A Merger – and an Acquisition!
I’ve been blogging here and at CEO2CEO.wordpress.com for quite a while. This was my first blog, and it soon became my place to speak out on matters from technology to economics to politics to just about anything that touched on human potential and its achievement. Then I needed a place just to speak out on matters that were interesting to CEOs but not necessarily other readers, so CEO2CEO was born.
It’s time for a merger, but not the usual kind where at least one of the merged organizations loses its identity. (I never understood why anyone called those mergers, other than in the very rare case where both entities bring equal assets to the table.) They are acquisitions.
This merger will be different. Each entity – the two blogs involved – will continue to stand on its own, and I will even be back at some point to add some commentary. But time being limited, I need to focus on one entity only. Hence, the acquisition.
The new blog focuses on leadership, but leadership in a way that is counter to what most of us learned in school. It is leadership that is based in understanding what motivates people to come together to do more as a team than they ever could accomplish on their own. It is leadership of a Coherent Human Infrastructure.
Welcome to Leadership is a Team Sport!
The Lights of Winter
There is a famous old Peanuts cartoon. Linus, ever philosophical, quotes “It is better to light one candle rather than curse the darkness”, whereupon Lucy, ever the pessimist, says something like, “You stupid darkness!”
Whether you celebrate Ramadan, Diwali, Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, or Kwanzaa, we’re in the season of lights, at least here in the northern hemisphere, where daylight is at its yearly minimum. So what are you doing about the darkness?
Before you answer, consider the advantages of being a Lucy.
- You never have to expend much energy finding the candle and lighting it.
- You don’t have to actually achieve anything, so you don’t have to put forth any effort.
- You won’t have to challenge any of your old beliefs, even the ones that make you miserable.
Are you with me? There is a choice here to be made. To do something positive that causes the light to be lit – or to curse it for not lighting itself.
Make no mistake about it, there is a lot of darkness. You may not be feeling very positive about searching for light, especially if this has been a particularly dark year for you. If it has, the only positive thing may be that you are tired of cursing it.
So here are some suggestions for making sure that the lights of whatever holiday you are celebrating are reflected in your spirits and hopes for the new year.
- One candle might not seem like much in a sea of darkness, so find other holders of light. They are all around, but even if you can’t see them, their flames will keep yours lit.
- If you find yourself among the cursers, refuse to join. Instead, consider turning their curses into kisses by thanking them for their caring about whatever it is that they are cursing.
- Remember, curses pass the tongue quickly but linger in the atmosphere. Before you are tempted to curse the darkness, look around. Do you really want to snuff out those candles, or would you rather let yourself be warmed by the lights of others?
With all our wishes that you feel lightness and joy, today and throughout the coming year,
Dr. Janice and the TGI Team
PS: This was our Winter message to our friends. it was followed by a special offer which, in the spirit of holiday giving, I’d like to offer to you too.
Whether you’re an HR or search professional or consultant, business executive or manager, or just interested in improving human infrastructure, you’ll find our webinar-based training time well spent. And, there will be NO CHARGE! Here are some details:
The course prepares learners to provide basic support to users of Role-Based Assessment, and to apply for Certification. Certification requires passing a written examination and continuing to meet acceptable standards.
At the completion of the course, participants will understand and be able to apply key principles of the theory underlying Role-Based Assessment and the CHI Indicators.
They will:
- Know the difference between quantitative and qualitative metrics, and how to integrate their usage into hiring, development, and teambuilding scenarios
- Understand the significance of level of Coherence and how it is used as a quality of hire metric
- Be able to identify Roles, encourage appropriate Role partnering, and promote an environment and culture of Role respect
- Utilize knowledge of Teaming Characteristics to identify best-fit people for a specific organizational mission
- Be able to read RBA reports in depth and apply the knowledge to situations such as hiring, coaching, and teambuilding
That’s a lot of business value!
The course is delivered via GoToMeeting, and provides one Strategic and three General HRCI recert credits. There is no charge for the training or certification, and participants also receive their own RBA reports at no cost.
To register, just call 215-825-2500 and ask for Jenny or Paul, or email jperiquito(at)thegabrielinstitute(dot)com.
Why Interviews Suck
Notice that I am making a statement, not asking a question. There is no question about it. Interviews suck. And it doesn’t matter if you are the interviewer, the interviewee, or someone else who’s been sucked into the process.
There are three simple reasons.
First, interviews are very much like blind dates. Both sides get a lot of hype upfront, and most of it is inaccurate or misleading. Think back to the last time you bought-in to: “…and he’s so good to his mother” or “…but she has a wonderful personality.” Is that any different from “…he’s an undervalued property” or “…you’ll really grow with this company”? The bottom line is that interviews are a form of assessment, and no matter how structured or ‘fair’ you think you are being, they are neither standardized nor objective. Even if you are using ‘behavioral interviewing’ techniques, the information you retain about each candidate will still have been filtered through your personal frame of reference and unconscious biases. And just like the date who seemed like a perfect ‘fit’ – until their quirks, or their temper, or some other ‘undocumented features’ began to show up – there are people who have become experts at getting hired by NOT being themselves during the interview process. (Did you know there are dating coaches and interview coaches that drill people in how to ‘get lucky’?)
Second, for various reasons, the scales tend to tilt in favor of people who are least likely to be great team players. Poorly defined job scope? Insufficient resources? Unrealistic performance expectations? A great team player will raise relevant issues for discussion. A bad team player will tell you just what you want to hear. To make matters worse, all parties to the interview process have the same desired outcome, which no one will openly admit: they just want to get it over with!
- For HR or a staff recruiter, the harder the hiring manager is to deal with, the stronger this desire becomes.
- For an external recruiter, the desire to close and move on is variable: retained search, “No problem”; contingency, “Excellent choice! When will my check be mailed?”
- The interviewer(s) will push for rapid progress to the ‘right’ decision, despite the fact that the same process has proven faulty in the past.
- And lastly, the candidates (depending on their employment status, how shaky they think their present situation is, and any number of other factors) want a job, a great job, the perfect job, or at least one that they can survive until they land somewhere else. All this pressure favors candidates who are easy to ‘fall in love with’ instead of the people who are the most capable of adding value to the team.
Third, the very best person for the job rarely gets picked. Why? Let’s go back to dating for a moment. Did you know that the surest way to hook up with the wrong person is to look for someone who matches your personal ‘want list’? (This is a fact based on research, not folklore.) Think about it: can a list of experiences, skills, and physical attributes predict the quality of interpersonal behavior? Certainly not! In order to get a positive I.D. on a ‘good team-player’, you need to know something about how the person will behave when working with others to overcome obstacles and achieve common goals. Unfortunately, that’s not what we get from interviewing.
First there are the interminable screenings to match candidates to a ‘job req’, i.e., the ‘want list’. And since screening is rarely done by the person doing the hiring, persons with slightly different – yet truly unique and excellent – qualifications usually get kicked to the curb. The longer and more complex the interview process, and the more people involved, the more likely the process will produce a lowest-common-denominator selection. (Example: we know of a senior level executive who worked for well over a year to convince a competitor’s top salesman to ‘jump ship’, only to lose this guaranteed star player in an off-target and humiliating (for the candidate) intra-departmental ‘stress interview’.) Bottom line: interview survivors may be the ones who best tolerate non-productivity, who thrive on petty corporate politics, and/or who blow the biggest smokescreen.
As the saying goes, “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.” If you want productive teams, you need to be able to identify the best team players. Now there’s a way to do that BEFORE you make big investments in a questionable interview process and risk a long-term commitment to the wrong person.
Some aspects of interviewing may always suck, but the outcomes will be a lot better if you limit it to the candidates who really know how to ‘team’.
This article originally appeared in InnovationDAILY, June 30, 2010.
BTW, since I wrote this, I discovered a fabulous source for women’s businesswear, so if you need something that fits well and says professional for an interview, check out www.bluesuitsonline.com. If you’re on the jobhunter side of the equation in this economy, you need every edge you can get. Good luck!
Are Your Customers on Your Team?
For the start up, every person and every advisor you need to hire represents a critical commitment of your company’s available time and cash. In essence, you trade those resources for the knowledge and skill (intellectual assets), contacts (social capital), and the pure energy, ideas, and actions you expect that person to bring to your budding organization.
But what if you could get some of same resources without having to give up any of your precious start-up funds?
You can – if you put your customers – and those who you’d like to have as customers – on your team! Here are three ways to start:
1. Stop thinking of customers as ‘them’. Customers are stakeholders who can help you move and shape your vision. Try posing a provocative question that will trigger thoughtful responses. For instance, my company created a completely new way to predict how people perform in teams–but we were struggling to find a way to properly present it. So I started asking, ‘Why do people say they want team players, and then hire people who aren’t?’ Instant reaction! We not only got some great feedback, but some of our customers even went out and recruited other customers for us!
When a company is in the early stages of development, input from vision-oriented people can be especially valuable, and ‘Vision’ people are intrigued by big-picture questions. They’ll probably give you good advice, so make sure you let them know how you’ve used it.
2. Add some customers to the marketing R&D team. Find a low-risk way–if you can–to get them engaged in using your product in a way that will deliver real business value. If you know they have a problem that your product can solve, let them apply your solution (at least once) at no charge. We learned pretty quickly that if we gave people enough product to use for one solution, they would experience the value of a pre-hire positive I.D. on real team-players, and it would bring them back for more.
3. Give someone a reason to feel good! It was Benjamin Franklin who said “If you want to make a friend, ask a favor.” Good team players actually LIKE to help others out. Whether you need a source of information, a second opinion, a pep talk, or some help getting something done but no resources to pay for it, there’s probably someone who will take on that job and be happy to share with you what they’ve found. But not until you ask! Just be sure to let them know how valuable their input is and be very clear in letting them know that when they need your help for something, you will give it gladly. You’ll end up just a little bit closer to someone who now feels they have a stake in your success. Remember, people who are good at finding things you need are also good at finding people who need exactly what you are selling.
So how’s business? How’s your team? Are you working with them…or without them?
(This post originally appeared in Innovation DAILY, May 17, 2010)
Why I Love Detroit
The economy has affected all of us, and Detroit, which has been hit harder than most, has been working on the solution harder than most. They’re fighting back by supporting entrepreneurship.
This is entrepreneurship in a nutshell: You identify a need; you create a solution; and then you either make money – or you start over. Henry Ford said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” I think I got a little more intelligent with each of my failures. At least I stopped doing what didn’t work. And so has Detroit.
Venture capital research says that 60% of the blame for investment failures lies not in the business plan or the IP or the strategy or even the economy. It lies in people’s failure to work together effectively.
Business is a team sport. And Detroit is going to be playing in the majors because they’ve come together to build Tech Town, the ballpark for entrepreneurial farm teams – the ones that are destined to be the players of the future. They’ll put Detroit back on the cover of Time, but this time instead of the ‘tragedy’ of Detroit, it will be about triumph.
I just spent three days at ‘FastTrac to the Future.’ I met and spoke with countless 
people, sharing their visions and dreams – their hopes for their businesses and for a better Detroit. And quietly in the background, men and women in black t-shirts, working with dedication and passion to make the event a success; to fulfill their vision of an economic renaissance for a city that, for some, is not their hometown – or even in their native country. The exhibit area housed people from the partner organizations that fund and inspire, support and house, train and develop fledgling enterprises. The event was infused with the generosity of spirit of hundreds of people ready and willing to help their fellow entrepreneur with an idea, a lead, a word of encouragement.
One thing these budding and growing entrepreneurs will need is the technology to help them form, grow, and develop the kind of cohesive teams that create their own future, and I want to help. It’s easy to love people who can use what you have to offer; who understand that the power of our human infrastructure is forged not just in our independence, but also in our interdependencies; and who welcome you to be part of their movement.
Henry Ford said, “What’s right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity – intellect and resources – to do something about them.”
Detroit has the intellect, resources, and, most of all, people with the spirit of entrepreneurship-in-progress teaming together to make it happen.
I love it.
The Falconi Test
You may be quite adept at metrics, measurements, and even Role-Based Assessment, but if you haven’t used the Falconi Test, read on.
I got a call today from Ken Krauss, VP of Operations for US Axle, a very cool manufacturing company about an hour outside Philadelphia. They use Role-Based Assessment because it predicts how people will work on a team, but he was calling to ask if I knew of anything useful for measuring engineering skills.
It turns out that people who are coherent tend to be better judges of their own abilities, and are less likely to cover up for their shortcomings. (In fact, many people revel in the things they do badly and are happy to tell you, for instance, how they can never find anything on their desk.) So RBA is a good start.
But Ken wanted an answer. And I had one, pulled from the annals of my past life in manufacturing, as president of a sheet metal shop.
There was another president of another sheet metal manufacturing company, and he was the most brilliant test developer I have ever met. He didn’t have a PhD. I am pretty sure he graduated high school, but I doubt he was ever interested in a career in research. He just understood people and he was a very clever entrepreneur, although he never patented his test. He didn’t name it either. So, although Frank is probably now manufacturing halo holders for angels, I am going to name it after him: The Falconi Test.
The Falconi Test has one simple piece of equipment: a steel rule with the first inch cut off and neatly finished. The result is a rule that starts at the 1″ mark instead of zero. He would give it to a job applicant and say something like, “mark off 3 5/16 inches on that paper.” As you can well guess, there were many who simply looked at the 3, then counted 5 little hashes and made their mark. And, of course, they were wrong.
Engineers need to be precise. If they aren’t they can wreak havoc with expensive machinery or waste a lot of expensive material. (Or worse.) But they also need to be good team players. Now Ken can have it all.
It’s a good feeling to have a satisfied customer and to honor an old friend at the same time.
Three Questions for Performance Management
Ask any manager about their least favorite tasks, and more than likely they’ll put ‘performance evaluations’ at or near the top of the list. Why? Lots of reasons - not the least of which is the “Gotcha!”: an assumption that you need to find something deficient in each staff member, and come up with a prescription to fix it, thereby improving performance. All too often, you’re going to find something that the person thinks they are doing very well (and they may be right), or something they have no interest in doing better. At worst, you’re expected to assign tasks or reassign job responsibilities to develop one person’s undesired ‘something’, which may well be a task or a job that someone else on your team really enjoys (or would enjoy) doing!
Here’s an better approach. Just ask these three questions:
- Are you doing enough of what you like?
- Are you doing too much of what you don’t like?
- What can we do to change these things and make them better?
If someone isn’t doing enough of what they really like, they are probably:
(a) in the wrong job,
(b) looking for another job,
(c) not very productive, or
(d) all of the above!
If someone on your team is doing too much of what they don’t like, the problem may not reside in the individual, but rather, in the team. The causes: a team that is missing people with key needed Roles; the team’s Vision, mission, or goals have not been communicated clearly enough; or, there is a less-than-optimal Coherence Ratio on the team.
The good news is that you can change these conditions and make the team work better for everyone.
Start with Role-Based Assessments* for the whole team, yourself included. Then compare who you have (the Roles) with what you need (the right Roles for the team’s mission). Finally, look at what needs to be done, figure out who the right person is to achieve each need, and confirm with people that they have the right tools – and teammates – to do their job better.
The whole point of performance evaluation is to improve performance. Try this approach and the improvement will be obvious to management, to your staff, and to you!
* Don’t know what Role-Based Assessment is? Do you want a RBA Business Solution at No Charge? Just request one from info@thegabrielinstitute.com!
Montana Memories
On The Montana Trail!
I hit the trail the end of last month – The Montana Trail, that is. It was part of the State of Montana’s annual HR conference. Actually, it was just part of the workshop I did on Role-Based Assessment and the CHI Indicators. The Montana Trail is a group experience designed to help a large group of people quantify the value of a Role-diverse, coherent team.
The Sheriffs of The Montana Trail
The most exciting part, for me, was finally meeting the team that’s been using Role-Based Assessment to drive change through their state. Now keep in mind that not only does this state have a visionary Governor but they are also one of the very few states that is gaining in jobs, not losing them. So you know they’re doing something right and they have the stamina to keep driving till they get everyone home safe from the trail drive.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
With very little preparation from me, the Sheriffs – AKA the HR team - jumped right in and made the game theirs. They got their ten gallon hats, found a cowbell for me to call the rounds with, made sure I had pictures to show at the office (and here!), and, in general, made me feel as if I’d known them forever. (That means a lot to this former New Yorker.)
But I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s what coherent teams do.
