Elephants Before Unicorns: Emotionally Intelligent HR Strategies to Save Your Company

by Caroline Stokes, Darrell West (Foreword)

Driven entrepreneurs seem to always be in search of their "unicorn" team—that match made in heaven that opens the door to freedom and endless possibility. Unfortunately, huge obstacles—the "elephants"—tend to get in the way.

Bringing her expertise from HR to EQ, Caroline Stokes offers real-world solutions to the people management problems business owners like you face right now. Dive into this book and learn how to:

Hire the right people by taking your time
Build an onboarding process that fits your company culture and makes new hires feel welcome
Keep employees happy, healthy, engaged, and educated so they always perform their best
Think smart before acting so strategies are their most effective
Adapt to industry trends and workforce shifts to earn the best results

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Buisness

222 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 24, 2019

Reviews

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable with lots of great points. Too many businesses want to find a unicorn - that high performer who is going to save them - but they ignore all the elephants in their organization. Stokes provides a good list of common elephants. Work through these and you'll be more attractive to unicorns.

I found the talk of AI confusing. I didn't really understand what that had to do with HR and recruiting, but it didn't take away from the overall good advice of the book.

[Claire Parsons · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the focus of this book and there were some good practices and ideas. However, though the author at times explicitly directs people to try things like meditation, she at times seems to express skepticism and even contempt for it. I think she sees it as nothing more than a momentary stress-relieving strategy and does not understand the broader benefits of the practices. Moreover, I am concerned that this author talks about empathy repeatedly in the book but does not appear to have a deep understanding of what empathy is, what it's risk factors are, and how it differs from other experiences like compassion. If the author had focused on what she really knows or taken the time to research more deeply the things outside of her direct focus, this book would have been better.

[Cristie Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's painstaking research and attention to detail is obvious in the writing of this book. The author laid out the information in a manner that allowed the reader to form their own opinion on what information to utilize.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on best practices for people management. I hope all people leaders read this book and aspire to the ideals it explains!

[Kev Willoughby · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the things I loved about this book is that it seems equally great as a "read alone" or as a group book study in a professional setting. I do think I would have gotten more out of it if I had read it as part of a book study, not because there was anything wrong with the writing or delivery, but because discussion is always a better way to review concepts being studied (especially when there is the potential to put the things you are learning into practice. The author did a great job of including practical questions throughout the book. Those questions are great for self-analyzation or for group discussion.

For example, in one chapter, there was a list of ten helpful questions to use when calling references for a potential new hire. Many employers are reluctant to ask specific questions about candidates, and those former employers may be even more hesitant to answer them for fear of legal action in the case that the candidate is not hired as a result of the reference given. The reference-checking questions presented by the author of this book are direct and positive and intended to lead to helpful and fair answers. That list of ten questions alone is worth your time for reading the book because it can lead to better hiring decisions. Equally as helpful were the questions in another chapter that were suggested for performance reviews. Those are just as great because they can lead to conversations that can ensure a productive growth relationship between an employee and the organization. If you don't get anything else out of the book other than those sets of questions, you will have been satisfied. They can be put into practice in your organization immediately.

Though most of the concepts in the book are not groundbreaking, I found it helpful that the author included a couple of links to websites of innovative companies that were making simple, yet profound, changes in the way they communicate with employees.

The book is equally appealing to both veterans and newcomers to the field of human resources.