| Fight, Flight, or Freeze - Can your employees handle
changing workloads?
You
give an assignment to a new employee, but you don’t have the
time to give him any instructions. You tell him – “do the
best you can and we’ll get together as soon as I get
back.” How will he
go about completing this assignment?
Will he be sitting at his desk with
a blank look when you return to the office? Will he even be at his
desk when you return? Will he be able to
present to you a work in progress or will you hear, “I tried
to get started but wasn’t sure want you wanted me to do”?
Most of us are good at doing again
what we have done before. A rarer skill is doing
things for the first time. With the increasing workloads being
placed on leaner workforces, being quick to learn and having
the ability to apply effective first time solutions is
becoming more and more a crucial skill in today’s
workforce.
Three of the factors impacting how
different people “attack” situations and solve problems that
they face are behavioral styles, general abilities, and
emotional stability. It is not only experience and
education that counts. It is how they engage the help -
when needed-of other people, how quickly they can assimilate
the information and how they will cope with and manage
adversity.
One of the most dominant factors
affecting how people will attack a new situation relates to
their behavioral style. A very popular
behavioral model is called DISC. In the DISC model,
four styles are identified. People are either
energized or de-energized by problems, people, pace or
procedures.
The individual energized by
problems thinks very little about just jumping in and
doing something all by him/herself just for the sake of doing
it or else they may just hand it off to their assistant or
co-worker if they don't want to be bothered. They will also
sooner ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.
The people person may just go on a
stroll through the office asking, “anyone know what Bob wants
me to do?" - and if no one is around, you will see them
talking to themselves.
The pace person may ask others for
help too but in a much more subtle way. “Excuse me. I hate to bother you,”
they may ask a co-worker. “If it’s not too much trouble when
you have a moment, can I ask you a question?" They will then
take this information and methodically begin working on the
assigned project - step by step.
The procedures person will think
about what needs to be done and will very likely do it with
little input from others. When the boss returns
however, he will be presented with a list of questions in
place of a work in progress. The procedures person wants
to get it right the right time and needs more guidelines than
"just give it a try."
Another factor is something called
General Abilities. We’ve all met the highly intelligent
individual who has all the answers but becomes a bumbling
idiot when faced with a new task for the first time. General Abilities is not a
measure of how smart or intelligent a person is but reveals
how quickly that individual can accurately think on his feet
and assimilate and comprehend new information dealing with
numbers, words, and shapes. In the world of business this
relates to how quickly an employee can learn new skills and
solve problems they’ve not faced before.
The third factor is emotional
stability. Will
the individual take the new assignment in stride? Will they freeze – which may
be due to lack of ability or fear of making a mistake, even if
they have the ability? Will they get angry
about the new assignment or will they recede to their office,
close the door, hit the do-no-disturb button and ponder the
situation?
The most astute and successful
managers understand the capabilities of their employees to
solve problems effectively, think independently, and manage
the stress of an increasing workload. Competitive and dynamic
organizations respond quickly to changing market
conditions. Responsive
organizations have responsive people. Do your employees have the
capability to respond to changing market conditions?
All three of these factors – behaviors,
abilities and stability – are predictable
and easily assessed by Success Performance
Solutions assessment systems. For more information
about evaluating the capabilities of your
workforce. | 
