This happened to a global resource company client of mine a couple of years ago. They had advertised for a senior engineer to fulfil the role of Project Manager for all of their major feasibility studies that were in the pipeline. The person they had shortlisted had all of the right experience and qualifications, and had recently been employed in a role at another company that involved major project oversight. Prior to that, this candidate had a succession of business development type roles which relied on his engineering experience and training. According to my client he seemed like the right person for the job. Certainly he seemed to ‘tick all the right boxes,’ but there was something that didn’t quite seem to gel in their due diligence and so they asked me for my assessment. It concerned the fact that the two reference checks they had undertaken were throwing up anomalies that they could not reconcile and they wanted to know why. Here is what I discovered…

After profiling the candidate which included both quantitative on-line testing as well as a two hour discussion and qualitative assessment of his language patterns, I was able to confidently report to my client that neither of the previous employers were lying, and that both were correct in their personal assessment of the candidate’s performance. It depended less on whether he had the competency to undertake the role and more on his motivational preferences as to how he was motivated to use the skills he had and process his model of the world. His ‘motivational fingerprint’ if you will. Here is what I said…

    … “For the Project Oversight role where project leadership involves conceptual analysis and strategy, detailed risk assessment, systemic thinking followed by a properly structured plan of action taking into account all of the competing factors, the candidate has the experience and training but his ‘motivational fingerprint’ does not support him working in this way.”

Across the board he had rated motivational patterns like Concept and Structure; Reflection and Patience (i.e. Thinking before Acting); Focus on Information and Systems; Problem Solving (Risk Mitigation); Evolution (i.e. Gradual Change and Development); and Depth Orientation as quite low in his preferences. His language patterns in the discussion we had, reinforced this assessment of mine. Note: This is not to say that he was not trained nor competent in these disciplines. It is just that it was not his preferred way of working or using his skills.

    … “For the Business Development role where leadership involves the ability to seek out new development opportunities; make quick decisions; initiate action; and drive a team towards a long term goal, the candidate exhibits all of the action-oriented patterns one would expect to see as part of his motivational make-up, both in his quantitative assessment and in my qualitative assessment of our discussion.”

Across the board he had rated highly the following motivational patterns which indicated a strong preference for speed and action:- Focus on Activity; Initiation; Use (i.e. Jumping into Action); Convinced Automatically; Convinced by Doing (as opposed to Reading; Seeing or Listening); Difference (i.e. a preference for Rapid and Discontinuous change) and Goal Orientation.

Once I had shared my assessment with my client, it quickly became obvious to them why the manager who had employed the candidate in a Project Oversight role rated his performance so poorly and why the manager who had employed him in a Business Development role would hire him again tomorrow if the opportunity presented itself.

Both were telling the truth in the context of the role the candidate had performed for them previously, just as much as two people looking at a car accident from different perspectives and vantage points will describe the same scene differently, even though the reality of the crash was identical.

So the decision that was presented to my client quickly became a no-brainer as a result. The only question that needed to be addressed was whether the role for which they were hiring him was more of a Project Oversight role or a Business Development role, even though the candidate was equally skilled for both.

Given that the role at the resource company was a closer motivational fit to the one the candidate had reportedly underperformed in, the observation was made that this candidate might not be the right person for that role. Another more suitable candidate was subsequently chosen. This was not only the right decision for the employer but also in the best interests of the candidate regardless of his personal wishes.

Placing a ‘square peg in a round hole’ is not only a potential risk for the employer but also potentially highly stressful for the employee involved. As employees we should always aim to work towards our preferences and strengths that we develop as a result of those preferences, otherwise we will only invite feelings of boredom or inadequacy within ourselves.

Here is the challenge for employers however:–

All too often I observe that organisations only select or promote based on very limited criteria….

1. Competency – can they do the job?
2. Previous Experience – has someone else said they can do the job?
3. Gut Feeling – do we think they can do the job?
4. Rapport – do we like them enough to want them to do the job?
5. Performance over Time – after 3-6 months of trial and error, will we discover if they can do the job?

The missing ingredients in all of this which are crucial to the final decision are the Attitudes and Motivations of the Individual. i.e. Are they the right fit/best fit for the role? These measures are the most important and effective predictors of job performance, and employers ignore this fact at their peril.

As a result of ground-breaking research and development in psychometric testing over the past ten years, it is now possible to predict with a certain degree of confidence, how an executive will be most likely motivated to perform, behave and communicate in his/her specific work environment. This means that you can now unlock the motivational code for improving engagement, effectiveness and performance in the workforce from the highest to the most basic levels of employment. Not only can we now measure what motivates someone at work, but also to what degree and by how much these drivers motivate them, compared to the rest of the standard population.

The knowledge that a company gleans from these insights is a proven recipe for more incisive and effective candidate selection or promotion, and for more targeted information into successful ‘on-boarding’ or personal career development. This assists immeasurably in ensuring that an organisation’s external candidate/ internal succession selection processes are conducted at world’s best practice levels.

What are your thoughts on this? I’d love to read them.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to discuss further how to select the right people for your roles and how to leverage that knowledge for the benefit of them and your organisation.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

It seems like every day we read of more and more people being let go from their current employment or losing their contract, when only a week earlier their immediate future seemed secure.

Regardless of what our political leaders say about the current situation, I think no one can deny that our general confidence about the economic climate today and years to come has taken a battering. In my experience of working on behalf of companies to assist their people who have been confronted with the reality of moving on, here’s some of what I share with them.

I never gloss over the fact that this can be a very painful time for them, but as they come to understand during this process, while externally driven change is outside of their control, how they choose to view this transition is not. I can think of no better example of this principle than what nature teaches us about the elements critical to metamorphosis, and how transition can lead to transformation if we believe in that possibility and allow it to unfold.

The Story of the Butterfly
A man had kept the cocoon of a butterfly for a long time, when one day he noticed with excitement that the little insect was beginning to come out. The cocoon looked very strange, as it had a very narrow opening and it was hard to imagine how a beautiful butterfly was going to force itself out of it.

With great anticipation the man watched the butterfly slowly struggling to get out of the cocoon. He then became very impatient with the whole process and convinced himself that the butterfly was not going to be able to push itself out. So the butterfly wouldn’t have to go through all of that pain, the man decided to help it out of its cocoon. He picked up a pair of scissors and snipped open the cocoon.

Immediately, and with perfect ease, out crawled the butterfly… dragging a huge swollen body and little shriveled wings!

The man waited eagerly to see the marvellous process of the wings expanding but the poor butterfly never did develop its wings. It stayed crawling painfully through life instead of flying through the air on its beautiful wings as nature had intended. What the man didn’t know was that the great labour and difficulty a butterfly has in passing through such a narrow opening in its cocoon, is nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings. This prepares the butterfly for flight once it achieves its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight can only come after a struggle.

How many times have we wished and hoped that we can take the easy way out of a situation or our struggles? How many times have we allowed our past failures and painful experiences or current difficulties to stop us from forging ahead? Pain, disappointment and trials are what strengthen us. Our current restraints don’t define who we are. It is often by making a conscious decision to learn from our experiences, that we can truly move forward.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like some help with your personal career transition, or if you would like to support your staff as a result of decisions you are being forced to make regarding their employment future.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

She looked good. She sounded good. She had all the right connections. It seemed she knew everyone, such was the quality of her network. And if she didn’t know them, and wanted to, then she was quick to rock up and start a conversation. CEOs, General Managers, key decision makers – no one was out of bounds for her. She had a way of getting in touch and keeping the connection. The dream B2B sales exec you might think. Or was she?

It was one of those times when a client of long standing asked a favour of me. Would I please have a quick chat with this ‘gun’ Business Development Manager of his who had been employed for roughly six months? When I say ‘gun’ that was his description not mine, and the reason for his confidence was because there had been six months of solid prospecting, networking, prospective client meetings, many proposals submitted and interest being shown, and it seemed that everything was humming along just fine. In other words all the activity was there and all the initiative to get out into the market place, knock on doors and ‘get a foot in’ was being demonstrated. So why did he want me to have a quick, informal chat I asked of him? (i.e. “Nothing too formal in case I ‘scared the horses,’ ” he said).

Well even though it seemed that everything was just humming along fine, and according to Peg the ‘gun’ BDM, she was certain of landing a ‘big fish’ any day now, as yet none had been netted. For some unknown reason they had been getting off the hook or they weren’t taking the bait. This didn’t phase Peg in the slightest, but my client was beginning to have some nagging doubts in the back of his mind. (He had decided to go on a small fishing expedition of his own with me casting the line.)

So as a favour, (remember this was a long standing, and much respected client of mine) I left my ‘formal executive profiler’s’ hat off, and organised to have a friendly, ‘how are you settling in?– how’s it all been going?’ chat with Peg and my client at the local café. Sure enough, Peg was chatty, effusive, confident and filled with stories about who she knew and how she knew them, and why they were keen to sign on to one of my client’s programmes any day now. In fact she was too damn chatty for my liking, but maybe that was just my own filters getting in the way!

As it transpired, I must have piqued enough of Peg’s interest during some lull in her conversation when I shared a little bit about how I help people (and their bosses) to get below the surface of what drives them so that they can make the most of their unique talents and motivations at work. She commented that she might be interested in knowing more about ‘what made her tick’ to me and her boss, so we arranged for me to put on my formal profiling hat when I got back to my office and send her the necessary material to start the process. (And because I had originally agreed to help my client out as a favour I left this now formal engagement as an informal follow up at bare minimum costs. I tell you this now because there is a valuable lesson, second to the main one, to be gained from this story and I will share it with you later).

When I finally received all of Peg’s material, there was no doubting that all of the expected motivational patterns were there as far as prospecting, networking and initiating contact were concerned. They were all clustered right around the top of her chart. Actually she was ‘off the chart’ on immersing herself in loads of activity day in day out – being idle was not for her (tick). She was also very charged up with the desire to get out there and initiate action (tick); talk with people, listen carefully to them and canvass their input (tick, tick). In actual fact, if there was a choice between thinking and planning versus jumping into action, Peg would choose action over deliberation any day (another tick). And did I say she was also comfortable with keeping to a schedule in the pursuit of a goal, working a system and keeping accurate records (tick, tick, tick, tick)? I think you get the picture.

“So what or where were the missing links?” I hear you asking me. Before I let you in on the secret, you will find it interesting to know that even though I chased Peg up on more than a few occasions, I never did get the opportunity to personally debrief her. There always seemed to be some reason why she missed my calls, misplaced my emails or was ‘too busy to get back to me this week’ (there’s a clue here). Anyway, because it was that ‘small fee – big favour’ kind of exercise, I decided not to chase around the block with Peg any longer and confined my time just to debriefing my client.

Here’s what I told him. “Yes, there is no doubt that Peg is a ‘gun’ prospector and networker as you say. She will get you in the door of many of the right type of clients and she has a level of activity and initiation combined with resilience, to keep it up long after others may have drifted off into the land of ‘call reluctance.’  So you should value that part of her motivation and desire, and leverage it to maximum effect…

…But there are just a couple of patterns that are very low down on Peg’s motivational radar that I feel are holding her back and if they aren’t addressed or if she is not able to acknowledge them and work towards changing or developing them further, then you may continue to hear and see evidence of great fishing and wonderful persistence ‘playing the line,’ but eventually the fish will get away after all those hours out there on the ocean. Those critical missing motivational patterns are the ‘Desire to Achieve,’ ‘Digging up and Solving Problems,’ and her effectiveness at ‘Reading People’ so she knows when to reel in that big fish and reach for the net.”

My client thanked me for my insights, and said that he would give them some further thought and see what he could do to address this seemingly small gap (but crucial in my opinion) in Peg’s otherwise impressive BDM make-up. Just before we ended our conversation, he added that because they were so close to landing a couple of those big fish that had been on Peg’s line for some time now, he would give it a couple more months before considering more drastic action, if need be. It occurred to me as I walked away from that debriefing, that now my client was the one who was ‘hooked’ because he was so enmeshed in Peg’s activity and story of ‘it’s all going to land any day now’ he didn’t want to rock that boat they were both so firmly ensconced in.

Those ‘couple more months’ stretched out to a further twelve or more at a substantial cost to my client’s business, and not one fish – not even a tiddler – was landed before he and Peg, the ‘gun’ BDM, finally parted company. The moral of this story, and one worth committing deeply to memory for all of you who are business owners and managers, is that if someone is not a good fit for a role in even one or two crucial elements of motivation, no matter what other wonderful talents they bring to the table, then wishing and hoping things will change without intervention of some kind or another (whether that be through coaching, correcting, changing their role or moving them on), is not healthy for you, nor for them and certainly not healthy for your business.

In other words, ‘if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, but for some strange reason does NOT quack like a duck,’ then chances are it is still most probably not a duck but some other bird with webbed feet, and it needs to be moved from the duck pond to another environment more suited to its appetite. Or as the old saying goes – “Don’t put a square ‘Peg’ in a round hole.”

Oh and before I forget. What was the secondary lesson that you can take away from this story?

Because I wanted to ‘help out a longstanding client of mine with a quick informal favour,’ I lost sight of when the quick informal favour morphed into a more formal and substantive engagement. I should have then made arrangements with my client to change the nature of this engagement to one which was properly deserving of the appropriate investment for my time and expertise. If that had been the case, then he may have been motivated to listen more carefully and respond more decisively to my findings and recommendations about Peg, (i.e. if his investment for my advice was commensurate with its true worth.)

Not only that, I too would have had a more vested interest in making him sit up and take notice if I had known that I was being professionally engaged to investigate an issue and recommend an appropriate course of action and was not just ‘doing him a quick favour.’ In the final analysis neither he nor I were doing him a favour when the cost of an extra twelve months of salary at zero return was ripped from his bottom line. My professional fee for my insights and intervention on his behalf on this one ‘sticky issue’ paled by comparison to the money it cost him over that period of time, let alone the massive lost opportunity cost.

By the way, we are still in a long and mutually beneficial supplier-client relationship together to this date, so we live and learn to enjoy each other’s company and respective input another day.

The big moral for me (and I hope for you) in this story is that the outcome should always be more important than the investment, and that the investment you make should never be seen as a cost if the outcome you are striving for is achieved. When cost gets in the way of the outcome to such a degree that reducing it, avoiding it or saving it becomes the main focus, then that’s when you can potentially kiss the outcome goodbye.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to know more about how I can help you find the missing link to your key people in roles that can make or break your company… or with the assessment of internal or external candidates for key positions.  

A complimentary discovery session with me will help you get crystal clear on what you need to be doing in these areas. Don’t make the mistake that my client did above and just hope that your people issues will fix themselves without the proper insights or interventions.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less.  Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick?  Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your staff.

You may have heard the story about how one major airline assesses its job applicants prior to offering them any position which involves direct customer contact. The story and its message is a valuable reminder to us all.

In the group employment interviews the company representatives ask prospective employees why they want to work for the airline. Most of those being assessed make the assumption that the quality of their answer will determine whether they progress to the next stage in the hiring process or not, when in actual fact the assessors are more interested in observing how each member of the group of applicants is paying attention to the person who is speaking when they are in ‘listening mode.’ They look for tell-tale cues like eye contact, and other non verbal encouragement being given to the speaker by those who are still waiting for their turn to speak. It is a fairly impressive assessment process, and one which I have discussed first hand with the company during my benchmarking study visits some years ago.

Those applicants who were too distracted or self absorbed in mentally preparing themselves for their turn to speak while others were talking, were assessed as not having the appropriate customer focus to progress. Although this was not the only criteria by which the company made its assessments, it certainly had a significant impact on the overall assessment being made of each individual in the context of this particular role, given that success in this role depended on how customer-centric the person representing the airline was.

The distinction for listening here is, “wanting to hear” vs “waiting to speak.”

In profiling, we have a couple of patterns for human interaction which describe the two opposing motivational drivers (aka ‘metaprograms’) being assessed in this airline scenario and they are called “Sorting by Others” vs “Sorting by Self.” Neither pattern is good nor bad, right nor wrong, because it depends entirely upon the context of the role for which the employee is being assessed, however if the role you are selecting for involves a high degree of customer interaction and empathy, chances are you will want to select those people who unconsciously “Sort by Others,” and not “Sort by Self.” Hire those people who Sort by Self for roles that require a far more insular approach such as a sole nightwatchman on a security patrol, or a quality control type function.

A person can have the required experience and training and intellectual capability to perform the customer-facing role you are selecting them for, but if you haven’t assessed what motivates him or her unconsciously, then you run the risk of hiring a square peg for a round hole.

The nice thing is that we can now test for crucial elements such as these, so your selection process doesn’t always need to involve such a huge investment in resources to run group interviews supported by specialist observers watching the ‘players’ in the room, as this major airline did. Of course undertaking both the formal testing and the observational testing in a combined process has the added bonus of producing a quantitative and qualitative assessment for even greater precision. Either way, the objective is to avoid the huge financial cost of employing the wrong fit for the role from the beginning.

All too often the cost of poor selection and the consequences of inducting and training the wrong people only to see them being moved on within three months (or worse still, remaining in a position for which they are not a good fit), is never measured on the balance sheet as an avoidable and significant expense, but it should be. When the numbers are added up it may change some of the prevailing points of view about skimping on the investment of making better informed assessments during the initial stages, especially in small to medium sized businesses.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to know more about selecting for success.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less.  Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick?  Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your staff.

Naturally you want to create a culture of happy, motivated and productive staff who are totally committed to your company’s cause and its financial wellbeing. Who doesn’t in this new millennium where every employee under twenty five is just a click away from leaving your workplace and chasing the next big career move or the next exciting project to work on?

But in your rush to accommodate the whims and fancies of the ping pong playing, bean bag sitting, Twitter scrolling workforce, let’s not forget that the culture you are creating filled with fun and frolic also has to make some money to justify its existence and support its development and it has a duty of care to serve the most important stakeholder of all, your customers. You know, the people who pay your bills, cover the wages and hopefully leave you with some profit at the end of each month to continue the journey. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for creating a turbo charged, highly responsive company culture filled with enthusiastic young people who just can’t wait to walk in the door of your premises each day who are eager to serve and to smile, but at what point does the expectation of employee entitlement get in the way of good old fashioned personal responsibility and accountability? You see I am beginning to lose patience with the self absorbed, “I’m too busy checking my i-phone or chatting with my work colleagues to look up and acknowledge you as you walk in the door, let alone serve you” attitude that is becoming the rule not the exception in our retail environments of the new millennium. And this doesn’t only apply to those staff under twenty five either, though it does seem to be more prevalent mainly due to their over-representation in that category of employment. No wonder our retailers are fast losing business to the no frills but highly convenient and instantly responsive on line internet purchase. And it doesn’t end with the retail market either. I am equally tired of talking to unhelpful call center staff who struggle to understand my request or make sense with their advice to me, but never forget to tell me to “have a nice day” at the conclusion of our mutually frustrating conversation, all in the name of streamlined (read ‘cheaper’) service provision.

Just under twenty years ago I was one of those eager business owners who had got the bug of the empowered workforce. Ours was a workforce made up of the early Gen Yers of the mid to late nineties. We introduced meaningful KPIs for all of the staff from our first year apprentices right through to the seniors. We underpinned those metrics with weekly personal bonuses to supplement award wages as well as monthly shared team bonuses which were transferred to the staff social fund on a regular basis. And we found many opportunities to celebrate and share the ‘fun’ around as a result. We also introduced ‘open book management’ which entrusted all of our staff with full disclosure of our monthly income and gross profit and loss results so that they knew exactly the contribution they were making to the viability of the business which secured their employment. We held one-on-ones on a regular basis to help nurture and develop their personal growth and conducted weekly trainings to increase their skills. We also held weekly team meetings to give and receive open and constructive feedback as well as give recognition to those who were perceived deserving of praise for the week that had just passed. Plus we had annual staff conferences where everyone was invited to a different resort each year for a weekend of dialogue and planning and a chance to chill out over a sumptuous evening meal.

Oh and did I add that at our annual Christmas party, monetary awards of recognition were handed out to various top achievers for sustained excellence, with the ultimate award being an all expenses paid study tour overseas the following year for one lucky recipient? And if anyone was underperforming or not demonstrating supportive behaviour to their fellow team members, we went out of our way to give them structured feedback in accordance with proper HR practices, which we had learnt from government-endorsed training courses. Needless to say, our workplace procedures and facilities were also designed and implemented in strict accordance with OH&S practices including an annual inspection by an appropriately authorised external inspector.

What didn’t we do in our desire to create the model small business workplace consisting of four stand alone team based locations? During the nineties, the work that we did to create an engaged, empowered and productive workforce was probably years ahead of its time for a reasonably sized, privately owned SME like ours. The various national and state awards that we won for total customer service and retail excellence bore testimony to our endeavours and our achievements.

‘So what’s the catch?’ I hear you saying.

It all went swimmingly well for the first half a dozen years or so of our ten years at the coalface from start-up to sustained profitability. But as the years folded from the mid nineties into the new millennium, increasingly the sense of entitlement, the encroachment on the workplace of smart phones and other technological distractions, and the constant siren call of weekend partying started to take hold and damage our carefully nurtured workplace environment. Old hands moved on and younger hands began to drift on to the scene who were more focused on their social networks, their weekend parties and coming down on Monday morning from the exhausting effects of recreational drug-taking the days before, than the perceived benefits of a stable work environment or a caring employer. Empowerment began to be replaced by self absorption and the concept of thinking long term only lasted as far as the next week’s pay check. In time I reached a point where I questioned what was the point anymore?

What we had attempted to create years ahead of its time was always part of a vision that was bigger than just the bottom line, although that was important. In the end I just lost heart and sold out and happily moved on to other things which did not rely on the goodwill of an increasingly self indulgent workforce.

Cynical and burned out you may say? Heavens no. Instead I transferred my energies to helping businesses and corporations find the missing link to sustained profits and an empowered workforce where both are not mutually exclusive.

There is a happy ending though. In the ensuing years since my journey of profitable, award winning, values-driven private business, I have discovered the missing ingredient. All of this wonderful work where companies endeavour to create and nurture a happy, productive and openly responsive workplace culture, can only be effective if they start with the most basic premise of all.

HIRE ATTITUDE and then TRAIN SKILL.

And that is why I now specialise at the deep end of ‘motivational fingerprinting’ for selection, coaching and employee development.

Without the right people in the right roles who are committed to contributing to an open and supportive workplace culture, you may as well be casting pearls before swine.

If you start with thoroughly investigating and adapting the hiring strategies you use to select and promote both externally and internally, then you have a chance to make a real difference. If you don’t then you are making a rod for your own back, no matter how well intentioned you may be as an employer.

Next time I will share with you a case study that addresses exactly that issue at the corporate level.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less.   Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick?  Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your staff.

If your business involves public contact at the pointy end of the transaction then the front line staff you select and train should be the key to your success. The problem is that often the front line staff are the youngest and least experienced due to their role being seen as an ‘entry level’ one and therefore not treated with the right focus and training they deserve. As an employer, this approach to hiring can potentially lead to disastrous consequences for your business. Here’s what could happen if you don’t actively select and develop the right front line staff. It happened just last week so it’s still fresh in the minds of all of those public who witnessed it, including myself.

It was a pleasant sunny Saturday of around 27 degrees, and after two days of hellishly hot 40 degree days, a trip to one of our Melbourne outdoor fun parks which had picnic facilities, children’s rides and water slides was the perfect destination for a day out with the family. Naturally this thought was shared by many hundreds of other families just like ours, so this fun park was facing a bumper day of expectant customers and ringing cash registers at the entrances. I am sure that the management and their young front line staff were very mindful of moving the long lines of families through their ticket windows as quickly as possible to keep the tills ticking over as the public streamed into the facility, eager to capture their perfect spot close to a barbecue facility or a shady picnic area.

This is one of those parks where the height of a child determines the level of entry fee that is charged and to support this policy, the entry windows have a painted ruler on the adjoining wall to help staff to determine whether a child incurs an adult fee, a child’s fee or no charge. This helps to avoid the issue of staff having to assess whether a child is actually under the cut-off age that a parent says they are, given that the criteria for the fee charged is the number of rides they are tall enough to enjoy.

This all seems fairly logical and for the most part, it’s a policy that is presumably easy for front line staff to follow and to administer, except when discretion and common sense are required. Unfortunately for young, inexperienced front line staff, discretion and common sense only come with maturity… or proper induction training by their employer from the moment they join the organisation.

So here is what happened just last Saturday. I am sure you would agree with me that it was a potential PR disaster just waiting to happen.

As I said, the lines of eager families waiting to enter the fun park just after 10 am were long. Waiting their turn among the long lines standing in the sun were a mother and father with a six year old child in a wheelchair who has cerebral palsy. This child is unable to stand unaided, only crawl. Naturally the number of rides he would be able to enjoy are limited. Still, he was excited about the big day out. His father tells me he had been waiting in anticipation for weeks, because this would be his first ever visit to a fun park.

When the family reached the entry window, the father explained to the girl there that his son would not be able to enjoy too many rides. To his complete surprise the young lady at the window looked at the boy and then asked the father to ask the boy to get out of his chair so that he could be measured. Although he was surprised at this request, the father kept his cool. Rather than judge the girl at the window as being either incompetent or unfeeling, he took the time to explain that his little boy could not stand because he had cerebral palsy.

You can imagine the father’s shock and dismay when the girl insisted that he had to do this because “that’s the policy.” So in front of the long lines of families behind them, the father had to lift up his son under his arms and hold him up against the wall like a criminal while the girl at the window checked his height. To add insult to injury, she then charged the adult fee for the six year old boy because he just happened to be a fraction over the cut-off height for children.

Can you imagine the embarrassment and humiliation that this innocent little boy and his parents faced in front of all the other families? He is starting school this year with the support of a teacher’s aid in the classroom. Unfortunately at the tender age of six, he is now old enough to endure his first experience of discrimination, at the hands of a young, inexperienced front line staff member totally ignorant of her role’s wider responsibility. The father told me he was just too flabbergasted and embarrassed to cause a stir at the time, even though in hindsight he was angry and disgusted at their treatment and the rest of their day was spoiled by this “first impression” to what is a wonderful park designed and managed for the benefit of young children and their parents.

I would have named this fun park in this blog, but to be fair to the management, when I rang them on behalf of the family they were shocked to hear what had happened, and have offered to make a personal apology to the father along with a complimentary family pass for another day at the park in the future. I do not know whether the aggrieved family will take up their offer such is their level of disillusionment with their treatment, but it begs the question about the potential PR disaster this could have created for the fun park.

First there is the spectacle being created for those families in the line witnessing this scenario first hand. Then there are all of the people who will hear about it from the aggrieved parents and their friends. Then there is the naming and shaming that could have potentially resulted on talk back radio, followed by other print and TV media outlets picking up the story. And now we have Facebook and Twitter as an ideal vehicle for this sort of negative publicity. If it was in the USA, it would probably have been all over the news followed by a law suit for damages no doubt.

Yes, I believe that this fun park management don’t know how lucky they are that none of the above negative PR has hit the airwaves, but what I do know is this. The hiring of entry level staff is a PR disaster waiting to happen if they are not properly selected, inducted and trained to be more aware and compassionate individuals in their roles, rather than mere transaction takers lacking in any common sense who hide behind ‘policy.’ Their education should start when they leave school not end! And while I think of it, there is much to be said for having an older and wiser ‘head’ around these kids while they are still learning the ropes.

We now have the tools and methodology to test for the right attitude and motivation needed for even these front line roles, if employers are willing to see entry level staffing as an investment in their business and not a cost to be reduced to the lowest common denominator.

Have you ever witnessed any similar examples of completely inappropriate behaviour by front line staff? If so I would love to hear about it from you.

Until next time… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your staff.

Someone who is not only instantly recognisable but almost iconic in what they stand for and what they represent. Someone so inspirational that they  can gather an amazing team of selfless workers around them, totally committed to the cause, who will put in twelve months of selfless work involving meticulous planning and preparation so that their leader can deliver that knock-out performance in the one huge global event of the year. An event which just has to succeed because there will be no second chances to get it ‘right on the night.’

I’m not talking about the next Richard Branson. Nor the reincarnation of Steve Jobs. Although they come close, even they can’t match it for leadership star power and global performance so undeniably amazing, that it can only be described as miraculous.

No my friends, there can only ever be one as instantly recognisable and enduring as this global marketing genius and ‘style icon’. I am talking about the one… the only… Mr Santa Claus, aka Saint Nick, champion and patron saint of little children everywhere throughout the globe, who still have it in their heart to believe in miracles.

Given the time of the year, I thought it behoved me to complete one of my precision profiles of the venerable old gentleman and global icon himself. Here is what I have discovered from delving deeply into Mr Claus’s motivational make-up. The patterns I describe here are only sixteen of forty eight potential motivational patterns available to choose from, but I am confident that they represent the key motivational drivers that set Santa apart from his iconic peers.

Santa’s  motivational patterns I uncovered are in no particular order of priority:–

• Goal Orientation: Someone who is able to maintain focus on the main objective over time. They are well suited to situations where staying focused on the goal is the key to their effectiveness. (For Santa there is only one goal… one main chance… one event to strive for… and he never waivers from his total focus to that goal – 24^th December each year.)
• External Reference: Someone who excels at being adaptable to the needs of the customer and other stakeholders and who listens carefully to what the customer wants and then delivers according to their wishes. (No matter how caught up he may get in the day-to-day running of his global delivery business, Santa never loses sight of what drives every decision, every action – his young customers’ feedback and requests.)
• Breadth Orientation: Someone who works with and thinks about very large “chunks” of information. Predominantly they prefer to work from a global or high level perspective. (No arguments with this one. While the elves handle the details, Santa keeps his eye firmly focused on the global big picture.)
• Alternatives Thinking:  Someone who looks for other ways to do things, always weighing up options and seeking alternative ways to achieve an outcome. (For me choosing this one was a little tricky, but my educated guess would be that Santa is always open to other options and ways of doing things in his quest to fulfil the promises of all those trusting little souls. If a particular gift is just not possible to deliver on Christmas morn, I am sure that he will find a way to deliver something else equally special. Besides, I am told that Santa leaves all the processing stuff to his elves, which is more suited to their line of work, and therefore their particular motivational preference.)
• Group Environment: Someone who is productive working in and around people constantly. When they have many people to interact with, they are able to be most effective. They handle distractions and interruptions to their daily routine well. (Santa just loves the social interaction he gets from people both at work and out in the marketplace. I am sure he is most productive when he can get out and mingle with the multitudes. I bet if he had to work alone inside a little office at the back of North Pole headquarters, within two minutes he’d be out there on the processing floor mingling with the elves and having a good old ‘chin wag,’ getting amongst the action.)
• Sole Responsibility: Someone who is very happy to accept responsibility and accountability for their own performance. They understand the hierarchies of responsibility at work. (Although the whole North Pole processing center is a team environment where Santa and the elves all ‘pull together’ to be ready for the one big night of the year, there is no denying that in the end, it all falls on those broad shoulders of the ‘big fella.’ If the task is not completed by Christmas morning, there will only be one guy whose neck is on the line and that won’t be one of the thousands of elves or Rudolph or Prancer or Dancer or any of the other reindeer. No – the buck very firmly stops with Santa.)
• Sameness: Someone who likes stability and security. They are more interested in keeping things the same as they were before. (When it comes to change either rapid or progressive, Santa is not your guy. The one thing you can rely on with Santa Claus is that he has been happily settled in the same role for many hundreds of years before this year and he will most probably be happy to remain in the same role doing the same thing for many hundreds of years to come, as long as there are little children whose hearts depend on him and his work.)
• Structure: Someone who likes to organise and put the structures in place which are required to gain optimum effect. They like to plan and structure resources from an organisational point of view. (Santa is not big on analysis or conceptualising. He knows the concept ‘inside out’ so he doesn’t need to dwell on it — it is to gladden the hearts of little children around the world. So Santa prefers to focus purely and simply on the planning and preparation and organising of resources that will allow him to perform to the best of his best ability on that one night in the year when it’s all ‘on the line’.)
• Affiliation: Someone who is strongly motivated by being part of a group where he belongs and in being liked. Rapport, empathy, inclusion and mutual respect play a significant part in this pattern. (Yep Santa loves to be loved and he loves to love those to whom he has devoted his life’s work. Enough said on that one.)
• Achievement: Someone who is motivated to achieve outcomes. They seek out challenging tasks that are linked to their personal performance. They are more likely to persist longer, as long as there is a reasonable chance of success. (One could never say that Santa doesn’t revel in the thrill of the challenge. His appetite for a challenge and his willingness to persist in the face of adversity has been proven over the centuries. Somehow, in the end he always finds a way to deliver ‘the goods’.)
• Compliance to Rules: Someone who is willing to follow the rules and policies of the organisation and is an excellent role model for what is defined as good conduct. (There is arguably no better role model than Santa.)
• Convinced by Reading: Someone who prefers to read information and other written material to become convinced. Reasoning, sense and logic are a major part of this method of being convinced. (Although I am sure that Santa always has his ‘ear to the ground’ and ‘his eyes peeled’ when he is assessing who has been naughty not nice over the twelve months, in the end most of his decisions on ‘who gets what’ relies on reading all of the millions of letters of request he receives from his doting fans throughout the world every year.)
• Convinced Automatically: Someone who is adept at gleaning a small amount of information in order to quickly project the rest of the information for understanding. (Santa only needs to read each letter once, and from that point onwards he’s made his decision, placed the order with his elves, and moved on to the next request. It doesn’t take any more than one reading for Santa to be convinced that the request is genuine and the child is deserving.)
• Focus on People: Someone who works best with people and their feelings. They are motivated by working with or around people and are often found in mentoring roles. (If you know Santa like I do you won’t need any further convincing that this is one of his driving passions.)
• Focus on Time: Someone who is very concerned about planning, allotting time and working within schedules. Deadlines and timing form a critical part of the work they do. (Santa is the grandmaster at working to a deadline.)
• Focus on Activity: Someone who likes being active and productive, having plenty to do (feeling busy). They focus on what needs to be done in terms of specific activities. (With Santa, there is no such thing as idle time. Every day he is ‘on the go’ keeping busy with reading letters; feeding reindeer; ‘geeing’ up the troops; helping on the production lines; chatting with the ‘spy elves’. There’s never a moment to spare in his ultra busy life.)

So if you want to hire a Santa equivalent as your next global CEO/leader, now you know specifically what to look for. And because no two profiles are the same, you now have the exact “motivational fingerprint” to commence your executive search. Happy headhunting… and have a safe and joyous Christmastime filled with love and laughter amongst those who are near and dear to you.  

Until next time… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less.   Have an amazing week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick?  Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your staff.

So much of what I do is to help companies select the right candidate for the role… or right ‘fit’ for the task… or right person for the promotion. Unfortunately, I have lost count of the number of times that I have been called in to assist with performance issues, when in actual fact the problem wasn’t the person, but the system used to hire, place, or promote him or her in the first place.

I am a strong believer in uncovering the talent and desire in people and leveraging that in a role for the benefit of them and the organisation. So often I see evidence of people being expected to perform in areas that are just ‘not them,’ and then being coached or mentored to change when the only thing such intervention achieves is the development of strong weaknesses. My preference is for organisations to find the right motivational fit for each role and then build teams of people with complementary talents and patterns of thinking.

It was particularly interesting for me to read these set of questions that were forwarded to me by Maggie Kelly, CEO of Successful Executive, a company devoted to helping businesses find and develop workplace champions. I believe the original source was the Australian Financial Review, 22-23 January 2011 edition, so I thank both Maggie and the AFR for some of these gems I share with you. You may find these questions useful in assessing your own current career situation.

Your answers to the following questions can help determine if you’re in a job that combines what you like to do, what you do best, and what adds value to the organisation. If you aren’t, consider shifting some of your responsibilities or even finding a different position or career.

1. What are you best at doing? It is amazing how many people spend years trying to get good at what they’re bad at, instead of better at what they are good at.
2. What do you like to do the most? This is not always the same as the answer to Question 1. Unless it is illegal or bad for you, do what you like. If it is also productive and useful, it ought to be your career.
3. What do you wish you were better at? Your answer may guide you to a course you should take or a mentor you should work with. It may also indicate a task you should delegate.
4. What talents do you have that you haven’t developed? (And don’t say ‘none.’)
5. Which of your skills are you most proud? This often reflects obstacles overcome.
6. What do others most often say are your greatest strengths? This question helps you identify skills you may not value because they seem easy to you.
7. What have you got better at? This gives you an idea of where putting in extra effort can pay off.
8. What can you just not get better at no matter how hard you try? This tells you where not to waste any more time.
9. What do you most dislike doing? Your answer here suggests what tasks you might want to delegate or hire out.
10. What sort of people do you work best/worst with? Do you love to work with highly organised, analytic types? Do creative types drive you crazy? Make up your own categories.
11. What sort of organisational culture brings out the best in you? It is amazing how many people won’t leave a culture for which they are hideously unsuited.
12. What were you doing when you were happiest in your work life? Could you find a way to be doing that now?
13. What are your most cherished hopes for your future work life? What could keep you from realising those hopes and dreams?
14. How could your time be better used in your current job to add value to the organisation? Your answer here gives your manager valuable input he or she may never have thought to ask for.

My advice for you is to spend far more of your productive time doing the things you love and the things you excel at, and less time wasted on the things you just shouldn’t be doing, because your time is the most precious commodity you have, so you don’t want to squander it.

Next time I will share with you a specific example of how important it is for both the executive as well as the organisation, to work within the rules of ‘best fit’ and stop trying to fight natural preferences.

Until next time… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less.   Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick?  Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your staff.

For example:

If a position to be filled is highly procedural involving strict protocols and is detailed and focused on daily problem solving… it would be unwise to use words that were ambiguous with generalised goals and possibilities, written within an advert that was ‘light’ on information.  The candidate most suited to the role will want to read as much detail in the advert as possible, with a clear indication of what the expectations and boundaries of the position are, and they would be more likely to respond if there is a clearly defined procedure to follow as part of their employment application, such as the words… “Your employment application should be received no later than COB Friday this week, and it should be accompanied by your updated CV and a passport size photograph.” Even if those requirements are not really critical to the employment application, they are more likely to draw interest and response from more suitable candidates. Here are some other examples:– High Focus on People needed – include a picture of people. Big Picture thinker needed – use less wordy – more global descriptions … etc.

The Process and Application:

Ideally the process of advert design should flow from a properly researched and validated “Model of Excellence” of the best performers in a particular role so that the employer is crystal clear on what motivational patterns they are looking to recruit.

As an alternative, careful analysis of the current Position Description supported by an in-depth interview with the manager/employer and other key performers in the same role, can result in an “educated guess” as to what traits and attributes might be required, and from that preliminary information, the original recruitment advertisement can then be adapted accordingly and potential interview questions to ask with final stage applicants, can be developed.  With this adapted approach, the chances of attracting more appropriate candidates during the early stages of the recruitment process are greatly enhanced, especially if the final shortlisted candidates complete on-line profiles to be assessed independently as part of the selection process.

Here are the benefits of this targeted language approach.

The ‘wrong’ applicants for any given position are more likely to unconsciously de-select themselves early on in the selection process, because the advert doesn’t feel ‘right’ to them… i.e. at the unconscious level, the employment advertisement’s words don’t attract or trigger them to consider the position further. As a result, there is a strong likelihood that the pool of more appropriate candidates will be increased from the outset due to the self-selection that is unconsciously encouraged by the wording of the advert (assuming that their skills, experience and capabilities also match the requirements of the position on offer).

In essence – ‘one size (or ‘style’ in recruitment adverts) does not fit all,’ irrespective of the content of the position being described.

If the processes that top performers use consistently can be measured, then it is possible to replicate their behaviours and therefore their results with the people within your organisation who have similar belief systems and motivational preferences. This is something that can now be tracked and measured objectively. Unfortunately the vast majority of organisations that rely on a sales team to generate their income either don’t realise that modelling excellence from within their organisation is now available to them as a result of the latest research in cognitive science, or worse still, they are too comfortable with their old fashioned ‘hit and miss’ selection strategies to develop a more systematic approach to behavioural excellence within the workplace. Invariably, what could be a more structured and scientific approach to the discovery and training of the right talent, becomes a subjective mish-mash of reliance on previous employment experience, impressive looking CV information on the surface, and personal ‘gut feeling’ by the employer. Instead of trying to turn your average performers into champions, why not just model how the champions within your midst think and behave within their role and find people who think the same way, and then work with them to leverage their effectiveness? It is a common sense approach to an age old problem and it is a pity in this day and age of technological innovation and excellence, that innovation and excellence in the field of human performance seems to be lagging behind.

Here is a simple example of a Call Centre client who found a way to stop wasting a fortune in poor HR strategies trying to select people who seemed a good ‘fit’ with their corporate culture, and hired from the basis of modelling their top performers in the role. The results were immediate, as was the logic of what was done to change their hiring and selection strategies:-

Client Contact Centre for an insurance company – Customer Advice line

Selection Criteria – Client hired staff to fit their corporate culture – Bright ‘people’ people; Enthusiastic; Action Oriented; Initiative driven; Detail oriented; Extroverted … Interviewers hired based on these upbeat ‘filters’.
The Role – The role was a repetitive; information-giving; procedure-driven; phone and screen interaction.
The Problem – Staff turnover in this section of thirty staff was extremely high. Three month tenures; low morale; employee stress; erratic or dwindling performance; customer ‘experience’ so-so.
The Intervention – Profiling indicated that best ‘fit’ for this role was not company culture ‘fit’ but role-specific fit.
Actual Role Requirements – Low people filter (not ‘chatty’ – more matter of fact); High Information filter; Procedurally focused; Equal balance between Big Picture and Depth Orientation.

Once role-specific precision modelling was introduced, the selection criteria was changed from ‘culture fit’ to ‘role fit’ resulting in an immediate turnaround in the effectiveness of the recruitment strategies, team morale and the success of new inductees.

It is no different with sales and sales executives. Contrary to what a lot of people think, sales is a very process driven discipline, and this is especially so for the top sales performers. Everything they do has a systematic and measured approach to it, and they leave the heroics to the ‘one hit wonders.’ If these processes can be measured, then they can be replicated with the right people. Researching, modelling and replicating the sales system that they have developed and follow consistently which leads to their sustained success in any particular industry is the key to a company’s successful sales and marketing strategy.

If you would like to know more about modelling and replicating the excellence that already resides within the four walls of your organisation then contact me and I’ll shed some further light for you on this amazing subject.

Until next time… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less.   Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Revealing the hidden secrets about yourself that even you didn’t know.