February 18, 2004
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-- Don't judge an employee by his behavior alone
-- Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #91 to #95
-- Your opinions do count here.
-- Analytical Ability - A Core Competency for the 21st Century Manager
-- It's not enough to ask a good question
-- And the crowd ROARS north of the border -
-- This is too good to be true! The Comprehensive Employee Training and Development Solution for tight budgets.
-- SELECT Employees with A Positive Attitude!
-- Just the facts: Wet Your Whistle
-- Reserve Your Copy Now - Understanding Business Values and Motivators

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Don't judge an employee by his behavior alone
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Charles is just one applicant among the several dozens that must be screened for an opening on your leadership team. His resume is impressive enough - a degree in Economics and an MBA from Stanford. And his work history is exemplary.

The background checking, however, reveals several significant flaws. First of all your assessment reveals he is basically shy and introverted, certainly not the traits of a leader in your book.

You also discover that he flunked English twice and French once. Upon further investigation you find out that he passed his literature class by reading the comic book versions of classics such as Moby Dick. And to top it off, when you ask him to name the last book he read, he tells you that he doesn't read too well so he'd rather listen to books on tape.

Many recruiters and managers would likely screen out Charles very early in the process. In fact, several might even question his credentials and doubt he even graduated from high school no less Stanford University if you observed him reading. Charles reads very slowly and he sounds out each word. Would you hire Charles?

The real identity of Charles might surprise you.

Charles in this case is Mr. Charles Schwab. Today Mr. Schwab is worth $3.2 billion, and despite living his life with dyslexia, founded Charles Schwab, the discount brokerage firm serving over 7.6 million investors.

But had Mr. Schwab applied for a position at your company, he might not even have been granted an interview.

Job success, especially in professional positions like leadership, management and sales, requires so much more than just education and basic abilities. The drive to achieve, communications skills, analytical ability, interpersonal skills, decision-making, teamwork - these are just a sampling of the competencies that differentiate the very successful from the average worker.

While meeting with my friend and colleague - Tim Rooney, president of PeopleMation - this past weekend, he made an interesting analogy between wood and how its careful use was one of the biggest factors in controlling costs and quality and improving bottom line performance.

In his industry, he described how companies pay for the whole tree but only ship a portion of what they purchased. In the end, depending on the yield, the waste factor could exceed 50 percent.

"As a profit center manager, a key strategy for profitability was to use as much of the wood as possible." Tim continued, "the same should be true for people."

"I believe people are like square pegs and the jobs are round holes. Each individual has a unique set of characteristics with a varying range of skills and talent. But not every person (square peg) has the exact skills required for every job (round hole)."

The responsibility of every manager today is to make sure that the "yield" from employees is maximized. With skilled employees at a premium and an increasingly limited resource, the difference between a productive and terminated employee might be the manager who is smart enough to use all of the "square peg" with as little waste as possible and not try to whittle the edges off the peg in order to make it fit in a round hole.

Mr. Schwab obviously has a talent that many managers might overlook based on a single set of skills and short- sighted observations. By using The Whole Person Approach, the search for skills is transformed into a blueprint for talent - and talent such as Mr. Schwab won't be bypassed at a time that talent is a valued but limited resource.

The Whole Person Approach - CriteriaOne Training for managers and consultants who want to learn to identify, select and retain talent- April 21-23, 2004

Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #91 to #95
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Fact #91