Introduction

I believe that I may know one of the first thoughts that came to your mind when you glanced at the title of this book: Where’s this guy been for the last 18 months? I don’t have to worry about getting and retaining top talent because A) I really don’t need more staff right now, and the streets are awash in talent; they’re all begging for work! and B) even the talented and productive people I have are so happy just to be employed, they will tough out everything short of a Banana Republic Dictatorship to keep their jobs.

Well, that certainly is one appraisal of today’s employment market.

But it’s “received wisdom.”

And like most received wisdom, it’s dead wrong.

In most cases, today’s most capable and talented people are not unemployed. Indeed, they are the ones who’ve held their jobs in the downturn. Moreover, they are the ones that all companies are depending on, and whom great companies have gone to great lengths to retain. And an aggressive retention strategy, when followed in good times and bad, is a historical pattern that great companies follow, particularly in tough economic times, to great effect. Indeed, great companies don’t just wait out downturns, they take advantage of them to position themselves for the inevitable recovery. (Inevitable? Yes, as Warren Buffet recently said, and I’d be a fool to disagree: “It is hard to ‘short’ the U.S. in the long term.”)

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not a Pollyanna. Certainly, great companies husband their resources in slow times. They flex in size to respond to market conditions. They do pare the size of their workforces to meet economic realities and make other moves to reduce costs and control expenses. But they take advantage of slow and difficult times to shrewdly, prudently optimize processes and procedures, and secure the services of the best people, so they are ready to leap forward at the first sign of opportunity. There is continuing and overwhelming evidence that great companies are undertaking these preemptive actions today. Why? Well, for starters, it’s a strategy that has proved very successful over the last 200 years or more. Moreover, attracting and retaining top talent is a de rigueur part of any route to survival, and its benefits are two-fold. First, obviously, you keep your key people (and retain all the resources you have put into training them and their institutional knowledge). But you also deprive your adversaries of the human resources that they can use to arm themselves against you.

Are you really prepared to gamble on a strategy that funnels your top people toward the exits and into the job market, knowing there’s a high probability your competitor will pick them up, give them a laptop and an Internet connection and say, “You have but one job, my son. Use your unique knowledge to crush your previous employer.” Believe me, there are many rusted, burnout hulks of companies along the road that didn’t believe in the “people” part of the success equation, made that gamble...and lost.

In another respect, the recession has likely done a big favor to great companies. It has thinned the herd of competitors whose vitality was based on the crest of the wave of a powerful economy’s demand for goods and services, and their availability in that seller’s market. That culling process was hard to do during the “boom,” because there was so much business to absorb. We have all heard over and over that in good times the simple fact of a company’s availability counted as much as their ability when companies shopped for vendors. You also know as well as I what these “also-ran” companies” look like and how they operate: They pay no attention to sound business fundamentals—whether it was debt, cash reserves, cost controls, the quality and appropriateness of hires or employee retention—as they work to achieve a “sugar high” that makes a couple founders and maybe some top sales guys briefly rich. Well, the current recession has created an acid test for them, and it has threatened their ability to survive. In many cases, it has already flushed the weak and poorly run companies out of the market...and out of your hair. (Survivors don’t question the hard-heartedness of evolution; they breathe a deep sigh of relief and resignedly say, Well, survival of the fittest is a constant, and who’s to argue with the course of nature!?) Given the market conditions that have set the newest paradigm in motion, companies that survive the recession can emerge with an overwhelming competitive advantage, if they paid attention to business fundamentals, which invariably include attracting and retaining, with appropriate investment, the right people.

If you are looking for evidence of this, consider the value, stock prices, and sustainability of companies that have shown a commitment to the people in the workforce through prescribed leadership and management behavior. Apple, Merck, Rubbermaid, SAS, and Southwest Airlines are shining examples of companies that survive tough times and come out the other end of the storms as dominant players with astounding competitive advantage.

Do you honestly think that these companies and others like them treated their top talent with disdain over the last two years? Or assumed that all the best people would stay simply because the job market tanked? Or behaved as though the economic catastrophe we have known over the last two years would last forever? If so, you have a fatal misperception of how companies work and what makes them valuable over time.

Indeed, these companies have recognized that there is always a market for talent. And just like a good real estate magnate who retains his legacy holdings during a recession, as he snaps up property to emerge twice as big and twice as strong after a downturn, these companies—when rich in foresight—snap up and secure talent to prepare to dominate.

The only remaining question is this: Will you dominate...or will you be the victim of companies far better prepared than you who mis-perceived the recession as a general buyers’ market for talent?

Your choice.

But let me tell you something, you better not have it wrong, fatally wrong.

There is old business adage and quotation, originated by Dale Carnegie, we all know: “When fate gives you a lemon, make lemonade”. Now I know some of you reading are saying, This Russo fellow is in an ivory tower somewhere, and I’m battling it out in the streets where different rules apply. I didn’t just get a lemon or two in this recession...I got lemons, delivered free, by the metric ton!

Fact is, I am not in an ivory tower; I’m a businessman who has firsthand experience with the behaviors of some truly great companies, and who—sticking to the principles in this book—has advised others on the benefits of proactive retention strategies. So I do understand the urge to panic. In fact, I embrace it.

Embrace panic?

Yes, and I do so with this quote from Thomas Paine’s The Crisis in mind: “Panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might have lain forever undiscovered.”

In an economic sense, without the presence of “panic,” it is less likely that the unworthy businesses are exposed, and the great companies are able to distinguish and separate themselves.

Now that’s lemonade!

So, how does this attracting and retention strategy work in the “real world,” in which organizations struggle to remain viable and significant in spite of problems, circumstantial or self-inflicted?

The writer of the Preface to this book is Robert “Rocky” Bleier. Rocky is a former, renowned National Football League running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the winner of four Super Bowl rings. What makes his willingness to do the introduction so special to me is not the fame that came with his football successes, his heroic effort in the service of his country, or that I can call him a friend. Instead, it’s the relationship of Rocky’s personal story, which is told in his own book, Fighting Back, to the story of a business that survived years of difficulty, lack of success, and subpar performance and evolved into an envied sports and entertainment franchise.

In the 38 seasons from 1933 through 1971, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League built an awful record of only 172 wins, 271 losses, and 18 ties. In all that time they had only 8 winning seasons and had never played for a championship, coming close only once—in 1936. Talk about a business that was deep in recession! But wait. In the 37 seasons since 1971, the Steelers have appeared in the NFL playoffs 25 times, have won 19 Division titles, 7 Conference championships, and a record 6 Super Bowl Championships.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are not the biggest nor do they have the financial resources of other NFL teams, but they are largely a family business that blossomed into greatness by embracing and investing in a philosophy of treating employees as family within a strong but flexible business model, as the organization set clear goals, gave clear direction, and mostly trusted in the talent it acquired to achieve success. Since 1969 the Rooney family, owners of the Steelers, has had only three head coaches for their team—Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin. They have not micromanaged the coaches; the coaches have, in turn, treated the players like adults, setting clear individual and team goals and high expectations for work, dedication, and behavior.

So how did this family-owned business, with no history of success, located in a blue-collar city with a struggling economy and a shrinking population, turn it around? They did it by selecting talent wisely, investing in that talent, modeling a philosophy and spirit of commitment and caring, and trusting that talent to perform to expectations. And while garnering success and being showered with rewards and accolades, the management treated those talented groups and individuals as if they truly mattered, were worthy adult professionals, were important, and counted. Sometimes this care was characterized with harsh realities of business and stark truthfulness, sometimes with tough love, but always with care and sensitivity to people. The Steelers didn’t become successful by disregarding the sense and sensibilities of their people, but by recognizing that talent is both the most valuable and the most vulnerable asset.

The example of the Pittsburgh Steelers is a microcosm of the macrocosm of how successful organizations deal with the current global economic tsunami and stand tall and strong when this stressor is recent history. In tough times great companies and companies that aspire to be truly great, built to last if you will, seek ways to build and capitalize on competitive advantage. And they recognize that people can and will be the greatest component of advantage.

I hope I’ve at least begun to convince you of the importance of talent retention...in good times and bad. And if you have stuck with this “Introduction” so far, I suspect you see the value of my approach. Believe me, I’ve been around enough to see good times and bad, and over the course of my years in business, it’s become clear to me that the companies that are successful in building large groups of committed and loyal workers, the best companies, the admirable companies, the companies with genuine esprit de corps, behave—in good times and bad!—in different ways than other organizations when it comes to handling the people they hire. As I watched and learned, I’ve recorded these behaviors and created tools, the “rules” referred to in the title, which virtually guarantee that the efforts, minds, and hearts of company’s employees are focused on the corporate mission and challenged with producing outstanding results and competitive advantage.

This book describes these rules, and they are rules that any organization—large or small, high or low tech, public or private, for profit or not for profit—can apply to its own infrastructure and behavior pattern to cultivate a group of hard-working, productive, caring, committed, aligned, and engaged employees.

I must warn you that the list is long. Some rules are so logical and easy to apply that they might seem almost too simple to be of real value. Others are difficult to apply and take a major and sustained effort to incorporate—and positive outcomes take time to surface. All require serious commitment and the absence of “back sliding” to make a difference.

But, breathe easy, my friends, because here’s something else I’ve learned from my interactions with stellar organizations that apply the rules scrupulously. To wit, although you must have an understanding and philosophical appreciation of all the rules, it is not necessary to apply every one of them, like following a recipe, to build a workplace that attracts and retains the best and most productive talent. Some rules are more easily adopted. Some provide more value to one organization than to another. Some require reallocating of resources; some are as simple as listening and being available. By and large, the ingestion of a “rules adoption cocktail” from what is advised in several of the chapters will go a long way to producing those committed employees. It can give your organization a running start; but remember, this is not a sprint—It’s a marathon! Are you ready to run with the leaders? If so, join me, and those great companies, and turn the page.

—DFR