| | In This Issue: | | Getting to Know All About You TIP OF THE MONTH:
10 Ways to Coach by Example PRODUCT FOCUS:
ProfileXT Coaching Report STRATEGIES FOR WINNING: Good People Grow Business | | What's on at PROFILES | | Partner Training:
Tues 22nd July 2008,
2pm - 4pm Seminar:
No seminar scheduled for July | | Product of the Month: | | | Our Profiles on the Web (POTW) Assessment Centre provides you and your organisation with your own 24 hour, 7 days per week candidate assessment administration & reporting capabilities. The POTW site provides each of our clients with access to all available assessments, in-depth assessment information, sample reports & a robust database of all completed assessments with unlimited assessment reporting. Each POTW client receives in-depth on-site training and ongoing support. | | If you are interested in your own POTW site, please call us. | | | Quotes of the Month: | | "Always recognise that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end." – Immanuel Kant, philosopher "No man ever listened himself out of a job. " – Calvin Coolidge, US president "To learn anything fast and effectively you have to see it, hear it, feel it. "– Tony Holloway, author "Coaching is a conversation, a dialogue, whereby the coach and the individual interact in a dynamic exchange to achieve goals, enhance performance and move the individual forward to greater success." - Zeus and Skiffington, authors | | Contact Us: | | For Further Information Please Contact:
Profiles International -Victoria 277 Moray St,
South Melbourne VIC 3205 T: (03) 9673 9888
F: (03) 9673 9898 . Email Us | | Getting to Know All about You
One theme surfaces frequently these days in our presentations to leaders of organisations, and consumes those of us who are trying to help create best-practice companies that attract and retain top talent. That theme is, know your employees well, better than they know themselves. Knowing an employee well is a key element of performance management, and we are stressing that heavily as we shed the traditional tools many organisations still use. These outdated tools include backward-looking employee appraisals that occur infrequently. Instead of that approach, we place our highest priority on coaching, a development-based strategy that looks forward by setting goals and establishing a plan to achieve them. This forward-looking kind of management asks coaching leaders to work with employees to set and reach their goals, after assuring they are aligned with the company mission. A fundamental fact to acknowledge about this kind of coaching for performance is that although employees are alike in many key areas, they are different in significant ways. No single coaching/managing style fits all employees. This is a difficult idea for many managers to grasp, and it can be overwhelming if a conscientious manager believes he must memorise the names of his employees' children and spouses. While knowing all those names is a nice thing to do, it is not imperative. But getting to know employees is an imperative, and it is less time-consuming and more enjoyable than playing the churn game – hiring employees for jobs they don't fit, leaving them to founder, then replacing them six months or a year later and wondering what happened. Let's use Fred as an example of someone we need to get to know. Through assessments, we already know that Fred has a high learning index and energy level, measures low on needing to control others or the situation, and high on manageability. What we do not know is whether the job we want Fred to do requires these competencies for successful performance. We also do not know: - How Fred fits with the rest of the team.
- How Fred fits with his manager/coach.
Obviously, in addition to getting to know Fred's competencies, we have to comprehend fully what we want him to do and what makes people in that role successful. Knowing all of these things allows Fred's manager to form a coaching strategy that will close the gaps, if any, between his capabilities and job requirements. Now let's look at the phrase "one size does not fit all" as it applies to managing people. Perhaps another way to say this is, don’t generalise or make assumptions about people based on age, gender, ethnicity or any of the other qualities that make Fred appear similar to Joe. As similar as some employees appear to be, to presume that two women, two men, two young people or two people of the same ethnic origin will think and act like each other because they share some of the same traits is a foolish oversimplification. That kind of thinking ensures we will be mired in yesterday's management rut. Here are some ideas about getting the right people into your organisation from the start, then getting to know them: - Know your organisation's culture well enough to talk about it. This includes the business strategy, the vision of top leaders, how employees view one another, and how workers treat each other.
- Communicate with employees. Go beyond regular meetings and memos. Take frequent walks through all departments. Find out what is going on by talking to people. Figure out what they are thinking. How? Ask them.
- Ask for feedback about resources and other critical issues. Keep the channels of communication open and flowing freely.
- If you want your employee rewards program to be effective, knowing your people is essential. Instead of planning rewards around the CEO's interests and needs, find out what workers want. Special incentives should be tailored to recognise the person who performed well.
- People change. So do their job interests, their energy levels and their competencies. It's the coach's job to know them at every stage in their lives and to change the motivation program to match their changing skills and interests.
- Know yourself. It's much easier to understand other people if you get to know the inner you first, the things that make you tick, the job tasks that you enjoy and the ones that you do not, how you work with teams, and your compatibility with others.
Jim Sirbasku, CEO Profiles International
PROFILES TIP OF THE MONTH: 10 Ways to Coach by Example 1. Envision good performance and communicate your vision.
2. Don't just nod your head; listen to your direct reports.
3. Don’t ask employees to do something you are not willing to do yourself.
4. Treat everyone with fairness.
5. Recognise and reward exceptional performance.
6. Never assume; always ask.
7. Say please and thank you.
8. Under-promise and over-deliver.
9. Leave the frown behind when you enter the office door.
10. Keep your sense of humour in good repair.
Product Focus:
ProfileXT® Coaching Report: First, Envision What You Want Great coaches have a way of envisioning what they want to see and then communicating the information in a way their players understand. Great leaders in business can be great coaches, too. One tool that many have found effective is the coaching report offered as part of the ProfileXT® system. To see how the coaching report works, we will use the assessment given to Mary Sample. First, a little background. Managers gave Ms. Sample the ProfileXT® to assess, among other things, her thinking style, behavioral traits, and interests. Managers also gave top performers already in the position Ms. Sample is interested in the same assessment to determine how they scored in these areas. Leaders then used their scores as a benchmark for other candidates. What happens if Ms. Sample scores below the job pattern rank of top performers in the position she wants? If her score is low in only one or two areas, the coach must recognize that Ms. Sample needs help developing in certain areas. The ProfileXT® coaching report helps by giving him detailed information on how to coach her to get the performance he wants. For example:
In one area, verbal reasoning, Ms. Sample scores below the designated numerical profile that top performers reached. The appropriate range on a 10-point scale is between 5 and 7, and Ms. Sample scored a 4. This means that her ability to solve verbal problems is below what the position typically requires. Perhaps her score indicates that she will have a problem efficiently processing communications. These are the steps a coach could take to help her develop in this area: - Keep instructions simple and direct.
- Watch her as she solves problems and offer help when necessary.
- Make sure she understands verbal information by asking her to repeat the information in her own words.
- Review the information she writes and ask questions to ensure understanding. If clarity is lacking, show/tell her where.
Second example: Ms. Sample scored a 5 in manageability, when top performers for the position scored in the 6-9 range. Does that mean her manager is not capable of managing her? Not necessarily, especially if the manager has a coaching report. The lower score suggests that her willingness to follow standard procedures is less than the position normally requires. The coach should have a discussion with her to find out her potential frustration points. Other steps to take: - Clarify the options available for her behavior and the specific consequences of her choices.
- Spend one-on-one time with her, especially if she appears confrontational about authority. Stress the importance of her compliance with authority and a willingness to facilitate as a group leader.
- Reward compliance with opportunities to express her freedom in other areas.
These are only two examples in which coaching can help develop an employee, reduce turnover, and increase productivity. That's because the technologically advanced ProfileXT® allows managers to see the total person, including reasoning styles, occupational interests and behavioural traits. The most valuable feature of the ProfileXT® may be its job match function, which allows managers to analyze a person’s job-related attributes and compare them to the qualities required to perform successfully in a particular job. In this way, the ProfileXT® fine-tunes the process of putting the right people in the right jobs. Coaches who can envision what they want but need a little help putting that vision into action will find the ProfileXT® to be a reliable aid.
Strategies for Winning: The New Art of Hiring Smart: Good People Grow Business It's the best of times and the worst of times too – if people problems are coming between you and the commercial success that you see your peers enjoying. If you're either experiencing excessive staff turnover or finding that the people you're hiring simply don't fit in, use the following six steps, The New Art of Hiring Smart, to ensure that you get more of the people you need. 1. Determine the Cost of Turnover
Take the annual salary for any job where you have excessive turnover, add a typical 30 percent for benefits, and calculate 25 percent of the total. That's the absolute minimum it costs you every time that position turns over. If you provide any other benefits or incur any other costs, it's actually much more. Multiply this figure by the number of times the position turns over. Do this for every job where you have turnover. Scary, huh? Add other costs (agency fees, advertising, travel, etc.), training costs, lost production/opportunity cost while the position is empty, and morale costs. Now that we have your attention, let's do something about the problem. 2. Identify Hiring Problems and Mistakes
Identify any part of your organisation that's having people problems and find out what's causing them by: - Asking your department and human resources managers why, in their opinion, these departments have turnover, why people quit, get fired, or become problematic.
- Conducting exit interviews. Ask each person who leaves what you could have done to help them succeed and to prevent them from leaving. Don't be fooled by "pay more money."
- Asking your top people what they like about their jobs and how you can make their jobs better – try to replicate whatever they like throughout the organisation.
- Looking at the people doing the hiring, and asking them (or asking yourself): Do they need training? Do they have a system that works? Do they take hiring new people seriously?
3. Recruit People Who Fit Your Jobs - First, You Must Understand the Job and Develop a Competency-Based Job Description. It is critical that you document the competencies required by all of your jobs from a technical, educational, experience, and industrial know-how basis – otherwise, how can you know what you're looking for?
- Match People to Jobs Harvard Business Review conducted a huge study – 360,000 people in 14 industries during a 20-year period – in an attempt to identify what made for job success. The study discovered the people are successful only when they are matched to their jobs. They must have the right level of learning abilities, have a motivational interest in the work, and their behavioral makeup or personality must equip them to do the job well.
You cannot get the information necessary to match people to jobs from candidates' resumes or from conventional interviews. The only way you can uncover this information is by formal assessment of candidates using assessments designed specifically for this task – you can find more information about this at: www.profilesvictoria.com.au 4. Prospect Innovatively for Candidates -
Consider additional sources you may not be using, such as: Employee Bonus for Referrals of Candidates you Employ, Physically or Mentally Disadvantaged and Senior Citizens. The retired community is a rich source of motivated candidates for many empty positions. -
Companies that Have Announced Cutbacks Contact the personnel and department managers in organisations announcing cutbacks and describe the candidate you are seeking. -
Set Up Educational Relationships Find the universities, colleges or schools that support your industry through their curricula, and develop relationships with them. 5. Prepare for and Conduct a Winning Interview
Preparing for an interview is just as important as the interview itself. The interview itself has three parts: -
The Open No candidate likes doing interviews – they are viewed simply as a necessary evil. The Open has two objectives: first, to put the applicant at ease and build rapport. The better the rapport you create, the better the information you receive. Second, you want to set the agenda and timetable. Explain the sequence for the interview and approximately how long you will be together. Your overall objectives for the Open are to create excitement about the job and put your candidate at ease. Can this person do the job? Has he or she the necessary qualifications, experience, and competencies that you know are necessary for success in the position? Do his learning abilities match those the job requires? Will this person do the job? If you are satisfied that the candidate has the qualities to do the job successfully, your next task is to ensure that he or she is motivated to be successful in the position. Is the nature of the work sufficiently motivating for him/her to ensure success? This can usually be determined only through assessment of the candidate's motivational interests, using assessments like The Profile (mentioned above). The purpose of the interview in this regard is then to probe any areas of concern uncovered by the assessment process. Will this person fit our corporate culture? Being capable and motivated to do the job well is sufficient only if you are confident that the candidate will also be a good fit to your company. Again, the extent of this match is best determined using a pre-interview assessment, with the interview providing an opportunity to probe any areas where the candidate seems to be a poor match to the position. Listen carefully and take notes. Later, review your notes and form your opinions. In a book we highly recommend – Hire with Your Head by Lou Adler – there's a suggested closing statement that can be used with all candidates, especially those who will make the next cut:
"Although we're seeing other fine candidates, I personally think that you have a very fine background. We'll get back to you in a few days, but what are your thoughts about this new position?" This close creates a sense of competition and job attractiveness, expresses sincere interest in the candidate, and allows the interviewer to gauge how much interest the candidate has in the position. 6. Continually Refine Your Practices
Books like Lou Adler's Hire with Your Head, and seminars and workshops on best-practice hiring, run by organizations like Profiles, will help you continually refine your skills in this area. People are your most important asset. Shouldn't you invest at least as much effort in attracting, recruiting and retaining them as you invest in winning and retaining customers? From the book 40 STRATEGIES FOR WINNING IN BUSINESS by Bud Haney and Jim Sirbasku. © S&H Publishing Co. |
