GALT Consulting LLC

Randy Mayes and I are currently creating material for our July's Leadership Book of the Month article on the book "4-Hour Workweek".  One of the themes of the book is to save time by dumping the things you don't do well or that you don't like to do (same difference!).  A common mistake business owners make is that they tie themselves down in too many tasks associated with the business.  They do everything and therefore they end up doing nothing to grow, evolve, or develop their business.

It is not a bad thing for business owners / managers to get their hands dirty from time to time.  However, if the business owner is ALWAYS stuck in the trenches, they will lose the big picture.  It is absolutely critical that a business leader frees up time in order to think, to evaluate, and to plan.  The truth is... being too busy to do those things is a self-correcting problem.

I recently had the opportunity to sit in a room with 12 business owners in Springfield talking about ways to reduce employee turnover.  Here are some of the observations/recommendations made in the room.

- The group noticed that turnover is more common with people under the age of 25 and less common with people who are married.  The group consisted of mostly (if not all) baby boomers.  Everyone acknowledged that there were some real differences with the newest generation coming into the workforce, but few could really put their finger on it.

- A best practice is to create an environment where employees feel connected to each other and to the company.  One organization organized a "fun committee" with a budget of a few hundred dollars per year.  This committee puts on events like an office olympics or organizes employees to work together with a charity.

- Another company creates connections by assigning a mentor to new employees.  This not only creates a connection between employees, but it also helps to accelerate training.  It is important for the new employee to have somewhere to go with problems other than the boss.

- One company created a system called "Bravo Bucks".  This allowed coworkers to recognize each other with some of the recognitions earning $50. 

- Several of the owners agreed that a purpose is truly critical to maintaining employees.  When purpose is tied to money, it doesn't seem to stick as well.  When there is a greater purpose, employees tend to want to stick around.

- The owner of one company recommended giving employees resources to handle life-issues outside of the workplace such as providing access to Financial Peace University (teaches how to become debt-free).

- There was a great discussion about opening up the books of the company to the employees (Jack Stack wasn't in the room, but in a way, he was).   Those who do open the books swear by it.  Those who don't have a lot of fear around it.

These are just some of the great suggestions that came out of the discussion.  I noticed the theme presented hit upon the 3 factors that lead to motivation: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.  All of the suggestions above serve to augment one or more of these motivational factors.

The group is called the Strategic Executive Partnership and is facilitated by Randy Mayes, the Executive Coach.  If you want information on joining a similar group, contact me at donharkey@galtconsulting.com and I will connect you.   

I learned a lot during the meeting and I hope I shared some of that with you!

Everyone has a personality (insert your joke here).

A personality is like a personal fingerprint.  No two personalities are exactly the same, but there are certainly patterns.  This is well documented in academics.  There are a variety of personality assessments that qualify or even quantifies a personality.  Strengthsfinder is a popular tool developed by Gallup.  The DISC assessment is another popular tool.  I personally use the Hiring Suite for my clients because of the tools that it provides for users.  They are all very good, as anyone who has taken one will tell you.  It's pretty scary.

What is the benefit for a company or organization knowing the "fingerprint" personality of an individual?  Going back to our copier machine example, imagine purchasing a $15,000 copier without a users manual.  You wouldn't know how long to run it or perform basic maintenance on it.  The copier would burn out.  The same thing happens to employees who are not properly used.  They burn out!

Personality assessments (I'll specifically talk about Hiring Suite now) can provide an operating manual for a person.  It can tell you the types of jobs a person is best suited for (both now and in the future).  It can tell you how to manage a person (ex: how much praise to do they need).  It can give you insight into the compatibility of a person with another person (provided they have a manual too).

This works great for existing employees, but think about the additional value to potential employees.  An assessment provides a specification for a person.  It tells the person hiring a bill collector that a person with low assertiveness probably isn't a good fit.  It tells a funeral home not to hire an overly sensitive embalmer.  It tells a retail outlet not to hire someone who requires constant praise.  It tells a manager not to hire an assistant who is not very organized.

The power of these benefits is not just for the employer.  When people do things that don't match their fingerprint, they are unhappy.  A highly sensitive person working as a social worker takes their work home with them and is haunted by their client's problems.  A high tension person shouldn't work in a cubical all day. 

Personality assessments are incredibly powerful for businesses both in the hiring process and for management and team building.    

Imagine you were going to purchase a copy machine for your office.  You need a machine that can make quick color copies, collate, staple, and maybe even dispense ice cream (don't pretend that wouldn't be really cool... no pun intended).  How much research will you conduct before you spend $15,000 on a copier?

You will likely look on the internet for pricing and read customer reviews.  Once you zero on a few models, you will call the copier companies and ask a lot of questions.  You may even have the copier company give you a detailed analysis of your current printing needs to optimize the best machine for you.  Is it reliable?  Is it low cost to operate?  Is it fast?  How is the print quality?  What features does it have?  What kind of ice cream can it make?  Yep... you will spend a lot of time on that copy machine before you spend $15,000.  You are a savvy business person!

That is pretty normal.  $15,000 is a lot of money and almost anyone will spend a lot of time doing their homework before making such an important purchasing decision...  but most business people will spend less time hiring someone that costs MUCH more per year than a copy machine.

You have a job opening and you post it on Craig's list with a job description you dug out of the filing cabinet.  You get 35 applications and weed out half of them on the spot.  You begin to conduct interviews asking the normal questions like "what are your weaknesses?" and "do you work well with others?".  Then you select a candidate based on a combination of their resume and your instincts.  You do this even though studies show that as many as 1 in 2 resumes contain inaccurate information.  You do this even though you may like the person and they may not fit the job you have.  You do this even though a false start is one of the most costly things you will do in your business.

Is there a better way?  Yes...  stay tuned...