Welcome to the September 7, 2005 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

What's Inside:

1. Could understanding personality differences have saved New Orleans?

Amidst the blame game and finger-pointing following the most magnificent catastrophe in U.S. history, I can't stop wondering how personality types shaped individual and government responses to the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina. By asking and answering this question, business owners and managers can learn an invaluable lesson: to understand how managers' personalities influence and impact choices that decide the fate of people and businesses.

Let's look at how individual personality types influence the effectiveness of planning and crisis management. Each of the following scenarios are significantly affected by personality types.

Thinking on the fly: Despite the best laid plans, Murphy lives. No planning can possibly predict all the scenarios that can unravel during an emergency. That means the individuals with high cognitive abilities in charge of rescuing and protecting victims have the best ability to think fast and accurately even under strict time restraints and unknown conditions. Emergencies often require individuals to deal with ambiguity (making decisions when all the facts are not known) and to deal with paradox (making decisions when the information available may be accurate but conflicting). The innovative and reactive person are then the most natural fits for situations that require immediate responses especially when no time exists for preparation or preparation is inadequate. Similarly, emotional stability determines how receptive and perceptive an individual will be. They are more sensitive to the changes in the environment affecting the situation and respond well to unexpected change and uncertainty.

What-if scenarios: What happens when planners think too small? While the innovative and reactive individuals thrive in crisis, the conventional and organized individuals drive planning. These people prefer structured environments, traditions, and insist on dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s. As long as the disaster sticks to the plan, these individuals thrive. Unfortunately, disasters - natural and terrorist - don't always follow our scripts. That means individuals with high cognitive abilities plus conventional and organized traits approach a crisis armed and ready for battle and highly capable of processing information quickly and accurately. But put a conventional and organized person with lower cognitive abilities in a pressure-cooker situation and unanticipated events, and you will likely witness analysis paralysis first-hand. It's very uncomfortable for these folks to respond without first meeting, discussing, planning, and prioritizing. As a result, individuals with lower cognitive skills play a major and critical role in preparing the plans, while people with higher abilities are more effective during execution of the plan or when plans go awry. Add to this equation the stability trait and the highly stable person may not ignore the signs of urgency while an individual with lower stability might be too easily distracted by unrest and disruption and stress - or be ignored because he (or she) always declares the sky is falling, even when it isn't.

Superman complex: While victims always look for a Superman (or John Wayne) to come to the rescue, the Superman attitude can hinder rescue and recovery. Consider the take-charge leader who underestimates or delays preparing an emergency plan because he thinks he can ride into town and handle anything that comes his way. Believing heroism and guts can save the world, Supermen endanger the very lives he or she is expected to protect by stonewalling emergency preparedness. Likewise, his alter ego is just as dangerous. This is the individual who fails to examine all possibilities. He is pre-disposed to avoid discussing worst case scenarios because it depresses him: he avoids planning like the plague.

The list goes on and on, but I believe you get the point. In developing and executing emergency preparedness plans, government and business leaders must recognize the importance that personalities play in making critical decisions and why engaging all types of personalities is essential to understand the multitude of responses and choices people make in a time of crisis.

To understand how and why people make the decisions they do, learn how CriteriaOne DISC and Values behavioral profiling  and TotalView Assessment System can help.

2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #443 to #445

Don't miss day-to-day updates on Perfect Labor Storm. Save the Perfect Labor Storm blog to your favorites.

Fact #443: Forty percent of the current public school teaching force expects not to be teaching five years from now. (Source: Profile of Teachers in the U.S. 2005)

Fact #444: The K-12 teaching force is aging rapidly. The proportion of K - 12 teachers who are 50 years of age and older has risen from one in four (24 percent) in 1996 to 42 percent in 2005. (Source: Profile of Teachers in the U.S. 2005)

Fact #445: The proportion of the K - 12 public school teaching force has 25 or more years of teaching experience has doubled in the last 15 years - from 12 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in 1996 to 27 percent in 2005. (Source: Profile of Teachers in the U.S. 2005)

Don't be caught in storm without all the facts. "The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" is a must-read leading edge forecast that predicts workforce trends for decades to come. Order your copy today - Only $7.95.

3.  Understanding Style Differences

Understanding Style Differences (USD) has been developed to provide groups with insights into their potential strengths and weaknesses. Participants are given the opportunity to view their group's profile and to assess its relative strengths and potential downfalls, viewing each from a strategic perspective. In doing so, they are afforded the opportunity of increasing their interpersonal effectiveness and thereby their team's success.

Each team member receives a personality report and personal development guidebook detailing his/her preferred interpersonal style, work style, and emotional style. The manager receives a group report identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each employees and the impact of individual contributions (or distractions) to the success of the team.

Understanding Style Differences increases each employee's sense of accountability and responsibility to the team and minimizes the likelihood of miscommunications and personality clashes. USD is perfect for managers who want their new or existing work teams to increase productivity and reduce departmental conflicts, and for managers/supervisors new to their role of leading and coaching others.

Email us today to learn more about Understanding Style Differences and using individual differences to energize team productivity and innovation.

4.  The Leader Within

Best-selling authors and Fortune 100 consultants, Dr. Drea Zigarmi, Dr. Ken Blanchard, Dr. Michael O'Connor and Dr. Carl Edeburn reveal the results of an in-depth, seven-year statistical study of leadership in Corporate America. Their new book, The Leader Within, Knowing Enough About Yourself To Lead Others, shows how leaders exert influence and how disposition, values, beliefs, and persona contribute to their very success—or failure.


The Leader Within explores the following:

• Which of the four unique management styles of Situational Leadership® II: directing, coaching, supporting, delegating—is most—and least effective.
• The difference between being a manager and a leader—and how one cannot fundamentally lead unless he or she knows what his or her values are.
• Identifies the 4 classic DISC dispositions for a boss—direct controller (D), direct acceptor (I), indirect acceptor (S) and indirect controller (C)—and shows us the guiding principles that govern all bosses.
• Contrasts how famous leaders compare with one another, based on their values-inspired leadership styles: traditionalists; challengers, in-betweeners, and synthesizers.
  

Order "The Leader Within":

5.   50 Activities for Developing Leaders - Vol 1 and Vol II

50 Activities for Developing Leaders - Vol 1
A powerful group of activities to help trainers effectively introduce and reinforce key skills in leadership training.

50 Activities For Developing Leaders - Vol. II

This second volume of Activities continues with the best and latest thinking on leadership theory making it the best tool available for building leadership sills, attitudes and competencies.

Order Volume 1 - 50 Training Activities for Developing Leaders

Order Volume 2 - 50 Training Activities for Developing Leaders

Ira S. Wolfe. 2005 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.

Syndication available - call us.