WHAT HE SAID: Celebrating Apple While We Draft Negative Press Releases About Great American Companies...

A reader writes in to respond to my post on Friday related to working conditions in China for the iPhone, and the inconsistency of celebrating Apple while you crush or wag your finger at American companies who come under EEOC scrutiny:

"Excellent point Kris, if I understand it correctly. Everyone's goo-goo ga-ga over Apple, even though people died to make those cell phones. Now I highly respect Apple, and you can't blame Apple for a societal/cultural issue. And like Richard points out they're changing lives and having a positive impact in China net/net. But the irony is that an isolated situation at Pepsi happened with regards background checks and they have to pay over $3 million, thanks to the EEOC, and people are acting like Pepsi isn't a diversity leader or hasn't made more women and people of color executives than almost any other organization. On top of that, I doubt the same people who preach about Pepsi needing to be held accountable would be willing to give up their i-phone to hold Apple accountable."

What he said.  I'm not preaching when I asked the question "Do You Keep Your iPhone if People Died to Make It?", and I'm not an activist for change in China.  What I'm saying is that everyone needs to keep American workplace struggles in perspective related to the global scene.  I own an iPhone, and changing to Droid wouldn't matter - it's made under similar conditions and circumstances.  

But - I'm more than a little jaded with an EEOC process that's now drafting press releases celebrating their victories over corporate American, and what this reader says is absolutely correct.  Pepsi's done a lot for the careers on ten of thousands of people across all Title 7 designations.  Yet we get a press release that celebrates none of that, inviting us to wag the finger at a great American company why we use technology that's built on the back of a society that's nowhere near as enlightened as our own related to building a progressive workplace.

Weak and an invitation for deeper thought and balance.  That's all I'm trying to say.  I don't expect anyone to give up their iPhone, but I think everyone ought to think critically about the comparison and at times, the irony.

As usual, my readers are smarter than I am.

RATIONALIZE THIS: Do You Keep Your iPhone if People Died to Make It?

I'm "up with people" today on a Friday.  I'm going to wave the flag a bit, because there are plenty of bashers related to the situation in the US on a variety of fronts.  Times are tough.  Companies don't treat workers the right way.  The EEOC is running active PR campaigns to publicize the companies they sue.

As a result of tough times, lots of people like to rage against the machine that is America.  Companies suck.  There's not fairness, no equity.

You know what I'm saying to the haters?  If you really believe that America doesn't do things the right way, you need to give up your iPhone.  Probably your Android as well.  

Why?  Because for all the drama in America, people generally don't die in our workplaces.  And why you're sniffing the marketing juice of companies like Apple and thinking they're above the fray, the bottom line is it's a lot more complex that we care to admit.  From the New York Times:

"In the last decade, Apple has become one of the mightiest, richest and most successful companies in the world, in part by mastering global manufacturing. Apple and its high-technology peers — as well as dozens of other American industries — have achieved a pace of innovation nearly unmatched in modern history.

However, the workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often labor in harsh conditions, according to employees inside those plants, worker advocates and documents published by companies themselves. Problems are as varied as onerous work environments and serious — sometimes deadly — safety problems.

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.

More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers’ disregard for workers’ health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning."

Tim Cook replied to this article with the following letter.  Go give it a read.  That article says what I've known for awhile, but most people are unaware of.  The conditions in China are horrible.  Apple and everyone else takes advantage of that supply chain with limited human rights.  It makes the American workplace look like heaven.

My point?  Fairness and equity in the workplace is complicated.  Hate the way things are going in America?  Like to hate how much power companies have?

Cool.  You ought to give up your digital device when you compare that to what goes on in China out of protest.

Last time I checked, that American low wage manufacturer or hourly retail shop that has low-end jobs didn't have suicide nets.  

Be consistent.

Rules Orientation: Does Your Candidate Need the Ops Manual or Would They Rather Wing It?

I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed. 
~George Carlin

Fight Club was the beginning, now it's moved out of the basement, it's called Project Mayhem. 
-Tyler Durden 

Does Your Candidate need the ops manual or would they rather wing it?

It's a more important question than you might think - I call the whole area "Rules Orientation", and it measures whether the candidate being measured seeks change or stability, needs rules to cope with the world around them, or has the ability to adapt to situations on the fly.

High rules people dig structure.  If you're a freak show of a company, be careful.  The high rules candidate belongs at a utility, or in a position where it's all mapped out.

Low rules people are down with the sickness - they love the chaos.  Having no set plan to deal with what they're encountering doesn't bother them - they'd rather be in control of what the situation will become.

You can ask a low rules person to help you build the Operations manual that the high rules people need.  They'll enjoy that process, but be prepared - they'll be ready to bolt as soon as you start holding them accountable to following the manual.  It doesn't matter that they wrote it, they need change.

Don't treat a high or low rules candidate like you would anyone else.  They have different needs, and if you mismatch them to the opportunity in question, you'll have churn within a year.

HR CAPITALIST/FOT WEBINAR: Figuring Out How to Recruit Using Facebook....

Marylin Delpy: The site got twenty-two hundred hits within two hours? 
Mark Zuckerberg: Thousand. 
Marylin Delpy: I'm sorry? 
Mark Zuckerberg: Twenty-two *thousand*. 
Marylin Delpy: [to herself] Wow. 

That's a line of dialog from the movie "The Social Network", which details the rise of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook from the campus of Harvard to its ultimate position as the leading social play in the world today.

With a little under a Billion (that's right, 1 Billion, not million) members, it's pretty obvious that most of us need to know more than we do about how to recruit using Facebook.  So, with the help of my friends at Fistful of Talent (my multi-contributor blog), we've put together a great webinar Webinar on how to recruit using Facebook.  We call it: Social Recruiting MacGyver Style! No Money, a Paperclip and Facebook – all a Real HR Pro Needs to Recruit.

Register Today by Clicking this link and completing the form…

Join your hosts (Tim Sackett and me) on February 2, 2012 for this one-hour webinar and we’ll hit you with the following Facebook-centric items:

• Where is social recruiting heading, and why do you need to care as the HR rep of your organization?
• How a 1-2 person shop can compete in social recruiting (with no money, a paper clip and Facebook…)
• Understanding the difference between Facebook Pages vs. Profiles and how it drives your Facebook recruiting strategy
• How to use rarely understood tools like Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Pay-Per-Click Ads to drive Facebook candidates to your open positions
• How to use Facebook search features to locate candidates on Facebook and contact them without looking like a stalker

Still not convinced this is worth your time?  Register today and we’ll send you a special FOT toolkit – “How to Find and Contact Candidates on Facebook without Looking Like a Stalker” once the webinar is complete.

Facebook.  The Capitalist. FOT.  MacGyver.  What could go wrong?

Register today by clicking here!!

Don't Send Me Your Kid and Expect Me to Fix The Big Problems....

Let's start with a quote:

"Baseball's hard, guys. I mean, it really is. You can love it but, believe me, it don't always love you back. It's kind of like dating a German chick, you know?"  Name the movie and win a free subscription to the Capitalist (wait - you already have one)

I have kids.  Those kids play sports.  I serve as a volunteer coach and board member for the local baseball league because I'm community-minded and a masochist.   It's sign-up time, which means that the parents are signing up their kids and using the registration process to make requests and generally try and fit the kid's baseball schedule into their schedule.

Common requests:

-"Please try and put Jimmy on Tyler Durden's team.  We know the Durdens and will be car pooling with them.  Thanks!"

-"We had a bad experience with Coach Ditka last year.  He seemed a bit too intense for 8-year old baseball.  Please make sure that Jimmy doesn't end up on Ditka's team."

-"We love Coach Dunn.  If there's any chance Jimmy can play on Coach Dunn's team again, that would be great."  (My Favorite!)

But... Every once in a while, a request sneaks in that makes you go "wow".  I saw one of those this week.  Here it is:

-"Please put Bobby with a coach that will be firm with him and also gets results."

I read it a couple of times.  It bothered me more each time I looked at it.  Here's what it said to me about the parents, their responsibility related to their son's behavior and their expectations related to their son's skills.  All have workplace tie-ins:

1.  I know our son has some problems.  We can't control him with the 24 hours we have with him, but we expect you to.

2.  If things go horribly wrong on the field, we expect you to deal with it.  We won't help.  We'll be watching, but don't expect us to snatch him off the field for acting like a fool.

3.  Our son's never been held accountable at home.  Good luck sucker.

4.  By the way, we haven't done everything we need to as parents, but we expect results from you as a coach.  We'll be the first ones to be critical of you losing a bunch.  That's part of our results orientation.  Not for our family, but for others.

How do you think it's going to go for Bobby in the workplace?  

Right....  Pass on Bobby in the draft.  I am Morris Buttermaker.

Tim Sackett Is Most Definitely Rocking The Suburbs (#timsackettday)

"I got sh*t running through my brain 
So intense that I can't explain 
All alone in my white boy pain 
Shake your booty while the band complains 

I'm rocking the suburbs 
Just like michael jackson did 
I'm rocking the suburbs 
Except that he was talented" 

Those are select lyrics to "Rockin the Suburbs" by Ben Folds Five.  They're also my setup to introducing what today means to me.  

Today is Tim Sackett day.  Tim Sackett IS HR.  He's done HR for a hospital and Applebees.  He runs a recruiting shop now.  He's got a blog that's aptly named The Tim Sackett Project.  Problem is he can't make a list of the most influential people in HR.  So a bunch of bloggers are getting together and dedicating this Monday to him.  It's kind of like the SOPA protest, except the stakes are incredibly low.  We just want the world to know that Tim counts.  

Tim's wife sent me a photo of him awhile back for a post on his birthday.  Let's examine the photo to the right and break down why Tim has influence in the world of HR:

Hair - Tim's gone to the buzz cut.  He's clearly given up, like my late Grandpa Harry, who used to take a nap on the floor during a lunch break from work due to his bad back.  I used to rub that hair as he tried to sleep on the floor and I would marvel at how bristle-ly it was.  If I ever meet Tim face to face, I'll be reminded of Grandpa Harry.  Cool.

Travel Preference- Let's just say Tim's not cosmo enough to have a Eurorail pass.  He's in Vegas in this picture, like every other 40 year-old you know, so that's not Paris in the background.  If we swung the camera to the right, we'd probably see his Entourage-like posse, except the recruiters who work for him would be standing in for Eric, Johnny Drama and Turtle.  They didn't have a choice, Tim made them come, and he calls the shots at HRU.   That's what you do when you're old, Gex X style.  You find some Gen Y types to boss around; that and wonder when boomers Bill Kutik, John Sumser and John Hollon are going to retire so you can take your rightful place in the talent world's Hall of Superheros. 

Camera-Strap - Seriously, can you get any more white, 40 and midwestern?  Again, he's given up.  Why even bother to hide you're a tourist when you are 40+ and visiting the Strip?  He'll have the strap in the same place when he hits the $5 tables downtown later.  He'll tell you that's the "real" Vegas, to show his Mikey from Swingers sensibility.  He'll soon be playing alone at those tables, since he'll repeat the six Oceans 11 quotes he knows repeatedly, even driving off the grandmas who think he looks like their son.

Buffet-Pass- Look at his left hand.  He's bought a 3-day buffet pass so he doesn't have to deal with the stress of trying to get comped at the $5 tables downtown.  Not before he went to check out the buffet visually, however, just to make sure there was banana pudding on the bar.  He's adamant about that. That's why he's the boss.

Happy Tim Sackett day, Timmy.  God bless the saint known to the world as Kim Sackett.

Uncle John Sumser: Please end our national nightmare and make Tim Sackett #25 on a future list.  We beg you.

Did Heartbreak Ridge Teach Us Anything About Low Performing Teams?

Do low performing teams aspire to be more or are they just a bunch of slackers?  Capitalist reader Scott chimed in on a comment thread with the following observation:

"There are two movies that kind of touch on this subject. "12 OClock High," which is an old WWII movie about bomber pilots, and Clint Eastwood's "Heartbreak Ridge." They kind of have the same plot -- under-performing group is perceived to be of lesser quality than another group. Demanding manager moves in. Temporary chaos and disgruntlement is replaced by sense of pride in ones work.

I think even among slacker business units people want to be successful. They aspire to more. In my experience people are more interested in "fair" than "nice." Though you don't have to be mean to be fair. You may see slacker's vote for perceived slackers in unskilled jobs (I'm guessing 16 year old movie theatre ushers aren't as interested in being driven to excellence as someone with a mortgage and a family may be), but I'm thinking you will consistently see the interactive managers who expect and deliver favorable results from and to their teams getting the winning votes once you get beyond that level."

For the kids reading this blog, check out the movie "Heartbreak Ridge" for a primer on what Scott's talking about.  I've added a clip for you to take a look at at the bottom of this point (email subscribers click through for that), but here's what I learned about low performing teams from watching Gunny Highway (the new leader) and the platoon in Heartbreak Ridge:

1.  Low performing teams initially try and drive away any leader who expects more.

2.  It takes a tough SOB to fight through that and not give up as a leader of a low performing team.

3.  The work units around the low performing team want the low performing team to suck.  It makes them look better.

4.  The new leader has to show a little compassion for the personal lives of the low performing team to really break through.

5.  The new leader has to fight for his team, and at times fight his team, to break through a culture of "sucking".  

6.  The new leader has to box in his team constantly, consistently and in many different ways to get a breakthrough.

7.  Once the team has success, the leader has to do a lot less.  The breakthrough means the formerly low performing team will start policing themselves.

The movie is an interesting take on acquiring a low-performing team.  It takes leadership to pull a low performing team out of the funk, but it can be done - it just takes tons of focus.  

Take a look and rent the whole movie sometime soon.  Lots of leadership lessons from Gunny Highway.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: Be Willing to be Fired as an HR Leader for What You Believe In...

Here's an interesting snippet from a conversation I had recently.

My Friend:  "Wanted to get your take about the following.  I've heard people say that if you are not willing to be fired as an HR Leader for what you believe in, you're probably not doing your job.  Thoughts?"

Wow.  That's loaded.  First up, having courage to say what you believe in, point out what's wrong and walk if you don't get your way isn't a bad thing.  I get it.  It's good to say and if laws are being broken, it could certainly be someone's reality.

But... A big part of me believes if it comes to that, you may have been lax in your ability to build your influence in the organization across time.  Do you simply say what's wrong and demand change?  What about the 1000 other gray-area things that came up with your business partners over the last couple of months?  Did you find a way to be flexible and get their needs taken care of without being a bureaucrat? If you would done more of that over the last year, wouldn't you have the influence necessary to leverage those in question to get change without threatening to quit?

Good to say you'll quit when things look wrong.  Sadly, you've got some responsibility in the lead up to that inflexion point.  

It's never that simple.  I'm out.

More on "Questions to Ask To Figure Out Who Owns Your Culture"....

Yesterday, I posted on How to Figure Out Which Managers Are Net Positive to Your Culture in 1 Question...

Pretty good challenge or food for thought came in from David in the comments of that one.  Check it out:

"Kris - Won't the answers to this be dependent on the existing culture? If the organization is filled with "slackers", aren't they going to pick someone who they perceive will allow that to continue?

And also somewhat subject to the halo effect? Human nature attributes positive factors to successful performers, whether they actually have those attributes or not. I think this bias would enter into the results."

My take - bias is always at play, but in my experience using this question, employees will tell you what they aren't getting enough of with their answers, and it almost always centers around things you and I consider to be critical in building a strong organizational culture - items like the manager taking the time to deliver feedback, spending time on the development of the employee, standing up when necessary for the employee/department, shooting straight and being honest with the employee, limited political game playing on the part of the manager, etc.

You know - things that show leadership and empathy, all with an employee-centric approach.  The employee is really saying what they don't get enough of with their current manager with this question.

I thought David's question was good, but I've always seen it go the other way - the employees tell you who's doing things very, very well.  People talk, people know.  If you have more than 15-20 managers in your unit, ask the question - you'll almost always get some surprises....

 

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How to Figure Out Which Managers Are Net Positive to Your Culture in 1 Question...

Capitalist Note - re-running this favorite since many of us are still in the planning stages for the new year regarding the best way to evaluate and improve lots of things - including culture.  Don't overthink the questions and tools at your disposal... see comments for more gold....

There's lots of talk about how to build the best culture possible at your company.  Regardless of how you define your culture, you can figure out what your team members really think, and what they want culturally by asking the following question:

"If you could pick any manager (other than the one you're working for) in the company to work for (regardless of functional area), who would it be and why?"

It's a no BS question on what people want out of your company. Culture isn't defined by workspace, by free lunches/soda or by the stuff you put in the onboarding packet.  Those things help to attract and are nice to have, but they quickly become entitlements.

You are not the car you drive.  You are not your khakis.

You lose control of your culture once your managers take delivery of talent in the new hire process.  At that point, an employee's experience with your culture is heavily influenced by their day to day interactions with their manager.

"If you could pick any manager (other than the one you're working for) in the company to work for (regardless of functional area), who would it be and why?"

Ask the question.  My bet is if you do it and review the results in a group of manageable size, you'll find some common names popping up all over the place.  Employees talk.  They know who's good with people, who's fair and who has a nice balance between business results and development of team members. 

Ask the question, and then look at the names that come up repeatedly.  Look at their style and philosophy, then figure out how to push, prod and train your other managers to embody some of the qualities you identify.

The question doesn't lie, and it releases the employees responding from saying, "I'd take my manager"...  Because we all know that's the politically correct answer.

Ask the question.

The Top 100 Movie Quotes for HR Pros: #84 is "Next Question" (Drew Rosenhaus)...

New series at the Capitalist: The Top 100 Movie Quotes of all time for HR Pros.  In no special order, I break down the 100 movie quotes that resonate most for me as a career HR pro.  Some will be funny, some will be serious... Some will tug at your heart like when the Fox voice-over guy said, "Tonight - a very special episode of 90210"... You get the vibe... I'll do it countdown-style like they're ranked, but let's face it - they're ALL special..

#84: "Next Question""...

--Drew Rosenhaus, uber-agent and Terrell Owens apologist

OK - it's not a movie quote, but as quotes on video go, it's one to remember for sure.  Drew Rosenhaus is a sports agent.  His clients do dumb things.  He knows that it is better that he serve as the spokesperson for them rather than let them talk, even when they're standing behind him.

You - the HR pro - also have to speak on behalf of those who can't be trusted with the microphone.  One key thing to remember is that sometimes you don't want to answer the questions you hear.  While you can't be as direct as Drew, "next question" is a good thing to remember.

Kris, how did you feel about your manager running through all the training you provided, the legal issues and doing what they wanted anyway?

KD - "Next question"...

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Pepsi and the Art of Criminal Background Checks...

Here's where the moderate republican comes out in me... emphasis on moderate...From the Washington Post:

"Pepsi Beverages Co. has agreed to pay $3.1 million to settle federal charges of race discrimination for using criminal background checks to screen out job applicants — even if they weren’t convicted of a crime.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is working to crackdown on hiring policies that can hurt blacks and Hispanics, said Wednesday that the company’s policy of not hiring workers with arrest records disproportionately excluded more than 300 black applicants. The policy barred applicants with arrest records even if they had never been convicted of a crime, and denied employment to those arrested or convicted of minor offenses.

Using arrest and conviction records to deny employment can be illegal if it’s irrelevant for the job, according to the EEOC, which enforces the nation’s employment discrimination laws. The agency says such blanket policies can limit job opportunities for minorities with higher arrest and conviction rates than whites."

I've never been at a place where you used anything other than hard convictions, so I agree that Pepsi had to do some work here (moderate).  But, a conviction is a whole other level, and I'd defend the company's ability to use that in a variety of ways when considering candidates (Republican).  Isn't that common sense?

Important to note on this one that it only affects 300 candidates, and Pepsi has to see tens of thousands of candidates annually.  This is an example of someone making a de-centralized decision - poorly.  It doesn't mean Pepsi isn't a great employer.

It also might be an example of a HR pro in the field who couldn't stand up and say "no" to operators who wanted to do what they wanted.  Oops.

Live and learn.  Email this to people who want to use anything and everything on the background.  

Don't Think Googling Candidates is Fair? A Cautionary Tale...

I know, I know.  I should be concerned about Googling candidates.  After all, as many of you have pointed out to me, there are privacy issues, and dammit, what a person does elsewhere in their life shouldn't matter if they can do the job.

So, I Google anyway, and many of you disagree.  I'm a pig - I'll own it. There's just this little thing that I can't get over.  YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR KNOWING EVERYTHING YOU CAN KNOW ABOUT PEOPLE YOU BRING INTO THE COMPANY.  And if you don't know things you should, you'll suffer the consequences.  Consider this cautionary tale via a conversation I had with an executive friend at another company:

KD: Rob, what's up?

Rob: KD, you'll never believe what just happened.

KD: Educate me, brother.

Rob: We had a Controller candidate in today.  I was the last guy up to interview him, and I had a resume, but I had a couple of minutes before the interview and no time to start anything else.  So I Googled the guy...

KD: <Bracing for contact> And?...

Rob: Turns out the guy was embroiled in a Sarbanes Oxley cluster scandal at his last company. First Google entry returned when I pressed "search".  WTF?  So I march down to the guy who's running the search, and say, btw, did you bother Googling Finklestein?  The guy tells me no, and since it's a retained search, the big search firm is responsble for fully vetting, etc.  I tell my guy that he might want to Google Finklestein.  He declined, but I insisted.  So he did and within 15 seconds let out a noise like he had just been kicked in the groin by a pointy-toed country western boot.

KD: Wow.  What happened then?

Rob: The candidate was intereviewing with the CEO.  My guy calls down to see where it's at and is informed that the CEO requested another hour because it's going so well.

KD: Ouch.

Rob: The lesson my Capitalist friend?  Always Google before you buy that plane ticket for the candidate.

If I was defending the right to Google candidates in a court of law and told that story, I'd drop my microphone for dramatic effect after sharing that knowledge, like Randy Watson of the band Sexual Chocolate, leaving the stage in Coming to America.

Just Google people.  Decide how you bring it up later.

Should You Hire People Based on Puzzles, Riddles and Other Trendy Tricks?

You've seen the questions.  How much wood would a woodchuck code if a woodchuck could sling code?

Or some S*## like that.

Google and some other trendy companies are famous for having riddles and complicated brainteasers as a part of their hiring process.  The theory goes that the answer is less important than the thought process behind how a candidate articulates his/her answer.

I'm immediately thinking of a scenario where a kid who has 2 years of jujitsu at the local strip mall squares up on someone, then the other kid kicks him in the groin.  What's the point?

Here's some reason from another source in the tech world - 37signals:

"I’ve rarely heard a kind word about the parlor tricks of programmer hiring, but I’ve heard plenty of scorn. There’s certainly a minority of puzzle solvers who love to get their fancy tickled like this, but I sure wasn’t one of them and neither have most programmers I’ve met.

I’ve known fabulous programmers flame out in the quizzing cage and terrible ones excel. So unless you’re specifically hiring someone to design you the next sorting algorithm, making them do so on the white board is a poor gauge of future success.

The only reliable gauge I’ve found for future programmer success is looking at real code they’ve written, talking through bigger picture issues, and, if all that is swell, trying them out for size."

Interesting take.  Everyone knows candidates who can interview their ass off, only to struggle in the role.  So you need more tools, and the puzzle/braintease is one of those.  But the 37signals post is really pointing to an area that most of us never ask for.

Let me see some work product you did in your last job.  Let's dissect that project for an hour.  If you're not exhausted mentally after you break that down, you've probably accepted glittering generalities in the answers that sound great, but don't mean anything.

Or you could ask them how many manhole covers there are in San Jose.  Your choice.

The Motivational/Performance Difference Between Batman and Superman...

A classic quote from Sports Illustrated on confidence:

"Greg Harden, a long-time employee of the Michigan football program who advises and counsels Michigan players, says Drew Henson (the favored child who competed with Tom Brady for the Michigan quaterback job before Brady became a megastar) was like Superman, Tom Brady was like Batman.

Batman doesn't have any superpowers, but as Harden says, "Batman believes he can whip Superman's ass."

Pretty interesting quote on confidence.  Read the whole article on who Tom Brady was before stardom here.