There are No "I"s on Our Team

Posted on October 14, 2010 by

EnthusedIn the language of “DISC” behavioral assessments, High I”s are those Influencing type of folks who are optimistic, enthusiastic, trusting, magnetic, persuasive and convincing.  In the interest of full disclosure, I resemble that remark.

I described these traits while debriefing a DISC assessment with an executive coaching engagement. The client responded “We don’t have many of those here.“  And then asked in jest: Would you like to join us? After taking a couple seconds to envision their world of skepticism, I respectfully and decisively declined.

While I continued to ponder what it must be like to function in their world,  I imagined drudgery and a general absence of fun.  So I asked:  “Doesn’t it bother you to have so few people like me? “  The answer was an equally decisive “no”.


How Could This Be?

My personal style bias took a productive hit as I understood the explanation.  As it turns out, their industry generally doesn’t have much use for the likes of me.  And I’m OK with that.  They’re in the News Publishing business.  They mostly recruit and hire journalists.  And over-trusting, potentially gullible, detail agnostic folks like me don’t make very good journalists.  As their journalists advance and get promoted to management positions, the percentage of “I“s on their team rarely increases.  This inbreeding results in more than the usual amount of suspicious and critical types where trust is rarely assumed.

In considering the dynamics of high and low “I“s within a team, there are potential pitfalls with an overabundance of either.  Simply stated, low “I”s are the realists while high “I”s are the optimists.  Realists can excel at finding flaws. Optimists tend to gloss over them.  So when it comes to meeting deadlines, driving innovation, taking risks like any business, I-balance is important element to the success of a team.  While low “I”s make good journalists, out-of-balance realism can potentially take its toll.

Consider the business axiom…

“It’s not the big that eat the small. It’s the fast who eat the slow.”

How much has the demise of newspapers and magazines can be characterized as the fast eating the slow? It makes you wonder:

  • Have management teams of publishers been overpopulated by inherently skeptical promoted journalists?
  • If so, has that effected their agility?  Their inability to anticipate or recognize the shift in news consumption?

Shift happens.  As it does, there are advanced tools to help  you assure that you have the right people on the right seats of your bus and maintain critical balance in your decision making.

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True or False? Employees Leave Managers, Not Jobs

Posted on September 10, 2010 by

While it is true that managers can drive job defection, this is not a universal truth.

Employees will still leave jobs even when they like and respect their manager.   This occurs when the fit between their talents, interests and skills isn’t good enough to give them quality of life on the job.  How many of your people are struggling in a job where they spend Sunday night dreading going to work on Monday?  This is a primary symptom of  a poor job fit.

All jobs have a unique profile of distinct skills, attitudes and behaviors that are required for best performance, just as people have their own unique profile, too. When a person is matched to a job that requires the combination of behaviors, skills and attitudes that come naturally to them, achieving superior performance isn’t a struggle, it’s a challenge they can win.

Conversely, when we have to extend extraordinary amounts of energy on duties we are indifferent to that don’t match our skills, we are easily worn down and performance suffers.

What’s an employer to do?

There are valid assessment processes for both jobs and the people who do them.  In a job mismatch situation, you can have a brilliant, talented person who is simply poor match for the job.  Assessing both the job and the people is an underutilized and valuable solution to the misuse and potential loss of talent.

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Fostering Behavioral Diversity

Posted on March 17, 2010 by

When considering the concept of workplace diversity, most think in terms of ethnic, gender or cultural differences.   There is an equally important perspective to consider: Behavioral Diversity.  Within every ethnic group, gender and culture we find diverse behavioral styles.  These differences in style can result in synergy and/or conflict. Most likely both.

What is Behavioral Diversity?

Here are some examples.

  • Some people are more more comfortable with other people than with things and data.  For others, the reverse is true.
  • We know people who can be forceful and sometimes angry while other are patient and reserved.
  • While we have those who are optimistic, enthusiastic and trusting vs. the their skeptical counterparts from the Show-Me state.
  • We have those anal folks that tend to the most minute of details while their counterparts fly above at 30,000 feet.

Are any of these styles especially good or bad?  Are any unnecessary?  It depends on their job requirements and their surrounding culture.  Is your organization or your team dominated by any one type of behavioral style?

teather ballWhy Foster Behavioral Diversity?

We can likely agree that an over-dominance of any of these different styles has potential downside.  Untethered cautiousness or optimism or forcefulness can lead to either flawed decision making or vacillation.  Behavioral diversity provides an oft needed tether for effective execution.

The Challenge

In mixing people with diverse styles, there is inherent conflict that is difficult to overcome.  The result is can be draining expressions of  emotions that range from anger to fear to impatience to frustration to indifference.  In order to make behavioral diversity to work for us instead of against us, we need to help our people to understand and value the need for diverse styles and viewpoints and realize that conflict, when properly managed, conflict is a vital and necessary component to achievement for any team or organization.

Enhancing Your Awareness

  • How well can you describe the behavioral styles of your team’s members?
  • How do their attributes serve to enhance decision making and team performance?
  • To what degree to the members of your team respect and value those with opposite tendencies?
  • If you could improve your answers to these questions, how would things be better or different?
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A Work Behavior Lesson from the Meltdown

Posted on July 21, 2009 by

Brilliant, financially savvy minds have pondered the events that led to the credit market meltdown and wondered: How could this happen?

Here’s my take non-financial observer. My analysis comes from looking through the lens of my understanding of how human dynamics affects how things do and/or don’t get accomplished. At the risk of dating myself (again), I’m reminiscing about a parody from my childhood, Alan Sherman’s Camp Granada and his description of summer camp conflict.

“All the counselors hate the waiters And the lake has alligators” – Parody Performer Allan Sherman from Camp Granada (link to lyrics)

I don’t know if this makes me a counselor or a waiter. I admit to being one of those people who’s able to get things done despite the rules, not because of them. When I have encountered people of the opposite persuasion, I admit to occasionally losing my patience and naturally finding ways to circumvent these highly compliant, regulation loving types. I’d prefer not to work with those who I consider bottle necking naysayers. I suspect that the feelings are mutual.

And so it was with those highly educated financiers who developed a creative new product they called Credit Default Swaps. These financial instruments were designed to indemnify the shaky, shell game sub-prime mortgage products that investment bankers also created. As I understand it from the video below, Credit Default Swaps were represented to be “like” insurance policies while designed to avoid the scrutiny of the highly regulated insurance industry. Unlike insurance policies, there are no reserves created to pay the claims. Now those claims are due and taxpayers are footing the bill for this Enron Déjà Vu. So the savvy financiers avoided the scrutiny for those bottle-necking naysaying federal regulators.  The rest is history.

Lessons for Rule Benders and Breakers: New Tolerance for Style Diversity

We say this about both customers and the opposite gender: Can’t live with ‘em and can’t live without ‘em. Now that we’ve again see what can happen when the rule breakers prevail without restraint, perhaps we should add those highly compliant rule mongers to the “can’t live without ‘em” category. Wherever your sympathies might side in the ongoing case of Rule Lovers vs. Rule Breakers, try to think of it in the same light as customers vs. suppliers or men vs. women. Despite some inherent conflict, we need to improve our tolerance and understanding of each other and find ways to work together. What better example do we need than a global financial meltdown?

I heard a former regulator said that “blaming the credit crisis on Wall Street greed is like blaming gravity for a plane crash.”  Like gravity, greed is ever present.  In language of DISC, those rule monger High Cs play an important role in any system of checks and balances.  Their value to the system should not be ignored.

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And you want to be my latex salesman

Posted on July 14, 2009 by

Latex Salesman videoSeinfeld fans will remember the line that Jerry delivered to George as he ran from the washroom with his pants at his ankles in a futile effort to accept a verification phone call from the unemployment office.  He had claimed to have applied for a sales job at latex manufacturer, Vanedlay Industries.

Link to the YouTube video

All Sales Jobs Are Not Created Equal

After studying the assessments of hundreds of sales candidates for a variety of different sales jobs, we hold this truth to be self-evident. The talent required for selling is dependent on the job situation. We’ve all seen examples of a previously successful person who flopped in a new environment.  So how can you predict a fit?

Are there some universal rules?

We had a client who had completed interviewing and reference checking a previously successful candidate with a 10 years of selling experience.  He would be held accountable for acquiring new customers in a completely new geographic territory where the company was unknown.  They were about to pull the trigger on the hire.  But just to be sure, they had him take our talent assessment to validate their positive fit beliefs.

Recognizing Hunters

This position called for a hunter (vs. a farmer) approach.  In the process of pioneering a new company and acquiring new customers, a salesperson needs to approach a lot of strangers and encounter a lot of rejection.  Claiming you have the right stuff to do this in an interview is one thing.  Just because a candidate has handed out business cards with a sales related title, doesn’t make him or her a hunter.   With this candidate, his natural high-D, DISC behavioral profile indicated enough assertiveness for hunter potential.  However there are other warning signs that convinced us that he was better suited for an Account Manager position where he primarily nurtured existing relationships.

The Research on Motivators

Research shows that top performing sales people are motivated by results and financial rewards. So we look for high utilitarian scores when assessing their success potential.  They also are high individualistic that are driven to influence their own destiny as well as others.

Social - TraditionalOur hunter candidate’s talent assessment showed that his drive for results (utilitarian) score was below the mean (as shown by the yellow bar below the black line).  His individualistic score (black bar) is OK.  However his primary drivers are not typical of high performing sales people:

  1. Social/Altruistic: the desire to help others (turquoise bar on the chart)
  2. Traditional: The belief in a system for living. (gray bar)

Based on his motivators/values chart (right), I compared this person to Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson’s devout, caring, compassionate next door neighbor. In fact, the assessment also revealed a high level of Nedactive empathy.  So he is highly attuned to the feelings of others and is inclined to act on those feelings.  This typically admirable trait does not serve those who are regularly involved in negotiations of pricing and contract concessions as these folks tend to cave in and struggle to stand firm.  In my discussions with the client, I suggested that “Ned” likely was the kind of person who gains fulfillment by doing church volunteer work.  That analysis proved to be a moment of clairvoyance for me when the client shared that “Ned’s” interviews had to be scheduled around his church volunteer activities.

I suggested that while “Ned” likely had achieved success in a previous account manager’s role, he was unlikely to excel in this position.  In wrapping up our discussion, I advised that while there is every reason to believe that Ned was destined for heaven, hiring him for a hunter type sales position would be a potential hell for all parties.

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…becasue we've always done it that way.

Posted on July 1, 2009 by

We had a client that struggled with high turnover for a mission critical position that titled Customer Service Representative.  We were hired to create a job benchmark for the position and subsequently assess candidates.

To Avoid Confusing Activity with Achievement

Our Job Benchmarking process works with company subject matter experts who know the job and culture.  With this group we determine the job’s key accountabibilities.  These take the form of three to five achievements as we seek to define the service model and desired outcomes for a specific  job.  In effect, we define star performance for the position. Then we methodically survey our subject matter experts to generate a Job Benchmark that prioritizes attributes, skills, behaviors and motivators of a potential star performer for this job in this culture.

In our facilitated discussions with the client’s  job experts for this Customer Service position, we started to collect some responsibilities that were un-common to a typical customer service role.  Profitable sourcing of customer requirements was at the top of the accountability list.  The group agreed that the job potentially provided great fulfillment for a proactive, results orientated person as the job was an opportunity to run a business within the business.

Moment of Discovery

Upon hearing all of this, I was compelled to ask:  Why are we calling this a “Customer Service Position”? Their answer  is the title of this post.  “That’s what the prior owners of the company called it ten years ago.”   One of our job experts had joined the company eight years ago in a customer service capacity and had grown along with the position.  Upon reflection, she candidly admitted that if she had started in the position as it is today, she would have lacked the skills to do the job and could never have done the job.  Indeed, all too many other successful candidates for the job that the skills that served them in other Customer Service positions did not translate to success in this job.  The result was a revolving door of frustrated workers that resulted in under served customers and untold lost revenue opportunities.  And the ongoing turnover related costs of re-recruitment and training.

Resolution

So the client discovered the cause of their turnover problem. They created an new, more appropriate job title and defined and communicated the jobs proactive attributes and key accountabilities up front. We surveyed the job experts to generate a prioritized list of attributes, behaviors and values: the Job’s DNA.  We could then match the DNA of their candidates with the newly discovered DNA of the job.  The metaphoric revolving door to their customer sourcing department is gone.  Their customers are better served.  Their turnover bleeding has stoped.

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Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Posted on June 10, 2009 by

I first leaned to apply the statement above when making graphic design decisions marketing media, especially websites.  In that application its another way of saying “less is more.”

Adapting the C in DISC

It can also apply to career selection.  On the left is a pair of DISC charts for a person who has been doing regulatory consulting for the past decade.  His natural, unmasked behavioral style is illustrated on the right chart, his adapted, working style to the left of that. In this example, were looking at the blue “C” bars and how much they differ.

Doing detail orientated regulatory/high compliance work is not a great fit for this person’s natural “C”/compliant style as shown by the score of 24 on the right chart.  After 10 years of dealing with the details, he adapted his behavioral style significantly to become significantly more compliant as the job required.   However a style adaption this significant will take its emotional toll.  So upon noticing this on the chart, I asked him:  “Have you really enjoyed doing that kind of work? He candid response: I’ve hated it!

util-theoMy logical next question was: With all of the other talents you have, why did you do it for so long? The answer lies in the next tea leaf, his motivators. His chart on the right show he is a passionate utilitarian: Driven by results and, in this case money.  His answer to why he would do work that he hated for so long was simple.  “People kept paying me and paying me very well.  So I kept taking their money and doing it.”

Not everyone could do this without melting down.  But being so driven by the financial rewards, he was fulfilled even though, for him it was energy draining work.

So here we have a case where the DISC profile that indicated the person was not ideally suited for the job.  Yet the strong motivation prevailed and he had he skills and capacities to do the job and do it well.

For those who believe that DISC analysis alone is an effective predictor of job performance, this is my exhibit one in support the case that you need a broader perspective to make effective talent decisions.  That said, the question that was unasked and unanswered for ten years:  “Is this a situation where we can predict star performance?“  The short answer is no. To quote author Jim Collins, this is a case where “good is the enemy of great.”  Somewhere outside of a highly regulated environment, there is a happier, more productive place for him.

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Interviews are great for evaluating interviewing skills. What about the job?

Posted on June 5, 2009 by

We always caution our clients that our assessments are not the end-all criteria for evaluating a candidate. While they provide at least 33% more insight, our assessment tools will enhance the interview but should never replace it.  Talent assessments also do not measure a person’s technical knowledge or level of technical experience. That is the function of the resume, background/reference check and the interview.

Dan and Chip Heath, the authors of Made to Stick, have studied interview ineffectiveness and concluded that interviews are of little use in predicting job performance.  Link to article.

While I personally admit that I have never approached world class interviewer status, I differ with the Heaths about the value of the interview.

As we continuously validate our tools we have done our own studies with candidates who assessed well, yet did not perform.  What we have learned in hindsight from clients is that in looking back at the interview there were some yellow flags that went up.  But because of the combination of impatience, urgency to fill the position and the positive assessment, the interview yellow flags were ignored.

So to summarize my yellow flag on interview effectiveness, interview strangeness or quirkyness can be an indication of job quirkyness. It should not be ignored.

Posted in interview bias, job performance, talent selection | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

We say "You can't judge a book by its cover." If only we could really apply it when judging people.

Posted on April 29, 2009 by

While we like to maintain a high opinion of our own open mindedness and freedom from bias, sometimes a reality check is in order.  And so, I offer the youtube link below.  The video shows a segment of the UK’s version of American Idol.  It features an unemployed, underdog candidate with a dream.  With her rare, long-shot pursuit of fame, Susan Boyle allows us to hold up a mirror for ourselves for just such a personal-bias reality check.

Susan was unemployed, without resume credentials, over 45 and not exactly dressed for the part. She didn’t exactly ace her her dream job interview either. Click on Susan to see, hear and experience her interview and subsequent dream job performance.

____________________________________

Ignore the pop-up. Due to viral demand, Youtube has disabled their embedding feature for this clip.

Just click on the photo.

Watch the Susan Boyle segment.

Even though you kind of know what’s coming, don’t you still find it difficult to watch Susan being interviewed without at least a touch of skepticism about her ability?  Can you admit it?

While our assessment tea leaves are designed to provide an unbiased view of a candidate, I’m sorry to concede that early interview bias would too often prevent a candidate like Susan from ever progressing to the assessment stage of the recruitment process.

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Technorati

Posted on April 24, 2009 by

Added to Technorati.  Now you can Fave this Blog.

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