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Principles of Raising the [Hiring] Bar: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

August 2nd: Principles for Raising the Bar

We all know the significance of an outstanding hire – they drive business forward, raise the bar for other employees, and enrich your culture. Great hires can elevate an entire organization, and it all starts with the interview process.

Over the past two decades, I’ve led hundreds of radical transformations for huge enterprises and revolutionary startups. I’m also a CEO, and in my tenure I’ve seen the tremendous return of a good hire. These experiences have provided me with a clear view of the attributes that set great interviewing apart from average interviewing.

For many organizations, the Interview process is not planned nor strategic – but it needs to be. Consider this: If you’re bringing someone into your family, you spend so much time making you sure they’re compatible in terms of values, long term goals, and how they will bring positivity into your life.

We spend more time with the people we work with than we do our own families, and interviewing is the one tool the corporate world has to figure out if someone is a fit. When considering a new hire, focus on three key factors: personality traits, skills and background.

The interview process is also a way to provide an experience for interviewers, so if it doesn’t work out, much like dating, it’s should be considered a learning opportunity. The good news is, it’s never too late to realign and improve your process to ensure you are hiring the right talent for your organization. My experience as a consultant and CEO has provided me with a ton of insight to a variety of hiring processes, from which I’ve developed some key principles for raising the hiring bar. 

1. Hiring the right people should be a part of everyone’s job. 
Yes, everyone. Hiring well is an organization-wide effort. All your employees are the face of your organization to potential talent. 

2. Define your success 
How do you know if you’re hiring the right people if your definition of “right” isn’t clear?

3. Do your homework
The best interviewing requires prep. You need to prepare for every interview, every time.

4. Value culture fit above skills fit 
Clear out the noise in your recruiting process: emphasize the characteristics and criteria that really matter to your organization.

5. Improve your team with every hire
Every new hire should be a huge improvement over your existing people. Every person you bring in affects your culture, for better or worse. Which direction do you want your company to go?

6. Empowered recruiting: your hiring council
While everyone should be a stakeholder, it’s important to empower the individuals in your organization with the skills to take you (and your hiring) to new heights.

7. Constantly raise the bar
Everything you do as part of this process should aim to exceed, not meet, previous expectations.

My next few newsletters will dive deeper into these principles. Each will cover a separate area of the process, but also depend on each other for success. As always, please share your thoughts and experiences with hiring or interviewing with @GetInRhythm or on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi
CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

9 CEOs Share Their Favorite Interview Questions
Fast Company
“How many degrees separate the hour and minute hands of a clock at 3:15? If this seems like a surprising question, well, that’s sort of the point. “I want to understand how somebody thinks about a very new problem in a difficult situation, and how they respond to that under pressure.”C

Job Etiquette Isn’t Just for the Applicants
Wall Street Journal
“If you treat candidates poorly during the recruiting process, they’re going to tell their friends. You could get away with that in 2009, but you can’t get away with it in 2019.””

The Traditional Job Interview is Dead
Inc.
“You’ve heard the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Yet here we are in 2019, still interviewing like it was 1989.”i

How to Hire the Right Person
The New York Times
“These chief executives have developed through trial and error to help you go beyond the polished résumés, pre-screened references and scripted answers, to hire more creative and effective members for your team.”


Communication is Crucial: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

July 18th: Communication is Crucial

Over the course of my career I’ve leaned that communication is the key to building meaningful relationships. When I look back at the defining moments in my life, whether it be pitching a potential new client, exploring an opportunity for partnership, or having a difficult discussion with an employee when things are just not working out, there were critical conversations that have dictated my success and the quality of relationships I have been able to create.

There’s a video from the 90’s about a man who avoids communicating with others because he’s having a bad day. He internalizes his frustrations until he’s given a pair of glasses and is able to see the pain points of those around him. Towards the end of the video, his frustration transforms into compassion, and he is able to open a dialogue to start a conversation. This video has always stuck with me because it emphasizes a simple yet profound point: you never know what someone may be going through, and the only way to make a connection is through communication. 

I adopted a strategy from the book Crucial Conversations – Tools for talking when the stakes are high. The model outlines a process that, from my experience, sets you up for a more successful outcome when having a critical conversation. According to the authors, there are seven steps to holding crucial conversations in a positive space when surrounded by highly charged emotions:

Stay in dialogue

Make it safe

Don’t get hooked by emotion

Agree a mutual purpose

Separate facts from story

Agree to a clear action plan

The first step is for me, the most important. I’ve learned that how I discuss something can impact what I am trying to discuss, so by managing my mindset, being open to the outcome and starting with positive intent, the conversation starts and ends with respect and efficiency. 

By following the method of working with people rather than through people, and not letting necessary conversations go by, even when difficult, I’ve found that I’m able to ensure there is clarity around responsibility, expectations are defined and standards are maintained. The conversations are deeper and more honest, and thus a new type of bond is formed that helps transform personal situations and relationships. 

Effective communication and critical conversations are not only key to a successful business, but also a skill a necessary skill for a truly fulfilling life. What methods of communication have you found to be effective and impactful? Share your thoughts with @GetInRhythm or on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi
CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

A Communication and Collaboration Strategy is Fundamental for Business Success
(2 min. read)
CIO
“Even in the digital era, business is about sharing information among people. At many companies, though, that means trying to share information using a variety of communications and collaboration tools that have accreted over the years with little to no planning. Many of those tools offer a specific set of functions that no longer match what the company needs. Others let valuable information go uncaptured because they don’t integrate with functions in other solutions.”

Communication is the Most Important Business Skill, Says CEO
(3 min. read)
Business Insider
“When someone concentrates fully on a conversation, considers the content, and demonstrates an understanding of the message, the person on the other side feels valued — and is more likely to be agreeable. Bad listening creates the opposite effect.”

10 Must-Have Communication Skills for Business Success
(7 min. read)  
Salesforce
“Communication helps us learn about new opportunities, manage our education, and ultimately maintain and cultivate important connections. But it also helps within a business; with employees, customers, and shareholders; and in virtually every other aspect of business.”

The Role of Effective Communication in Entrepreneurial Success
(3 min. read)
Entrepreneur
“Entrepreneurs and businesses often struggle to apprehend their true potential without good communication attributes. Most people negate acquiring good communication skills over the importance of accomplishing technological skills which may impede the business profitability. On the contrary, effective communication overwhelmingly payback a business in lucrative ways impacting both internal and external associations.”

InRhythm’s Cloud Engineering Digest: Cloud, scale, microservices… and Java is there for you.

In this new digest you’ll find latest news, updates and recommendations about cloud-native architecture, patterns and anti-patterns in distributed systems and microservices.

It’s official: Apache Kafka 2.3 has been released!

Micronaut 1.1 GA has been released. You can find more details here.

Apache Dubbo, a Java-Based RPC Framework, Graduates to Top-Level Project

Project Loom: Lightweight Java threads

GraalVM 19.1: Compiling Faster

Java 13 Enters Feature Freeze and Ramp down

AWS Control Tower: The easiest way to set up and govern a new, secure multi-account AWS environment

Read:

5 Principles for Cloud-native Architecture: What it is and how to master it

API Gateways and Service Meshes: Opening the Door to Application Modernization

Patterns in Distributed Systems

Microservices adoption anti-patterns

Tell us what you think! What are you reading now? Let us know in the comments below or @GetInRhythm on Twitter

The Potential of Peer Groups: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

July 2nd: The Potential of Peer Groups

As we head into the 4th of July to celebrate America’s Independence, I’m reminded of the potential and the power that comes from unity and fellowship. Nearly two and a half centuries ago, representatives from the Thirteen Colonies signed the Declaration of Independence and declared that the Continental Congress was and would forever be completely independent from the monarch of Britain – a collective first step toward forming the United States of America. 

I mention this bit of American history because it relates to the mentality of peer groups, which I’ve become heavily involved in and passionate about. The Thirteen Colonies were self-governing, yet had very similar political, constitutional and legal systems. They began collaborating with one another instead of with Britain directly, which cultivated a sense of shared identity and collaboration to achieve success.

Peer groups offer an experienced based forum for exchanging ideas and experiences. I not only belong to a formal CEO peer group, which meets a few times a year, but also have an informal group of peers I meet with regularly. Members have no involvement in each other’s businesses so there is a level of openness when discussing the challenges we all face – from increasing revenue to hiring talent. There is a level of comfortability and candidness when discussing insecurities and concerns, which can be difficult to do for the first time internally.

Peer groups are also invaluable when it comes to the growth of employeesbecause peer-to-peer learning taps into the skills that already exist within an organization and allows employees to share their expertise to help each other learn. These groups also create a safe space without the presence fo hierarchy and feeling judged, and helps employees feel empowered to act as leaders. InRhythm is an organization built on the foundation of continuous learning and growth and InRhythmU was created to do just that. 

Throughout history, people have been leveraging each other to learn, grow and make changes to improve. What experiences have you had with peer groups? Share your thoughts with @GetInRhythm or on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi
CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Peer Advisory Group
(3 min. read)
WRAL TechWire
“We’ve learned how that sense of isolation can lead to depression and anxiety, chipping away at one’s health and wellness. As a young entrepreneur, I felt that I was alone in facing the challenges in making a dream become a reality. I had nowhere to go to share my struggles, to exchange ideas, to learn from the mistakes of those who had gone before me.”

How to Help Your Employees Learn From Each Other
(6 min. read)
Harvard Business Review
“Peer-to-peer learning is also uniquely well suited to the way we learn. People gain new skills best in any situation that includes all four stages of what we call the “Learning Loop”: gain knowledge; practice by applying that knowledge; get feedback; and reflect on what has been learned. Peer-to-peer learning encompasses all of these.”

10 Reasons to Join a CEO Peer Group
(4 min. read)  
Inc.
“The beauty of joining a peer group is that by listening to your peers, you will see them dealing with problems and opportunities that your business has yet to encounter. It’s like looking into the future.”

How a Peer Group Transformed my Life and my Business
(4 min. read)
Forbes
“Sharing my personal doubts and fears—and finding others who could share their life lessons—opened my eyes to how much I could learn from those on the road ahead of me and enabled me to face my challenges head-on.”

The future of Emotional Intelligence: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

June 16th: Mixed Emotions – Technology and Artificial Intelligence

To celebrate Father’s Day, I spent this past weekend with my kids at Woodloch – a kid-friendly lake resort in Pennsylvania. It was a great for a quick get-away, and I highly recommend it. During our stay I came across a poster on the wall which contained a quote from ESPN commentator and college basketball coach, Jim Valvano.

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.”

I was impacted by this quote because conceptually it’s so simple, yet truly profound. As humans we are so consumed with our day to day, that experiencing just two of these emotions in a 24 hour period is likely to prove itself difficult. I want to laugh, think and be moved to tears every day, but how? It got me thinking a lot about the advancements of AI, but also how limited technology still is. While technology has enabled us in so many ways, can AI really detect human emotion, and furthermore, help us experience it fully? 

How do you feel about the future of AI and emotional intelligence? Share your thoughts with @GetInRhythm or on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi
CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

When our Devices can Read our Emotions
(12 min. read)
MIT Technology Review 
“In the emerging field of “emotion-tracking AI,” companies are studying the facial expressions captured by our devices’ cameras to allow software of all kinds become more responsive to our moods and cognitive states.”

Amazon is Working on a Device that can Read Human Emotions
(3 min. read)
Bloomberg
“Designed to work with a smartphone app, the device has microphones paired with software that can discern the wearer’s emotional state from the sound of his or her voice, according to the documents and a person familiar with the program. Eventually the technology could be able to advise the wearer how to interact more effectively with others, the documents show.”

How Facial Recognition will Change Driving
(2 min. read)
Fortune
“Advances in facial recognition technology mean machines can not only recognize different people, but also how they are feeling. This means the next generation of automobiles may contain features that scan drivers’ faces for fatigue or other signs of impairment.”

Move Your Organization from Fear to Fearlessness
How Emotion-Tracking AI will Change Computing as we Know It (11 min. read)
Digital Trends
“Welcome to the world of affective computing, a heady blend of psychology and computer science. Based on the idea that something as ephemeral as emotion can be captured and quantified as its own data point, it seeks to create technology that’s able to accurately mine our emotions.”