The Intern Diaries: Lessons Learned

The final four gave their presentations this week, talking about what they did, what they learned, how they changed.

Learning is changing.  I think they expected to learn but I a not so sure they expected to change.  The biggest change, for all of them, is how much more they now want to change.  To grow, to experience, to learn – all is to change.

I learned and changed too.

I had to laugh when one of the interns remarked that she learned she liked working with older people.  The funny thing is, I learned to like working with younger people – those who are coherent, strong in their Role, and like working on teams.

I learned, most of all, that the basic principles of building and supporting a Coherent Human Infrastructure are not dependent on age, experience, or ‘rank’.  Value is value, quality is quality, synergy is synergy.  And trust, respect, and faith in the Vision are still the alpha and the omega.

The Intern Diaries: The Beginning of the End

I agreed to expanding our internship program without too many expectations.  After all, even though they had the RBA results that predicted they would be successful to varying degrees, they are still in college, with no experience to speak of.  Well, I am now convinced more than ever that giving people with potential a chance – and giving them the Role-appropriate challenges to meet – is a better strategy than bringing people on with fat resumes but nothing else.

The interns are beginning to leave and on their last day they have decided to make presentations to us, and their fellow interns, on what they accomplished and what they learned.

Crystal was the first to leave this week.  She’s going to visit family in China.  She had been the last to join us, a week after the others, so she had the shortest time.  But oh did she ever use it well!  She presented market research on one of our ’skunkworks’ projects complete with data, analysis, suggestions – better than marketing presentations I’ve seen from senior executives.  But no wonder – as a strong Action Former who is also capable of being a Vision Mover, she is a powerhouse at any age !  And she learned enough about herself to be very clear on her entry level career goal – product management.

She was closely followed by Lindsay, now on her way back to Texas.  Since Lindsay is primarily a Communicator, I suggested to her that she just do an informal verbal presentation.  So I was surprised when she showed up with a PowerPoint.  Turns out while she didn’t think she had done much, when she started listing what she’d actually accomplished, she felt it would work better to do some writing.  I laughed.  Communicators are often thought of as lazy because they like to talk.  Even they can think of themselves that way.  But oh my, was she ever convinced as page after page of her accomplishments filled the screen.  Let’s just say the Social Marketing Optimization is in her future, whether she stays in her psychology major or not.

Best of all, while it is the beginning of the end of internship, it is not even the end of the beginning of these wonderful relationships!

The Intern Diaries: Week Seven plus

The realization is dawning that as July ends, the interns will be starting to leave.  Crystal, who’s going to Hong Kong and Macau to visit family, and Lindsay, who’s heading back to Texas, will be the first to go.  And I’m wondering how the others will experience their leaving.

It will be good practice for them, given that they are likely to see their colleagues come and go in their future jobs.  At least this isn’t a downsizing!  Speaking of which, there’s talk of an increase in distressing reactions to being downsized – sabotage, mostly of the technology sort.  Just the sort of behaviors that the non-coherent, short term thinking person is more likely to actually do.

But for our coherent, self aware bunch, I expect their future work life to be more productive and positive.  They understand that temporary setbacks shouldn’t be turned into permanent ones by letting stress overwhelm and alter behavior in a negative direction.  And they act on it.  Even in a down economy, coherent people are naturally attractive to employers.

And now I know that internship has long reaching effects on careers.  Lauren, our Spring intern, just wrote me.  I was concerned that with the job market so poor, she would be locked out, but no, it sounds like she got a job that not only fits her, but which will allow her to help others get a good school fit!

She said:

It is a sales/client services position. First part is I have to call potential students and give them information about Ashford and evaluate them to see if they are a good fit for the school. Once that process is over, I help them enroll and will be their guide through their first course. It should be a challenging but fun position. I just finished my 2 week training course and will start officially on Monday.

Congrats and good luck, Lauren!  They are lucky to have you!  And psssst, just between us, we are about to launch the Role-Based Assessment for careers!

The Intern Diaries: Week Six

What a week!  All six interns are now Certified Role-Based Assessment Consultants!  Week six and they are more than just onboarded – they’re integrated into our life, as a team and as the individuals that they are.

There was an article in the paper this morning advising workers to ‘brand’ themselves to make themselves layoff-proof.  Not a bad idea but it happens naturally when you, the management,  (a) know people’s Role,  (b) recognize and respect them for it, and (c) don’t force them into tasks they aren’t suited for and, therefore, dislike.

So herewith are their brands, at least as I see it:

Tristan is the techno-suit.  All the nerd stuff and he still dresses for success!

Rebecca is the journalista.  Give her an idea and she turns it into a piece of writing that fits the column width!

Kyle is the ‘give-it-to-me-I’ll-get-it-done’ guy.  I need it, I get it – does it get any better?

Crystal is the campaign planner.  Her favorite place is the conference room, favorite tool is the conference room whiteboard!

Kartik is the organizer.  And re-organizer.  If there is an efficiency to be had, he advocates for it!

And Lindsay is the deal broker.  She knows what’s going on and she knows where we want it to go, so she figures out how to make the contact happen!

Maybe I should have titled this ‘Six Weeks, Six Brands’.  I didn’t know how long it would actually take, given that they are new to the business environment,  but this is just about average for Coherent hires who are given Role-appropriate work scopes.

I’ve said it before: hire for Role and Coherence and you’ll get productuvity and teamwork.

The Intern Diaries: Week Five

Intern evaluation week, or at least according to the email I got.  No one’s come after me for a formal evaluation and that’s a good thing.  I’m pretty bad at meeting people’s expectations for ratings on their various attributes.  To me that’s too much like rating each note in a piece of music.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think we should be rating people on these things:

1. Willingness to dance with your co-workers.  (I don’t mean samba, I mean move with, against, or around them, as appropriate.)
2. Ability to harmonize with your co-workers.  (I don’t mean you have to hit the high notes.  You just need to not be so dissonant that people grimace.)
3. Making music some new way with your co-workers.  (It doesn’t have to be music, literally.  Just something that didn’t exist before.

Ok, I can rate everyone now.   All A’s, intern team!

The Place of Experience in Hiring Decisions

Sometimes someone in a group email discussion says something so well, you have to wonder why they haven’t been blogging about it.  Mark Talaba, blogger at Talabesian-Coordinates had this to contribute on the issue of experience as an indicator in hiring decisions:

“Some people – in the process of acquiring experience – have made lot of other people miserable, and have caused teams to underperform.  Such persons may yet have a ‘history of success’ – but as success can arise from many factors, not the least of which is a team’s ability to perform despite handicaps, even successful exploits are not a reliable indicator.

“One real tragedy of making “experience” a primary indicator in hiring decisions is that, during the past 20 years, there has been such fluidity in the job market that some really bad team players have had the opportunity to turn a series of short-term jobs (which used to be a red flag) into an enticing story of “broad-based experience.”  (A good topic for some investigative reporting!)

“As the concept of Coherent Human Infrastructure takes root, and as organizations come to realize that Coherence and Role are the ‘missing pieces’ of the Quality-of-Hire/Talent Management puzzle, I believe that demand for a pre-hire assessment of ‘teaming characteristics’ will grow exponentially.”

I have to agree.  It’s pretty well known in entrepreneur circles that many of the CEOs who’ve failed in that job a few times are more desirable recruits than the virgins, at least to less Coherent VCs.  In contrast, the interns, collectively, have virtually no experience.  It’s their teaming and their Coherency that make them so amazingly productive.  (Another episode of The Intern Diaries will be here shortly…)

The Intern Diaries: Week Four

Around the fourth day after Mr. Sperm meets Miss Egg, differentiation begins.  (If you slept through high school biology, differentiation is when cells start to get specialized.)

Ok, biology lesson is over.  I was just mulling over how week four of the Interns could be subtitled, The Week of Differentiation.  It isn’t that they weren’t fully formed individuals when they arrived.  It’s how we see them and assign work to them that’s undergone some subtle changes.

Lindsay is continuing to work on social marketing optimization because she’s a star Communicator.  Not surprising.  This line from her Role-Based Assessment pretty well covers why I wanted her for this project:

She will quickly make contacts throughout the organization and get to know almost everyone. She is especially cooperative and will also try to do almost anything she is asked to do. Her focus is on interpersonal interaction and trying to get everyone to work together harmoniously. She won’t do this by direct means but by attempting to broker the arrangements that bring people together in a positive manner. As a result, she is likely to be respected by those she has contact with.

But we needed to get the database cleaned up so despite the fact that she also had this in her report: “She will not want to do organizational tasks…”, there she was in the conference room with some others, working on exactly that task, with music emanating from someone’s laptop, a pile of snacks, and the sunniest of good natures.

Meanwhile, Kartik, the Action Former, whose report included the following, managed to reorganize, clean up, and optimize my consultant certification files.  Here’s Kartik in a nutshell:

This candidate is the type of employee who can be found in the front of the group with marker in hand, developing a list of things that need to be done or important points or assignments. He is the consummate organizer. The key is that he does not organize for the present but as a way of getting things ready for the future. His style is one of handling many things simultaneously. He believes that multi-tasking in a rapidly evolving environment is essential to keep on top of everything.

The others too have their unique qualities and it’s amazing how much more productive they are when we recognize them, give them work they enjoy, and celebrate the results.

It just makes good business sense.

Happy ending: Lindsay has a project beginning Monday that is totally about communicating with people, while Kartik will get a great new organization project!

The Intern Diaries: Week Three

Another amazing week with the Super Six.  Watching them become a subculture is fascinating.  They work intensely on their own, then pair off, then they cluster.  They draw each other in and something wonderful happens.  You can see the attachments as if they were drawn in the air above their heads.  And because they are all so very Coherent (such a special quality, we have begun to capitalize it,) this crazy entrepreneurial world we inhabit doesn’t faze them, even when we are approaching warp speed.

After only two weeks, during which the first five were oriented, given assignments, put through our standard four hour consultant/agent training, and let loose, we asked them to present their projects at our weekly management meeting.  (Our sixth, only being with us for two days operated the technology – they integrated her into their subculture right away!)  And present they did, PowerPoints and all.

So what did I learn from them this week?

Most of the time, Role trumps age and experience.

In plain English, who you are is more important than what you’ve done.  Yes, I did know that in the intellectual sense.  But it never ceases to amaze me, and amazement is the substrate within which you get new appreciation.  You no longer just know.  You *know*.

The Intern Diaries: Week Two

Week two and all our five interns are hard at work doing their thing while I marvel at how unique each one is, just as predicted by their Role-Based Assessment.  And today we agreed to bring on a sixth starting next week.  Another strong Action Former, the perfect addition to our Intern Action Team!

These Action Formers are the organizers on the team, the detail people, those who revel in the chance to learn to do everyone’s job.  What better for our Vision-oriented exec team than those who want to carry out our dreams?

This newest intern started another internship, but instead of giving her a project to manage, they sent her outside to meet people.  Now there are some Action Formers who might like that but not this one – she is strictly an ‘inside’ person.  No wonder she’s asked for a chance with us.

I’m sure they interviewed her at length and certainly read her resume.  (I don’t bother with either.) People who are of each Role will tend to have certain things as typical in their career history and behavior, but the only way to tell for sure what Role someone is, what style they truly have mastered and are comfortable with, is to use Role-Based Assessment.  People can go into jobs and do things because of necessity or outside pressure.  They can make mistakes and be unhappy.  They will vary in their level of coherency.  The ONLY way to cut through all the distractions and find out what the person is really like is to assess them using Role-Based Assessment and save yourself the grief of finding out too late that what they seemed to be in an interview or on a resume is not what they are really like where the rubber meets the road.

Rubber meets road on Monday and new intern will join her peers.  She’ll fit in well and maybe even make some friends in the process.  Most important, she, like the others, will get to play on a team where the coach doesnt tell you what you’re doing wrong, but what you’re doing right.

And I’ll have that market research I’ve been wanting.

Get Out of My Facebook!

If this blog had a subtitle, it would be The Intern Diaries: Day 1.  They arrived today, our new flock of team members – one each for technology, operations, marketing, client services, and communications.  Such a wealth of new energy!

In between getting the drill on who’s who and what’s what around The Gabriel Institute and the obligatory pizza lunch, I tried to get their take on networking technology.  The biggest divide I could think of was LinkedIn vs Facebook, so I was curious where they stood.  They’re onto the economy and there’s no false hope here.  Despite the fact they have an average of another year or so to go, they have no illusions about the job market they’ll emerge into.  But as I expected, they haven’t tuned into LinkedIn for professional networking yet.  Now they all will, and they will be able to put us down as their first business experience – and we’ll be able to tell the world how they did.

We also gave them the HR warnings about being careful what’s on their Facebook page.  The stories flew, and a new dilemma was brought to my hopelessly out of date consciousness: What do you do when your mother wants to friend you on Facebook and you just don’t want her as your friend?

So this is for our new interns’ moms – and dads too.  We tried that ‘be a friend to your kid’ stuff in the 70’s and it didn’t work all that well.  You’ve done a great job, so relax.  We know – we gave your college son or daughter a Role-Based Assessment and that’s why we brought them on board.  They are coherent – the best measure of maturity and potential ever devised – and they have solid Role preferences which we’re going to respect and develop.

So get out of their friendship places and instead, get them to share their Role-Based Assessment reports with you.  You’ll be very proud.

And, by the way, thanks for trusting us with them.  We know they’re precious to you.