The Secret to Building High Performance Organization Starts with a Certain Mindset

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Today I read an article about the elementary school I attended as a lad and was amazed to learn about how it has evolved into a unique and wonderful learning environment.

The key here is the involvement of the parents in the functioning of the school and special activities that gets the kids participating in different types of events such as theatrical productions.

This model can also be used in all aspect of society, including businesses to solve the problems we face. The more opportunity and encouragement people are given to participate in decisions and be active in the solutions, the more we will build a responsible population that can collaborate together to solve problems and create new opportunities, rather than bickering and creating conflicts that lead downhill.

Nurturing talented kids is how Gardenview grows

By MIKE BOONE, The Gazette May 6, 2009

Grease is the word at Gardenview – with a few of the musical’s words rendered age-appropriate.

When students from the St. Laurent elementary school stage Grease at Westmount High School this week, the pre-ados won’t be belting out, “You better shape up, ’cause I need a man.”

“Grease is not elementary school material,” understated Carmy Zolla, a parent volunteer who’s been overseeing the production. “We’ve modified the script. We’ll stress the music, not the words.”

Tucked away on a quiet side street in St. Laurent, Gardenview is a two-storey red-brick building that’s bursting at the seams with 800 students, the largest elementary school enrolment in the English Montreal School Board. The population of St. Laurent is growing, swelled by numerous young families with school-age children – as evidenced by the school’s seven kindergarten classes.

Read the full article

Now is the time to strengthen your team

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Last week I was speaking with a business owner who told me that one of his short term projects is to hire new talent to replace people who have not lived up to his expectations. He said that the current economic crisis that has caused large employers to reduce their workforce has created opportunities for him to build a better team.

He said that when the job market was hot he could not replace people because he could not find and afford people that would do a better job. Now that more people are out of jobs and ready to work for less than the large employers were paying, he now sees himself in the position to make the moves he wanted to for some time.

Those that are looking to hire to either replace staff or to act on new opportunities must go through a hiring process that will end with a decision of who is the best candidate to choose. This is a process than can be very tricky and is not always easy and never foolproof. And if you are not careful you can make the same hiring mistakes as in the past and end up with no improvement.

Imagine going though the whole hiring process, which can be quite costly and time consuming and then finding out six months later that the new person is no better than the person you replaced. Or your new project opportunity is not getting on track and it is draining your resources because the new hire is not getting up to speed fast enough.

Let’s take a quick moment and review the hiring process to make sure you maximize the opportunities to hire that star performer.

  • Aggressively market the position in the right places and with great sales copy that rises above the ordinary. Instead of saying what the job requires, sell the job as a career position that can fulfill someone’s idea of a dream job for their specific talent.
  • Have the candidate write you a letter stating why they would be the ideal candidate for the job and how their employment will benefit your firm. Those who really want the job will take the time to do this well and will save you time in qualifying each resume.
  • Form a team to conduct interviews and make the hiring decision. That way you have different perspectives and you force yourself to be more objective. Studies show that most hiring decisions are made in the first 5 minutes of an interview but diverse opinions can counter this tendency.
  • Take your time but don’t take too long either to make a decision. Invest a good amount of time getting to know the person, not just an hour. You will be spending a lot of time working together so take the time before you commit to know what you’re getting.
  • Test and assess your candidates for both technical job skills and for job fit. A technical test could be to ask the person to prepare a balance sheet if the person is applying for a financial role. Be prepared with a test task that is typical for your department or new project.

Assessing the person for total job fit is comprised of matching knowledge and skills, along with attitude and value and as well, thinking style, personality and interests. This can only be determined with any accuracy using assessments.

The The Profile XT from Profiles International measures thinking style, personality in terms of behavioural traits and six occupational interests. It also matches the person’s scores against a customized job profile for the position. This is the most powerful kind of assessment because you are matching someone to the requirements of the job.

On Thursday March 12th at 1:00 PM EST I will be hosting a webinar to present how to hire star performers and make the best hiring decisions using the best resources available today.

Please register for the webinar as space is limited by sending an email to info@optimusperformance.ca. You will receive the log in information. By email.

This webinar is essential if you want to make better hiring decisions and build a high performance team for the future.

Stephen Goldberg
Be Free to Work Less, Earn More, Enjoy Life

Types of people and neuroscience

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This week I delivered a tele-seminar on types of people and explained each type of person according to the system of typology as developed by Fritz Glaus in his book CrazyZoo, know-thyself made easy.

I introduced the three intelligences and the six classic types of people and explained the main motivation, qualities, fears and tendencies of each type.

I also gave examples of how these qualities and tendencies affected a person’s leadership style and they way they worked in a team.

Here is the audio recording of the seminar.

Does your leadership style motivate people for high performance?

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Motivate Teams to Achieve and Perform

The key for creating a high performance organization that produces outstanding results is people. Even in a poor economic climate like we are witnessing now, we can still have high performance in our organizations. In fact we must always strive for this and it needs to be a habit of thinking that we can always improve and do better.

The benefits of striving for a high performance organization is, ORGANIZATIONAL LEANNESS, TEAM AUTONOMY, SPIRIT OF INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE INTIATIVE AND OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT.

This translates into a better work climate, increased employee retention, reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, lower stress and increased profits.

Just the other day a friend dropped by the office and expressed discontent with the organization for which he was working. He said the problem was poor leadership right from the top. Managers do not inspire people and have them participate in decisions. He compared this with a previous employer where he considered the president a great leader. That president knew people by name, was accessible to people and showed charisma.

The style of leadership we use has a tremendous impact on the people we manage and lead, more so than we can imagine. Leaders often do things without thinking about the impact it has on the motivation of employees to fully engage their talents for the betterment of the company.

Leaders need to understand the best style of leadership to use with each person to create a high performance organization. Any type of leader can learn this and put it into action.

I have been working with several companies to help leaders create a high performance organization. The process begins with leadership development. One such company is Prisma Pressure Sensitive Products. General Manager Falk Kyser said that working with me through our Leadership Styles and Team Development program has helped him better understand people and how to use their talents strategically. I have I created a video featuring Falk and manager Dru Davis speaking about the impact improved leadership is having on their organization. You can view the video in a previous post here.

Here are three tips about the best leadership style to use to motivate others to give their best and collaborate with you.

  1. Use the appropriate style of leadership for the situation and person. The style of leadership to use is dependent on several factors; time, urgency, commitment of those involved and the type of person you are working with. You must understand how and when to use each style so you gain peoples’ commitment to action.
  2. Establish unwavering trust with your direct reports. There are a several key things you need to be aware of in your behaviour that either builds or lowers. When trust is low, they will probably resist doing what you want and may lack initiative to improve things.
  3. Know each person well that you work with directly and what motivates them and why they tend to behave the way they do. A simple process is needed to make this easy and effective.

A client specialized in a specific medical practice called me last week and said that after going through the Leadership Styles and Team Development training program with their team, productivity is up 20% over the previous year and the staff are now meeting and making decisions on their own on how to keep things organized and effective.

These are the kind of results we need in our organizations if we are to tackle the huge problems and threats that many of us are facing today. Continuous investment in the talents and abilities of people that we work with enables our organizations to find new creative ways to solve old problems that keep re-surfacing with a new way.

 

Stephen Goldberg