Twice a year, anybody who has a manager is surveyed on the manager’s qualities. We call it an upward feedback survey. We collect data for everyone in the company who’s a manager on how well they’re doing on anywhere between 12 and 18 different factors. We then share that with the manager, and we track improvement across the whole company. Over the last three years, we’ve significantly improved the quality of people management at Google, measured by how happy people are with their managers.       

This part of the discussion dealt with predicting and measuring an individual's ability to be a good leader of people.  This is, in my opinion, absolutely one of the hardest attributes to determine when interviewing someone.  Yet, it's so critical to every organization's ability to achieve its goals.  This is one of the reasons why I am required to interview every Director we hire in the Home Office.  It's also why when we are looking for a new department head, I go into a "get to know you" mode that throws off many candidates.  I not only spend time interviewing them like you would expect, but then there are the phone calls, and the text messages, and the dinners.  One of my favorite things to do is call the candidate late on Friday afternoon after work to see if they a) even answer my call and b) are in a good mood. 

Anyway, this article got me thinking about all the effort I put into determining whether or not an individual is a good leader when we hire them, but what do we do to measure this skill once they are on board?  Other than keeping our ears to the ground and measuring the output of the function as a whole, the answer is: nothing.  We leave it up to their supervisor to make that determination.  But, what if the supervisor is not good at managing people?  It's a real dilemma, as you can see.   

Now I don't know if an "upward feedback survey" would work here.  I don't know culturally how that would be received right now, especially with all the changes we have made recently.  But it sure sparks my interest.  What do you think?

I love that I work for an amazing company and have been blessed to have had worked for many talented people along the way.  All of these people have contributed to the different opportunities and success of my career of 14 years.

I started as an accounts associate in Killeen, Texas with Dave Smith.  At the time, I knew nothing about the rent to own industry and was like a fish out of water.  But Dave saw something in me and gave me his patience, understanding and taught me the ropes.

I am proof that you can be anything you choose in this company. It all comes down to what you want and the willingness to work for it. The opportunity is always there for everyone at Aaron's / Rimco.

It's so easy for us to get caught up in our day-to-day jobs, especially here in the corporate office.  It's easy to concentrate on the small picture, those daily tasks, instead of the big picture.   

As you read these posts, I challenge you to think about our purpose here at Aaron's.  Our function did not exist just a short time ago.  What kind of an impact are we having on the lives of our associates?  How does your daily work make an impact on our purpose?  We all play a role.  And while not everyone in the organization may understand what we do on a daily basis, WE all know that it is all so important.

I hope you enjoy these stories. 

(Thanks to Erin, Constantine, and Liz for helping to collect these!) 

My name is Penni Leyva and I would like to share my Aaron's success story... 

I have been a General Manger with Aaron's since Feb, 2010. I started with the company in Jan 2009 as a Manager Trainee with previous experience from a competitor.   I grew up in South Phoenix with my mother and 4 siblings, growing up I was taught hard work always pays off. I had worked for the competitor for 14 years and didn't seem to be growing anymore.  Then a previous GM from the competitor who was now working here at Aaron's recruited me to join the Aaron's team. He sold me on how Aaron's cares about their employees and family. Being a single parent of three children.  That made the change easier, since I was never able to get to see my kids play sports because the demands of my previous job.

So I took a leap of faith and made the switch and it has been the best decision I have ever made. I was given the opportunity to run store C1270 (which happened to be in South Phoenix where I grew up) February 2010. I took advantage of the awesome opportunity, championed the program, surrounded myself with talented people and have never looked back.   I took the store at 486 customers and today we are 1164. My team and I were Most Improved Store in 2011!

I look back and I am so grateful for the blessings I have had with Aaron's for the past 4 years.  My future is brighter, my family is happy and my potential is limitless!

Well, we have a solution thanks to Blake: download Chrome (or Firefox) as your browser.   

Now Ceridian will NOT work with anything but Internet Explorer so don't use Chrome for work.  But this is a great tool to be able to watch all of the (relatively) cool videos I have posted on this blog.   

Everyone should thank Blake for figuring out one of life's great mysteries.   

When I first started working at Aaron's I quickly realized that I had a major problem.  I had no idea what drove this business or more importantly how to relate to my clients, the field operators.  I came from the legal world, so the concept of understanding the needs of a client in order to help solve whatever business problem they were facing, was critical in my mind.  I had previously worked in the manufacturing industry, where I spent my first year out of school sitting in dirty plants located in glamorous little places such as Quincy, Illinois, and Pennsauken, New Jersey.  (By the way, the best pork chop of my life was in Quincy).   I went on to work in the hotel industry in Boston. There the majority of my time was spent in basements of really nice boutique hotels, yelled at by Union representatives with thick southy accents.  (Since I had no idea what they were saying it really didn't bother me.) 

Coming into Aaron's with those experiences made me realize, in order for me to be successful, I had to ignore the giant stack of files on my desk and hit the road.  I called up guys like Joe Fedorchak and said, "I want to come live a week in the life of an "Operator.""  Once I convinced them that I wasn't being sent as a spy, or worse yet, fire them, they said bring it on.  (I remember calling Tristan, at the time Regional Manager, and he said no, ha). 

I spent a lot of time the first few years in the field with the operators (even with Tristan eventually).  I wanted to learn the business and I wanted to learn how to help my clients. My time in the field accomplished those goals and more. It built Trust, Partnership, and Empathy.  (More on those later).  

My point here (getting to it): it's easy for us to get caught up in our daily routine and the pressures of our job, like that stack of files I had on my desk. But, I would never have been able to get that stack cleared had I not taken the time to really spend quality time in the field.   

Our Field Team (AR Reps and Recruiters) can relate, as they live it every day.  This is why I highly encourage all of our Home Office AR team members to briefly ignore the stack of papers and get in the field.  It doesn't matter what position you are in, quality time in the field is invaluable and will help you going forward in your job.  So please, if you haven't done so, ask your supervisor to help you schedule time out there on the Wall.  It will make a difference, I promise.   

I present to you, Lauren Vail's new favorite website:

http://hadonejob.com/

What if we did this every morning?? 

I might have taken a few risks in my career.  Here's a great story from another guy.  Maybe one day I'll write about my own.

The Risk Not Taken 

__________________________________________________________________

AP: How often do you check your stock price?

ANDERSON: You know, some days I don't check it. You know what I check more than that? I check fuel and crack spreads, unit revenue, and how the airline is running.

AP: What's a day like for you? Are you one of those guys who's there at 6 a.m.?

ANDERSON: Well see, you make it sound like it's an "I'' problem.  It's not an "I'' problem, it's a "we" problem, right?

AP: I realize that you're not gassing up the planes.

ANDERSON: I live a normal life like you guys do. I get up in the morning and drive to work and get to work and have meetings. I live close to the office, so my trip is 15 minutes. Atlanta may have a traffic problem but it doesn't have a New York problem. I get up really early, do my email, and drink coffee with my wife, pet the dog, get in the car, drive to work, drink coffee on my way to work, get in the office and bother Ed.

AP: As you fly around, where do you sit?

ANDERSON: I was in row 28 coming up here. I wear my badge. And I fly in coach.

AP: And enough people know what you look like?

ANDERSON: Oh, yeah, because of that movie. (Anderson introduces the pre-flight safety video). That's when you get the newspaper and kind of go like this (raises imaginary newspaper over his eyes).

AP: Do you always fly coach, even on long-haul to Asia?

ANDERSON: I've done long-haul to Asia. You know what I like to try to do? I like to try to fly on the competition when I go long-haul. I take my little black book and just make notes and observe what's going on and how the airports are operating, and how your competitors are operating.

AP:  You were once a prosecutor. How do you get into this mindset, of dealing with operational data and redcoats?

ANDERSON: Well, just when you're a bad lawyer, you've got to be able to do something more productive. ... I've done a lot of different things. Lawyer. I even spent time as the chief counsel to the criminal trial court judges in Houston. United Health Group was a lot of fun.

AP: What have you learned about managing from all those jobs?

ANDERSON: It's probably just a mishmash of a lot of little rules, right?  You know, always return your phone calls promptly, always be on time for your meetings. Always be the person that people look forward to go into a meeting with. Don't ask people to do things you wouldn't do.  Be kind to people. I don't know — it's probably how you were raised or something. I was raised in a very big Catholic family, so you know, you were taught to be polite.

I never took a business course in school. I didn't take an accounting class in school. I thought I was going to practice law, but I got married and had children. My mother and father died from cancer, my dad, when I was 20, my mom when I was 21, after long illnesses. I just didn't have any money.

So I went to night law school. You get out and you go, "Well I'm just going to practice law." Then you get married and have a child and you've still got student loans. Sue said, "When are we going to ever pay off these student loans?" So, you know, I think life is serendipitous in that regard.

AP: Did you get those student loans paid off?

ANDERSON: I did, finally, but I was the vice president at Northwest Airlines. It took a while.

AP: Well, if your interest rate is low enough, then maybe it's prudent debt?

ANDERSON: No. As you learn at airlines, there's no such thing as prudent debt. That's the lesson, we've learned it.

1. National Manager's Meeting - By all accounts this was a huge success.  We rolled out the new brand and presented TalentCore to 2,000 manager's presenting 17 breakout 1-hour sessions in 48 hours.  I also got to sing on the Grand Ole Opry stage.  The latter was more nerve racking.

2. Field Team Meeting - Straight from presenting at the NMM, we jumped into the Field Team meeting (also in Nashville), where we wrapped up the train-the-trainer sessions on PMP. 

3.  PMP Training - The field team then went on a 3 month field trip...touching every single store and every single associate.  This had never been done before in the history of the Company.  Shock and awe. 

4.  TalentCore Launch - A new Taleo platform, new hiring process, and new jobs for our Staffing Coordinators.  This all went LIVE a week after the NMM and in the middle of PMP training.  Kind of a big deal. 

5. PerfectHome - I spent the month of May traveling.  Two of those weeks were visiting our friends at PerfectHome.  I got to attend their NMM in a slightly less exotic location than Nashville...The Algarve, Portugal.  It was a great trip and we exchanged a lot of great ideas.  We really can learn a lot from them and vice-versa.  We did some TEAM BUILDING (<---watch here), I was on the HR team, it was a competition, we finished 2nd, but I'm pretty sure we were robbed.   

6.  Regional Manager Meeting - About two weeks before this meeting in Bilxoi, we were informed that we needed to be prepared to present 1.5 hours of material on recruiting.  Not a problem, we were looking for something do on nights and weekends.  We formed a Super Presentation Committee and came up with a pretty impressive presentation.  Zeina created an amazing workbook along with Alyssa the Intern, which gave the RM's practical take-aways, something they rarely get in similar meetings.  Erin led the presentation along with Rebecca, Andy, Lauren, and myself. It was a great day....and then this happened:

Yes, that is a filming of the Aaron's Harlem Shuffle.  I'll be sure to pass along the finished product. 

So, I've got a pretty good list of excuses for inactivity on the blog.  We have been unbelievably busy and have accomplished so much over the past 3 months.  It's very impressive and I'm personally very proud of what the AR team has been able to do this year...and the year is only half over.  Just think about what we will be saying in December... 

We have a ton of people in complete crunch-time mode right now getting everything prepped for the meeting.  Stephen and Brian had a Taleo 12 brainstorming session yesterday with operations and our external partners...I hope they got it all figured out because I'm telling 2.000 GM's all about it in less than 2 weeks...no pressure. 

Our new Internal Communications Manager Zeina has been working her creative fingers to the bone getting all of the collateral ready for the vendor fair booth and the breakout sessions.  This stuff doesn't just magically appear afterall. 

And then there's that all important presentation...it's getting close.  Below is another sneak peek.  We will have two classes going on simultaneously, 4 times a day (a total of 16 classes...).  I get exhausted just thinking about it.  BVL and LNV will be on point in one presentation, while I'll be handling the other with Erin.  You see, Erin did such a good job at the HomeSmart presentation last week that she has been rewarded with presenting material that she has not even seen yet to about 1,000 people...high stress and exhaustion.  Congrats Erin! 

So, if you notice a few more wrinkles this week (or less hair for me), please don't be concerned. We are just getting ready for the biggest week in AR history....

It's truly time to Keep Calm and Carry On. 

I think it's a pretty compelling message.  Do you think it would be a good content tool for our new career site? 

Woodhaven Video

We have some fantastic participation ideas that should really get the participants fully engaged. I just hope we can squeeze it all in within an hour. Its about six hours of content now, so this will be a challenge. So now comes the hard part...one month away!

So this is why I like recruiting and interviewing so much.  Even though the interviewee is usually nervous, it's such a positive experience because your engaged in a meeting that could change someone's life.  So they may be nervous, but it's a positive nervousness, if that makes sense. 

I often get asked about my interview method, what I look for in particular answers, what are the key indicators I am evaluating to determine if someone could be successful in a particular role. Unfortunately, it's virtually impossible for me to articulate.  It completely depends on the role in question and more importantly on the interviewee. It's almost like a sixth sense, something I have just been able to develop over the years after asking all those questions to all those people.  There is one key though, giving the interviewee the opportunity to show that they can exercise independent and creative thought.  (Get away from the canned answers of why you want this job...).

I recently stumbled upon a great interview question that gets to the core of this concept...so all of our recruiters out there, I suggest you try this one out.  I think this could be a great starting point for us to really develop our own "go-to" interview question for our organization.  Let's use it for a while and then discuss effectiveness at our next meeting (Nashville). 

"I want you to explain something to me. Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on--anything. You’ll have just five minutes to explain it. At the beginning of the five minutes you shouldn't assume anything about what I know, and at the end I should understand whatever is most important about this topic. During the five minutes, I might ask you some questions, and you can ask me questions. Take as much time as you want to think it through, and let me know when you want to start."

This shows that with our branding initiative and launch this year we are going from behind the pack to "off the front" (cycling term).   They key to staying off the front is to stay focused, keep calm and not blow up (figuratively, not literally - but that would be bad also).

Sneak peek...

I predict it will soon replace the resume. 

We need to get on it, get active, be a factor. 

Overall, it was another great experience for the Aaron's team as a whole and another great opportunity for us to partner with our community.  I'm looking forward toward many other groups participating in the same program.

I encourage you all to listen to the first 10 minutes of the call.  You will also hear Ron tell our investors that, "The ongoing development, recruitment, and training of skilled personnel are major components of achieving Aaron's future success."  It's very clear with these statements that Associate Resources is considered a critical business function for the organization.  Yes, everyone is counting on us to execute our lofty goals for 2013 (more on that to come).

So let's think about this...here we are, February 2013, officially two years after Robin Loudermilk's (brave) announcement that we would be developing a centralized human resource function at Aaron's.  At that time, we knew we had to tear down several functional silo's and consolidate them under one roof, with one strategy, and one singular goal (make Aaron's a great place to work) or we were not going to be able to continue to expect the success we had experienced in the past.  As most of you all know, this process had been long underway prior to February 2011 (I like to say since January 2002), but that moment was a huge leap forward, as we had the very top of the organization proclaim that HR and our people were a priority.

Now we are so fortunate to have Ron recognize the tiresome work we have done for the past two years.  During this time we have brought on many new talented HR professionals to help along the way and had so many of our existing HR professionals accept, encourage, and inspire positive change.  While we certainly have seen our fair share of those who could not adapt to change and decide to move on, it's the fact that we have not flinched after we said our goodbyes and those chairs were left empty that has made me so proud.  I suspect it's because we have seen that each and every time it has given us the opportunity to bring on someone who is equally motivated by innovating,inspiring, and building a world class HR function to fill those chairs. 

Now while I appreciate the "outstanding" descriptor, I know and you know we still have A LOT of work to do before we can be satisfied.  Like I said before, we have some very significant goals for 2013 that we will be rolling out to the team very shortly that will get us even closer to our ultimate objective. 

So to all our new AR team members that have joined us over the past few months...welcome to a great team.  Actually, it's an outstanding team. Just ask our CEO.