#1 Companies constantly look for opportunities to grow their Self Managing culture.
The Self Manager Series May 2009
Each month this e-letter will provide key information on how these companies select their self managing talent and how they train them to be even better.
Hiring Self Managers
So how do you really know what you are getting when you hire a new candidate who then becomes a part of your company?
It helps to know, as close as possible, what you are looking for. Clients have found over the years that the time they spend deciding what that is pays back big dividends. Once you know, as they say, “Accept nothing less”.
The Hiring Manager seeks this lofty goal and must also deal with the demands of finding that right person, and doing it now! It’s possible to let the system do more of the sorting. Before getting face to face with a candidate, because that’s where the time really begins to burn up, there is a lot of information available.
The resume provides basic background and qualifications, plus a record of skills, and gives a place to start. The psychometric profile provides key behavioural information and predicts success with your company.
The profile used for selection is most effective when it is ‘normative’ (based on stats from your company population) and can be validated and adapted to your needs.
Good data saves you time because you are now interviewing for confirmation of Effort and Fit to the company. Time saved means good selection, means good performance which means good retention. Committed employees that stick with us for a long time are just as important as good clients that stick with us for a long time. It’s quality of life and good profit all around.
Training Self Managers
How is an accountant self manager different from a sales self manager?
They’re not, at the core that is.
Self Managing in any position and in personal life is based on figuring out what’s important and then deciding to do that. It happens when we decide what’s important for us and then decide whether we are going to do it or not.
This can sound a little ‘self serving’. Note well that it doesn’t mean it’s always easy or fun and often the term "short term pain for long term gain" may apply.
For self managers it can be viewed as developing new habits that serve those wants better – takes a little persistence to get into that grove and then it becomes, yes, a habit.
Back to the accountant and the salesperson. They are often totally different in the way they ‘roll’. Just picture accountants you know and salespeople you know and think:
Proactive or Reactive
Risk Taker or Conservative
Attention to Detail or Just Give me the Big Picture
Generalizations are risky however there are general differences here.
In terms of self management, do both do things for their own reasons? Do both make and keep commitments? Do both understand they are accountable for their actions and responsible for the results?
Both self manage and both do very different jobs. In a company that recognizes these core traits, there is terrific leverage here. Individuals and managers self manage to a common set of worthy core beliefs and everybody understands the game.
If I say I’m going to do it, I mean I’ll do it, whether I’m an accountant or a salesperson.
Until next month, keep Self Managing!
Cliff Sutton, the Self Management Group, 416-930-6165, csutton@self-management.com
Please refer this monthly e-letter to your colleagues at the email above. Thank you.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
How To Hire and Train Self Managing Top Performers
#1 Companies constantly look for opportunities to grow their Self Managing culture.
April 2009
Each month this e-letter will provide key information on how these companies select their self managing talent and how they train them to be even better.
Hiring Self Managers
My customers tell me Talent Acquisition means finding the right person, for the job as well as for the company and for the candidate. Sounds like a lofty goal, however why not? When you think about it, the Hiring Specialist holds the destiny of the company in their hands.
It makes perfect sense to go for the best. At a recent seminar, Paul Tobey quipped, “Most people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what they want!” It’s easy to fall into that trap in selecting a new employee, a new key element really, for our companies.
The companies we’ve worked with over the past 25 years have helped develop a formula that works – no surprise, since it came from the people who use and depend on it every day. And these are the best in the insurance and financial industry so they know a thing or two about selecting top people!
You can increase your odds of success in a new hire by taking a balanced look at Talent, Effort and Fit to your company. Even weighting on each seems to work best.
Some quick definitions:
Talent: Combination of learned skills required and natural behavioural characteristics (shown by psychological profiling)
Effort: This is a tweak on the Behavioural Interview. We’re looking for a history of working steadily and working hard enough to achieve consistent results.
Fit: This is the chemistry or gut feel we experience when we meet the ‘right’ person for our company. This ideally shows up when they ‘light up’ talking about the work they want to do with your company.
So by using a system with even weighting on each element, you get a solid hire: They can do the job. They will do the job and they will be passionate about doing it with your company.
Why use a system like this? Because it’s proven and it works, whether you are hiring an HR Specialist, a customer service rep or a top salesperson.
Training Self Managers
You can hire self managers or you can grow them or you can do both – best of both worlds. We are all self managers to varying degrees. It is core to us in fact self management is a core element to our beliefs.
We all want our kids to grow up to be successful, responsible adults who make and keep commitments and make us proud.
Right now is a really good time to bring more of that back. Why is now a good time? Because right now more than ever we are influenced every moment of every day in every way possible, to do what someone else wants us to.
The confusion and potential for overwhelm is very real.
So how does the self manager handle it? The core of managing ‘self’ is making commitments and keeping them. The commitments are based on self motivation. The motivation of the self manager comes from their internal decision about what they want.
So how does that make a difference? It cuts down on the confusion and overwhelm because we have ‘skin in the game’ and are self motivated to get and keep focused.
Want to know what a self manager looks like? Look at the best performers in your company, the key people who make good things happen and they do it day after day, year after year. They are your internal role models.
Tiger Woods has been described as the ultimate self manager. When you think about it in terms of Talent, Effort and Fit it gets very exciting!
He has grown his huge natural skills and his behaviour to a level unique in his ‘business’.
His effort is consistent – he is known for working very hard and very smart.
His Fit to his chosen career is Passionate! It is so total this passion spills over into his love of healthy food and the right exercise – check out his book.
Training to be a better self manager works well when the self manager – that’s you and me - is in charge with the ‘coach’, their manager, constantly growing and supporting this growth.
How do we coach ourselves and how do we coach self managers. By asking ourselves the right questions and really listening for the answers. The source for motivated action is in those answers.
Until next month, keep Self Managing
Cliff Sutton, the Self Management Group, 416-930-6165, csutton@self-management.com
Please refer this monthly e-letter to at colleague at email above. Thank you.
April 2009
Each month this e-letter will provide key information on how these companies select their self managing talent and how they train them to be even better.
Hiring Self Managers
My customers tell me Talent Acquisition means finding the right person, for the job as well as for the company and for the candidate. Sounds like a lofty goal, however why not? When you think about it, the Hiring Specialist holds the destiny of the company in their hands.
It makes perfect sense to go for the best. At a recent seminar, Paul Tobey quipped, “Most people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what they want!” It’s easy to fall into that trap in selecting a new employee, a new key element really, for our companies.
The companies we’ve worked with over the past 25 years have helped develop a formula that works – no surprise, since it came from the people who use and depend on it every day. And these are the best in the insurance and financial industry so they know a thing or two about selecting top people!
You can increase your odds of success in a new hire by taking a balanced look at Talent, Effort and Fit to your company. Even weighting on each seems to work best.
Some quick definitions:
Talent: Combination of learned skills required and natural behavioural characteristics (shown by psychological profiling)
Effort: This is a tweak on the Behavioural Interview. We’re looking for a history of working steadily and working hard enough to achieve consistent results.
Fit: This is the chemistry or gut feel we experience when we meet the ‘right’ person for our company. This ideally shows up when they ‘light up’ talking about the work they want to do with your company.
So by using a system with even weighting on each element, you get a solid hire: They can do the job. They will do the job and they will be passionate about doing it with your company.
Why use a system like this? Because it’s proven and it works, whether you are hiring an HR Specialist, a customer service rep or a top salesperson.
Training Self Managers
You can hire self managers or you can grow them or you can do both – best of both worlds. We are all self managers to varying degrees. It is core to us in fact self management is a core element to our beliefs.
We all want our kids to grow up to be successful, responsible adults who make and keep commitments and make us proud.
Right now is a really good time to bring more of that back. Why is now a good time? Because right now more than ever we are influenced every moment of every day in every way possible, to do what someone else wants us to.
The confusion and potential for overwhelm is very real.
So how does the self manager handle it? The core of managing ‘self’ is making commitments and keeping them. The commitments are based on self motivation. The motivation of the self manager comes from their internal decision about what they want.
So how does that make a difference? It cuts down on the confusion and overwhelm because we have ‘skin in the game’ and are self motivated to get and keep focused.
Want to know what a self manager looks like? Look at the best performers in your company, the key people who make good things happen and they do it day after day, year after year. They are your internal role models.
Tiger Woods has been described as the ultimate self manager. When you think about it in terms of Talent, Effort and Fit it gets very exciting!
He has grown his huge natural skills and his behaviour to a level unique in his ‘business’.
His effort is consistent – he is known for working very hard and very smart.
His Fit to his chosen career is Passionate! It is so total this passion spills over into his love of healthy food and the right exercise – check out his book.
Training to be a better self manager works well when the self manager – that’s you and me - is in charge with the ‘coach’, their manager, constantly growing and supporting this growth.
How do we coach ourselves and how do we coach self managers. By asking ourselves the right questions and really listening for the answers. The source for motivated action is in those answers.
Until next month, keep Self Managing
Cliff Sutton, the Self Management Group, 416-930-6165, csutton@self-management.com
Please refer this monthly e-letter to at colleague at email above. Thank you.
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