Managing Employee Performance Variability

Posted on February 15, 2013 by John Ranalletta

In case you missed it, here’s an re-post of my article that appeared this week in Plastics Technology as well as other publications in the Gardner Business Media family.

Less than a year after Steve Jobs’ exit, the iPhone 5 rolled out with a defective maps application. Apple stumbled. The map fiasco wasn’t a technical problem, process breakdown or the result of a natural disaster. Simply, it was an error in human judgment.

There’s No Escape from Natural Cycles

Companies experience numerous life cycles over the duration of their existence. The manager’s job is to propel the company upward in the cycle (ascent) while preventing the early onset of decay (descent).

Declines in organizational performance can be precipitated by poor quality, no sales, product obsolescence, poor decision making, cost overruns, inefficiencies and/or a combination of these factors; but, invariably, the root cause is almost always people. The probability and frequency of performance failures increase with head count. Managers in big companies likely spend more time and energy forestalling descent and too little time fueling ascent.

Murphy’s Law

Entropy is “a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder.” Innovation, risk taking and vision are critical for success, but managers who are exceptionally proficient at managing variability and building fire walls that inhibit entropy thrive. We non-scientists call this “Murphy’s Law.” Well, Murphy only shows up where’s he’s invited.

While seldom malicious, entropy is insidious. It starts with an unmotivated or untrained employee; a salesman who can’t ask for the order or hold margin; a trusted associate who bottlenecks workflow and succumbs to time pressure; a key manager who avoids or takes too long to make important decisions or who takes on too much work because he/she can’t or won’t delegate. It can be the likeable supervisor who refuses to enforce work rules on the shop floor to avoid confrontation.

Is this a too negative view of how things work? How did you spend your time and energy last week? Were you able to concentrate most of it making forward progress or just kept from sliding back? Our experience tells us that managers who spend most of their time backfilling and fixing are very likely hiring the wrong people and/or managing people the wrong way because they do not have all the data they need to recruit, select and manage differently.

The Flip Side of Variability: Predictability

Metals are measured, weighed and assayed. Machines are dialed-in. Shopfloor environmental factors are finely controlled. Much applied science is used to ensure predictable performance of materials and machines; thus, managers can reliably measure their working properties and predict how they will perform under a given set of conditions.

People bring differing and changing levels of intelligence, education, culture, maturity, values, language skills, physical abilities and attitudes to the job. That people are not as predictable as materials and machinery is an understatement. Managing people optimally requires wisdom, patience and goodwill, and, applied science.

Predictive Index^® (PI^®) is the applied science thousands of managers use to reliably predict how a person will act and react in the work environment, uncovering if each person is technically or socially oriented; has a sense of urgency or operates in a methodical mode; and is either strategic or tactical; and much more.

Using the Performance Requirements Options (PRO) form, managers can “spec out” a job scientifically to reveal the behaviors it demands before starting a candidate search. Knowing how the job requires the person to behave using the PRO and how a person works using the PI Organization Survey, managers can make a better match of the two. It lets managers task people to do work that meets their needs and that drives out unwanted variability.

PI provides an informed glimpse into the future so managers can make informed decisions about operators, managers and sales people. For 57 years, managers have used PI to accelerate growth and as a fire wall/early warning system to provide lift and prevent performance degradation in the talent management pieces of their enterprises.

Predictive Index^® Newbies and Power Users Gather to Share Best Practices, Refresh Knowledge

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Beth Claflin

If you attended Thursday’s PI^® User Group meeting in Lansing, MI, you may recognize yourself in one of these photos. (Go to our Facebook page to see more.) If you were not able to attend, these shots give you a peek at what you missed.

Brief recap: 40 PI analysts joined the ADVISA team for the day to take a deeper dive into various talent acquisition, leadership development, organizational improvement and sales performance topics. Users took the stage and passed the microphone to share their tips and application stories. Here are a few of the comments received from attendees:

“Refreshing interaction with other users.”

“Love exercises/activities that we can take back and use with employees/managers to reinforce need to appreciate and understand differing motivation/communication styles.”

“Great networking opportunity.”

“Lots of tips to keep our analysts engaged and using the tool.”

“PI (Group) Analytics was very informative.”

“Just re-energizes interest in continuing to evolve PI in organization.”

Top value of the day? “(Being) exposed to how others use PI and seeing the depth of application.” and “Sharing stories with table-mates after/during each of morning sessions.”

“It was my first conference but, it will not be my last.”

We’ll organize another of these user group meetings in 2013 so stay tuned for details about date and location. In the meantime, contact us if you have additional feedback or questions.

Six Tips for Getting the Most from Your PI^® Annual Fee

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Heather Haas

One of the questions we hear often from clients is: Am I getting get the most for my Predictive Index^® annual fee? We appreciate your desire to get the most for your money. Here are our top six tips to do just that:

Engage with a PI^®learning opportunity at least twice a year. (Learning PI is a process, not an event.) Here are examples:
- Attend a webinar:
- Attend PI User Group meetings (offered annually, alternating sites in Michigan and Indiana)
- Attend another PI Management Training™ class (anyone who has completed the class can audit the class again free-of-charge if they attend with one paid attendee from their company).
- Post a question or describe a challenge on a social network of like-minded peers sharing best practices – i.e., the ADVISA PI Analysts group on LinkedIn
Set a goal to make PI part of your culture over time. Work with your consultant on a plan to integrate PI into performance reviews, talent reviews and career planning.
Take the time to complete a Performance Requirement Options™ (PRO) form for every job opening you have. Reflect the behaviors described by the PRO in the job description (we can show you how).
Use PI early in your hiring process and for every candidate. Use the PI profiles of new hires and their supervisors to coach both on how best to work with each other.
Request a Group Analytics report of the members of your organization’s executive team, leadership group and/or each department; discuss with the group the implications of averages and outliers.
Talk with your consultant at least once a quarter about business challenges you have. Use him or her as a resource for more ideas on how to best put PI to use improving business outcomes.

ADVISA at the Super Bowl 2012 Social Media Command Center

Posted on January 27, 2012 by BJ McKay

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.

Intentions are unimportant when measured against perceptions

Posted on April 30, 2011 by BJ McKay

I am every manager. I do my best to give my employees what they need to be successful. I work on growing the company, completing world-class work, and moving the company day-to-day more effectively from point A to point B. This is what I tell my boss about what I am intending with my actions. However, I am a human being first and manager second, or even further down the priority list of how I define myself.

Naturally I give people what I need to be successful. Whether it is in rewards and compensation or in discipline and other corrective actions. I know what has worked with me, and therefore, it makes sense that it would work for others with reasonable intelligence. I manage 12 people, and 3 are successful. I have 6 that have promise, but have plenty of ups and downs in their performance and attitude. Then I have 3 who just need to go. They are negative, and don’t respond well to anything I try to do as a manager to help them become successful. I guess this is just how it goes. No matter what I do, and how hard I try, this will likely be the outcome. My job is just so disappointing at times.

98% of all managers, owners, and CEO’s have the very best of intentions – I truly believe this. The problem is, as managers, we rarely have the insight necessary to know how people perceive us – how they internalize the tactics we take as managers. Intentions cannot compete with perceptions. Ever.

We have physical and mental limitations as human beings. Our minds thin slice our environments to make sense of the world in realtime for survival. This function limits our ability to take in all the information that is there to be observed. We need a tool to cut through our own bias, and our hardwiring as human beings to thin slice – to truly know what makes our people tick.

Predictive Index® does this for managers at over 7,500 companies around the globe. We provide the technology, and more importantly, the training of PI® Analysts within those client companies to leverage this tool in all facets of the organization.

Recruiting – The Art of Creating the Right Relationships

Posted on December 10, 2009 by Dana Harrison

Studies indicate there are four of these levels of fit between the employee and the job, the workgroup, the candidate’s vocation and the organization described below.

The concept of “employee fit” is truly a multi-level phenomenon, and will be maximized in instances in which a person’s personality matches both the objective characteristics of the organization and integrates well with the personalities of those that he or she interacts with most frequently. Keep both of these levels in mind when assessing candidates.

Only the best hiring practices coupled with a well-planned and executed on-boarding process will deliver the desired results.

PI® Personality Assessment Put to the Test

Posted on December 4, 2009 by ADVISA WEB TEAM

Several years ago a CEO of an international company was very skeptical of any type of personality assessment. He was convinced that any applicant screening test was basically just a bunch of psycho babble.

He was willing to do a strategic test of the Predictive Index® to determine if personality assessments could improve HR best practices in hiring employees and improving a new hire’s productivity and long term retention.

We decided to look at six different positions. We developed the job profile for each position and candidates were submitted to me for the PI® evaluation. All candidates submitted to complete the PI assessment had the appropriate back ground and skill set desired by the organization.

Over the period of the next month, all six position were filled. Here is where it becomes interesting.

Three of the candidates had the resume experience and a good PI profile match to the job.

Three of the candidates had the resume experience, but not a good PI profile match for the job.

The three new employees whose PI profile matched the job position performed very well over the next six months!

The three employees whose P profile was not a good match for the job position struggled with their job and were all let go during that six month time period.

Coincidence? Not really. This CEO is now an ardent fan of the PI and proved the value of this personality tool to himself. More importantly, he improved the quality of hire, their subsequent performance and the productivity of his organization.

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