Step #6—Keep the TAP Flowing

Ensure Hiring Can Always Be Done in an Instant

The Talent Accelerator Process (TAP) is like a hiring machine. Once set up, TAP delivers employees on-demand. Jobs stay filled. Work gets done. In a perfect world, this hiring machine would never break. It would always generate a flow of quality talent, keeping your seats filled with good employees.

Does TAP ever break down? It does. Any machine that isn’t properly used will eventually fail. If the flow of prospective employees from your TAP slows, the cause will always be the same—people. Someone, maybe even you, didn’t maintain the TAP. Could be that you overlooked an important Dealbreaker and hired someone who wasn’t a good fit. Maybe you relied on one or two talent streams instead of using all eight. Possibly, you reverted back to conceptual interviewing, allowing a candidate to tell, sell, and swell their way into a job. Each step of TAP is important. Skipping one step creates a domino effect, causing the entire system to fail.

Why does this happen? Why would anyone take the time to build something and then fail to use it properly? The answer is simple: We’re human. We’re fallible creatures. We create complicated plans, forget to do what’s important, and make costly mistakes.

This is why good strategies fail. People fail the strategy.

Watching your plans unravel is frustrating. Especially when your plans deal with something as crucial as hiring. This chapter is dedicated to helping you avoid this frustration. We’ll explore how you and your colleagues could cause your TAP to fail inadvertently. You’ll gain ideas to keep this from happening, allowing you to get the most from the new way of hiring.

That strategic initiatives fail isn’t unique to hiring. Our human nature is the root cause of strategic failures, which is why the ideas presented in the coming pages are important. When applied to all of your strategies, the more likely those strategies will succeed as well.

The Failure Factors

How do people cause plans to fail? These four factors are the most common.

Failure Factor #1: We Complicate What’s Simple

Every year, I chuckle when I look at the latest tax form from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The bottom of Form 1040 makes reference to the “Paperwork Reduction Act.” This must be a bad joke, the kind told by a bureaucrat. My tax return grows a few pages each year.

If the Paperwork Reduction Act is real, it’s not working. On the contrary, U.S. tax laws have continued to grow in length and complexity. Totaling over seven million words, the tax code has more than doubled in size since 1985.¹

Look beyond governments and you’ll find many examples of needless complexity. Computer instruction manuals are convoluted. Blueprints for assembling furniture don’t make sense. Employee handbooks are filled with confusing jargon.

We’re good at making things complicated. When one page of instructions will do, we’ll write two. If a process takes three steps, we’ll expand it to four. We’re smart creatures, sometimes too smart. Unfortunately, our intellect can frustrate others, irritating them to the point of giving up. Sometimes it’s easier to throw in the towel.

We complicate what’s simple. It’s the first of the four failure factors. These factors undermine sound strategies, disrupting our well-made plans. They’re the primary reason why proven methods, like the Talent Accelerator Process, fail. Left unchecked, one or more of the failure factors will eventually slow your fast hiring.

Failure Factor #2: We’re Easily Distracted

There are lots of things vying for our attention: The ringing phone, all those emails, the meeting you need to prepare for, a text from your spouse.

When we’re distracted, we forget what’s most important. We answer the phone, learning the call was about something mundane. We react to each email as it arrives, forgetting that most messages don’t require immediate attention.

Distractions keep us from important tasks. They also undermine our focus when doing vital work. How many times have you been on the phone while checking email and sifting through a stack of documents?

Just like distracted driving causes car accidents, working while distracted creates work mishaps. We miss details, forget things, and make mistakes.

Failure Factor #3: We Change Too Much at Once

Patience may be a virtue, one that many of us lack. In today’s fast-paced society, impatience is the norm. We want things done now, not weeks from now. To drive change, we often set tight deadlines and push everyone, including ourselves, toward the goal.

The problem is that fast change doesn’t stick. It takes time to adjust our routines and change our habits. A rapid series of changes overwhelms us. When our sense of being overwhelmed reaches a tipping point, we give up and revert back to our previous routines.

Failure Factor #4: Our Intentions Don’t Become Actions

How many times have your intentions failed? You intended to eat better, but it didn’t happen. You meant to work out, but your gym bag lies untouched on the office floor.

The good news is you’re not alone. Everyone fails at least some of the time in turning intentions into actions. The bad news is that the disconnect between intentions and actions causes strategic failure. For goals to be realized, like being able to fill your core roles in an instant, you and your colleagues must keep taking action. Not just intend to take action.

Unless you counter the failure factors, they’ll end up running the show. As human nature kicks in, your colleagues will complicate how they conduct experiential interviews. The desire to fill all of your jobs in an instant will prompt you to take on too many at once. Distractions will cause your staff to overlook interview warning signs. The candidates in your Talent Inventory will be lost to other employers when your intention to stay in touch doesn’t equate to action.

This sixth and final step of the Talent Accelerator Process will counteract the failure factors. Four countermeasures will help you eliminate their negative effects, ensuring that your TAP remains a well-oiled hiring machine.

Countering Failure Factor #1: Keep It Swift and Simple

To fill jobs, a UK-based retailer used to take months. One position in particular, the buyer role, was especially hard to fill. The company looked for people with previous experience as a retail buyer. However, many candidates lacked this background.

The retailer decided to give TAP a try. They created a Hire-Right Profile, adding several transferable skills as Dealmakers. This allowed the talent acquisition team to draw in additional candidates for experiential interviews. Open seats were filled quickly and a surplus of talent was lined up.

The success in filling buyer jobs prompted the retailer to expand the use of TAP. Roles in the accounting department were added next, followed by key positions in marketing and retail management. In less than a year, they’d reduced time-to-fill for these key positions to zero. They’d also built a Talent Inventory for nine core roles.

Wrapping up our work together, I offered the following advice: “Remember that simple is sustainable. If you make changes to your TAP, be sure that those changes keep the hiring process swift and simple.”

Six months later, the retailer called me in a panic. The Talent Inventory for most of the core roles had been depleted. Filling these jobs went from minutes to weeks. Hiring managers and recruiters were working harder than ever to fill them.

What was the problem? The TAP had become bloated. Dozens of additional criteria had been added to Hire-Right Profiles. Hands-on interviews were taking four hours. The number of questions asked in reference checks had doubled.

It’s normal, even preferable, that you’ll fine-tune your TAP over time. However, the staff at this retailer had gone too far. Instead of carefully considering changes to the process, “improvements” were automatically adopted.

The retailer had quickly forgotten that simple is sustainable. As the complexity of the TAP grew, the harder it was to maintain. Interviewers were overwhelmed by the expanded Hire-Right Profiles and ended up missing details during interviews. Longer interviews and lengthy reference checks also meant less time was available to recruit new candidates. Undoing the damage to the TAP wasn’t easy. A complete reset of the system was required, rebuilding TAP one role at a time.

When asked what they’d learned from this experience, the retailer mentioned two things. “First,” they said, “rebuilding our Talent Accelerator Process was worth the effort. Being able to fill our core jobs the instant they open made us more competitive. Second, screwing up our TAP was optional. Had we followed the instructions—Keep It Swift and Simple—we wouldn’t have had to start over.”

Like this retailer, you’ll gain important insights as you use your Talent Accelerator Process. These insights can improve the process, if applied in the right way.

What’s the right way? Do the four things that are mentioned next.

Action #1: Put Someone in Charge

Designate someone the TAP Lead, the person responsible for overseeing your Talent Accelerator Process. This could be you, a department manager, an HR director, or a senior recruiter. Whomever you choose, they are responsible for monitoring the TAP. Changes, such as adding criteria to the Hire-Right Profile or adding a question to phone interviews, are facilitated by the TAP Lead. They bring those proposed changes to your hiring team for review.

Action #2: Discuss the Change

The hiring team considers each change, asking questions like:

• “How will it increase the effectiveness of our TAP?”

• “Will the change maintain or improve hiring speed?”

• “Is it simple, so we can easily repeat it each time we hire?”

The hiring team should approve only simple changes that keep your TAP swift and efficient.

Action #3: Implement the Change

The TAP Lead is responsible for implementing the change, updating documentation as needed.

Action #4: Monitor the Impact

Did the change have the desired impact? Is your TAP still operating effectively? The TAP Lead keeps an eye on improvements, answering these questions for each. Any issues are immediately brought to the attention of the hiring team for their help in resolving them.

Countering Failure Factor #2: Reduce Multitasking

The success of Andrea’s business hinged on having good account managers. They were the face of her travel company, the first line of contact for customers. For over a year, she’d been five account managers short. The rest of the team had to pick up the slack, creating a larger workload for everyone. Mistakes were made, accounts were neglected, and some customers took their business elsewhere.

Andrea and her company had been engaged in the old way of hiring for two decades. She knew it was time to do something different. When she heard about being able to hire in an instant, she loved the idea.

The next few months were spent implementing the Talent Accelerator Process. To keep things simple, Andrea decided that the only core role would be account managers. The company followed the steps in order, using their TAP to fill open seats and then build a Talent Inventory.

For three years, TAP kept time-to-fill to zero. If Andrea needed an additional account manager, she hired one that same day. When someone resigned, that position was filled in an instant. Turnover was virtually zero. Running the company had become easier than ever, and business was flourishing.

The good times allowed Andrea to invest some of the profits. New computers, upgraded software, and a state-of-the-art phone system were installed. Now, account managers could manage larger books of business in less time. Everything seemed to be going right. Andrea started making plans for expansion, including the possibility of acquiring one of her biggest competitors.

This long run of success came to a halt a few months later. The problems were subtle at first. A few of the talent streams that had been drawing in great candidates seemed to dry up. Then, there was a series of bad hires, people who turned out to be a poor fit for the account manager job. Before long, the Talent Inventory became dangerously depleted.

Where had they gone wrong? It began when they upgraded their technology. The improvements themselves, however, weren’t the issue. How they used those tools was.

Instead of making work efficient, technology ushered in an increase in multitasking. Everyone was trying to juggle too much at once. They’d be on the phone, entering details into the new software, watching for emails, and peeking at their instant messenger window—all at the same time. Distractions were also affecting hiring. Interviewers were responding to emails during phone interviews instead of giving the conversation their undivided attention. Working while distracted was also causing people to forget important tasks, including maintaining strong candidate gravity.

Solving this problem was straightforward. Distracted work had become the habit, and multitasking fed that habit. Andrea had to reduce multitasking. Changing this behavior would require more than implementing new policies. She had to shake things up.

Andrea called the company together for a meeting. Like an alcoholic in a 12-step group, she stood up and said, “Hi, my name is Andrea and I’m addicted to multitasking.” Her team shifted in their seats, looked confused, and said nothing. Andrea shared how she’d become hooked on multitasking. She admitted it was interfering with her work, and confessed that she was even multitasking in interviews. The longer she continued, the more she saw heads nod.

In wrapping up, she invited others to “come clean.” Her vulnerability had paved the way, as a dozen people took turns in front of the room. Their stories had the same theme: Doing too much at once had become the norm. Each person admitted they were distracted, making mistakes, and forgetting important tasks.

Andrea proposed a solution—“single-tasking”—a way of staying focused on one responsibility when that responsibility was of vital importance. She explained what she considered important. Included on her list were reviewing resumes, interviews with job candidates, and conversations with customers. Andrea asked everyone to join her in the practice of single-tasking.

Single-tasking got hiring back on track. The Talent Inventory was replenished and the quality of hires improved. But that was only the start. Single-tasking positively affected all aspects of the business. Employees were happier. Customer satisfaction scores increased. Revenues grew to all-time highs.

Am I suggesting that your company eliminate multitasking completely? No. I don’t believe that’s possible in today’s work world. What I’m recommending is that you limit distractions, especially when it comes to important tasks. Choosing the right people for your organization is that important. It can make or break you.

If something is important, it deserves our full attention. Single-tasking lets you devote that attention.

Countering Failure Factor #3: Promote Incremental Change

Success is infectious. The more success we have, the more of it we want. Sometimes, our successes can deceive us, prompting decisions we later regret.

My biggest mistake in using the Talent Accelerator Process came from such a success. I’d reduced time-to-fill for every position in our corporate office to zero. Our entire management team was on board, happily practicing our mantra of always interviewing, occasionally hiring. The Talent Inventory was stocked with good people.

I took this as a sign that we were ready. I thought we should expand our use of the Talent Accelerator Process to our branch offices. I came up with an aggressive timeline for rolling out TAP to ten of these offices over the next 30 days.

Given the size of this initiative, I needed help. I pulled together my team and presented “TAP in a Box,” my name for the rollout. I explained that over the coming weeks we were going to visit each of the ten offices. We’d show them how to implement TAP, leaving behind a box of reference materials. Then, we’d host monthly conference calls to measure progress and answer questions.

I still remember my team members’ surprised looks, especially when I shared the rollout schedule. They questioned the short timeline. Some openly expressed their doubts we’d succeed.

In the end, I won. I was the boss. We hopped on planes and held meetings in each office. TAP in a Box was met with enthusiasm, further fueling my belief that I was doing the right thing. Best of all, we completed the rollout in our 30-day window.

The next few months went poorly. Our branch offices were struggling to incorporate the steps of TAP into their calendars. Time-to-fill increased for the core roles in their Talent Inventories. My team was overwhelmed with calls and questions by email. Monthly conferences calls for the initiative became complaint sessions.

After three months, I had to admit I was wrong. I’d pushed too fast and too hard. My intent was honorable: I wanted our branches to benefit from TAP. However, my impatience undermined my good intentions.

Looking back decades later, it’s easy to see where I went wrong. Yet, in the moment, it wasn’t so easy. I fell into the success trap, believing that success always begets more success. What I failed to realize, at the time, is this happens only if you have a process in place to effectively leverage that success.

My greatest lesson from this rushed implementation was the value of incremental change. To be effective, change can never outpace your ability to adjust habits and routines. Incremental change eliminates feeling overwhelmed.

It’s likely you’ll never blunder to the degree I did as you implement TAP. However, it’s normal that some level of impatience, your own or others’, will hamper your efforts. To avoid this, I suggest you follow one important rule: Mind the gap.

When riding a train, we’re told to mind the gap, that space between the train car and the platform. Minding the gap keeps us safe. With TAP, there’s also a gap: It can only fill those jobs for which it was built. Stay mindful of the current capabilities of your TAP. Remember that it takes time to build capacity to fill a role the instant it becomes open. Until you do, that’s the gap.

Countering Failure Factor #4: Improve Accountability

In the March 2015 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Donald Sull, a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, shared his research on strategy execution: Of the 8,000 managers he surveyed, 84 percent said that the people in their chain of command can be relied upon. However, 59 percent of the managers said that colleagues in other departments couldn’t be relied upon.²

Sull’s research illustrates why our plans fail—strategic initiatives are never solo acts. Improved hiring requires coordinated action and consistent follow-through. Once you implement your TAP, everyone involved must keep doing their part.

Why don’t people do what they’re supposed to do? The implementation of TAP at a government agency is a classic example. The agency director wanted department heads to hire faster. TAP was his solution. He tasked a project team of recruiters and managers to make this happen.

The project team followed the steps, putting TAP in place in a few months. With great fanfare, the director announced the initiative with a launch event. He explained why faster hiring was important and how TAP would make that happen. Other leaders followed, carefully explaining expectations and answering audience questions. Documents explaining important details, such as how to conduct experiential interviews, were handed out.

The agency director closed the meeting with these words: “I know that change isn’t easy or convenient. We’ve failed at change in the past. But keeping our jobs filled has to happen. We’re all adults, so let’s each do our part. Let’s get this done.”

Did the agency get it done? Sort of. Sometimes hires were made quickly; other times they weren’t. Inconsistency was the name of the game. Why did this happen? Not everyone followed through. A recruiter had forgotten to maintain a talent stream. A department head neglected to schedule an interview. Failing to follow through hadn’t been intentional, but it was still happening and interfering with the goal of faster hiring.

Even though there was no ill intent, it did little to placate the agency director. Sitting in his office, I listened as he ranted about these failures. “Heads need to roll,” he said, “I need people I can rely upon.”

During his tirade, I’d noticed that on his desk was a big bottle of vitamins. On a hunch, I said, “What if the problem wasn’t the people in their roles?” He asked what I getting at. “I noticed that bottle of vitamins,” I said. “Why is it there?” He explained that he’d had a heart attack, nearly dying. His doctor had prescribed the vitamins as part of his daily regimen to prevent future heart problems. “Do you always take it daily,” I asked? He paused and grudgingly admitted he occasionally forgot; thus the reason it was sitting in such a prominent spot. “I intend to take them because my life depends on it,” he said, “but it doesn’t always happen.”

Our conversation illustrated how intentions can fail to become actions. Here was a guy whose life depended on doing something as simple as taking vitamins. Yet, his intention wasn’t enough to make it happen.

I picked up the bottle and asked him to look at its label. “The solution to poor follow-through in this agency is on that bottle.” The label mentioned “minimum daily requirements.” These were the prescribed amounts of vitamins and minerals necessary to stay healthy. “Just because someone is an adult doesn’t mean they’ll automatically follow through,” I said. “Inconsistent follow-through is part of human nature. Even in life and death situations. People need reminders. They need minimum daily requirements when it comes to specific activities. Instead of intending to do the right thing, the minimum daily requirements spell out exactly what that means.”

The agency director had the TAP project team establish minimum daily requirements (MDRs) for hiring. They apportioned tasks into manageable daily (and sometimes weekly) activities. For recruiters, this included daily maintenance of their assigned talent streams. Hiring managers had their own set of MDRs, including interviewing at least one candidate every week. Checklists made it easy for them to stay on track and for department heads to confirm who did their part, and who did not.

Establishing minimum daily requirements will help you ensure that intentions become actions. Every person involved with your Talent Accelerator Process, including you, should have their own set of MDRs. Keep them simple, spelling out what must be done daily, weekly, and monthly. Most important, help one another by serving as accountability partners. Like a spouse who asks if you’ve remembered to take your vitamins, you and your colleagues can help each other stay on track.

The Ultimate Countermeasure

It’s likely that your TAP won’t function perfectly. Someone will complicate the process, get distracted, make changes too quickly, or fail to follow through. It happens. By planning for when, not if, this occurs, you’ll be ready to quickly get hiring back on track.

Do all TAPs slow or break down? No. Like a well-oiled machine that runs for decades, some companies have a TAP that has never failed. What’s their secret? They’ve consistently deployed the ultimate countermeasure: They keep doing the next right thing. No matter what.

When a big project seems of greater importance than maintaining their TAP, they still take time to maintain it. If schedules become overloaded and they’re tempted to push aside their minimum daily requirements, they don’t. They keep doing the next right thing. One day at a time.

I know this sounds simple. It is simple, as long as we remember that our human nature is to complicate. When it comes down to it, we’re capable of doing the next right thing. We need to ask ourselves what that is, and then do it.

The best way to solve a problem is to keep it from happening. Once set up, you can keep your TAP flowing by requiring everyone, including yourself, to keep doing the next right thing. That includes countering the four failure factors the moment one of them arises.