Welcome to the November 28, 2007 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.  'tis the Season to be Business Planning

With all the year-end planning managers are doing these days, the single most important question they should be asking  - but most likely aren't - is: 

What are we doing differently that competitors will find difficult to duplicate?

Gary Hamel in his just released book, The Future of Management, suggests that businesses need to become "positively deviant."  Positive deviance is the different, even eccentric, but highly effective practices that your business does better than anyone else.

Positive deviance requires both innovation and discipline.  The question for management then becomes how do you get employees to be creative and innovative while they perform efficiently and execute flawlessly?  Current management strategies reward and promote people for perfecting the current business model or business plan. The critical strategy then becomes, how do you get employees to innovate and stay focused?  How do you get all your employees to avoid thinking and saying, "That won't work here!" but instead ask "how can I make us better?"

Many managers resort to motivational speakers and celebratory events to launch a new strategy or introduce a new product.  But motivational events are merely adrenaline rushes with transient results. To sustain the energy and commitment, people need a genuine sense of mission or possibility.  But this moral imperative or purpose is not something you can manage; to be authentic, it must be an end, not a means.

So where does management go wrong?  Executives want a sense of community, a workplace where people are passionate about your cause, your mission. They then attempt to manage this passion with rules, procedures, protocols which only stifles the very initiative, creativity, and passion they want to encourage.

The first place to look is the organization chart.  Is the very chart that is supposed to provide discipline and process killing innovation and efficiency?  Is it disengaging employees? Is it making you more or less competitive?  Referring back to creating positive deviance:  no organization chart in the world will help you create a competitive difference that no competitor can easily duplicate. In other words, managers need to spend more time on creating flexibility and innovation, not structure and hierarchy.

A second fatal mistake managers make is copying best practices and expecting those changes will create a sustainable and competitive difference.  I'm not proposing that best practices don't matter.  To the contrary, I will suggest that a business won't even survive if it is not continually implementing best practices.  The problem is that successful companies don't share best practices until they are well heeled and way ahead of the competition. By that time the competition has raised the bar, or even created a new standard, that can't easily be duplicated.  Best practices at this point means that everyone else is playing catch-up. 

This leads me to ask, where does a business start to create positive deviance?

A few very basic questions to ask are:

     What can we do differently to set us apart from the

     competition? 

     How connected is the performance of our employees to

     how well our business is doing and where we expect it

     to go?

Interested in creating positive deviance?  Contact us by replying to this email or by calling 800-803-4303.

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:

A study by Wonderlic, Inc. released this week reveals a steady decline in the cognitive ability scores associated with specific education levels. This recent analysis compared a decade of occupational norms from a sample of over 200 employers, 2,000 jobs, and 100,000 applicants to comparable occupational datasets from previous normative studies. 

The results shows a steady decline in the average scores for both college and high school graduates between 1970 and 2005. Cognitive ability has been proven to be a critical predictor of learning speed and success on the job.

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. Test Drive JobClues

Try JobClues ... a state-of-the-art, fast, affordable assessment tool guaranteed to help you make smarter, more informed hiring decisions.

Take the test yourself ... you'll be amazed at the accuracy of the assessment results ... and you'll immediately see how this tool will give you keen insights into a candidate's abilities and "fit" for the job you want to fill.

For a FREE JobClues report, click here or call toll-free at 800-803-4303 about our special unlimited use pricing.

4.  Moving and Shaking

Ira S Wolfe, founder of Success Performance Solutions, was selected as one of the Movers and Shakers in Central PA for 2007. (Turn to page 35).

Ira was also featured in The Sentinel (Carlisle, PA) following his Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 presentation at the Carlisle Chamber of Commerce's Business Expo.

5. New Articles posted on Super-Solutions website

Hiring Competent Jerks or Lovable Fools

Imagine you hired a manager who consistently exceeded his goals but also treated his peers and reports with contempt.  He rarely did anything for your company unless it directly benefited him.  Do you consider this person a good hire or a bad hire?  When faced with the choice between hiring a competent jerk or a lovable fool, who would you choose?  You might be surprised how most people answer.

Read more Human Resource Articles about hiring, high school dropouts, performance management and more.

6. The Millenials Are Coming  (as seen on 60 Minutes)  

Stand back all bosses! A new breed of American worker is about to attack everything you hold sacred: from giving orders, to your starched white shirt and tie. They are called, among other things, "millennials." There are about 80 million of them, born between 1980 and 1995, and they're rapidly taking over from the baby boomers who are now pushing 60.

They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds. And if you persist in the belief you can, take your job and shove it.

As correspondent Morley Safer reports, corporate America is so unnerved by all this that companies like Merrill Lynch, Ernst & Young, Disney and scores of others are hiring consultants to teach them how to deal with this generation that only takes "yes" for an answer.  

Watch "The Millenials Are Coming"  

Learn more about the Millenials and other generations in The Perfect Labor Storm 2.0: Workforce Trends That Will Change The Way You Do Business  

7. Speaking Schedule: Ira S Wolfe  

2008:  

January 21 - Institute of Management Consultants (Dallas, TX) - Workforce

                      Trends That Change The Way You Will Do Business

January 22 - Optimance (Dallas, TX) - Workforce Trends That Change The Way

                       You Will Do Business

October 2008 - 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.

8. Quotes from Hire Authorities

"Every man is a fool for at least five minutes every day.  Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit."

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 2007 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