January 14, 2004
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-- How to Hire Employees Who Share Your Values
-- Perfect Labor Storm Alerts # 66 to #70
-- New articles posted on the Success Performance Solutions website.
-- Checklist for Setting Performance Objectives
-- Now Available! Audio Clips on Why This Worker Shortage Will Not Go Away
-- Pathfinder(tm) - Track Individual and Team Goals On-line!
-- Measure Five Vital Areas of Leadership Effectiveness
-- FirstView(tm) - PreScreen Candidates Quickly, Easily and Inexpensively for as little as $15
-- Just 7 days Until........
-- Employee Evaluations Made Easy - 360s too!
-- Reserve Your Copy Now - Understanding Business Values and Motivators

Greetings!

Welcome to this week's issue of The Total View.

Thank you for the fabulous response to preview Understanding Business Values and Motivators.

One reader wrote: "Your book has shaken my soul and said to me there is more in life and yes i can do it."

Another wrote: "You hooked my right away."

We'd like to hear more - We need your help. If you are willing to preview Ira Wolfe's book and provide your comments, please email - Understanding Business Values and Motivators - to receive a pdf file. The absolute deadline is January 18. Rrespondents who return comments will receive a free copy of the book when it is published in February and Business Values and Motivators report (Value - $49).

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How to Hire Employees Who Share Your Values
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Here is a common error. In trying to understand each other and employees, business owners, managers, and boards of directors often (and mistakenly) assign moral intent to others' behaviors and motives, even though their own preferences and prejudices affect their ability to judge situations objectively. When people are motivated differently, we may call them "bad" or "mean" because we fail to understand them.

People tend to look at characteristics and then judge one another's character. When they form a negative impression of someone else, it is often because they think, "I would never do that!" or "How can they think like that!" Their behavior and motivational values become the norm, and anything different can be labeled abnormal or substandard.

In considering both motivators and behaviors, we "like" the styles we are "most like" and we "don't like" the ones we are "least like". We don't approve or appreciate what we don't understand. We especially disapprove, devalue, and misunderstand the motivators and behaviors that are the opposite of our own.

Why do I bring this up? If I had to pick a single characteristic that I am called to assess in employees and candidates, it would be "values". As one manager put it, " we need people who share our values." But when asked to describe what those "values" are, I get a flood of answers like "you know - honesty, trust, integrity, dependability, showing up on time" and often "a good Christian."

Now this column fortunately is not the venue to argue pro and con about the validity and practicality of these values. (But please visit our new "Business Ethics" discussion board at "Business Ethics Forum".) But with the exception of honesty and showing up on time, judging the remaining "values" can be very subjective.

Most people will value honesty positively and judge thievery and lying negatively. That's a given. But for a moment, let's look at how we value and judge trust and integrity.

As a manager you are told of an impending layoff that will affect one of your best employees. He has been dependable, hard-working and a good friend. This employee is within days of signing a mortgage on his new home.

After work, he calls you aside to ask if he is one of the employees who will be laid off. You know the answer but as a manager, your responsibility to the company is to hold this information in strictest confidence. If you tell the employee, you are violating the trust your employer has placed in you. But if you don't tell the employee, you are violating a cardinal rule of friendship - not holding back!

Now I could get into a discussion he should respect his manager for honoring his commitment to his boss. You could even take the position that a good friend would never put a friend into this ethical dilemma. The employee should just accept "you know I can't tell you what is going on before management announces it Friday" and wait just like all the other employees.

But as two emotional human beings, you know that the chances are pretty good that the employee will feel he was let down by his friend, the manager, especially if he purchases the home only to find himself out of a job within days of his first payment. Afterwards, ask the employee if he felt he was betrayed by his manager and it's likely he might say he respects his honesty but feels that he no longer could be friends with him.

My point is that the judgment of stealing and lying may be black and white. But judging values like integrity and ethics and trustworthiness are not. Many times there are two sides (or more!) to every story and while both parties could act with high integrity and follow a code of ethics, he could still be wrong in the eyes of the other.

From my experience working with people of many different religions, cultures, colors and sexual preferences, I find people are just searching for a way to associate and employ people who value similar things.

Which brings me back to "people tend to look at characteristics and then judge one another's character." Maybe we should say people need to look at characteristics in order to avoid making judgment on another's character.

How can an organization ensure that all people are valued and judged fairly? I recommend managers and employees alike begin to understand the Business Values and Motivation Model. It's a simple model really - not psychological or academic, but easy to understand and use.

In this model, values are described as the mental filters or personal viewpoints by which each of us experiences objects, people and events. Motivators are the internal "hot buttons" that are turned on or off when individuals look through these different filters. We learn to value the good experiences and judge the negative ones. And we tend to be "motivated" when our values are "valued" and "de-motivated" when our values are "judged".

I often describe these filters as the prescription lenses through which we view the world. Some of us are far sighted, while others are near-sighted. That doesn't make us good or bad. We just have unique viewpoints. If I borrow prescription lenses from my wife, a friend or co-worker, I'll see the world less clearly, because they focus differently. The world might look different even if the image in front of us was the same. What used to be quite clear now might be quite blurred when we see the world through another's viewpoint.

Which leads me to this final point. To find people who share your interests and viewpoints, you must first understand the six values identified in the Business Values and Motivation Model and then recognize the personal values of employees that will fit into your organization's culture.

Corporate culture and managerial adeptness provide signals to a company's employees. The response to each signal will either energize an individual to action, turn the person away, or get a response that is half- hearted and unsustainable.

The key to motivation is to create an environment that fulfills the values of the people in that environment. The right attitude cannot be taught. And by understanding others' attitudes and values you can then attract and retain employees, customers, and even suppliers who view the world in the same way that you do.

Click here to order your Advance Copy of "Understanding Business Values and Motivators" for only $9.95. (Regular Price $12.95)

Perfect Labor Storm Alerts # 66 to #70
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Fact #66