Advice on teamwork from an 8 year old

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This morning I read about a local Atom A hockey team, the Lasalle Lions,  that went unbeaten all year in 51 games and won their regional championship. The star player, Nathaniel Larivée, had the most points in the league although a few other kids on the team also were in the top level. Actually a line-mate of Nathaniel had more goals than he did but the star had more assists than goals. We are talking about 8 year old here.

I remember when my son played hockey at that age and passing was kind of rare. It was mostly a free for all and the best puck carrier usually hogged the disc.

What was interesting is that they interviewed the star player and asked him what he liked most about his season. Was it scoring goals and racking up the points? Surprisingly he answered none of that but simply what he enjoyed most was the team spirit.

This is interesting coming from an eight year old who had not been trained in teamwork and has probably not yet been sufficiently brainwashed to work towards the NHL and a star’s salary. What is still most important at that age is enjoying himself with his buddies on the team and that in his mind equates to team spirit. I am sure he enjoys winning but that is not what he expressed as the most important.

This is what we need to rekindle in our organizations as we move towards fixing our economy and solving the big problems like war, the environment, poverty, etc.  Without rediscovering true team spirit we have little chance of survival as a species because the causes of those big problems need to be solved through the participation and contribution of each person.

Stephen

The leadership debate with Henry Mintzberg: Community-ship is the answer

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Here is a great article on leadership for today by Henry Mintzberg.

We have this obsession with “leadership”. Its intention may to be to empower people, but its effect is often to disempower them. By focusing on the single person, even in the context of others, leadership becomes part of the syndrome of individuality that is sweeping the world and undermining organizations in particular and communities in general. Read the full article
http://tinyurl.com/aaxcoz

Why interests are so important for work motivation?

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What drives your potential new employees and your existing team members? Knowing this before you hire is extremely important for job fit and to keep people engaged and motivated in their work.

How can you find this out in a one or two hour interview? Most small and medium size businesses people and managers do not interview everyday and often do not have a well planned interview approach that gives answers to everything you need to know in order to make the best decision.

The focus is usually on skills and work experience, which you can easily get from their resume, so why spend a lot of time asking questions about this. As I suggested in a previous article about hiring star employees, prepare a simple skills test to see how they can handle that task.

I remember working with a small business owner who had interviewed a person to be his executive assistant. Her resume showed that she had the skills for the job and after the interview he was ready to hire her. I intervened and asked her to compose a business letter to a supplier on a frequent business matter that required a simple understanding of the business that her research should have provided.

The candidate had difficulty formatting the letter and articulating the message and was clearly not fit for the job. Yet my client would have been ready to hire her because he liked her and believed what was on the resume and what she was saying.

Once we have checked for skills and company fit we want to verify job match and this requires another type of test to measure thinking style, behaviour and occupational interests.
People usually list their interests on their resume. But this does not tell you what their occupational interests are. General interests can be misinterpreted and often we don’t pay enough attention to their job interests.

The Profile XT assessment provides six occupational interest fields and determines the candidates top three interests and matches them to the profile of the job. When the most important activities we must perform for job success meet our top three interest area needs, we feel motivated and passionate about our work.

On Thursday March 12th at 1:00 PM EST I will make a presentation by webinar on hiring and developing star performers using the Profiles XT assessment and explain all the components of this tool including the occupational interest fields.

Using assessments for hiring can save you big bucks by reducing turnover because you will have people better fit for the job. This saves you valuable time that can be put to more productive use. Also hiring and training new employees today is very costly and it usually takes three to six months before they fully understand your systems to become fully productive. The more complex the job the longer it takes.

To attend the webinar you must send me an email request to sgoldberg@optimusperformance.ca and I will send you the details.