As Published in Business 2 Business, December 2003

Beware of Turkeys That Fly and
Top Performers Who Walk on Water

It was just 3 or maybe 4 years ago that Randy applied for a manager's position at your company. He interviewed brilliantly. He demonstrated intelligence, resourcefulness and an ability to innovate. He displayed a quick wit and a dazzling ability to charm you and everyone he met. Randy was a surely a winner.

Randy appeared to have it all. He was on the fast-track for promotion into a senior position. He went to the right schools, graduated with honors, lettered in several sports, received quite a few leadership awards, and was active in his church and community. In fact, word around the company was that Randy was being groomed to be the successor to the boss.

Zoom forward to today when the wheels have begun to fall off the "Randy-career-express". It is a dangerous illusion that people have about themselves that often leads to fatal overconfidence. And when that happens, it is like someone else inhabits your body and takes over your mind.

What once was valued as Randy's drive for results is now viewed as a need to win at any and all costs - even when he is wrong. Randy was hired for his competitiveness and rewarded for his "2nd place is the 1st place for losers" attitude. His penchant for innovation and resourcefulness led to his favorite quote: "rules are for fools".

In the beginning his managers praised his candor and willingness to question the status quo. Now he was being criticized for always testing the limits and taking unnecessary risks. When Randy couldn't go through the front door, he always found a back door - or a side door if he had to - even if they were off limits. Golden-boy Randy now considered himself exempt from rules that govern other people's behavior. He stopped paying attention to others around him, squashing anyone who disagreed with them.

This wasn't entirely Randy's fault since management encouraged and rewarded his behavior for the past 3 years. "Why can't you act more like Randy" was the mantra from management. His file was filled with exemplary standard performance appraisals from Randy's managers. Too bad no one checked with his peers.

His resourcefulness became exposed as conniving and cunning. His ability to innovate crossed the line into creative accounting, budgeting and deal-making. His quick wit became sarcasm. His charm became seductive and Randy's previously admired hustle now conjured up thoughts of the "hustler".

The life cycle of Randy-like employees is repeated day after day in thousands of businesses every day. What takes place when a potential super-star gets drunk with his own success? How and why does this happen? Was Randy, with all his talent and smarts, a victim of the organizational culture or was his behavior predictable and inevitable?

We all have shortcomings. Our natural tendency is to ignore them or cover them up. Talented candidates and employees have become more skilled at highlighting their strengths and covering up their flaws than interviewers and background checkers are at exposing them.

Natural talent only takes an individual so far. As employees assume more responsibility and move up the career ladder, two things must take place. First the employee must recognize that what got them in the door and to the place they are today may not be good enough to get them where they want and need to go. Continuing to rely only on the skills and talent that got them hired and promoted and ignoring their undeveloped or poorly developed skills eventually sinks their ship.

But just learning new skills and minimizing your weaknesses is not enough. Having the skills is one thing. Knowing when to use them is another. The difference between being cooperative and competitive, tolerant and tough-minded, patient and decisive, or candid and discreet is what separates the best from the rest. It is similar to the difference between the week-end warrior handyman who owns a garage full of the very best tools and the craftsman whose handiwork rivals art.

In the 1970's David McClelland, a renowned Harvard professor and an expert in motivation and achievement, directed research to explore the ingredients of superb job performance and in 1973 published "Testing for Competence Rather than Intelligence". In this paper "he proposed that a set of specific competencies distinguished the most successful from those who were merely good enough to keep their jobs."

Since then many organizations have attempted to hire, promote and train employees based on competencies. What many have failed to do however is identify and differentiate the skills and behaviors that are proven predictors of success. Too often, managers are enamored with intelligence, education, charisma, and personality only to discover too late that many top candidates can barely swim when they were expected to walk-on-water.

In an article in the Financial Times (October 12, 1994), Richard Donkin and McClelland analyzed what differentiated superior performers from those who missed and barely met expectations. They concluded that "value-adding" qualities in an individual are not totally related with academic achievement. They indicated that, from a cost effectiveness stand-point, it Is better to hire for core motivation and trait characteristics and develop knowledge and skills. Chris Dyson, a colleague of McClelland explained, "you can teach a turkey to climb a tree, but it is easier to hire a squirrel."

While more and more organizations begin to imbed competency modeling into their performance management infrastructure, an October 28, 2003 Wall Street Journal story reported that several businesses are requiring SAT scores to screen and qualify candidates. How absurd. The SAT is designed to predict performance in the first year of college, and that's it. Moreover, SAT results are typically at least five years old when an examinee enters the job market, so even if the scores were relevant to a professional position, they would be outdated by the time a person applies for that job.

Academics and consultants as far back as the 1920s have attempted to identify key competencies. They have relied heavily on past behavior as a predictor of future performance. McClelland expanded the practice of competency modeling to include the abilities, skills, behaviors and personal characteristics that impacted individual experiences and how superior performers perceived critical events.

In 1972 he wrote, "if you want to test who will be a good policeman, go find out what a policeman does. Follow him around. Make a list of his activities and sample from that list in screening applicants."

Revealed through the practice of competency modeling are four benefits that help organizations manage costs and maximize individual productivity:

•   You hire only people with the potential to success.
•   You target training, development and coaching resources to improving those skills and behaviors that have the greatest top-line/bottom line impact on results.
•   You develop an employee evaluation system that encourages ongoing feedback.
•   You link individual rewards for productivity and performance improvement to corporate profitability.

As the economy begins to turn the corner, employees will begin to churn again, just like the late 1990s. (Recent studies, including the SPS survey at the Lancaster Chamber Job Fair, indicated that between 4 and 8 out of every 10 employees will look for a job change when the economy improves.) It is time to inventory your talent and implement plans for retention and replacement.

Ira S. Wolfe is the founder of Success Performance Solutions, a leading authority in competency identification, employee evaluation and integrated performance management. To contact Ira, call 717.656.4632, email him at iwolfe@super-solutions.com , or visit www.super-solutions.com .