What does Respect Have to Do with Leadership?

We have talked about behavioral profiles and roles. Understanding and implementing these principles alone can dramatically improve your competitive edge. If you are the leader, it is a lot easier to lead individuals and teams who want to follow rather than stray cats or those requiring constant attention.

Another secret to leadership and performance is that everyone needs to feel respected for their contribution as part of the team.

It is easy to show respect for superiors, the top sales person, the financial genius, or assumed stars. However, just as with sports teams, the stars never achieve the most by themselves. It takes a team where every member of that team is appreciated and respected for the role they play and for the value they bring.

The challenge is that every behavioral role wants to be respected in different ways.

Let me put it this way: When I was creating a global team, I assumed that treating everyone the same way that I wanted to be treated was fair and the most effective leadership style. After all, I led by example and I treated others by how I wanted to be treated by my superiors. I WAS WRONG.

Now I understand that each of the ten behavioral roles want to be treated / respected differently. Now I understand those on my team, my peers, and superiors who I was not connecting with and assumed they were the problem. Well, in some cases, they were the problem but, in other cases, I confess that I might have been the problem. Through ignorance, not intent, I treated everyone the same. How fair was that! But in reality, not everyone wants to be respected in the same way.

Now, I am learning how to appreciate and show appreciation in ways that fit how others want to be appreciated. At least now I am no longer ignorant but I am still in the process of applying what I learned..

As a leader trying to motivate your team, would it be important to understand how they want to be motivated – or do you think that one style fits all?

As a follower trying to please your leader, would it be important to understand how they want to be respected – or do you think that one way fits all?

As a job seeker interviewing decision makers, trusted advisors, influencers, peers, subordinates, and gate-keepers, would it be helpful to understand their potential roles and how to show them respect?

The good news is that now there is a way of learning and applying these principles. They are fundamental to leadership and career success.

If you want to know more, contact me at Jim@JobDoctorsIntl.com

 

 

How Can A Behavioral Role Fit Impact Sales Success?

Different sales jobs require different behavioral role fits. We need to define the sales job before we recommend which role best fits the job. In this blog we are limiting our scope to product sales that are commodities or easily defined. We are not discussing complex solution, intangible, or strategic sales. The recommended roles are different depending upon the type of sales.

Most sales teams have direct roles and support roles. These profiles are distinct. Teams who support sales teams often have different behavioral role fits. You can design which roles fit on which team companywide. However, for this discussion, let’s limit the scope to a person who sales with the classic sales profile of going out, thinking short-term how to close the deal, and then go out for the next catch. We will call this the direct sales role.

The support role is someone who is usually on the sales team but instead of enjoying the deal prefers to focus on the details, to provide support, to schedule meetings, to fill out reports – activities that the direct sales person usually dislikes and puts off like going to the dentist.

However, a strong sales team needs both roles to maximize results. By having the right role in support of several direct sales people, it allows everyone to do what they enjoy doing the most. Each person does what they are best at doing.

How do companies traditionally make mistakes? First, by putting the wrong person with the wrong sales profile on the wrong sales team. Again, there are other roles for channel sales, intangible sales, complex solution sales, strategic sales, etc. You first have to define which role fits which job. Second, by eliminating support roles and expecting every sales person to do everything – including what they hate doing. Morale goes down, sales results go down, and turnover goes up. Third, by assuming a good sales person would make a great sales manager – whose primary daily tasks are in the office doing paperwork, filing reports, tracking results, training, and mentoring their sales team.

The worst tragedy that I see is when the top sales person is income capped or moved into sales management where their behavioral role is not a fit. Usually a competitor benefits from those decisions.

Every job in a company can be assigned a role fit appropriate for each team based upon their job and teaming relationships. It does not matter whether it is finance, HR, customer service, research, production, or any job. The C-Suite can intentionally determine what is required for their unique business, sign-off on the plan, have tactical teams implement the plan, and then monitor the measurable results.

The best news is that with only ten basic behavioral roles, once definitions are understood, this process is not hard to implement.

At a minimum, you can see why a behavioral role fit has a direct correlation to sales success.

Are People Born to Perform a Specific Role?

You have heard the concept of hiring right and placing the right people in the right seat. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? So, how can you do that?

We already discussed major types of employees (Politicians, Entitlement Employees, and Value Workers). Now let’s shift to roles of employees. We acknowledge that much of what we know is from one of our Best of Breed Partners. We are simply applying their tools to our solutions.

Are people born to perform a specific role – to sit in a “right seat?”

With the right education and experience, we believe the answer is “yes.”

For example, one of the behavioral roles is a Visionary. These are the innovators, those who connect the dots, see gaps and discover how to close them. They are long term focused and 100,000 foot strategic thinkers. They challenge the status quo and ultimately offer a fountain of ideas.

On the other hand, a Visionary has a hard time communicating at 10,000 feet, picking the best idea to actually make it happen, and being patient enough to see the project through before wanting to go to the next problem.

Can they be invaluable to a company? As an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur they are the ones who create new innovations, new processes, or new solutions that can lead company growth, crush the competition, and even create new industries. They just see things differently and are often opposed by those who do not like change or who feel threatened.

Typically, Visionaries eventually get frustrated with Politicians and Entitlement Employees and start their own companies. The biggest loser is the company that they leave but the company political networks are often glad to see them go.

If only a company could recognize them, nurture them, and surround them with other people whose roles help select and implement the Visionaries best ideas. Then everyone could win – especially the company who is competing in the marketplace.

Actually, we can identify them prior to hiring or within the ranks. We can help design which seats fit who they are, where they would enjoy contributing the most, and the team that can surround them for maximum company benefit.

If they are just out of college, we can identify the career and development track to help them grow in understanding the business, how to better communicate, and how to add more value to the team. Handled carefully, Visionaries can have the highest ROI and competitive impact on a company. Handled poorly, they leave. Put on the wrong team, they and the team suffer. Put on the right team with everyone understanding their role, the team can help them learn the business while they can help the team with new ideas that can make their work easier and more effective.

The same concept is true for another role – Strategic Thinkers who, while not Visionaries, can understand the significance of a Visionary’s idea and then see which ideas make the most sense for the company to develop or integrate. Another role is someone who can strategically understand the selected idea but tactically assign the teams required to implement the idea.

Ultimately, these three roles are what often make up the C-Suite as the CEO and direct reports. Now we can tell, even before they graduate from college, who the next generation of leaders might be. Combined with understanding how to develop the Value Worker profile, you can see how a company can select and maximize their potential for success. Then, with the right profile and the right role fit, development programs become highly focused investments with high potential results.

These are only three simple examples from ten identifiable roles. Every seat in the company can now be designed and filled with people whose profiles and roles that they were born with can fill. The result is happier people, higher productivity, lower turnover, greater teaming, and motivated people who want to be aligned with company direction because they want to add value and now sit in a seat where they can contribute in a way that best fits them.

Next time we will discuss a typical sales team and how role selection can transform their results.

Announcing Our New Human Investment Leadership™ Blog

 

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a fabulous time with our family and granddaughters.

Now, back to work!

Career Intelligence Newsletter – for Careers and Jobs

Our prior blog was called “Jobprenuership™”. The focus began on helping individuals with their career success – whether working, in transition, or starting their own company.

That focus will continue through our Newsletter Series called the, “Career Intelligence Newsletter.” If you have not yet signed up, we encourage you to do so by going to any of our other web pages and looking on the right hand side to sign up. As an alternative, you can click here to get started!

The Career Intelligence Newsletter is for any individual, whether an executive, employee, job seeker, or small business owner. We will be offering paradigm shift thinking articles, free webinars, and making announcements of special events and offerings. We encourage you to sign-up today! This content is beyond traditional thinking. It can help Revolutionize Your Competitive Edge™.

Human Investment Leadership™ Blog – for Companies, Organizations, and Leaders

As we defined HIL™ on our home page, there are three major gaps that companies, organizations, and leaders typically face. The three gaps are in Leadership, Aligned Teaming, and Motivated Value Employees.

First, the Leadership gap is understanding at the leadership level how to structure the company, communicate inwardly, and get motivated employees all adding value in alignment with outward company objectives. We call this C-Suite paradigm shift, Human Investment Leadership™ (HIL™). However, under this umbrella, we also include the two tactical programs designed to support HIL™. The tactical programs address the Aligned Teaming and Motivated Value Employee gaps.

Second, the Aligned Teaming program starts with the premise that leadership is easier with teams who want to follow rather than a hoard of stray cats. We call this program Teampreneurship™, which is a process to design every team seat with the right behavioral role fit and with team players. Combined with HIL™ communications and monitoring, the result is usually dramatic improvements in lower turnover and increased productivity.

Third, the Motivated Value Employee gap starts with the premise that the team player sitting in the right role on the right team still needs to understand the business and how to add value for company success. Our program, called Jobpreneurship™, is designed to not only fill this gap but to also empower the employee with the career development tools to align their personal success motivations with company defined success, resulting in aligned mutual success.

You are investing in your employee salaries and benefits. Are you getting a good return on your investment?

Sound complicated? Actually, our processes are well defined and integrate with your people to fit within your business model, culture, value system, and organization.

As a result, the new title of this blog is being changed to reflect the focus to Human Investment Leadership™ and talk about each of these gaps in future blogs.

We hope you like our change. We hope you sign-up for our newsletter – which can help individuals from the CEO down. We think you will appreciate the focus of this blog being on the company perspective for company success.

 

 

What is the ROI for Value Workers in Your Company?

What is a Value Worker? Simply put, it is an employee who constantly seeks to add value to themselves, their team, and the company.

Instead of being self-focused, they are team focused. They seek to personally grow in order to add more value to the company. Their passion is to resolve problems, improve productivity, and exceed expectations. They see participating in teams as a way to leverage greater value than they could generate as an individual contributor. As a manager, they seek to show appreciation and respect to team members and others who are also striving to help the greater team and the company become more valuable, profitable, enjoyable, and competitive. They acknowledge the work of others, respect the contribution of others, and prefer to organize and empower. As executives, they continue this pattern across functions believing that doing so will help everyone win together. They see their competition as the external company competition. They see suppliers as virtual members of their team so that the virtual supply chain wins more than their competitor’s virtual supply chain.

Do they sound like a cost or a benefit for your company? Usually the question is better put, “How much benefit or Return on Investment can they provide?”

If you invest in helping Value Workers grow, how much more can they contribute?

Which employee would you prefer? A Politician, an Entitlement Employee, or a Value Worker?

However, Value Workers can be limited and impeded in their quest.

Being team focused on achievement means they are usually very focused on Results. If Entitlement Employees are on their team, conflict may soon ensue. Often the Value Worker is blamed because they are more aggressive in wanting to get things done. Effectiveness goes down. Value Workers are often blamed and their limitations on being able to add value creates personal frustration that leads them to either leaving the company or giving up having to fight against those pulling them down.

There is an even greater risk. If Politicians are on the team, are peers, or superiors, the Value Worker may not get the credit for their work, may be sabotaged, or may be stabbed in the back. Why? First, that is a typical M.O. for a Politician who wants to get ahead by climbing over others. Second, the Value Worker is often Results oriented while the Politician is usually Relationship oriented – more likable, with more connections, and more visibility at higher levels.

In other words, while the Value Worker is busy focusing on teams and results, the Politician is focusing on developing a political network of influence and power throughout the company. The larger the company, the greater likelihood that the Politician will win even as the company loses.

Do these scenarios sound familiar?

Often the Value Worker is tolerated as long as they produce, are controlled by the Politician, and do not threaten the Politician. However, when downsizing occurs whom do you think is usually let go? Is it usually the Value Worker who produced but has limited relationship networks and management visibility or the Politician who has a strong network of influence and power? Remember, the Politician is usually likeable, included on trusted teams, can take credit for the work of others, and blames others for their own failures.

Can a Value Worker learn to develop Relationship Skills? Can they learn to develop internal networks, increase their likeability, and learn how to use politics to add even greater value? Fortunately, “Yes!” Mentoring and coaching can help them develop faster to become the future value producing leaders of your company.

As the current leader of your company, you control the company culture, hiring, and winners in your company. You can create incredible value, tolerate entitlement mindsets, or enjoy the relationships with politicians. If your company is big enough to absorb the costs and inefficiencies, you may not have to worry about what is happening beneath you.  If you are in a smaller company, even one Politician or Entitlement Employee can become a serious issue.

Our three-profile model is simplistic. Most organizations are complex but now you can begin to see how you can revolutionize your competitive edge…or not.

We have the tools, resources, and methodologies to help you if you choose to Revolutionize Your Competitive Edge.

 

What is the Cost of Politics in Your Company?

Last time we mentioned that there were three typical employee profiles in companies that we will discuss. There are others but these profiles should make our point.

I want to begin by discussing perhaps the most dangerous and costly  people in organizations.

No, it is not the entitlement mindset person. It is the political person.

Do you see the following signs in your company?

You set the vision and direction but the organization is not responding? You are told:

• The problem is you need to spend more money in training, salaries, motivational events, speaking to them, listening to them, or learning to deal with multi-generational belief systems
• The reason for a slow response is “other employees like Joe, Harry, and Sue”
• Market conditions, national politics, the economy, inflation, or other outside influences are slowing the company down
• There are not enough resources, too many things to do, or it did not work last time…

Clearly, those comments may be valid issues but if what you are seeing is:

• A lack of staff willingness to commit to results, be held personally accountable, or to take personal initiative and career risks
• A lack of innovation or simply citing “experts” who recommend a different path
• A lack of teaming
• A lack of organizational response rather than an immediate course correction
• Friction within the ranks…

Then, you’re biggest issue may be that you have Politicians clogging the wheels of your organization for their own personal agendas. They may fear being exposed or want to be sure that they are never blamed. Actually, when results don’t meet executive team expectations, Politicians are very good at blaming others or picking a “fall guy.”

Note: We are not talking about astute employees who are team players wanting to align and accomplish your vision yet recognize that a level of politics exists in any organization. We are talking about non-team players who are self-focused, take credit for others work, blame others for their mistakes, create political alliances within companies to help protect each other, and may even be willing to sabotage your company for their benefit.

Do you know anyone like this?

The challenge is that a true Politician is often likeable, trusted, and strong in developing relationships. In other words, they are frequently hard to detect and often very good about hiding their activities.

Are true Politicians harming your career and your company? What cost can they be to:

• Your company team alignment and team success?
• Your company image and brand
• Your clients
• Your suppliers
• Their peers, subordinates, and superiors
• You?

Are all Politicians bad for business? If they are secretly harming others, blaming others, victimizing others, creating rivalry and conflict, misdirecting and depriving, confusing and frustrating, then the cost and risk to business can be immeasurable.

Even if you are “one of them”, you have likely been personally impacted in your career and will again be impacted unless you learn how to deal with them. Many companies have competing political alliances warring to win the top position. This inward focus can devastate the ability to focus on a company’s outward competitiveness.

Can a Politician learn to control potential negative behaviors and actually help the company? Potentially. If their personal values align with the company, if they learn to control their personal motivations and if they choose to behave as a company team player, then Politicians can become an asset. However, we recommend you keep an eye on them. As with everyone, when personal or work stress increases we are likely to go back to behaving in our comfort zone.

The formula we recommend is the same businesses use everyday – “Risk versus Reward”. If the reward (benefits) of having Politicians on the team outweighs the risk of harmful behavior, sabotage, chasing away performers, avoiding innovation, and collateral damage, then the reward may be worth the cost. We call the Politician a “Yellow Light”. Look both ways and be cautious. Depending on the situation, the reality may be a green light to go ahead or a red light.

Since Politicians are so likable, good at developing relationships, and often trusted, is it possible to identify them prior to hiring or while in the organization? It was very difficult – until now. We have a way of identifying the profile. You still have to determine the risk versus reward calculation.

In our opinion, the Politician poses the greatest threat to company success yet is often the ones who are trusted and promoted into greater responsibility. They are likable but you may find the cost far higher than you can afford.

How can they impact your company success, profitability, and competitiveness?

What is your plan on how to handle Politicians?

If you are a Politician wanting to learn how to improve your value to your company and team, are you willing to learn the models and behaviors that can help you go to the next level by learning to personally add value? Politicians, with natural behavioral relationship profile, who have learned to act as a Team Player and Value Worker have the potential to become great leaders. The choice is up to them. The risk is up to the company.

Why is Hiring Only Part of the Story?

Now that summer vacations are coming to a close, the Olympics are over, and children are going back or planning to go back to school, I have some time to write some more articles.  Hopefully, for similar reasons, you will have the time to read them!

So, where should we start? Let’s continue with the discussion of Why Can Hiring Be Scary? I encourage you to re-read the starting point. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/NQhn1z

So, if hiring can be so impactful, why do so many companies have such a poor track record of hiring, firing, and poor performing teams?

In my opinion, it is because the tools and internal business models are too tactical and not strategic or driven by the C-Suite.

That said, we believe that HR is seldom viewed as being strategic yet is usually given strategic responsibility. Our approach is to provide the tools and internal business models that can help HR become strategic or help the C-Suite define and approve the strategic tools and models that HR and Operating Managers can tactically implement while the C-Suite refocuses on their core business – while providing the C-Suite with Dashboard Metrics to monitor operational progress.

Another way of defining the concept is that our models are strategic common sense to strategic business executives but revolutionary to most organizations. We help set up the foundation for the business in alignment with the strategic direction determined by the C-Suite.

Sound presumptuous? We let our clients decide. In most cases, the response has been, “Of course!”, “Now I understand why these things _____ have happened before!”, or “This is revolutionary to what others say – but makes perfect sense.”

Our focus is not to define the client’s business, the client knows their business best.

Our methodology is not to take over but to enable the C-Suite to finally close the gaps between leadership and teams and between teams and individuals so that company alignment becomes reality.

Our pricing is to allow small to large companies to see reasonable pricing with incredible potential ROI – that can be documented.

Our solution delivery varies from simple online solutions to tactical or strategic workshops and consulting/coaching partner solutions.

For us, the risks of making a hiring mistake can cost millions, harm productivity, cost customers, pose personal risks, harm company branding, and even impact careers. Yet, that is only the beginning of the story.

Venture Capital Firms cite that most businesses fail due to people problems. We focus on how companies can improve their success rate by improving their competitive edge.

Next time, we will begin to discuss Political, Entitlement, and Value Workers and how they impact company success, profitability, and competitiveness.

Why Can Hiring Be Scary?

The risks of making a hiring mistake can cost millions, harm productivity, cost customers, pose personal risks, harm company branding, and even impact careers. Yes, hiring can be scary.

Now you may be looking for a statistical study or scholarly discussion with numerous citations for me to prove my point. However we use a different approach – common sense. There are citations that I use for clients and on my website but one reason for me to base this discussion on common sense is that decision-makers use their own experience, common sense, and gut instinct to believe or disbelieve what others say. Interestingly, many cited studies have conclusions that simply do not pass the “smell test.”

So, as I go through my reasoning, consider whether I validate my claims. Then, consider why my conclusions may matter.

A Hiring Mistake Can:

Cost Millions 

• One disgruntled employee charging gender, racial, or any protected class bias can cost over a hundred thousand just in legal fees. In a class action, awards have ranged in the tens of millions – and higher.
• One theft in a sensitive department, such as accounts payable or treasury, can easily be in the millions. One bank employee situation was over $100 million. Most cases are not reported and often quietly put aside due to the risk to company image.
• Repeated violations of federal law, such as HIPPA, EPA, Safety, or even identity theft, can result in major federal fines and even risk jail time for executives. I have seen offices that were in clear violation – just by walking through them.
• These examples do not include the cost of turnover, lost business, lost intellectual property, delayed projects, wasted procurement dollars, and collateral damage that the wrong employee can cost.

Harm Productivity

• Many employees can feel entitled to “pay without working for it.” How do you think hard working employees feel? How could that impact team productivity? The answer is usually productivity trending to the least common denominator.
• Some employees are not team players. They only care about themselves. They may be political animals focused on internal politics, which can harm hard working team players, take the focus off growing the business, and create intense internal conflicts. Those who have worked in such environments wonder how companies can survive. At a minimum, these people are distractions from company goals.
• Some employees just don’t like their job. One study suggested up to 70% of Americans hate their job. If you have people on a team who hate their job, how does that impact that team? What if you could have everyone on the team doing what they like doing? How would that impact productivity?

Cost Customers

One difficult sales rep, customer service rep or accounts receivable rep who is gruff, lies, makes promises that cannot be kept, or creates a customer problem may cost you that customer. Remember, one angry customer can also tell ten of their friends.

Pose Personal Risks

Have you noticed that some executive suites are separated from everyone else? I know a company who laid off so many people that the executive wing was made bomb proof. We have all heard of disgruntled postal workers. While we cannot eliminate all risks, hiring people with behavioral risks can result in personal risk when stress increases.

Harm Company Branding

Others view all of the above incidents that receive public or informal rumor attention negatively. Who wants to buy from a company “with problems”? When someone makes a buying decision, they have the similar risks as when hiring someone. Company money is being spent on the investment of a product or service. It is a safer decision to buy from a company whose reputation (brand) is spotless – even if the product or service may not be as good. We have all heard the phase, “one ah_____ erases one hundred atta boy.”

Impact Careers

Employees are hired to do a job and contribute to the team. Executives are judged on their judgment, including judgment in hiring. Repeated failures suggest poor judgment. Poor team results suggest poor management skills. Financial losses suggest poor controls and oversight. Lawsuits and state or federal penalties usually result in someone becoming the scapegoat.

While hiring poorly is not the only cause, it is the first step in creating situations that can keep you and the C-Suite up at night.

We believe there are new ways of reducing these risks, which we will discuss in future blogs.

 

Putting the Right People on Your Team Radio Interview

For a change of pace -

Listen to host Eric Dye from Enterprise Radio  & guest Jim Villwock discuss the following:

• How can you know if the people on your team are self focused or team focused?
• Are the right people in the right job and on the right team?
• How can you design your organization so people are doing what they were born to do?
• Is there a way to find the right people who should be on your team?
• How can you know if their passion is aligned with your success?

TIP: Just as investing in the wrong investments can destroy your financial future, investing your time with the wrong people can destroy your personal and business future. Be sure you have the right people on your team – who are doing what they want to do and are aligning their future with your future. If you need help, give us a call. We have the tools and methodology to improve your Human Investment Portfolio.

Duration: 11:19

To listen, Click Here

 

What are Five Common Gaps to CEO Success?

CEOs have a lot on their plate. Top performing CEOs are focused on the core of “the business” which is really product development/management, marketing, and sales. If there is no product, there is no reason to go to market. If the market is not aware of their product or if the company has a bad reputation, there is no business. If there are no sales, there is no company. This results in the primary CEO focus being outside the daily activities of the company. That means little CEO time and attention is left for internal daily activities.

Most CEOs hire a leadership team and staff to focus on the gap between the external strategic “business” and the internal details of doing what it takes for “the business” to be successful. In other words, CEOs assume their team is filling in the gaps of what the they can not get to, don’t want to do, or look for specialists to do.

Unfortunately, the result is that gaps can occur resulting in broken links in internal business performance matching what is needed to support the external business.

What are those common broken links? Here are five questions to ask about your company.

1. Are you viewing your people as costs or investments? How you treat them and what you get out of them will be depend on how you view them.
2. Do your people “know your business?” How can they help your business grow if they don’t understand “your business?”
3. Are you sure you have the right people in the right seats focusing on your success? If they are the wrong people or in the wrong seats or focusing only on themselves, then changing that picture can dramatically improve your business success potential.
4. Are your people personally motivated by aligning their career success to your business success? If not, then the synergy potential for realignment can release transformational energy.
5. Are your people teaming across silos in alignment with your business objectives? If not, your untapped teaming potential could be a gold mine for company success.

Are these broken links or gaps easy to fix? Usually not by busy CEOs and staff fighting off alligators. However, these are the gaps and links that we have developed thought leadership with practical tools to help companies release their internal success potential.

What are our three distinct initiatives? Here is what we call them and how they apply to the common gaps:

1. Are you viewing your people as costs or investments?
   Human Investment Leadership™
2. Do your people “know your business?”
   Human Investment Leadership™
3. Are you sure you have the right people in the right seats focusing on your success?
   Teampreneurship™
4. Are your people personally motivated by aligning their career success to your business success?
   Jobpreneurship™
5. Are your people teaming across silos in alignment with your business objectives?
   Jobpreneurship™

When a company combines all three solutions, we call it Integrated Solutions™.

Next week we will discuss the same topics from an employee perspective. Then we will begin explaining in more detail how each solution can help companies reach their success potential.

Next Page »