RightOn Interactive is a dynamic client of ours who is growing and looking for top sales talent. They leverage Predictive Index® in the hiring process and are a sharp and savvy group. If you are, or if you know anyone who has proven selling/negotiation/influencing ability send them RightOn’s way.
More about RightOn Interactive, the company
Young employees can be the most productive, energetic and powerful group in your organization. However, they are leaving companies earlier than ever. Why?
Read on:
Multiple studies find that today’s younger workers have absolutely no intention of sticking around if they don’t feel like they’re learning, growing and being valued in a job. Beth N. Carver, a consultant who has spent 12 years researching exit interviews, finds that a loss of training opportunities and a lack of mentors in the workplace are two of the biggest reasons why young workers leave.
Read more: http://anniemurphypaul.com/2012/09/why-workers-leave-its-usually-not-about-the-money/#ixzz27UJ6thaH
At ADVISA, we provide our clients with a dozen modular training opportunities focused on leadership development, frontline management skill development, sales skill development and behavioral intelligence focused on gaining influence and providing coaching/mentoring in the work place. If you have programs like these in place for your employees, pat yourself on the back because you are investing in the right place. If not, reach out to me and learn what programs we have installed at client companies like yours to take care of their best and brightest 30 somethings.
Time to go; your job candidate, Sharon, has arrived at the front desk and she is ready for her interview.
The people that end up with these positions tend to interview terrific, have stellar references, but end up on doing the job they were hired to do. They are social people, which is the real crutch given the nature of the actual work that must be done everyday. They tend to want interaction in person and verbal. They actually communicate best that way. Working in teams or groups is preferred. The challenge is that the jobs in social are more heads down and data focused. It is typically not a good fit, therefore the lifespan of that person in this role is short and usually unproductive for all parties.
Now, there are exceptions, but the work I’ve done with my clients who specialize in this area have found that my assertions above hold up, and significantly increase the retention, productivity, and job satisfaction of those individuals, their teammates, and their managers. The reason is simple, they are hardwired to behave in a way that is in alignment with what the work demands. Doing what I would do naturally is what my job and my manager needs from me everyday in the role of social.
If you have questions about this analysis/observation, and feel I and our Predictive Index® tools may be useful to you in finding the right fit for this vital role at your company please reach out.
Remember the last meeting you had with your team where you walked out and asked yourself: “Why did I do that?” It could be in response to something you said, how you handled a conflict situation, or how you attempted to motivate your team to action.
Regardless of the specifics, I want you to remember that feeling. The feeling that you logically knew what to do and say in that moment, but for whatever reason you did the opposite.
The greater the anxiety we feel, the more impaired is the brain’s cognitive efficiency. In this zone of mental misery, distracting thoughts hijack our attention and squeeze our cognitive resources. Because high anxiety shrinks the space available to our attention, it undermines our very capacity to take in new information, let alone generate fresh ideas. Near-panic is the enemy of learning and creativity.
Now, do you get a better sense of “why did I do that?” In my world of behavioral science and analytics, it has been proven that these primal or natural instincts are hard-wired into us. We are not all the same and will respond differently in this frazzled state. However, the key to unlocking our mastery of these moments and conditioning ourselves to act logically when our mind and body is fleeing to the primal low-road, is in uncovering that hard-wiring in ourselves – and then, uncovering it in others we work for, work with, and whom work for us.
Most companies gather their leadership team once per year to discuss strategic planning. This is a time-honored event that, in many cases, produces little tangible result. There is often recreation, along with retreat from the day-to-day grind of running the business, but actions and behaviors typically stay the same when those key executives return to the job. There are likely many reasons for this, but one that I encounter most often is that the actual talent within the company – the same talent that will ultimately produce the outcomes drawn up during the strategic planning retreat – were not included and were poorly assessed.
Strategic plans drawn up in a (relative) vacuum can be dangerous vehicles for de-motivating employees and setting them on a path to an unrealistic goal. It is a tragic management mistake to tell high performers in any role that they are consistently behind and on a collision course for failure. This unnecessarily taxes and drains key people and leaves them with a half-tank of gas to finish the race. Often, the strategic plan itself becomes a key lever for lack of energy and lack of motivation leading to poor results.
Has your strategic plan produced these outcomes? Here is how to fix it:
1) Start with real data on the people responsible for the goals within the strategic plan. We use Predictive Index® at ADVISA as a foundational element of our strategic/organizational planning process. By understanding the hard-wiring and makeup of employees, our clients avoid guessing about how to motivate their people and how to foster an environment where their employees can produce.
2) Start with real data on your company’s past performance in the key areas that will be measured as a benchmark for success. Often, leadership can explain away poor results, feign accountability, and say “next year will be nothing like last year.” This is a critical mistake. Facing at the truth – which is often in the numbers – can provide a realistic framework to take “one step at a time” in the near-term. Know that your benchmarks are realistic before codifying the strategic plan for distribution, otherwise you risk a real morale and energy drain by teeing your people up for failure.
3) Use a competent, credible, and trusted third-party consultant to facilitate your strategic planning. At ADVISA, we have been involved in strategic planning for over 20 years, facilitating for many industries. Our team of management consultants is sharp, experienced, and trained in expert facilitation. While we are partial to our own team, there are many credible and talented facilitators in the marketplace. Avoid trying to feign objectivity by running your own strategic planning. This can be reckless. And it is unfair to place key executives – especially those who have bought in to the company – in a position to operate as if they can be clearly objective facilitators. These are people who have key performance metrics that will inevitably cloud their vision. This focus is what makes them special at their jobs, and allows them to be key contributors within the strategic planning session. However, if they are asked to facilitate a strategic plan, this becomes a crutch.
If you are interested in learning how I, and our team at ADVISA, can assist you and your management team in strategic planning please call us at 317.249.2258. If you already have a trusted facilitator, consider sharing this post and looking critically at the people that will make your strategic plan successful.
This year’s Super Bowl is going to be more social than any in the history of the sport, and my client Raidious will be the epicenter of this activity. They are the Social Media Command Center for Super Bowl 2012 in Indianapolis. Last night we had an exclusive event to hear the strategy that Raidious will be employing through @superbowl2012 on Twitter. Taulbee Jackson, Brian Wyrick, Ryan Smith and the entire team shared the excitement and all the work that will go into serving the masses that will be in Indianapolis during Super Bowl week.
Here is a local and a national story that have been written about this first ever initiative:
WTHR -
Mashable -
There is a Bloomberg article around the corner that I’ll share when it’s posted. It has been rewarding working with the talented team at Raidious and they continue to be a case study in the application of Predictive Index® in hiring and in management development.
@superbowl2012 on Twitter is where you need to be from now through Super Sunday.
If you are the decision maker in your business, people will hate you.
Do you agree with this?
The decision maker is a position that many seek as they build their careers, but often when the position is earned it, comes with far more scrutiny and far less enjoyment than anticipated. So, why do we constantly seek the decision-maker positions? The reason, as usual, is simple and strikes to the heart of each of us as human beings. The answer is that power is attractive and motivating, especially for men.
Let me take this a level deeper. Historically in America, men have been nurtured to be decision makers, to want to make more money than their peers, and to strive for greatness and power as a key criteria for success. This can be validated and documented easily over the past 100 years. This has lead to difficult circumstances for many managers, executives, and other leaders in decision-making roles. The fact that I may not want to be the decision maker usually hits home after I have already won the position of decision maker. Now what do I do?
There is no clear path out of a misfit position, or job requirement. It’s a messy situation at any angle of approach. The key is to not end up in a role that will not equal personal success. Do this by striving for true self-awareness and self-acceptance. Without those valuable virtues it will be difficult to effectively navigate yourself to true success.
Too often, a decision maker is chosen or promoted because she/he is popular among management and peers. However, when the role is assumed, guess what happens to that popularity?
Take five minutes today to reflect on these two questions about being the decision maker:
- Do I enjoy having the final say and accountability for decision making?
- Am I truly self-aware? If yes, have I accepted myself?
Training can be wasteful and worthless for you and your employees. Training takes time. Costs money. Takes key people out of the job for a period of time. If you wanted to list out the reasons not to do training you could produce a nice-sized list even longer than this one.
I-It = Viewing people solely as instruments to be used toward our own goals. I am “I-It” when I care not at all about your feelings but only about what I want from you.
I-You = A special bond, an attuned closeness that is often-but of course not always-found between husbands and wives, family members, and good friends.
When we are in I-It mode we treat other people as means to an end. In the I-You mode, our relationship with them becomes an end in itself. (Daniel Goleman; Social Intelligence)
So, how are sales superstars created? I-You and I-It is how. Let’s define a sales superstar – an individual who consistently achieves above average revenue results while maintaining a role as a consummate team player and positive employee role model. Would you like to have more of them? Me too!
I-You and I-It cuts to the heart of this conversation. In selling situations we can find ourselves on the wrong end of an I-It conversation. The “I” is the prospect and the it, more often than not, is the sales person. The salesperson feels objectified, disrespected, made to feel small, and often a second-class citizen. That is what being “It” feels like. Not something you want to do for a living. It is unsustainable for most mere mortals.
The I-It is also a glass ceiling for sales superstar impostors. These are the individuals who produce sheer numbers but tend to be a negative influence and suffer from “too-heavy-to-handle” ego. They are the “I” and the company and clients are the “It.” Meant to serve their own ends. As you can imagine, this is also unsustainable.
I-You is the secret. “I” actually care and am interested about “You,” regardless of any positive outcomes for me — where I ask questions that strike to the heart of problems that matter to you and are relevant. Not, simply the problems that happen to be solved by my products or services. The I-You is the person who legitimately cares about others, and in turn, others trust that person. They should. These are the gems that take a reasonably good sales team and turn them into super heros.
The great news, in most cases, is that this mindset can be trained to those willing to learn them. Like anything else, there has to be a will to become better, and an authentic passion for what you are selling and the good it brings to clients.
Do you have a sincere interest in re-engineering the human side of your business? Contact me.
It's simple. We exist to make you better.