You think the world isn't global everywhere?  You better think again - this picture I snapped reminded me of the reality over the weekend:

That's right - a pickup truck in Birmingham, AL.  You expect the small decal on the back windshield - a Jeff Gordon NASCAR sticker.  What you don't expect is a donkey-sized Manchester United sticker, and you especially don't expect both together.  

But that's the world your employees see these days.  A pickup.  NASCAR.  Premiere League Soccer.  +whatever else they sprinkle in from a shrinking globe fueled by a 24/7, always on media world.

Look at the stickers in your parking lot - you'll probably see some surprises.

Check out the chart below as Exhibit A:

Change and taking risks is difficult. Of course, if you don't have the right number of people in your organization who are comfortable asking "what's next", it's going to catch up with you.

Raise your hand if you thought in 2001 that AOL's sub base would decline by 90%.  Anyone?

They didn't think so either.  They undoubtedly had opportunities in hundreds of areas, including broadband and video. They stuck with dial-up. Ugh.

More from Dan Frommer at Splat F:

At the end of March, almost 2.7 million people still subscribed to AOL service, the company reported this morning. That’s about where Netflix stood at the end of 2004.

Since then, Netflix’s subscriber base has grown — 29 million at the end of March — and AOL’s has declined at a remarkably parallel rate. But that makes perfect sense: Nothing says “dialup” more than AOL, and few services have benefited more from the growth of broadband than Netflix. (The paths cross in early 2008, just as Netflix’s streaming video service was starting to take off

• Worth noting: Netflix now has more subscribers than AOL ever had. (The distinction changed hands late last year.) This makes sense, given the rise of mobile devices, cheaper computers, connected videogame consoles/TVs, and just the increasing popularity of the Internet, thanks to broadband.
• Worth pondering: What will eventually cause Netflix’s decline? Missing the next era of Internet technology? (Something mobile-first or mobile-only?) Internal crumbling? Or are Netflix’s best years just getting started?

Andy Gove once said, "Only the paranoid survive.".  I like that.

Fire a change-blocker today.  Include the AOL chart with the documentation you do on the term.

Hey Age-Related Protected Class People...

Yeah - you.  Especially those of you that are hiring lots of young professionals and manage people.

Do you know how to use a hashtag on social properties like Twitter and Instagram?  In case you didn't realize, Instagram is the new Facebook for the young guns.  And hashtags, introduced originally by Twitter, play in heavy rotation on most social properties.

Figure out what a hashtag is here.

It might be your chance to connect and act like you know what you're doing.  Or it might make you look so old that even Kevorkian wouldn't take the case.

Here's an appropriate use of hashtags by Kliff Kingsberrry, head coach at Texas Tech.  Observe and learn:

Hashtags can be used even in formal communications these days, as shown above.  Of course, to properly use hashtags in formal communication, you probably need to be active on social and properly mixing your work and personal activities in broadcast mode on the platforms.  Get started, Marge.  Take a flier, Henry.

#getwiththeprogram

#donttellmetogetoffyourlawn

#lookyoungerthanyoufeel

#supriseme

Capitalist Note - On the road talking to some folks about Performance today. Reminded me of the question asked in this post title, and the comments are probably better than the post.  Enjoy...

A sharp reader named Amanda writes:

"If you're a strong manager who regularly provides feedback and coaching, and you aggressively manage poor performance (either to improvement or out of the org), then why should it be impossible for you to have a team of strong to high performers? Furthermore, why wouldn't a company want that for all their teams?"

Which begs the question - why do companies stack rank performance and poison so much water?

The answer is pretty simple - most managers can't, won't or aren't boxed in enough to do what it takes to aggressively manage performance.  So poppa (the company) has to come in and say the following:

"We haven't trained you as a manager to truly manage performance on your own.  And you know what?  Even if we did, you'd avoid doing what's required because there's a bunch of daily straight talk involved.  So here's what we're going to do - rather than us training you and then you throwing away all that training because it's human nature to avoid confrontation, we're just going to have you rank your employees 1 through 10.  We may fire #9 and #10.  That's all you have to do - see you in December for that, right around the holidays.  Please go back to avoiding tough conversations."

Companies stack rank because it's the path of least resistance, the lowest common denominator for what needs to be done.

Amanda's one of the good ones.  The problem is most people won't do what she suggests.  Enter the stack rank.

You're a manager of people.  Somebody on your team is just muddling through, meeting expectations and basically doing average work.  They're capable of more.  They don't seem to be feeling your "up with people" or "A-player" only vibe.  

You're telling them what great performance looks like in multiple areas. You look across the table and all you see is a zombie who's wondering what the special is at Buffalo Wild Wings at lunch. You've become Charlie Brown's teacher - that's what they hear when you talk.

What do you do?

You're only shot is to tell them what's in it for them if they chase the higher performance level you're promoting. What do they get if they chase that? That's what you have to figure out and promote.

It's a problem of motivation.

Figure that out and properly position it - and you have a chance to get better performance.

If they're still not responsive, you've got a ditch digger.  And the world needs ditch diggers too.

But do you need a ditchdigger?  That's another post for another day.

A lot of you know who Seth Godin is - blogger, author, marketing thought leader, blah/blah/blah.

He's known for quippy, quick posts.  Like anyone else who writes daily, sometimes they're gold, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're "meh".

He nailed it today talking about companies and organizations either being "battleships" or "Blueberry pancakes."  See the whole post here.

The comparison makes for a good question for HR leaders - are you building a battleship or a blueberry pancake?  Here's some of the difference per Godin:

"The typical industrial-era organization is like a battleship. Hundreds or thousands of people onboard, and most of them are essential--but most of them aren't actually directly responsible for the work that we hired the battleship to do. Without the fuel people, the navigation team, the folks in the med corps and on and on, it doesn't work.

One more thing about the people on the battleship: just about everyone has a punchlist, an itemized inventory of what they need to get done. And many of them are rewarded for doing that set of tasks more efficiently, more elegantly and with better quality than expected. Great people means the system works even better, but it's designed to survive with people who are merely good at what they do.

The typical professional services company, on the other hand, is a lot like a blueberry pancake. While there's an essential support team, the firm is all about blueberries working in parallel. Each blueberry can work independently, and sometimes they even work on projects that might have conflicting outcomes or views of the world. I don't care how many people report to you. I care about how connected and how brave you are.

As the firm gets bigger, it doesn't get thicker. You don't make a better pancake by making a thicker one. You make a better pancake by hiring ever better blueberries."

And, as you might expect, Godin provides more fodder for why most companies (and I'm saying HR practices) don't center they're strategy around the latter - blueberries:

"And, as you've guessed, most of the blueberries don't know exactly what they'll be doing in six weeks, and most don't work from a manual about the industry's best practices on how to do what they do. It's hard to measure blueberries, but a talented and motivated one can also change the world."

Which brings to mind this important point for HR leaders - even if you have to build a battleship to get things done, you ought to always have and protect talent that is like the blueberry Godin references.

Blueberries don't want to serve on a battleship. But if you protect them and give them the right environment, they'll be part of your team anyway.  

You want candidates who are passionate about what they do for a living, don't you?

Of course you do. But passion for a profession is tough to get a grip on.  Find out whether the people you are interviewing have passion for what they do (or are simply paying the bills) through some of the following interview strategies:

1. Ask candidates how they stay up to date in their field.  If you see a glut of reliance on professional training and formal activities that happen in company time, you're probably not dealing with passion.

2. Ask a candidate to give you a big question in their field they'd like to solve and why. Ask them what they've done related to starting to figure out the answer.  Probe hard on the answers they give.  See any creativity?  You might have passion.  See lots of glittering generalities?  That's fake passion. 

3. Ask a candidate how they find others in their profession to connect with, and how often they connect with others in their field outside their company.

What do they talk about?  What type of information is exchanged? How have those connections helped them?

4. Ask Motivational Fit questions - When have your been most satisfied in your work at Company X?  Least Satisfied? If the answers show a consistent theme of talking about BS factors rather than a clear line towards being able to do interesting work related to their field, it's hard to project them as passionate in their field.

And no Skippy - passion for something that's not work related doesn't count for you as an interviewer - it's nice to know you run marathons, but it has no impact on things that emulate from passion for the profession - continuous improvement, innovation, etc.  It does tell me you're not going to cost a lot for healthcare, though.  Thanks!

Start asking questions that give you line of sight for professional passion on your candidates. No fake passion or passion that doesn't produce results.

Or just keep looking for people that want to make the donuts and go home.