The Happy Future Group

Why do great employees leave?

May 21, 2009

That is a question that I have found on the LinkedIn group “Executive Suite”.
I love those questions, because there is an army of consultants and specialists and experts showing off all they know, and their comments are incredibly detailed.
But the reality is much simpler. Employees, especially the great ones, do not leave the company, they leave their boss.
High turnover, especially of great employees, is the best indicator of poor management!
Many companies use the “grandfather” principle, but in reality, when there is a problem between the “father” and the “grand child”, grandpa almost always backs daddy, while the departure of great employees should tell him that daddy is being naughty, and daddy should be reprimanded. But that rarely happens, and the grandfather principle is kind of a joke, really.
But one thing is sure: when great employees leave, the average quality of what is left decreases, and the company is heading towards the ground.
I have seen that just too many times, in color, 3D and Dolby stereo.
The good thing about it is that companies who appreciate talent always win in the end!

Comments Off on Why do great employees leave? | Business Management, Happy at Work, Leadership | Tagged: Company Culture, Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Talent | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

What has happened to good old-fashioned headhunting?

May 18, 2009

The more I dig in the world of recruiting and hear from those many talented people who never seem to get any response from their applications, the more appalled I become!

In my view, the whole recruiting process is going in the wrong direction. Everything is set up to just provide companies with “adequate” candidates, but there clearly is no effort anymore to go find out that special someone who will really add competitive value to his/her employer.

I can understand that recruiters seek some help in technology, but only if it creates quality to the customer. What they are doing is adding cost savings for themselves as they do not even read resumes anymore but let the computer do the screening. The keywords matching will sort out who will pass and who will lose. This is sheer laziness and if you ask me, it is cheating the customer. What happens with all the very valid words that are in the resume but just are not the right ones? Bad luck my friend, you used the wrong word, and therefore you are a loser!

And the beauty of it all is that thanks to this “black hole” nobody will ever know that very solid candidates were wrongly rejected. That is the greatest CYA I can think of. And companies keep paying obscene fees to such charlatans in a time where they should cut costs by eliminating all the useless suppliers! Companies do not get the best anymore, they only get the luckiest resume owners.

In my life I have hired quite a few people, and the only few times that I did it through recruiters, it has always been disappointing. They never have been able to send people who had the right personality and solidity for the jobs I wanted to fill in. All the real talents I have hired I found myself and trained myself, with simply the most amazing results and a performance for the company that our competitors envied and our customers valued.

I believe that technology’s purpose is for people to do their work better, not just easier. I also believe that when technology replaces the people using it, then those people purely and simply have no function anymore. They are redundant and irrelevant. Recruiter, you are fired!

I believe that if the way of the future is to screen job applicants by a computer program, then companies can just as well buy the program and do the work themselves. After all, placing a job posting on Monster or whatever job website does not require a genius and the result will be the same.

As far as I am concerned, except for my first job, I never had to write and send a resume for any position I have held; and even for my first job, I had sent my resume while there was no job opening at that time. I guess that they hired me because they saw something in me. After that, all the jobs I have had have been offered to me or created for me. I wonder what my life would have been if they had had a computer keyword screening.

In the future, I see two groups of recruiting activities:

The real talent search, by this I mean looking and finding people who have above average abilities, will still be done by headhunters who will tap in their networks and actively work the field to find them one way or another. This will be a quality niche for quality employers. Talented people most of the time are passive job seekers. They are working, either employed or have their own business and can be attracted to another employer if this latter has matching values and offers a job at the level of those over performers.
The bulk or commodity job market, in which companies are not looking for superstars, but just adequate ones, as they are expendable. This market does not justify the level of fees that recruiters charge (but neither do real estate agents, to whom recruiters actually are quite comparable). Companies will have the computer program and will go “purchase” the average commodity, and will try to underpay them, as is currently the case already.

Here is a link to an article I found in the National Post that present the current situation: Losing the best: the technology trap in hiring

I really feel sorry for all those people who currently have to find jobs in a very difficult economic environment and who are treated with such little consideration and who have about no way to get around the modern practice of recruiting.

Comments Off on What has happened to good old-fashioned headhunting? | Business Management, Talent at Work | Tagged: Human Resources, Recruiters, Resume, Talent | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

Management & Leadership lessons from my dog – Part II: Recruiting the Boss

May 14, 2009

This is the second article from my dog Slider. This time she shares her views on how to recruit a proper boss.

Dear readers,

At first, I thought that I would deal with recruiting the boss in a similar way as bosses recruit their employees: by asking for a resume.

Unfortunately, this appears rather useless very quickly, as all the candidates refer to the same great things about themselves. They have had experience with or owned dogs in the past and they can walk on two legs! For how impressive their skills and experience are, for a simple dog like me, this is not convincing, and that by a long shot. It does not tell me much about their qualities as bosses and from my experience, I am more stable on four legs than on two, so that particular skill might even be overrated; and I, too, can do some impressive tricks.

Leading is not a given So, let’s forget the resume, as it not giving me the right information and let’s try to see if a personality test would work better. In my doggy world, we establish who the leader of the pack is in a very simple and primal way: the more dominant one leads. Could it be any simpler than that? Although we need to take a slightly different approach with people, establishing a relationship dog-boss follow a rather similar process. We will accept you as the boss only if you are able to earn our respect. Look around and you will see all those dog owners who failed to get to that point: they simply do not have us under control. We run away, we pull in a different direction than the one they want us to go to, or we are aggressive. In short, we behave badly. Well, that is from the boss’s perspective. For us there is another truth: we behave that way because we have no boss. There is no one we respect enough to follow, so we set our own course. Does that sound familiar to you humans? Interesting, isn’t it? We do not have the ability to do politics; neither do we have any awareness of our pedigree. Therefore, respect is about all we have. Also, remember that you do not spell respect F-E-A-R. If you lead us by fear, we probably follow because we prefer to avoid the consequences, but we will not like you, we will not respect you, and when the time is right, we will turn against you; unless we just become dysfunctional and neurotic, as I have sometimes seen.

Of course, there are those who think that buying us is enough to make them our bosses. No, it just makes them our owners. We do not feel too much for hostile takeovers. The merger and acquisition process needs to happen in a firm and effective manner. Of course, some bosses deal with the problem by getting rid of the “difficult” ones among us, but they probably will experience a similar situation with our replacements anyway.

To conclude, I will sum up like this. In order to be our boss, you must demonstrate that you indeed have the ability to lead the pack, which you only will do effectively by earning our respect. Being a two-legged creature or repeating us that you are the boss is simply not enough. Once you have earned our loyalty, you will be amazed by how much you will get in return!

Next time, I will return with Part III: Leading the Pack.

(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the dog only, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd, although they usually do.)

Comments Off on Management & Leadership lessons from my dog – Part II: Recruiting the Boss | Business Management, Dog Series, Leadership, Team and Performance | Tagged: Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, Performance, Resume | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

The only true Mission Statement

May 12, 2009

Nowadays, about every company has a Mission Statement. It has become part of the business culture and it is included in every business plan.
In many offices, you can even see it framed near the reception desk.
And yet, those mission statements, for as sophisticated as they may be, do not matter that much. OK, I already hear some denial, and I probably am just nothing else than an iconoclast.
Just ask your staff to tell you what the official mission statement of your company is, and you very quickly will see my point. Most employees, and that includes senior executives, simply do not know it! The reasons for that are many. The employee joined the company recently, there is a poor communication from the top, there is lack of interest for it, and in most cases: the statement is too long and too complicated to memorize.
Here is another disappointment for those who worked hard at formulating those magic words: your customers do not know your Mission Statement, either. Why? Because they care about their business first. Moreover, they have seen your Mission Statement in many variations at your competitors’ places, too.
Too many mission statements just sound all too familiar. They are all about your company being the first choice supplier of top quality that cherishes the customers to whom they add value, etc, etc.
When companies differentiate themselves in the same way, they just go back to square one: making themselves commodities.
So what is the only true Mission Statement? The answer is “To make money”! It is true, it is simple to remember by your employees, and the way to do it is to do all the right things right.
Simple, isn’t it?

Comments Off on The only true Mission Statement | Business Management, Competitors | Tagged: Business plan, Communication, Company Culture, Competitors, Management, Mission Statement, Profit | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

Tip: Make their day, they will make yours!

May 11, 2009

Here is a simple way to make yourself happy. If you do it only once, you will be happy for a little while. If you do it on a regular basis, the feeling will get much more permanent.

All you need to do is to give positive feedback or a compliment to someone when they do something that you appreciate. Of course, this works only if there is a genuine reason and if the compliment is genuine as well.
Flattery or hypocritical compliments will not have the same effect. Although it probably makes the person who receives it happy, it will not provide you with as much fulfillment as it does when it is meant.
For instance, this week I wrote a recommendation on LinkedIn about a former colleague. His reaction was quite positive and a few good things have happened since then.
An other example was yesterday: I went to a drugstore to buy something that I had seen on ad in their flyer. I could not find it and I asked an employee for help. He went in the back to see if they had any in inventory, which they did not and he offered me to write a rain check. He did this with so much professionalism that I was quite impressed. When I left, I had to compliment him on how helpful he had been. The smile on his face just made me feel really good about myself, too.
I made their day, and their response made mine as well. Even if it was about rather mundane stuff, the return was above any expectation.

So, go ahead! Give good people around you the genuine positive feedback they deserve when they do something right! It does not matter if it is in your private life or at work. You will feel great about it, and I bet that you will repeat it in the future.

Comments Off on Tip: Make their day, they will make yours! | Happiness Tips, Happy at Work, Leadership, Personal Fulfillment | Tagged: Communication, Fulfillment, Happiness, Leadership, Life, Positivity | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

How to be happy

May 11, 2009

A few days ago, I saw on CNN the title of one of the topics of the day: “What really makes people happy”. A whole program!
Of course, this being a dear topic of mine, I clicked on the link and read this article, written by a collaborator at the Oprah Magazine. If it is linked to Oprah, it has to be true.

Well, I read it, and like most article on the subject, it gives a number of examples of what makes some people happy. It also refers to some professor and some science about hormones, since we have to try to explain everything. It mentions the connectedness between people, and being involved in something bigger than yourself. To that, I yawned and said blah blah blah, because once you are finished with that article, you honestly have not learned much, if anything.

So here we are, with a bit of science, a bit of spiritualism, a bit of humanism, a bit of metaphysics trying to find the absolute recipe for happiness, the ultimate quick fix. And out there, you can find an army of people who try to sell exactly that. This is just like the get-rich-fast-and-safely non-sense. It does not really exist, and that is a good thing, because that feeling of earning what you have is so much more satisfying!

Happiness simply does not come to you that way!
In my life, I have helped many people to express their potential, I have opened their eyes, I have transformed their lives for the best, and I have made them achieve things that they did not even think they could ever do. And I have developed all those “techniques” on myself as well. Therefore, I know firsthand what works and what does not.
And here is the simple truth about happiness: there is no universal or absolute method on how to be happy. However, there are a few truths about the process of becoming happier.

Happiness is being in balance with yourself and your environment
balance In order to be happy, you need to know yourself. This sounds obvious, and yet because of lack of self-awareness, many people look for answers in all the wrong places, and can spend their whole lives being unhappy.
Then, you also need to know your environment. Who are your friends, your relatives, your colleagues, your neighbours. Do you really want them? Are they bringing you what you are looking for? Are you in the right place or do need to consider a change? And is that change about your environment or about you?

You must incrementally meet your needs and your values through action and objectives
Everyone has his/her very own and very specific cocktail of values, needs, desires, goals and dreams. It comes from their personality, their upbringing, their education, their social circle, you name it. This is why what makes one person happy does not necessarily bring any satisfaction to someone else. j0438395[1] The first step to increase your level of happiness is to identify the ingredients of that cocktail. The following steps are about setting targets on how to meet those values and needs more as time goes by. Trying to satisfy needs you do not really have, will not work on the long-term. Just look at a child at Christmas: the new toys are exciting the first day, a bit less the next day and soon they will be boring. The toys met a short-term desire, in most cases inspired by outsiders, especially marketers, but did not answer a true deep wish. And I am sure that you can find many similar examples of meeting the wrong needs. It might bring short-term satisfaction, because a nice surprise is always nice, but it will not last because it is not the right answer.
Having objectives, or you can call them wishes, desires, dreams, is of utmost importance to be happy. It gives a feeling of purpose to your life, and therefore to you! Objectives are powerful drivers to grow and gain wisdom. If you doubt this, just try to imagine having to spend the rest of your life with no goal at all. How does that idea make you feel?

This is not a passive process; you must have a plan, practice and train regularly
To do the above, nothing beats making a plan. It has to be a plan shaped around your values, in which you will determine your needs and set up a number of steps and set time lines to achieve them. happy
Happiness will not fall upon you per accident. If you want to be happy, you need to want to be happy. Nothing nice will happen to you unless you initiate the process and keep its momentum going.
Happiness will not stay with you, unless you nurture it. You have to work on being happy on an ongoing basis. If you stop your efforts, you will see your level of fulfillment drop over time. Being happy is an active process, and just like sport, your performance at it will decrease if you become complacent. And this is where so many fail at happiness: it takes discipline and persistence.
Happiness is not about being in a state of permanent bliss. It has its ups and downs. Being happy does not mean that you never experience negative feelings like disappointment or frustration. This happens, and it happens to all of us. But truly happy people know how to find the resources to overcome such negative feelings, to refocus on what will make them feel good, and take the proper action to correct that temporary setback.

So, now you know how it works. Have you noticed that I do not bring any explanation that involve money, religion, spiritualism, love, friendship, meditation, science or any of the so many terms that usually are used when talking about happiness. That is simply because they are all valid, but they are not all valid for all of us. Everyone must choose what works for them!

For those of you interested in the CNN link here it is: What really makes people happy

Comments Off on How to be happy | Happy at Work, Personal Fulfillment | Tagged: Dream, Fulfillment, Growth, Happiness, Needs, Negativity, Positivity | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

Management & Leadership lessons from my dog – Part I: Communication

May 11, 2009

Please allow me to introduce a very distinguished (as you can notice by the neck tie and the grey temples) guest blogger to present this topic: my dog Slider.

Studying Human Behavior

She has a proven track record of interaction with her peers and with her bosses and is highly qualified to talk about effective management and leadership.
In today’s article, the first of a series of 3, she will address the topic of communication between the boss and the followers. Here she comes:

Hello dear readers!

After years of interacting with other dogs and people, as well as by hearing the tone of my boss’s voice when he talks about managers and companies, I believe that our simple canine wisdom could be of great value for business leaders and leaders to be.

I now will review a few very important aspects of effective communication.

Call me by my name!
That is the most effective way for me to know that I am the one being talked to. Calling my name will get my attention, and then I am more inclined to listen to the order. People have this strange way of not calling each by their names that much, unless most of you are all called Hey? I do not know. I believe it makes communication a lot more effective. Moreover, it is super friendly to be called by your name. It gives you the feeling that someone cares about you.

Clarity
We, dogs, are not particularly sophisticated when it comes to read between the lines, so it is utmost critical that your message be very clear. If it is not, we will not understand it, and of course we will not do what you instruct us to do.
In order to be effective, just give us simple and short orders. In most cases just one word will do, like “Sit!”, “Stay!”, “Enough!” or “No bark!”.
The worst you can do is to start giving several orders at the same time, or gesticulate and shout, like unfortunately I have seen in many occasions. This just confuses us, and sometimes even freaks us out. We just wonder what on earth the boss’s problem is, and since we are not sure what s/he means, we just do nothing or do the wrong thing, which in turns seems to frustrate him/her. Poor communication. Not good.

Consistency
This is one of the most important aspect of effective communication. Remember we are simple beings and we need to be trained into patterns.
In order to be effective, your instructions must not leave any room for confusion. If one day, your order means one thing and the next day it means something else, do not expect us to figure out what it will mean. Then, we will act according to what we believe is requested from us. The sad thing is that we will be reprimanded, while you were the one who mixed up the message.
In the same area, your actions have to be consistent with your instructions. Just as an example, and you know we like to beg and try to get some treat from you once in a while and we can really cute at doing it. But, we also can understand “no!”. However, if you give us what we want once, we will expect you to repeat that. You create a pattern. Inconsistency will teach us bad behavior, begging is this case.

Patience
If you want to train us to do what you want, it might sometimes take some time. Sorry, but our brain is a bit small and before we get the message, we will need to learn from you.
Patience will be necessary for you, and if you want us to do what you instruct us to, you will need to repeat several times, and also send us the right feedback to let us know how we are doing.
Shouting at us will not really work, as we do not see this as the alpha way of communicating. In our world, this is more what the wounded weak dog does. All you will do with that is to scare and to confuse us. That will be your fault if we get stressed and neurotic. We will end up barking for all reasons and even become aggressive.
On the other hand, when you choose the right approach, your patience will be rewarded: we will become obedient and respectful, but neither stressed, nor scared.

Importance of body language
Sorry, but we are simple creatures, and we do not have much of a vocabulary. We just understand a few words. We are pack animals and most of our messages have to do with physical interaction.
In order to be effective in your communication, you will have to be short and to the point. Do not give us a long lecture, because we will lose focus after the third word.
To enhance your message, you will achieve a lot by combining short instructions with a clear and consistent body language. Do you know that you actually can lead us by only communicating with us in a non-verbal manner? This is true, and it is more powerful that all those long boring tirades we sometimes have to listen to, but we cannot runaway because we are stuck with that leash!
From our end, most of our communication is non-verbal. Therefore, you, as our boss, need to be able to read the signals that we send and deal accordingly and properly with them in order to lead the pack harmoniously!

Well, people, this is all for this time. I will return later with Part II: Recruiting the Boss.

(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the dog only, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.)

Comments Off on Management & Leadership lessons from my dog – Part I: Communication | Business Management, Dog Series, Leadership | Tagged: Communication, Leadership, Management | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

Happiness and IQ

May 11, 2009

Is there a correlation between happiness and intellectual capacity? I had to think about this lately, as I had posted a poll in the Mensa Yahoo! group of British Columbia.

bulb In my life, I have heard this question often and I also heard all sorts of answers, varying from one extreme to the other. Yet, there seems to be a majority of people who seem to think that intelligence is an impediment for happiness.
After all, even in the Bible, we can find a similar idea. One of the beatitudes says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.
Then, is it easier to be happy for the less bright ones? I will let everyone figure the answer that suit them, but here are my thoughts.

First, I would like to get back to the Mensa poll. For those who might know what Mensa is, Mensa is an organization that gathers people who are among the 2% highest IQ in the world; its purpose is quite noble, as it aims at using the members’ intelligence to improve the world we live in. I am quite glad that I passed the test, and moreover I have been a happy person for most of my life. After some time in that group and getting slightly annoyed by the pretentious and condescending attitude of some of the members, I decided just as a tease, but also out of curiosity, to post that poll, asking:

“Do you think that having a high IQ makes it:
A. Easier
B. More difficult
C. Indifferent for you to be happy?”

I was not surprised to see that a majority answered B to the question, although my poll certainly has no scientific value whatsoever. And that brought me to wonder what the advantage would be of being smart if its cost is not being happy.
Fortunately, there is no correlation between IQ and happiness. One is happy if one chooses to be so.

Only the ones who want to question everything and see the glass half empty all the time will not find peace, because there are plenty of reasons to find imperfections. Maybe, what makes some think that the simpler minds are more easily happy, is just the fact that they may spend less time trying to analyze every little detail and just enjoy thing for what they are.
However, this does not have to be limited to simple minds. People with high IQ can just do the same, all it takes is the right mind set. Even if you analyze things, that does not hinder you from seeing the good and the beautiful when it comes under your eyes.
I came to the conclusion that the unhappy “brains” probably just suffer from negativity and maybe of a lack of self-esteem, that brings them to focus more on the negatives than on the positives.

How sad is that, to have a great brain and use it in the wrong way? Well, who said that intelligence and high IQ were the same?

Comments Off on Happiness and IQ | Personal Fulfillment | Tagged: Intelligence, IQ, Life | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

The Resume Black Hole

May 11, 2009

Here is an article from The National Post by Cathy Graham titled The Resume Black Hole.
It sums up quite well how resumes are handled these days, and how job seekers are just treated as a commodity. So much for real talent search, just in case you believed there was such a thing.
It connects rather well with my previous post on this blog “Death of the Resume”

Comments Off on The Resume Black Hole | Business Management, Talent at Work | Tagged: Human Resources, Recruiters | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

Signs of a good company culture

May 11, 2009

You know what they say to job candidates: you have only one chance to make a good first impression! This is valid for a company, too.
Regardless of any PR work done or how well crafted their website might be, nothing compares with just the possibility of walking around and watching.

First, take a good look at the surroundings. Are they inviting? Is this a place where you would like to spend half the time that you are awake? If the place reminds you of a hospital or a prison, you probably do not want to work there, unless of course the place is a hospital or a prison.
Nothing spells sadness more than empty silent corridors with closed doors. A high-energy high performance place is alive. It is buzzing with people and communication, and generally most doors are open.
Another thing that catches my attention is the presence of those business posters on the wall. You know, the type that will celebrate the virtues of teamwork or of customer service. Unless they have been placed by the employees themselves, it might be a good indicator of the management style and communication style. Instead of leadership by walking around and frequent contacts, the company probably prefers totalitarian regime-like propaganda. Some of those posters are really pretty, though.

In Good Company Secondly, just observe the people. In the great places to work for, people exude happiness. They will smile at you in the corridors and they will say hello. Beware of the workplaces where you will not even get eye contact, forget about a smile.
A good place to go for a quick assessment of the culture is the water cooler/kitchen/coffee machine. When you pop in, watch what happens! In a good company culture, you can be sure that the employees present will look at you and greet you with a smile. If, instead, your arrival causes the voices to turn down or simply stop, with straight faces and an awkward silence, then you can be pretty sure that the discussion topic is not about how to beat last month’s results.
A brief chat with the employees will show you the company culture. In a good company, people are genuine and enthusiastic; when they talk about their workplace, you can see their eyes and faces come alive and do not be surprise if you have the feeling that they try to convince you that you should work there, too.

In a good company culture, everyone makes sure that the workplace is friendly and inviting. The main signs of a good company culture are happiness and absence of fear! And this describe exactly the “happy” (using vicious would be inappropriate) circle. Fostering happiness and fulfillment increases the commitment of the employees and their performance. They will go the extra mile for the company without asking anything (well not much) in return. They will not watch the clock to decide when to go home. They will leave when they have that sense of completed work. The absence of fear allows the employees to be more entrepreneurial and to dare more. This increases the performance of the company, reinforces its competitiveness and, success breeding success, this creates more happiness and fulfillment in the workplace. Full circle.

Comments Off on Signs of a good company culture | Business Management, Happy at Work, Leadership, Personal Fulfillment, Team and Performance | Tagged: Company Culture, Fulfillment, Happiness, Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Performance, Success | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

Can you save people from themselves?

May 11, 2009

This is one of the most fascinating aspects of personality. People tend to keep following certain patterns, even if it is clear to everyone else, and often to themselves, that their behaviour is playing against them.
Clearer Just as an example, I illustrate this with the warning on packs of cigarettes. You would think that the warning is crystal clear. Yet, it does not stop some from keeping on smoking, almost like it is a cure for cancer. They know it is quite unhealthy, but simply decide to ignore the warning.
However, I would not limit the description to just seriously addictive behaviors, because the “oops factor” covers many more areas.
For instance, there is the one who simply cannot keep his mouth shut when he should and end up saying something that will get him in trouble. Or the person in debt, who simply cannot resist buying more stuff with his credit card, while he should not. Or the daredevil doing silly stunts and ending up in the frequent patient program of the local hospital. We all know many similar examples of people not able to help themselves from getting in trouble.
So, what causes this? And how can we help others to break their patterns, thus bringing a positive change?
The cause very often lies in the inability of the individual to recognize the pattern he follows, and the consequences of it, or because the person thinks that it will all come out well in the end. This is very clear in the case of serious addictions such as drug abuse, alcoholism, smoking or gambling, but even the more mundane behavioral “masochism” we can find quite a few similarities with addictive urges. This lack of awareness, and sometimes denial of the problem, is quite difficult to tackle, because such a behavior is deeply rooted in the person’s unconscious. In most cases, this behavior is the result of habits that have been taken a long time ago without anyone acting by then to correct them. Over time, they have become part of the individual personality and considered “normal” by this person. Unless these people will come to the conclusion that they have a problem, they will not see any reason to act on it.
Just like with serious addictions, it will take a lot of patience and many hard facts to make the person realize what pattern he follows, and in some cases only a major shock such as an accident, a disease or the death of a close friend will be able to shake him enough to really decide to change.
It really is quite amazing how much easier it is to save someone from someone else, or from something, than it is to save them from themselves.

Comments Off on Can you save people from themselves? | Personal Fulfillment | Tagged: Intelligence, Life | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

About Talent and Prejudice… and a bit of Happiness

May 11, 2009

Today, out of curiosity, I went on YouTube to watch Susan Boyle. I had heard about her singing performance, but I had no idea what it was and whether she was good indeed.
What I have watched and heard on the video is simply amazing! Moreover, it immediately inspired me the title of this article.

First, about prejudice: When she introduces herself on the stage to the jury panel, all she met was skepticism, smirks and disbelief. Can you imagine? An unemployed 47 year-old who is not particularly blessed by her looks and does not wear fancy clothes. In the audience, you can hear giggles and laughter at her, as well as eyes rolling. The general thinking probably was “What a loser!”. Her slightly cheeky attitude was just adding to the comic perception. And yet…

Now about talent: It did not take Susan Boyle more than 3 notes to make them all shut up. The eyebrows rose, the jaws dropped and the mouths went silent. Just 3 notes to realize that all that her looks made people think were simply irrelevant, because that lady on the stage is simply something else. She has an amazing voice and she can sing. A whole bunch of pop divas who are all about cute and sexy should simply ponder about what their talent is about, because they not even remotely can compete with Susan Boyle.

Click here to view the video

Finally, about happiness: Her performance not only stunned the audience, but you could see on the faces, by watching at the throats and by the final ovation, that Susan stirred some really strong emotions. The listeners really experienced something deep and very positive. When you listen to her, you cannot keep on thinking about the little worries in your life. No, all the rest goes on stand-by, because her voice is too beautiful to be missed by insignificant details that can wait for later. Susan makes us happy because she is happy herself.

The great lesson that comes from this is that she did not doubt her abilities, even if she probably had to deal with people who judge her on the wrong parameters. She shows that when you have a dream (no pun intended with the title of the song), you must keep chasing it, regardless of what others might think or say, because if you persist long enough, it will come true. It also shows that talent is inside, that too many criteria used to judge are irrelevant because not aimed at the right thing, and that the critics should not jump to conclusions. One can only wonder how it is possible that people supposed to spot talent have been able to not notice her for so long!
Her performance truly touched me and this article is dedicated to her.

Thank you Susan!

Comments Off on About Talent and Prejudice… and a bit of Happiness | Personal Fulfillment, Talent at Work | Tagged: Dream, Happiness, Performance, Success, Talent | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

The meaning of life

May 11, 2009

Some subjects have the ability to keep you busy for a while. The title of this article is one of them.
The problem with it, though, is that the answer is really difficult to find and cannot be verified for sure. Depending on whether you are a scientist, a theologian, a philosopher or a hockey fan, the way you will answer this question will vary quite substantially.

The Meaning of Life

Therefore, this question remains mostly an intellectual exercise, which can be satisfying, but it lacks practicality.
Instead of tormenting oneself with the absolute answer that no one can find, maybe because there is no such absolute answer, this topic can be dealt with in a much more stimulating and practical way.
All you need to do is to slightly change the question, from “What is the meaning of life?” into “What meaning do I want to give to my life?”. This simple shift of scope can do wonders, and quite rightly so, because it now offers you the possibility to become your own Creator, thus shifting the scope of another difficult quest for absolute truth that has kept mankind busy for eons.

There are a few simple steps and simple things can help you creating a very meaningful life:

Identifying which values are really important to you.
Identifying what makes you feel alive.
Taking the initiative, instead of letting your environment make the decisions that will shape your life.
Persisting when you meet resistance.
Always identifying the positive signs and remaining enthusiastic.
Taking the opportunity to learn and improve.
Venturing out of your comfort zone.
Not being afraid of setbacks, as they are part of life anyway.
Making decisions and keeping moving on.

Giving a meaning to your life is all about pursuing fulfillment and finding gratification in your activities, and this as much in your personal life as well as in your professional life. If it happens to fill a universal significance, too, then that will be a nice addition. However, you must build your life for yourself first, because all that counts is that your life means something to you.

The worst thing would be a meaningless life, wouldn’t you agree? But that can happen only by waiting and not taking action. So, live, experience, try and share!

Comments Off on The meaning of life | Personal Fulfillment | Tagged: Fulfillment, Life, Success | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

Energizing frustrated employees

May 11, 2009

Here is one of my favorite ways to help the staff focused on work, and not get distracted for too long by the frustrations that their work sometimes causes them.

We had two main rules:
1) There had to be a good reason, as I had no interest to be disturbed for insignificant problems. After all, my staff had to be able to deal with most issues themselves.
2) They would make sure that I would be available at that very moment and, if not then, we would agree on a time to review the matter. “Can I come in and vent?” would be the password.

This technique has delivered wonders, and the funny thing about it is that in most cases I hardly had to say much at all. I just would ask a few questions about what, who, how, when or why and they would tell me all about the issue.
In most cases, they would know how to solve the problem that had arisen, but they actually were looking more for support and confirmation that they had the right solution in mind.

Back to Serenity This is just an example of how important presence and availability are in managing people. If you have done your hiring properly and brought in the right people in the right jobs, they will understand very quickly how to do what is expected from them and deliver the performance that meets, and in most cases exceeds the targets. The role of the manager in such a situation is a little comparable with a shepherd. You keep a good oversight of your troops, but if any one wanders in the wrong direction, you just bring him/her back on the right track.

Further, once people have vented, they can “breathe” normally again and they will get back to work, not only happier than before the session, but actually energized to go out there and deliver more results.

Comments Off on Energizing frustrated employees | Business Management, Happy at Work, Leadership, My True Stories, Team and Performance | Tagged: Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Performance | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier

Maslow’s pyramid and happiness

May 11, 2009

Happiness is a subjective feeling. What works with one person, does not necessarily work with another person. The answer to this “mystery” can be found in Maslow’s pyramid of needs […] Click here to read the entire article.

Comments Off on Maslow’s pyramid and happiness | Personal Fulfillment | Tagged: Happiness, Needs | Permalink
Posted by Christophe Pelletier