You Can't Send A Duck To Eagle School

I was idling along, doing some much neglected work on my computer the other day, when a friend of mine emailed me to tell me about a great website that she had come across which offers inspirational books and dvd's.  It is called simpletruths.com and as I was having a quick look around their site, I came across a dvd with a title that piqued my curiosity. It was called "You Can't Send A Duck To Eagle School".  Needless to say, this totally captured my imagination and so I took a closer look.  Apart from the entertaining title, this short movie talked about the importance of "hiring right" and I couldn't agree more.

Over the past 30 plus years, I have probably hired hundreds of staff (and set quite a few of them free again) and this brings me to the point I am going to make.

Every time I was tempted to hire staff with the best qualifications instead of someone with the best attitude and some necessary qualifications, I almost always regretted it not long after.

In the duck dvd, this is what is written:

"You can't teach someone to want to serve, you can't teach people to smile, but you can hire people who have those qualities and teach them your product and then your culture".  I thought, WOW, that pretty much sums it all up!

In my last business, I remember being "desperate" for another staff member.  We were coming into our busy season and I was wanting to hire someone who would only take minimal training to get up and running and make money for my business.  When I look back on that experience, I shudder.  The girl I employed came to me with tons of experience and employer references (which I checked) but my attitude antennae was quivering like the proverbial jelly on a bumpy bus ride!  "Don't be silly" I thought, trying to rationalise why I hired this girl even though I knew she was not going to fit into our culture.  Looking back, that was probably one of the worst hiring mistakes I had ever made! Not only did she have bucket loads of BAD ATTITUDE, she was absolutely a square peg in a round hole.  Not one to give up easily (at least not without trying every resource at my command), I tried every trick in the book to hammer her into our shape.  Being nice, being strict, having "the talk", leaving motivational messages on the staff notice board, telling funny jokes - you name it, I did it.  And all to no avail.  The crunch finally came when my newest team member sauntered up to me and dropped this bombshell "You know, you have the weirdest clients I have ever had to work with!".  Arghhhh!  That was it for me.  We quickly parted company (another one I had to set free) and then I had to go into damage repair mode with the customers she had "looked after" during her brief but painful stay in my business.

As they stated in the duck dvd:

If your company mission is climbing trees, would you rather hire a squirrel or train a horse!

Believe me, I tried the horse training and it was a major disaster so in future I am going with the squirrel with the GREAT ATTITUDE, some skills and a willingness to learn.

And to bring this newsletter to a close, here is one of my favourite sayings

Don't wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there...and light the bloody thing yourself!  Sarah Henderson

An important message
While every effort has been made to provide valuable, useful information in this Newsletter, I and any related suppliers or associated companies, accept no responsibility or any form of liability from reliance upon or use of its contents. Any suggestions should be considered carefully within your own particular circumstances, as they are intended as general information only.