hunt for talent. They have excellent “employer brands” that draw the best talent to them, which saves them almost $5,000 per hire.

LinkedIn’s list is dominated by global brands, but there is a lot to learn from these brands that can be applied to your organization regardless of size. Here are some things that stand out about these organizations that you can apply to your firm:

They are founder led – This is an easy one for us small guys, but the real reason this matters to applicants is because these founders have a vision to build something great. They are not corporate managers hired to improve the bottom line. They created the business for a greater purpose and being a part of that excites applicants. If you are running a company and not a founder, you need an inspiring vision for people to rally behind!
They are smaller – The top 10 companies in the Fortune 500 employ about 4 million people, the top 10 in the top attractors list employ around 583,000 according to this review of the list. It is becoming well recognized that smaller, higher growth companies offer more opportunities to learn and grow. Few A-list young people are looking for a pension and gold watch these days.
They have big visions – The founders running these organizations have huge visions. Look at what companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and UBER are trying to accomplish. These organizations are working to change the world. What small part of the world is your firm seeking to revolutionize? Big visions mean big opportunities for job seekers. Great people want to work where they can grow. Is your vision big enough to attract the best?

The cultures in these organizations vary widely. Amazon is known for its relatively high demand culture while Salesforce is known for its mindfulness practices.

It is not a particular culture or vision that attracts people, it is the fact that you have a culture and vision that attracts or repels applicants. People who want to work at Amazon probably won’t like the culture at Salesforce and will choose not to apply there. That is a good thing.

Great cultures attract and retain the right people while expelling people that don’t fit.

Can potential job applicants get a feel for your culture and vision before they apply? If they can, it will attract the right people while saving you from reviewing resumes of those who won’t fit.

Ready to make sure your brand is apparent internally and externally? You can get started with our Values Driven Leadership course in our Subscriber Library.

Health!

What Do Sprinting and Sitting Have in Common?

Answer: They are both antidotes to how we spend most of our time. Running is the antidote to jobs that mostly have us sitting. Sitting (Meditation) is the antidote to minds that are constantly running. Great article on the Headspace blog.

Life, Fun, Whatever!

20 Rules for a Knight

Great book from Academy and Tony Award nominee and writer, Ethan Hawke. The book’s premise starts with a letter from a knight written to his children when he expected to die in battle. The letter was written in 1483 and outlines the “Rules for a Knight” as they were passed down from the knight’s grandfather.

Ethan picked up on the idea and wrote this fictional book as way to outline the rules of their house for their children. Great blog at Farnam Street outlining the 20 rules. Here are the ones that stood out to me.

First, a quote:

“Often we imagine that we will work hard until we arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, and an activity. It arises from curiosity and discovery. Seek pleasure and you will quickly discover the shortest path to suffering.”

1. Solitude – I’ve come to the conclusion that solitude is one of my “keystone habits.” Starting my day quietly, with the Lord, is the only way for me to begin a great day.

2. Humility – Too often confused with lack of confidence, humility is simply thinking of others more and yourself less. Always be excited to learn in a conversation. This requires less talking – a struggle of mine…

3. Gratitude – I call this the devil’s Kryptonite. Anytime I am stressed, upset, losing my patience, etc. if I can only turn my mind to gratitude, I can win the battle. Joy returns. This is a discipline that requires practice. I still struggle with it. Practice by being thankful for the tiniest things – sunshine, green grass, air conditioning, being free from pain.

9. Courage – “Anything that gives light must endure burning.” Ouch. I want courage, I don’t like the burning…

11. Patience – “A hurried mind is an addled mind.” There is no such thing as a once in a lifetime opportunity. The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. – Proverbs 21:5

12. Equality – “A knight is never present when men or women are being degraded or compromised in any way, because if a knight were present, those committing the hurtful acts or words would be made to stop.” I pray that I and my children have this kind of courage!

19. Love – It is patient, it is kind, it is everything.

All 20 are great. Check out the post on Farnam and get the book!