Welcome to the February 27, 2008 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 this issue of The TotalView:

1. SPS Helps Construction Company Craft High Performing Teams  

Every few months we recognize one of our clients in a success story.  These clients have used one or more of our services which helped them to hire better or manage more effectively. This week's story features Scenic Ridge Construction Co.  

Scenic Ridge Construction Co. began in 1989 as small operation in rural southeast Pennsylvania.  

After more than 20 years erecting steel buildings for the industrial and commercial industries, the company reached a milestone in growth. "We began doing larger jobs, and we began to supply some of our own materials, equipment and services," recalls J. Elam King, who co-owns the Gordonville company with his brother, Jacob S. King.  

Scenic Ridge Construction relocated to a larger facility in 2001. As more work flowed in, the King Brothers quickly realized they needed to give up the small-business mindset to one that was corporate in nature.  

With 70 employees, including customer service representatives, sales associates, accountants, tradesmen, construction supervisors and design-build engineers, Scenic Ridge Construction faced the task of streamlining its operations to deftly juggle its growing workload.  

"We needed a project management staff; we needed to build teams; and we needed to build more positive procedures and standards," J. Elam King said.  

A welder by trade, King said he did not know the first thing about building an efficient work team. But he knew the company needed to be loosed from the former mom-and-pop methods that only served to create dysfunction in a business that either had to grow up or get of the way.  

Scenic Ridge Construction Co. called on Success Performance Solutions in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,  experts in helping organizations hire the right people and develop high performing leadership teams.  King met Ira S. Wolfe, founder of Success Performance Solutions, during a management class. Wolfe was a guest instructor that day and introduced DISC, a behavioral style assessment, to the students. King was impressed with its team building application and contacted Wolfe for help shortly thereafter.  King quickly recognized he needed more than a team-building seminar if he wanted to grow the business.  

Marilyn Walker, director of SPS Employee Assessment Center, worked with Scenic Ridge Construction to define its purpose and build a culture of service specific to its mission and the current market.values and doctrine  

It wasn't easy getting to where Walker was leading, King said.  

"We had a lot of dysfunctional issues" because some key longtime employees insisted on maintaining the autonomy they had when the company was small -  the days when a customer could walk into the office, ask a question to the first employee who looks his way and get an answer.  DISC

Today, however, the questions are more complex and answers require more detail than a jack-of-all-trades can provide.  

"We began to focus on team effort, which made us aware of the differences among us: why one person thinks something is important and another does not," King said.  

Willy-nilly customer service is deadly. Survival techniques can be as simple as: Even if you know the answer to the question, if it's not your department, don't answer, King said.  

Applying SPS employee-assessment tools, Walker helped company leaders identify work personalities and profitable characteristics, such as being able to work directly with customers or be consistent with best-practice standards through the life of a project.  

The ultimate goal? To finish a project to the end and to finish it well.  

Walker helped Scenic Ridge Construction identify its core business values and motivators.  "I asked, 'What's your passion?'" Walker said. "Is it making money or are you more satisfied helping people?"  

King said profit is important, of course, but his company enjoyed making a difference in people's lives. The company's social doctrine, defined its corporate culture.  

Scenic Ridge Construction formed a management team and began to hire people who held similar values and doctrine no matter what their skill or expertise, be it customer service, estimating or project supervisor.  

"We systematically went through the organizational chart and evaluated each team of workers," Walker said.  

Today, Scenic Ridge Construction knows itself well. "SPS helped make us aware of who we are," King said. "We hire people who fit the organization more than those who fit the job. You could be the best person in accounting, but still not be right for our company."  

The end result is a company that ismore efficient and therefore more successful in a competitive environment.

2. Perfect Labor Storm Warnings   

Every day I receive dozens of stories highlighting

another shortage of workers. Each week I'll post

one or two of the more interesting ones.  This week's

post is:

China is effectively at full employment for skilled, managerial and technical talent. 

Demand for managers is increasing at the rate of 20 percent annually.  

China will need 75,000 business leaders over the next decade but only 3,000 to 5,000 people could be considered good candidates for the those jobs. (McKinsey Global Institute).

SASS predicts China will need 350,000 skilled managers with more than 10 years of experience by 2010 and 500,000 by 2017.  It is anticipated many of those jobs will go unfilled.

Read more about skilled worker shortages in the NEW Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 (soft and hard cover versions)

Now on Sale!  Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 (soft and hard cover versions)  

Order today and save 25%.

NEW Chapters!  Generational Conflicts in the Workplace, Managing the Future Workforce, Attracting Young Employees in a Seller's Job Market plus hundreds of new facts, trends and stats.

View Table of Contents  

Save 25% off retail by ordering now.

Hard Cover: $29.99         Soft Cover: $19.99  

Your Price: $22.49           Your Price: $14.99

To order Perfect Labor Storm 2.0, call 800.803.4303.  Discounts for orders of 10 or more.  Specify hard or soft cover.

3. DISCovering the Styles

As early as 300 BC, Aristotle observed that the images speakers create of themselves are their strongest persuasive tools. Each person has various traits, abilities, and personality characteristics that influence these messages. Effective impression management means accenting some of those characteristics and de-emphasizing others. It involves putting on one's "best face" but not necessarily putting on a false face.

DISCovering the Styles is 162-pages filled with everything you need to know about:
- How the DISC Behavioral Styles Learn
- DISC Styles Approach to Decision Making
- DISC Styles Approach to Leadership
- DISC Styles Approach to Work

More about DISCovering the Styles today.

4.  Great Leadership Starts with CriteriaOne® DISC

We all have a basic behavioral style that affects how we work, play, communicate and build relationships.   CriteriaOne® DISC Behavioral Style reports produce an overview of four basic behavioral styles based on an individual's responses to a short 10 to 15 minute questionnaire. Each report then describes how an employee will deal with problems, interact with people, comply with rules and procedures, and the pace at which he or she will work.  

CriteriaOne® DISC also provides management with a powerful new business tool to accurately measure the cores behaviors and skills that drive workplace performance using a proprietary job fit and team building Style Insights Map.   Read more about CriteriaOne DISC reports or call us for a complimentary report.

5. New White Paper: "Why Executive Coaching"

Whether it's due to business growth or pending

retirements, the demand for the next generation

of leaders has shifted into high gear.  As a result,

executive coaching has moved out of the board

room and into the mainstream. Once a perk

for the top executives, executive coaching today is

becoming a requirement for high-potential employees

and managers to meet the current and future demands

of the job.  

Matt Angello, founder and principal of Bright Tree Consulting Group, recently published an outstanding white paper titled "Why Executive Coaching." It's a free download which can be accessed by clicking on the following link: Why Executive Coaching.  

Success Performance Solutions is a strategic partner with Bright Tree Consulting. Ira S Wolfe, founder and president of Success Performance Solutions, serves as Bright Tree's assessment consultant.

6. Speaking Schedule: Ira S Wolfe

2008:

March 6 - National Human Resource Association, Pasadena, CA.  Breakfast Keynote: Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

May 16 - Sovereign Benefits Solutions HR Conference, Hershey PA

June 6 - CEO Roundtable, Boston MA

October (tentative) - American Staffing Association Annual Meeting - Workforce Trends That Change The Way You Will Do Business  

Call 717.291.4640 to schedule Ira for your next meeting or conference.

7. New Book: Coming Job Boom

Ira recently collaborated with Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder on a new book, The Coming Job Boom.  Bonnie is the author of The Public School Parent's Guide to Success. The Coming Job Boom is the "ying" for the "yang" of The Perfect Labor Storm.  While the Perfect Labor Storm is beginning to make managers feel like storm chasers looking for qualified workers, high school and college students must be smiling at this Upcoming Job Boom. For those young workers with the right skills and motivation, the job market will make these kids feel like  - well, like kid's in a candy store! The book release is scheduled for April 2008. Watch for more info in future newsletters.

8. Quotes from Hire Authorities

"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it."

Theodore Roosevelt

Permission is granted to consultants, managers, business owners and HR professionals to reproduce content from this newsletter for your internal publications, or to distribute copies to your workforce, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2008 Ira S Wolfe."  We also hope you will forward the newsletter in its entirety and recommend to others that they subscribe.

Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission